flowmom | need to commit to myself

[CityGirl]

Thanks for sharing the background.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said you discovered a core issue in MC but had no obvious solution on how to deal with it. IMO that falls squarely on the shoulders of the MC.

Early on in our marriage my H and I went to MC. Things were actually very good with us on many levels but we did have communication issues. We both thought it would be best to try and learn how to communicate better while things were basically good. IMO the MC we saw put us on a very dangerous path.

We saw her once a week (together) and once every other week (alone) for almost 6 months. All we really did in her office was discuss the same things we discussed at home. Her response was always the same... the two of you need to communicate better or the power struggle to be heard will never end. Um, we knew that and that is why we came to see you! She never gave us solutions, taught us any tools or anything of benefit. H and I were very young (25 years old) and I guess we felt MC was a good thing so we kept going even though it didn't seem like much was changing.

Like you and your H, my H and I had a core issue that we saw no obvious solution to. But, we all know there usually is as solution. I do feel for you as I know what it's like to go see a MC, find out a core issue and not have any guidance from the MC on how to solve the core issue.

Things then start to pile up. In your case... children, lack of attraction and continued financial strain. My H and I didn't have the child issue or lack of attraction to deal with but the communication issue festered and when big life events did happen (me getting sick, my H's mom getting sick and my dad passing away) things fell apart.

This is simply my speculation but it seems your H really doesn't have a full picture of what you do as a mom to special needs child on a daily basis. The regular care and feeding along with the homeschooling and all the diagnostic research. I know he appreciates you do take care of those things but I do wonder if he really *gets* how much work it really is as a single parent.

[flowmom]

This is simply my speculation but it seems your H really doesn't have a full picture of what you do as a mom to special needs child on a daily basis. The regular care and feeding along with the homeschooling and all the diagnostic research. I know he appreciates you do take care of those things but I do wonder if he really *gets* how much work it really is as a single parent.

H has super high expectations of himself and others. He has some very impressive achievements under his belt. He is ruthlessly focused on his goals. He has little understanding or respect for the drudgery of life, how much time it takes, or how important it is. Home maintenance, connecting with his wife, getting enough sleep, turning off the computer/iPhone, goofing off, managing his stress/anger, having friendships -- those are things that he decided not to do to pursue his goals. I will never be able to be as productive as he is no matter what I do, partly because I am not willing to make the same choices as he has. He does not accept that there are 24 hours in a day. He looks terrible today and I assume that once again he is not getting enough sleep. He has some idea of all the work that I do, but he thinks I should be able to do more, more, more. The feedback that I got from the IC was that H's expectations of me and himself were unrealistic, that we were trying to do too much, and that we had to make major lifestyle changes in order to take care of ourselves and our family in a financially sustainable way.

[rr22]

I agree with MC that running a homebusiness while homeschooling and expecting 125% output out of both is an unrealistic expectation.

I also think you need to think long and hard about this nursing grudges thing that came up in your MC. Does your H have a lifelong list of grudges and grievances against other people too? Guess what? A subject for his IC, not necessarily only your joint MC.

[flowmom]

Does he have any understanding or empathy for why you stay home?

Yes, but he compares our family to guys at work where the W makes a professional income. Of course, those families have different parenting values than we do, and few have special needs children. H has a tendency to want to say "yes" to things that resonate with his core values (like homeschooling), but not accept or recognize the the fact that homeschooling families do have lower incomes and that they can't go on a family trip to Cuba whenever they feel like it (something that H insisted on when we were still dealing with the last financial crisis). You can't have it all. That's where identifying values and priorities as a family comes in, and that was a point that we got stuck on. H is not a team player. He's found a niche as a trainer and "expert" in the firehall, but he's the guy who hated group projects in school.

Does he understand your issues with your homeschooling and your procrastination? Ideally, you could have empathy for his desire for you to be "working mom" and he could have empathy for your desire to be "homeschool mom" and nobody would expect the other to change.

Really, H expects me to do both. I'm not clear if he understands my issues really. MC has an ADHD husband and she clearly explained to my H that his expectations of me needed moderating, esp if I was demonstrating that I was making an effort. But he didn't get to the place of showing acceptance. But just the other night H was talking about my procrastination as a "dealbreaker" in our M (overheard convo).

