I figured since so many of you have added me to fb that I probably should post something. I haven’t posted on the site in well over a year,( not even sure if my old posts exist at this point ) however I read it pretty faithfully several times a day. I have gained a lot of strength and inspiration from many of you. I stopped posting the first time because I was having a harder and harder time finding privacy to post without my H knowing what I was doing. He works from home, so was always around.
So my story in a nutshell (probably a lie, I’m long winded). A year ago this past Feb I received the first bomb. He wasn’t happy, wasn’t sure we were right together, etc., etc. I never have been told ILBINLWY. He always has maintained he does love me, just wasn’t sure we could work out the differences. There has never been a 3rd party in our marriage. He had already talked with a lawyer, he filed, he was on the definite fast track. I did all the non-db stuff until I found this site. We had been in counseling to learn better communication skills the year before. I hated the C. Was not a solution based C at all. Heck, I didn’t even know there was a difference at that time until I found this site. After finding db, I found a SB therapist, it was a Christian couple, AWESOME people. I made the appt, told H, he waffled, but showed up. That was a big turning point for us. We saw them from April until Oct of last year. They flat out told my H they had never in all their years of counseling (25+) met a couple that was so much in love, on this track to divorce.
Fast track to March of this year. I leave town for a 4 day weekend. 3 of the days for a softball tournament for my DD. I went a day early because the tourney was in the same town as my bf and it gave us a girls night. My H was very supportive of me going. Actually gave me some extra spending cash. (I’m notorious for not spending on myself) My DD was riding down the next day with her team. She calls the night before to ask me to do something, I don’t even remember what. But H insists on getting on the phone, wants to know if I’m having fun, tells me he loves me, encourages me to relax and enjoy the weekend etc. The next morning I call him because there had been a tragedy with one of my DD’s friends. She’d been killed in a car accident the night before and the girls didn’t know yet. It was a girl we were all close with. Anyway, my H is sounding out of breath, in a hurry doesn’t have time to talk. I thought he was working out or something. (naïve) Never was able to tell him why I called, he just said he’d call me later. I never heard from him again until I found him on Saturday. I called all day/night and he never answered or called me back. VERY unusual for him. I started to have a weird feeling. Same thing on Saturday. I ended up going home Saturday afternoon instead of spending one more night. I get home, open the garage and its empty. I go in the house….cleaned out for the most part. The only room that hadn’t been touched was my daughter’s. On the wall where my bed used to be was a note outlying what bills I needed to pay, the amounts, what bills I needed to move into my name and by what date, and a sentence about not contacting him at all. He had also shut off our tv and internet access. Needless to say I was totally freaked out. No wonder he sounded out of breath on the phone the day before. He was moving sh*&* and quick! I was in such a state of shock I did end up going to find him to talk to him immediately. I knew he had to be out at his uncle’s house. His uncle also drives a deliver type van so I knew that’s what he moved everything in. Sure enough there he was. I cried and cried. All non-db I just did not see it coming. We had taken the Big D off the table or so I thought. He’s gone back to the atty and he’s filed again. It was an awful few days. That’s a lie, it was an awful few weeks. ( I probably would have posted on this site then if I’d had internet access. By the time I was able to get it hooked back up the sting was gone)
I turned into a db queen. And it hasn’t always been easy. My H suffers from SAD – seasonal affective disorder – severely. Not to say that there haven’t been real issues in our R, this has just magnified them for him and made them feel like Mt. Everest. This year we thought we’d had a plan of attack. Like I mentioned he works from home, so we made sure we had special lightbulbs in the rooms he’d be working in to simulate sun, we even decided to spend Christmas in MX, 3 weeks in the sunshine this year. He was doing yoga every day, riding his bike several times a week. At the end of last September, my boss’ wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer out of the blue. She hadn’t even been sick. It happened the day school started (I work at a community college). Consequently I had to take on his job AND my own. Attending his meetings, his paperwork, etc. This meant a lot of late nights for me just to stay afloat, not even caught up. I wasn’t getting home until 7 most nights. By the time Dec hit we were all ready for vacation. When we came back, I had to go back to double work load. I was trying to find a balance with it, made sure that at least on Friday I was home on time, if not at least one other night during the week. H was really resentful of this, did nothing to make the situation easier for me at home, in fact the opposite. H has always been a pitch in and help kind of guy. I would get home at 7, he would have been off since 3, he and DD would be playing cards, watching tv, or whatever, and would immediately ask what’s for dinner. I would have to say that the month of January was bad, bad, bad, for us. Mainly because of the stress I was under at work, I wanted support at home, wasn’t getting it, so I in turn became resentful of him. It was just a vicious cycle. We also had some other dynamics that happened during this time that I will explain at a later time. (does give better understating to our R) In Feb he went to visit his mom for 3 days and I felt a relief, like I could breathe, then the next week he went to visit his dad for a week. Again, I could breathe. It was during this time I took a good long hard look at what was going on with us, and how we were really slipping. I knew that to change that dynamic one of us would have to take the lead or we would continue to spiral downward. So I did. I acted as happy and as if as I possibly could. Fake it til you make it. Which worked to a point, but because of something else going on in our house and our lack of communication / miscommunication there was still a wall.
This is really long winded. I give the rest of the story in another post. I will say that as of today, even though he still isn’t home, things are really good between us. Probably better than they ever have been. He spent the night last night and when he left this morning as he was hugging me goodbye and wishing DD and I good luck this weekend he said “ I love you.” That was BIG. He has told me he loves me during this time, but in the context of discussing our R. Neither one of us has been saying ILY. This morning he said it, and said it first. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I said it back, I was in too much shock. Oops. \:\)