flowmom | shifting from devastated to rebuilding

[flowmom]

Yes, raw is on the menu today.

It's hitting me like a ton of bricks that:

1. H does not want to be married to me

2. H wants to have sex and relationships with other women, if he isn't already.

3. Everything that H does around me is based on trying to be a good father and avoiding triggering any punishing behaviour on my part around custody and finances in the D.

I knew all that, but today it's hitting me emotionally like it hasn't before. I don't feel hopeless as a person, but I do feel hopeless about chances for reconciliation.

I'm not going to do anything rash, but I'm going to have to seriously evaluate whether DB is the right choice for me. In theory, I want to do whatever I can to preserve the tiny chance of reconciliation. But realistically it could easily take 2 years for that tiny chance to materialize, and even then there's no guarantee that H or I would be the people that we would need to be to make it work.

In the meanwhile I would be depriving myself of the chance to have honest, healing communication with H with the help of my IC (and actually get him to break up with me properly), and to rip off the bandaid (get divorced) in a way that feels like I'm taking the initiative and acting as an agent in my own life. Once divorced I assume that in some ways it would be easier to deal with H because all negotiations, etc. would be nailed down and we would just be two independent agents doing our best for our children. And I could concentrate on fully and completely letting go of H.

I've taken a passive role in my M for a lot of years -- always trying to work on things, yet following H's cues, respecting his boundaries, letting him have his space and freedom, etc. That's part of how I ended up here. I have to decide if taking care of myself means taking action, including actively working on dissolving my M and getting on to the next stage of my life.

The hardest thing about this for me is the children. This is so unfair to them. I have let them down so deeply for being part of allowing the foundation of our family to crumble. I don't know what it will take for me to forgive myself for this.