Good. Get angry. You need to feel your anger. Because he has not, is not, treating you the way a partner should be treated. And he is not likely to step up to the plate and treat you any better unless you demand it of him. And if he is scared of you, which I really doubt, then that is his problem to deal with. HE can open his mouth and tell you what he thinks and feels. HE can tangle with you. Not some stand in stranger on a bulletin board. Perhaps some people on this board project their relationship with their spouses onto others. That doesn't make what they say to you really about you. It is about them.
I so understand your frustration. Seems sometimes our H are on board and then they are not. My H too says things that hold promise then.... nothing.....then a crumb....then nothing...rinse and repeat.
I posted about it on my thread in an email to my H over the weekend... your thoughts would be welcome, heck I am stuck and don't know what to do at this point.
M:47 M:18 D16, S19 1st S 1/08-5/08 Reconciled/May 7, 2008 Left again Nov 9, 2009 I Filed: Nov 17, 2009 Final: April 14, 2010 EX walked away from kids too
I don't think you should have to step down from the type of relationship that you expect to have with a husband.
Regarding your husband however, it is clear that you must reduce or at least temper your expectations.
As I consider your situation, I see a woman who has used the crisis her husband perpetuated to look deeply inside, grow, and change. In the process I believe you reached that magical point where you took off the rose colored glasses that so many of us had on during our marriages.
Now mind you, rose colored glasses are not completely bad. We are not perfect, and neither are our spouses. Never will be. To some extent, the rose colored glasses are really just our willingness to accept and love our spouse despite their flaws and weaknesses (as we hope they will do for us as well).
In your case, I think your eyes were opened to deficencies in your relationship that you had allowed yourself to explain away. As your husband continued his exile, you reached the point where you realized you were no longer willing to accept a married life with either this many or such significant shortcomings.
Your husband, as is typical with walkaways, has done nothing on himself it seems. Don't they often leave thinking WE are the problem, so there is no reason for them to change. So when he reaches the point where he decides to return, he is unchanged from what he was when he left.
You are ahead of him Maria.
Far ahead.
I admire that you cling to the desire to do the right thing for your family and your children. Let's not forget along the way to do the right thing for you as well. It is very honest when you express the fear of reconciling without fixing these things and ultimately winding up in a similar state in another year or two.
Your husband grossly underperforms here. That is my feeling. He makes me question his ability to reach for a deeper, more meaningful relationship. I've come to believe that he wants to come home, that he wants to restore your marriage (though I still do not know for what reason - and that is a bit sad). But it seems as though every tiny little bit of opening up and expressing his love must be dragged out of him.
All I can say is that if he has always been this closed, it is quite possible he is finding this VERY difficult. Remember, he is very much the man he was when he walked out.
The eight weeks gave you a termination point, and I think that made you feel good. But Forrest is right I think when he says that if you do not change your approach here, these next seven weeks will be agonizingly long. Your husband is NOT going to become overnight the kind of loving, expressive man that you are needing right now.
Again, do NOT change what you desire. But you WILL have to change your expectations of him as these weeks unfold.
Progress is sometimes measured in small amounts unfortunately.
And finally, I'm not all that thrilled with your Counselors perspectives on OP. But then it bothers me anytime justification is applied to behavior that takes a spouse outside the marriage. On the other hand, I do like that they send you both out with things to do that can possibly begin to establish connections between the two of you.
As Forrest has told you, you are the leader here, like it or not. You are the leader because you have already traveled so much of this road. Now you must allow yourself to navigate a bit, AND have compassion on this man who is clearly lost.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
Sara, I am not angry. I love it that you stand by me and although you have reconciled you can see my frustrations. FG does too. He is trying to "navigate me", take the edge off my corners as we say in Greek to be able to achieve my goal which still is to create a solid R within my M.
But Forrest, you do sound like you excuse my H and expect me to forget and act as if too much too often. That's why I said you ask for too much.
Today I sent him an email saying the following :
Yesterday sucked and if I have a choice I choose not to have another day like that again. What I thought when you felt you had to yell at me on behalf of our D were the following:
...and mentioned things that had to do with yesterday such as yelling at me in front of the kids, not knowing the previous arrangement I had with D, being sarcastic about the seriousness of the issue...
And then made a new paragraph saying :
This is what was going on in the back of my head: 1. How dare you talk to me about yelling, you were yelling at the poor kids and scaring them when they were 4&5 years old for months before the bomb forcing friends and family (his dad also) to step in and tell you to stop on numerous occasions 2. You left them and me because you couldn't stand them (his words) 3. You say you stopped and I say that is easy when you hardly see them. Every time we spend more than 5 hours together you have an outburst 4. You have no saying in my house 5.I maybe loud but do my best, I am always there for them and they know they can count on me. I am human and do good and bad 6. How dare you accuse solely me for Ss aggressive behavior? Before you accuse consider your contribution and what kind of example you set for them : how to lie to their mom, disrespect her, be cold with her, leave her...
I ended my note saying "I chose to hold back and calmly share these with you to show you that things are dealt on various, different levels in my head... I hope you can handle the truth. This is my good act of the day for our R."
Bill, there is no doubt in my mind he has no clue what a meaningful relationship is. His moto is :I want to be left alone. That is why I said that if I see progress, small one, it will be good. He wants to be left alone, he is closed to himself and cant express his feelings. Ever since the kids were born, all his needs to give were covered by the love he is showing them so there was nothing left for me. Of course on the other hand, he wants from me acceptance and support and admiration.
I have been trying and the Cs too, to separate the kids from all this and make him see me as a woman. If he manages that, he may feel he needs to give back to me too...
He doesn't understand that how he shows his love is not always how you want to be loved. He is a provider. But there has to be a balance there. And there has to be a way to get him to see that.
Michelle - Proud DR Rockette S: 28JUL07, D'd: 29OCT09 http://tinyurl.com/27j9qo2
