I'm so pleased you all liked the pics, I had such a fantastic time. And a big hello W2G, I've missed you round here!
I've had my last session with Jody and she said some really helpful/ interesting things that I thought y'all may be interested in. In fact it has really helped me in coming to terms with what has happened and the fact I am getting divorced.
She asked me how I would be feeling now if we were still together and he was acting in the way he has been? - the constant being at work and obsession with work, the heavy drinking, the rude/ loud/ annoying behaviour and selfishness (my descriptions not hers, of course she didn't cast aspersions). In fact he was very much like that before he left and I was absolutely miserable and I still would be if I was in that situation. She said he clearly has needed to get this stuff out of his system and the nicest thing he has done for me is to not drag me into where he has gone. That he can not delay gratification for himself and cannot say no and that I would never have been able to set boundaries on that behaviour. He couldn't stay because there was no way that he could act out that behaviour and be with me.
She said that had we stayed together and he had continued down the path that he has chosen there would not have been good feeling between us in fact there would have been a lot of bad feeling and there is no way that we could have stayed friends. The situation that I am in now is that there is a lot of positive feeling towards each other (to the extent that we care about each other and even buy presents for each other etc.) and this means that I can move forward with a clean slate rather than holding onto bad feelings.
She also said that this process was much more about him than me being a horrible or bad wife (which is what I have always struggled with) and that the Chron's had had a big impact on his life and life choices.
Reframing it in this way, which is totally different to my feeling like a bad person because I am getting divorced has helped me so much. I would have absolutely hated bad feeling between us and that would have been very hard to live with.
So, I am going to have to have the conversation about the fees for the divorce with him and I know what I am going to say. Roughly - initially I ticked that he should pay the costs because none of this is anything I have initiated. And that to me it is semantics whether he got involved with another woman 6 weeks before or six weeks after he left because at the time we were still married. However, I need to sort it out because of the timing as I am going to be out of the country for a year or more so I am willing to pay half.
