the mlc files--I want to believe

[hoosiermama]

SirPrizeMe, dear--

You are very good at this stuff, you know that? You're perceptive, you can cut thru the BS, and you can explain things articulately and with compassion. I would guess that you are probably in a helping profession of some kind, but you don't have to respond to my speculation--I'm just speculating.

So can you take on my "case?" Any suggestions about what I should be doing? I feel defeated and exhausted. I'm trying to do all the right things, get a life et al., and it is taking a tremendous amount of energy to do so. But that's okay.

I don't know how long you've been following my sitch, and I hate to run thru it all again. But in a nutshell, H is 45, fairly classic (to me) midlife crisis. Not sure exactly when it began, but he switched jobs (to a larger hospital system and larger salary) in March, switched denominations in April (this had been in the works for awhile), and dropped the bomb in May. Oh--also changed AD's in February, with a substantially reduced dosage. H is a hospital chaplain/chaplain educator, well-respected in his field, and is on the priesthood preparation track in the Episcopal Church. The marriage had been a SSM, a lot of emotional abandonment on his part and withdrawal on mine; I have a tendency toward codependence and being unaware of my own needs. Anyway, H ran into an old girlfriend on his hospital tours when he took the new position. Between March and May he managed to get himself assigned as chaplain to her nursing unit and the one around the corner. Beginning in early May he began actively pursuing her (this whole timeline is nicely laid out in a series of emails) and on May 16 she admitted she had romantic/sexual interest in him. On May 18 he ended our marriage. He hasn't wavered at all, has been running away as fast as he can. Refused any MC, refused 6 months of separation before filing, rewrote the history of our entire relationship. Denies an affair, but it's all there in the emails very clearly; also, when D12 visits him, she complains that he's always on the phone with her. I have been very clear that D12 meeting and having to deal with OW is completely unacceptable at this point.

In their previous relationship 22 years ago, it sounds like a fairly codependent relationship in which she called the shots. He was a Catholic seminarian 2 years from ordination when they met during his summer chaplaincy rotation; he fell hard, and left the seminary just before the new semester started. She dumped him before Christmas of that year; they were together ~6 months. Oh, yeah--she practices Wicca.

A few days before the bomb, I found out that I was losing my job; I looked all summer for another, with him breathing down my neck and periodically throwing rants at me to "get a g-d job." When I finally found one that had single-mom hours, he moved out of the friends' home he'd been staying at and got an apartment--on the far side of town, closer to OW than to D. And filed.

So the D is moving ahead, nothing I can do to stop it. H wants 50-50 custody and no child support (I can't make it on my salary alone), altho over the summer he only saw D a couple of hours a week, and now two nights a week. As we've discussed, D's relationship with him is very important; as morally bankrupt as he is right now, I don't think he's dangerous to her. But I don't think that 50-50 custody is at all a good idea, just from a logistical perspective if nothing else. I am by no means trying to "take him for all he's worth," I just need the usual amount of child support recommended by the state. I have never kept the two of them apart, nor will I--except for the formal custody agreement. I cannot be a part-time mother.

As for me, I was doing fairly well again until a week or so ago, when the whole "loss of family" issue hit home and I experienced the reality of that. But I think I'm working my way out of that. I have a tremendous amount of grief, not only about losing my marriage and my family, but also losing my ministry position. I am doing what I can to help my replacement, who is a good friend of mine, make a smooth transition and meet the needs of the folks I was responsible for. I have a good transitional job with great single mom hours, no significant emotional drain, altho it doesn't pay all that well. I don't have much support, trying to make the most of what I have. Trying to get a life again, get some interest in something outside the soap opera of my life. Doing IC, spiritual direction, finding healthy community, enjoying D12 who is a wonderful kid.

DB'ing has been difficult and essentially ineffective because he just would prefer that I remain invisible except to care for D12 when he's busy with work/OW/band/other interests. He's kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, projecting and justifying all over the place with little responsibility for the pain he's caused his family, occasionally civil when he's in a Dr. Jekyll mood. I dropped the rope--a painful experience--back in July sometime. I don't expect that this divorce will be stoppable. If he ever comes back to his family--and that's a big if, and a bigger "if" that I'd open myself up to him again--this MLC will have to run its course. He could come out as a mature compassionate person--because the potential is there-if he does the work. I'm not sure he'll do the work.

So there you have it in a rather super-size nutshell. Whadda ya think?