What to do when H doesn't contact?

[25yearsmlc]

25, I can't thank you enough! I'm going to try my best to be a better person. I can't afford DB C, so I'm seeing a C and she knows that I want the M to work. My insurance covers it.

I just need to get out of this depression, it is terrible. Can't eat, sleep, focus etc. Once I get out of this I really believe I can become a better person. I don't cry in front of the kids most of the time but some times it just comes on so hard. They are acting out terrible.

D13 talked to H last night, he left her a message on her cell phone which is broken but she got the message from my phone. And she said "Daddy sounds so sad, so I'm going to call him." So the poor girl calls and tells him what has been going on (all good) and then asks if he could please take her to swim practice and pick her up since I have to work both jobs and he says that he doubts it. No reason why....nothing.

I felt so bad for her, but there is nothing I can do. Back months ago I would have text or called him complaining and bashing him for doing that to her but I just let it go.

How did I do?

Like I mentioned before, I can't thank you enough for helping me out. You made my day today, and I was having a really rough one.

I think you did well. What were your options, realistically? (Meaning, the idea that saying the exact sentence with the exactly perfect syntax and emphasis, will NOT get him to come back home...okay? So let's lose the idea that ONE remark will save or kill your M....)

Could you have reamed him out? Sure, which might have felt GREAT and probably IS deserved... so that would help of course...NOT[/b]...besides, you have already done that. It made things worse, correct?

Sometimes, things left UNSAID have more power than things uttered ever could.

In my sitch, when H's dreams of a gold rush and his NEED to live the one place I did not want to live, and HAD lived for 3 years already, and blah blah blah--when ALL those things turned out to be almost identical to what I had predicted -back when he'd said I was being 'negatively programmed & irrational", (as opposed to his "rational" beliefs in all the wildly optimistic promises his heroes made), WELL-trust me, the thought of saying "I TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN!!" occurred to me daily for months. I held back, miraculously. But one day his father, my fil, was visiting us & blurted out a barrage of critical remarks to h that I might have thought to myself, but would not have uttered. H took it all in and was humbled by it. He said little to nothing that I recall, in response. FIL was not being mean, just tactless. And FIL was factually correct, but my point is, [b]I didn't NEED to say the obvious. Do you? Seriously, your h knows your d is disappointed. He KNOWS he has let her down...again...what's to say? She's the one with the grievance anyhow, not you. At least as far as this incident, okay?

Plus, this way he can imagine what you MIGHT have said, what you COULD have said, but did not. He cannot complain about what you did not say (nor did he see you roll your eyes or sigh heavily with the martyr victimhood robe...RIGHT? Good thing!) So who knows? He may let his guilt go wandering, or he may be grateful you didn't say or do anything to worsen it. Or he may forget the whole thing ever happened and so what if he does? It's not as good as him "waking up" is, but we have to be realistic...

Seems to me you only have 2 options in most interactions, #1, say nothing, #2, say something: and THEN IF you say "something" there are also just two options i.e.,
A) saying something negative or
B), saying something "positive"...if you can pull it off. "Positive?!" Like what???!!

Like thanking him for letting her know ahead of time, so she doesn't get her hopes up, only to have them dashed at the last minute. It must have been hard for him to say. I think MWD says to assume the best if no evidence to the contrary exists--NOT to read into things too much but just not to assume the slimiest crummiest motives all the time, which helps no one but feeds our anger. If I thought the anger would help you, rather than consume you, I'd say go with it. But I know it will 'win' and consume you, if you let it, as I was there, wallowing in my anger and pain, for far too long.....

..YES YES YES--It'd be very difficult to pull off that "saying something positive" option B, I know. NOR Am I saying it's better than your silence was. But I am pretty darn sure option #2 of complaining, would be destructive to all 3 of you.
That much...we know.

So, tell me something. What is happening with your GAL activities? If nothing yet, why not give yourself 30 days to choose something (LIKE WHAT???? --Take an academic class, and OR an "activity class"-acting, or pottery, or astronomy, volunteer, at a battered women's shelter or a seniors center OR a political cause you care about-you meet smart people in your age group who are also good connections for jobs. It does NOT have to be life changing....just new, or old and almost forgotten, but laying new tracks in your brain, b/c where the head goes, the heart will follow....

Look, You did fine by being silent to his behavior. He didn't necessarily do anything "Wrong" -- not to him...but he knows he's not showing up for your d on this day. So you don't need to say a word to him.

Remember, it is HIS loss so you have to project that and believe it, and help your d believe it. IT HURTS TO SEE HER HURT...OMG I KNOW b/c our older d, then 16 said, "I guess he doesn't want to be part of my life..." and I blabbed that "he does but he's confused and blah blah blah" and she said, "No, he's just selfish"...and she was right.

Oh how I ached for her, and I do still feel bad about their R although it is improving. Back then, we all GAL, and held each other up, became pretty happy and then, HE realized he had missed out on so much and still was... He came to miss us far more than we missed him....To his great regret, and ours....

IF you project onto your h your sense of lacking, i.e., that you & D miss him, then the appeal of returning is less. He'll feel you are "takers" instead of "fillers' of need. But now, you will Instead be so upbeat and busy GAL, that he's a fool to miss out on ANY of the interactions he could be having with d....

(Sigh) I know how this hurts....I really do. And it's tough not to cave in & go in circles with the pain. I DID turn it over to God. But sometimes I would stupidly take it back from God, but finally I was so sick & tired of feeling sick & tired, I eventually did truly let it go.

Ironically, If I didn't let go of the anger/pain, then when h came back, we would not have made it. The anger/pain and lack of forgiveness dooms the marriages....I think more m's fail, b/c the WAS MAY want to come back but assumes that the LBSer was so hurt (and the LBSer makes sure the WAS knows how much pain the LBSer is still in) that the LBSer will hold the A or MLC over their heads forever...and often, the WAS is correct. A lot of LBSers want to stay in the role of victim even though the WAS returned...they cannot/will not let it go and feel "owed"...and they do NOT stay married. I wonder in those situations, who's fault is that? Seems as if both and yet, the LBSer will cling to the original problem and forget about how hard they made it for the WAS...or how much they talked about their WAS leaving and how hurt they were, etc. I know I told complete strangers that my h had gone off the deep end...for months I did that. Crazy...victimhood...

So if we don't let go of our pain, the m is doomed anyhow. More so probably. So GAL, moving on, & letting go is necessary even if you Do RECONCILE...in fact, especially if you do. Hence the need for detachment.
It allows you more room to let go of the pain and anger & the GAL helps fill you with new, good emotions and activities.

j-