And H hasn't really spelled out his expectations of me. I'm not clear if it's about me *trying* to earn more, or about me meeting specific expectations (earning $XX,XXX/year). I don't think that's clear in his mind either and it's totally influenced by whatever our short-term financial status is that week.

In my mind, if you really tried in MC for him to hear you and if you gave him the listen and validate stance and it is STILL an issue, then you can do no more. If you never got to that place, there's work to be done!

I'm not sure if his needs and expectations ever got spelled out clearly in MC. And I'm not sure if I ever got to truly listening/validating. He was basically complaining about me, not making statements like:

"in order to be happy in this marriage, i need you to be more of a partner in earning money. i need you to earn $XXXXX/year. what changes would we need to make this possible? would you be willing to do that?".

I don't think that he could have done that on his own though. I guess that would have required a lot of coaching from MC. They had a few sessions alone together and i wonder what they really talked about. My guess is D since when I saw her after the separation she said she wasn't surprised and that we were headed that way even though H didn't express any desire to separate or D in our joint sessions.

Instead of blaming yourself and feeling you have to fix yourself to please him, try just listening and validating "I could see how you might feel that way." It does help. He may follow suit.

No chance to do that...no R talks are happening at all.

[flowmom]

I also think you need to think long and hard about this nursing grudges thing that came up in your MC. Does your H have a lifelong list of grudges and grievances against other people too? Guess what? A subject for his IC, not necessarily only your joint MC.

MIL says that H has always held things inside and not dealt with them. He does have a history of grudges. He can still feel enraged about a university professor who had a really tough course that was almost impossible to get an "A" in (but H did get one with an extreme amount of work)...H still has revenge fantasies about that guy. The grudge issue was the thing that made me feel the most hopeless in MC, because even I realized that I could not fix that for him and I said as much.

[CityGirl]

If I had to link two and two together I would venture to guess the grudge holding and the unrealistic expectations your H seems to have really do go hand in hand.

Your H creates in his mind how things should be no matter what (unreal expectations) and when his expectations are not met or they don't pan out he holds grudges.

You have mentioned twice now how he compares things to what his work friends have experienced. His work friends experienced difficult divorces riddled with financial terrorism. To him, that is how it will be. Never mind the details of the divorce(s) his friends had. His work friends can afford lavish trips, nice homes and have wives that make a good income. To him that is how it should be. Never mind the details of a special needs son or your joint decision to home school.

Your H seems to create an ideal life in his mind and then find others who have the ideal life he desires and when it doesn't pan out he gets pissed and holds grudges. He isn't interested in the details, he just wants the pretty big picture. You will never be able to change that about your H. It is his issue that he may or may not ever rectify.

It makes far more sense to me now why your H is so hung up on money and why he is so resentful about having to work so hard. He wanted his business to pan out in order to have the "picture perfect life" he created in his mind. He wasn't able to make that work and had to go back to being a "working Joe". He didn't like that. It was easier to blame you and your lack of income than look to himself and realize life *can* be "picture perfect" if you make goals. You said your H chooses not to make goals. He wants it all without doing any work. And when he does try to do the work and it doesn't pan out, well, he runs and stays angry and finds a way to blame somebody else.

IMO this is why it is crucial for you to focus 110% on you and building the life you need for you and your children. If your H does not address that particular issue your R will always have resentment, grudge holding, anger and comparisons between apples and oranges.

Your H reminds me of my H in a way. My H would put something in his mind about how things should go. Never mind he didn't actually do anything to make his idea happen. When things didn't go that way he shut down and ran. He has told me that is why he is glad his OW is so much younger. He has visions of molding her into what he things a partner in a R should be. While I realize there is nothing funny about this I do have to kind of chuckle when he tells me about all their problems. Everything he used to blame me for is happening with her. Since I am removed the common denominator is HIM.

[flowmom]

CG, I think you have a good idea of what is going on for H and I agree with much of your analysis. Except that he IS very goal-oriented. The problem is that he hasn't had family, marriage, or parenting goals, only personal individual goals. We used to have wierd conversations where I'd say "if you could live anywhere, where would you live?" and he'd say "you mean if I was single?". Ummm NO! This was after we had children. It's like he couldn't envision a life for US and talk about or work for mutual goals.

