He's been civil to me in only the past couple of days. Before that he rarely spoke to me, if he did he was very terse & he couldn't look at me without glaring. It was painful.

The convo last night was the first one he hasn't brought up R. It was nice to hear his voice without that icy, hateful edge to it.

I want to be his friend, or at least be friendly--but he's got so much stuff going on now it's hard for me to not jump in and try to *fix* everything. I'm not his mother. That's what I mean about his standing on his own again.

The man I met and married was kind and funny and loving. And he worked 60 hours a week. The man who moved out was moody and mean selfish--and felt like he was the house frau.


Not only does he need to support himself & be a man again, he needs to see that I can so all the *house frau* crap on my own. He wasn't here because I couldn't handle the kids on my own, he was here because he was my partner and I loved him.


He is the youngest of six boys, there is 12 years between him & the next oldest. He has brothers older than my parents. So he was essentially an only child growing up. His father was always working, but never invested in his family. They were dirt poor even though his dad made money--he was just careless with his *investments*. He'd give money to near strangers & never see any of it again, but not provide for his own family. It really got to H. A few years ago he hired people to come junk a ton of scrap metal (among other things) that he'd been hoarding. hired them. PAID them. We needed money & he knew it and never once asked H to come work--even though H had called him and told him he'd love to come down. He hired strangers. Because they needed it more than we did.

There is also this strange dynamic between his parents. They are lovely people, honestly, but !wow! is there some co-dependancy going on there. His father (in his 80s) refuses to do anything for himself. His mother says she can't stand it but feeds into it. They feed off of each other. I just kind of blame it on the fact that she's been with him since she was 15 and doesn't know anything different. So...meh, not my life.

H says his can't stand his dad (other than the whole loving-because-he's-your-dad thing), but he's turning into him. Grumpy. Unkind. Zero compassion. I'm just not like my poor MIL--I am not going to live like that.

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Started that post a while ago. Since then I called H for the kids, he had them put me on after they were done. Just a quick question he had about TBall practice & then a five minute chat about what he's up to--the job he found & quit the same day when he found the guy he was selling cars for was up to some shading (read illegal) activity. How his injury is healing (motorcycle accident). I responded and interacted just like you guys said I should, like he was a stranger i was having a convo with; I was kind, polite, compassionate, interested but not overly so.

He didn't ask me about me--but that's okay. I'm getting sick to death of talking about me. lol Except to you guys. You guys get the uncensored, unrated, full-on crazy version of me.

He gets cool, calm, collected and confident. And I am totally faking it.


formerly known as "shelbel"
Me 40, stbxh 40
DSs 9, 7 & 3
M9, T10
Stbxh is a diagnosed bipolar & an addict. The end.