H just moved out, 13 months post-bomb

[Dawn of Hope]

Maria, thanks for posting to me! I really appreciate it. As for the closure comment, I think my friend just wants to see more peace between H and me, and even though she knows that what I want is reconciliation, she isn't dedicated to that goal--I think she sees "closure" as being almost as good. I think that she thinks maybe that's the best outcome available given the way H is thinking right now, because he doesn't seem too interested in reconciling with me. If H agrees to this "mediation" (which I'm not holding my breath waiting for--I really think he is hoping she will just forget the idea), I will tell her that's one of my ground rules--she has to be focused on helping us to reconcile, or there's no point in doing it.

To answer your question about my work, I'm a professional lettering artist (calligrapher). I do lots of weddings, which isn't as fun since all this MLC nightmare stuff started as it used to be. I like my work (I'm self-employed), but I have a hard time with the business end of it--marketing and stuff. I'm working on that part. Trying to get my website up and running, about 6 years late.

I'm doing better with my sleep in the last week. It's not something that's been better for very long, so I still have my fingers crossed, but it's a LOT better. I've been mostly going to bed by midnight and getting up by 9 a.m. or earlier, which is HUGE considering that for months I've been going to bed after dawn and sleeping until afternoon or evening. I keep records of my sleep patterns (under the concept that if you want to change something, you have to measure it), and I haven't strung together this "normal" a sleep schedule for even a short period in at least three years. So it's a matter of perspective.

I've been very weepy today. Part of it is just being upset because friends of mine had to put their 16-year-old cat to sleep, and I'm a total cat person (the friends live halfway across the country, and I never even got to meet their cat, but it still hurts). One of my three cats is 17 (came to us right after H and I got married), and the next in line is 15 (the youngest is 4), so that doesn't help.

But I was weepy even before the cat situation came up. This morning I was, for some reason, obsessing about H's A and thinking about how up until he started having sex with her, neither of us had ever had sex with anyone we weren't currently married to (that is to say, each other). I keep thinking about how I feel that he's permanently contaminated now--that circle can never be re-closed, even if we do reconcile. It's not so much a matter of the possibility of him comparing the two of us--I mean, I'm a size-4 gymnast/yogi, for heaven's sake, and I've always been pretty gung-ho about that aspect of our M, and she weighs at least twice what I do, so I can't believe he's better off with her in that respect. It's just...I don't know if I can explain it adequately, but he just seems tainted in that respect, just like our house is tainted because he brought her here. The house can be replaced, but...not his "equipment," or his memories. And...I'm here on the DB boards, so it should be no surprise that I don't believe that replacing him with someone "better" is the solution.

I know, I know...thought-stopping. I've never been very good at that. Mostly I don't think about it much, but sometimes it just overwhelms me. I am still very stuck with the anger/forgiveness issues, too (obviously).

I'm so tired...crying wears me out, and I've been doing a lot of it today. It's like a throwback to those early days after the bomb, when all I did, except during the 15 minutes a day that he was around, was to cry.

I'm struggling to figure out what to do about my health insurance. I haven't had any since H lost his job in mid-February, although he didn't tell me for sure about the lack of insurance coverage for about six weeks. He got another job in mid-April, and I _think_ he has health insurance for himself through the new job (I don't know for sure). He told me more than once throughout the process that he "thought it would be best" for me to look into getting my own health insurance independent from him. After he got the new job, he told me that because he was a contractor, he didn't have the option of getting coverage for me through his work. In fact, when he found out that I discontinued my ADs after he lost his job because I couldn't afford them without the coverage, he was upset! (My suicidal depression was one of the big issues that drove us apart in the first place...although since the bomb, he will periodically do stuff almost calculated to upset me, and then quite seriously ask if I'm going to kill myself over it.... ) My family is worried that something is going to happen to me (like a car accident or something) that runs up huge medical bills, and H will refuse to pay (even though we are still legally married, no paperwork filed), and my medical care will bankrupt them (my family).

So, I finally bit the bullet and started seriously looking into health insurance. Well, I was told (by people who should know) that if H has medical coverage, I have a right to be covered on it (so H lied...is anyone surprised??), even if the company won't pay any of the costs...and at this point, that's the only way to get immediate coverage without any exclusion of pre-existing conditions (so even if I did get independent medical coverage, it wouldn't do any good for my depression, because that would be excluded for a year by any company that would be willing to write me a policy). So the only way to get my depression covered would be to get on his policy. Of course, then someone would have to pay for it, and I don't have any money (I have about $40 to my name at the moment, overshadowed by thousands of $ in overdue bills). And of course, he is Mr. Nice Guy because he is still paying the mortgage and the utilities even though he chooses not to live here, so paying for his W's medical insurance would just be obviously ridiculous when he has an OW to spend his money on.

I'm working on increasing my income, but it takes time. (My income was below federal poverty level for one person last year--being an artist isn't exactly lucrative.) My expenses are obviously even higher since he moved out, and I had started paying for a lot of things out of my meager income anyway right before the bomb (that was almost two years ago now), so I wasn't building up any reserves. (I'm the saver in the family, he's the spender--the last time I bought any clothes was a year and a half ago, a few months after the bomb, when I had lost so much weight from the MLC diet that nothing fit any more...so I splurged on 3 pairs of jeans.) My income is very much paycheck-to-paycheck, and I'm self-employed so I don't even have regular paychecks.

Anyway...the question is (if you've managed to wade through all of that), do I break the last 3+ weeks of silence between us and contact him to see if I can get on his insurance (which would clearly be the best choice for me in terms of finances and healthcare)? I think it will be difficult for him to flat-out tell me "no," now that I'm better informed about the legalities of it, but I'm sure he has a raft of excuses he can use to avoid it. And I couldn't pay for it. But the alternative is for me to continue to go without insurance, and to mostly go without health care.

In other news, someone I know, who knows all about my sitch and isn't at all happy with H (she has been a substitute therapist for me), happens to know H's aunt and several cousins, and she told me a few days ago that she had seen them recently, and mentioned my sitch to them, and they were completely _shocked_ ...they had no idea and could hardly believe H would do anything like what he's doing. She said she couldn't believe he hadn't told them, but I said I wasn't surprised, as I think he is ashamed of his actions but won't admit that even to himself, so he certainly wouldn't want to open himself up to criticism from anyone else, so I don't think he has told very many people.

I'm a little sad and frustrated because I think I am losing many of the friends I had left even after H got custody of most of them. People don't respond to my calls or emails and after a couple of attempts, I hesitate to push it. I'm feeling kind of sorry for myself these days, and it sort of feeds into a cycle...I feel upset that people don't seem to want to be around me, which makes me depressed and complaining and pushes my self-esteem down even further, which makes people not want to be around me....ugh. I do try to be cheerful when I'm actually talking to people, and I think I mostly succeed there, but I spend most of my time alone, to the point that it's not my choice, even as an introvert. "Spend time with friends," people say. Well, what if you don't have many to begin with and those you have seem to be slipping away despite your best efforts? I seem to be having more trouble with that now than I did when I was constantly miserable and weepy and being cheerful took almost superhuman effort!

Okay, that was WAYYYYY longer than planned. If anyone made it through all of that, I'd love some input.

Peace,
Dawn