Help me act AS IF, Thread 4

[newnamenewlife]

I keep blowing it--my wounded ego gets in the way. I have been so hurt by H's refusal to touch me, so fixated on all the love letters he's written (and his IDLYA 180) and so horribly unable to let go. Last night I told him I didn't deserve such lousy treatment and he said "yes, you deserve someone who loves you." That of course made me feel worse than ever. I said: "you mean like the guy who wrote those love letters?" He said: "Yes."

Why can I not accept that he really doesn't love me? Why can I not reconcile what he's saying now with what he's been saying for 19 years?

All H wants is for me to be willing to work on plans for S--that's ALL. I did set up a session with our MC to discuss it next week--but of course she is not a mediator and that's what he really wants. The MC sessions we had were a joke!

We are in debt and simply can't afford two households, but when I said this last night his response was "Yes, it will be tight for a while but we'll manage." This is a guy who worries about money constantly, who until he decided he needed to get out, talked only about how critical it was for us to REDUCE our monthly expenses and now he wants to add to them.

But here again, even if we discuss S I am holding onto the hope that once the concrete realities come into play--ie him packing boxes of the stuff we've lived with together, dividing up photos, etc--he will change his mind.

[Grace_O]

lmg,

NG had a good suggestion that if you can't talk about what you envision to listen to what he sees as happening. You don't have to agree (or argue) just listen.

You can't reconcile all of this b/c to you it doesn't make any sense. It didn't to me either. Fact of the matter is though, whether it makes sense or not, it's a reality we are faced with.

What exactly does he expect you to do with regards to seperating plans?

[cw68]

He won't change his mind with dividing up your lives. It will take much longer than that. Our egos kill us. We do deserve more. Generally they are capable of more, but they really aren't right now. Just like it takes us time to come to grips with the situation, it takes them.

Work on yourself. Detach. Worry about yourself and how you can make this as smooth as possible for your children. Parent them and baby yourself. Him? He's last on the list.

[newnamenewlife]

What exactly does he expect you to do with regards to seperating plans?

He wants to know what I see in terms of who sees the kids when and where and all that. He's trying to accommodate me, which just hurts even more, crazy as that sounds.

When he said last night that I deserved someone who loved me, I just wanted to DIE. Would he really not be jealous at all of another man??? And then of course I wonder how I could ever trust anyone again after this--if the guy who professed to love me so much for so long can turn like this, then who can be trusted?

I am sitting in my living room right now. On the left of me is a framed photo of H&I kissing; across the room is a photo of us looking lovingly at each other on a mountaintop. Over the piano is a photo of us with the girls.

Is something wrong with me that I feel so awful, literally sick with sadness? What do I do when I go on with my life and I see these photos and letters? This echoes my childhood just too much, as I've mentioned here before. I have all these photos and letters from my adoring father, who then killed himself and I spent my whole life trying to understand that. I just don't have it in me to do that again with my M, which was the port in the storm for me. What if I really don't have it in me to cope with this?

[Grace_O]

What if I really don't have it in me to cope with this?

Then you abandon your kids. You leave them with a Mom that they have to take care of insted of someone to care for them.

I hear your pain, esp about your Dad and then to have this happen with your H. Perhaps your lesson in all of this pain and agony is to find your own strength. Life has a way of throwing things at us until we "get it". The lessons will come at you in many different forms until you do or until you die.

Do you meditate at all? I've found this is a really helpful way to be introspective and to figure out things about myself and my life.

What would you like with regards to visitation? Heck, stack the deck in your favor and then negotiate it. See just how accomodating he's really willing to be.

You are stronger than you know. You choose the strength. If your H had died, what would you do? You would grieve and then carry on, for yourself and for your kids.

Just an aside, have you seen the movie "Crazy, sexy cancer"? Life is all about perspective.

[newnamenewlife]

You leave them with a Mom that they have to take care of insted of someone to care for them.

That's what my mom did when my dad died. She drank and drank and wasn't there for me at all. She still isn't there for me consistently. I spoke to her a little about what's going on with me and H when she was sober, and she was lovely and supportive (I didn't tell her that he's the one doing this though). Then I talked to her again when she'd obviously been drinking and she got all upset and wants to call his parents--which I do not want her to do. She is capable of making this all a lot harder for me to deal with but I can't exactly keep it from her either.

[Grace_O]

Ok, so you know what it's like to be left (as a child) to care for an adult that isn't being a parent. That is enough to tell me that you have the strength to do this. You may not "want" to do this, but that doesn't change that you "can".

Given her propensity for alcohol. I think I would limit what I told her. You don't know what she'll do or say esp when she's been drinking. You don't have to "keep" it from her, but you can choose what to disclose. Whatever you tell her, I'd keep it simple and let her know in no uncertain terms that she is not to interfere. If she does esp if it is behind drinking, there will be consequneces.

I know how hard this is for you. We all do. I've been living on the razor blade for more than a year (post bomb). I work part-time at a minimum wage job b/c I've been unable to find anything decent within a reasonable distance from home. H (so far) is still supporting us financially and I never know what's going to happen there. I just keep pushing forward to take care of my D's and myself, get a job and update my skills. That's all I can do. Whatever is thrown my way, I just have to deal with. I can and so can you.

[newnamenewlife]

Thank you Grace. You are very inspiring and strong. I've spent the morning talking with my mother and my mother in law about all this. My mother called my MIL, who disclosed too much--ie, she said yes she thinks it will end in divorce--and sh*t hit the fan in a big way. My mom started drinking, called my ILS about six times and shouted that H was probably gay, that she always thought he was gay, that he's walking away--etc. She has a right to be upset, but now it's gotten just as insane as I expected. She is lovely and mostly rational when she's sober, but when she drinks she is a NIGHTMARE.

I am strong, and I will survive and I will not put my kids through having to deal with a crazy mother, but it is HARD. I have both impulses within me--the falling apart one and the strong one--and they are battling right now.

[cw68]

I understand the impulses that you face! And I understand what you see with your Mom as I see the same thing with my sister, who also drinks too much. When my bro-in-law got called up to serve a year in Kuwait (he had been in the reserves for 16 years already) she turned it into him "choosing" the Army over her and tried to kill herself. She drank too much, told her kids (who were 17- and 19-years old at the time) that she had no reason to live with their Dad over in Kuwait in harm's way. (My BIL is a JAG officer and lived in a dorm and worked in an air-conditioned office, so at least she didn't have the day-to-day he's going to die worries.) She's still a mess. I use this as what I DON'T want to be. You can get sucked into yourself or you can use it as a big mental poster to keep you away from that edge.

My thoughts are with you and I hope you find a smidgen of strength each and every day. Pretty soon you'll be stronger than you thought you could be.

[newnamenewlife]

hi cw,
Yes, the mental poster is a good image. I feel like maybe I'm starting to turn the corner a bit. I was so scared of telling my mom and how she would react and now it's happened and it's almost a relief--although who knows what's to come with her. It's scary that she is 75 and still doing this and I worry that this news will put her over the edge and that she will drink herself to death.

I don't know. It's been a hellish few months and we haven't even told the kids yet.My d11 is very much like my mother, unfortunately. No, she doesn't drink (yet!) but she is the kind of person who, when the planets are aligned properly, shines and thrives--but when something is out of what, she really loses it.