You're getting some great support here, don't be afraid to lean on it some more.
Quoting Jackie: Sunday is decision night.
Why the deadline? Your H has lost his way on the journey of life (I agree here with the others, his unhappiness here is more than with just M). There's more to his decision than the fork in the road stuff. All he knows is that he doesn't like where he is at now at this point in his life. To be honest,Sunday is decision night. I'm sure he honestly doesn't even know how he got here, which is why he so confused. He thought he was doing all the right things and yet he is so unhappy. He has to figure out what went wrong (like that pros & cons list), so then he will know what needs to be corrected, before choosing where he wants to go, then he has to find the "landmarks" that are the telltale sign of the direction he needs to take before making any decision to which fork to take. In other words, it a deep thought process that needs to take lotsa time to come to a conclusion with any certainty. More than a week, even more than a month for most. Any mention of a timetable by you will only pressure him to feel hastened to make a decision. If he caves to that pressure to give you an answer, he will do an "eenie-meenie-minnie-moe" (I have no idea if that's spelled right1?) and his "moe" will be your "minnie".
Maybe that was a little too metaphorical to make sense. If so, each time you ask him what wants to do OR-wise, he is felt pressured to answer when he hasn't figured out the answers yet. That will have the effect of pushing him in a direction opposite of your goals.
Jackie, I know its sooo hard to do because all you want to do is help him ... that it pains you so much that he is hurting so ... that you wish you can "fix", but you need to stay on the sidelines and let him figure out his moves on his own. No more articles, no more asking what he wants, no more timelines for decisions to be made. Giving the all the time he needs to figure this stuff out is the best approach to take for the greatest chance of it becoming clear to H the path to take is the way back to his whole family.
Quoting Jackie: The boys talked this morning about how they never see Dad and how mean it is that he has to work all the time. How are they going to handle it when they discover it is his choice to not be here?
(((Jackie))) I know you're bracing to endure more pain here, as you should, but don't approach H about how he should "fix" this. He needs to deal with their questions without your intervention in order to determine just what kind of R he will have with his sons in the future.
Jackie, its time now to stop worring about how H will go about resolving his issues and focus what you should do to make yourself feel better. That's essence of detaching ...