[CityGirl]

Right, that is kind of what I meant. Your H seems to have HIS goals and if those goals were attained then it seems they would benefit the family but the initial goal was made for him and him only.

I do think every married person needs to find a balance (personal goals and family goals) but when one person starts focusing only on their goals and leaving the family goals on the wayside, well, we all know what happens.

It's interesting really. One of my H's biggest complaints about me was I was too independent. Why did I work when I didn't need to? Why did I not need him more? Your H seemed to want you to need him less and work more. Men are funny creatures. I always wondered to myself what the heck was wrong with my H. Here he had a wife that enjoyed working, brought in a good income and no desires to be "kept". Early on in our marriage I was offered a job in another state making a very income. Much more than my H made. His response? I won't know anybody and you will be working all the time and I won't even know where to go and get a sandwich. My H equated the betterment of my career with him being left behind. When in fact my goal was to make a better life for US. I never took that job because he really didn't want me to. I chose us.

[flowmom]

So this was session #3 with IC. Some notes:

* he feels it's too early for me to see a L. he says that my rights aren't going to go away and there's no rush. a real relief to be honest...I just don't feel ready to make that real

* he said that when I start negative fantasizing (H having another child with OW, etc.) I'm re-traumatizing myself. When negative fantasizing starts, I need to get angry at it as part of my self care. If someone was talking to my children and telling them stories about what terrible things could happen in the future in addition to what they're suffering right now, I'd get really angry at that person. I need to get angry when negative fantasizing happens in my head.

* he got me to say that getting to the point of standing on my own two feet is what I need to do to take care of myself, and when I spend all of my time obsesssing on my sitch I make things worse for myself (because I don't have time/energy for self care)

* I make things worse for myself when I 1. negative fantasize 2. spend all my time on the forum/and thinking about my R

* when I am engaged in my life, try to adopt the "chop wood carry water" mentality

* I need to cultivate compassion for myself, stop taking an inappropriate proportion of the blame/responsibility for the marriage problems

* I need to see value in myself

* If I can value things about myself that others don't value, there is "double" value when others value things in me

* he said that time is on my side and that things will get better

* he said that if I want to reconcile, I can wait for X number of months, but in the meantime I need to put H aside and focus on self care

* he suggested that I calmly ask H "as we move forward I need to know if you are dating", as long as I can hear his answer without getting angry...he said that email would be OK if it was short and if I thought that it would work for our communication styles

* IC said that H has to be accountable to me and disclose his choice to date if that's what he's doing

* he wasn't pushing for H to come into a session and he accepted my concerns about H reinforcing his desire to D by expressing it in the session to me

[flowmom]

OK, I've got a decision to make.

Thinking of sending this:

Hi Flowdad,

I just learned that [event*] is happening May 27-30 and I'd love to take advantage of this fun networking opportunity. I wouldn't want to be away from the children for that long, so I am investigating ways to go with them, as that has worked well in the past.

Would you consider coming with with and looking after the children?

You recently mentioned that you find it hard to be around me. I think we could minimize contact by bringing two cars and having separate rooms if you are willing to try this.

If this doesn't work for you, I will investigate the possibility of your parents helping me out with this. I considered trying to hire [childcare provider] to accompany us, but I don't think that I can justify the expense.

I'll need to make plans ASAP as [event] will book up quickly because it's in [geographic region].

Flowmom

* event: it's an out-of-town (several hours of travel by car/ferry) botany field trip in a beautiful location. It's a fun opportunity to network with people in my field and reconnect with people who I consider friends, yet only see rarely. It's worked well to have H and the kids join me in the past. H knows everyone there (disadvantage given the sitch) and people have been warm and relaxed with the children.

I would want to send this today or tomorrow.

This would be a real test of where things stand with coparenting. A lot of coparents have joint meals, joint vacations, etc. to create family time for the children. I think this may be premature to ask for this. But this would be a good thing not just for my children but for ME.

I mentioned the possibility of asking H's parents to help, but realistically that would probably not work. They are not physically capable of hiking easily and they've never looked after my children for more than an hour. They would be willing to try, but it's not a situation where I could count on being able to focus on my purpose for being there (learning, connecting on a professional and personal level).