embracing change

[flowmom]

Well, there's plenty of us on these boards (he said, humbly), so there's gotta be plenty of us kinda guys out there, too

[flowmom]

June I LOVED your post to Geomom. I very much agree. I would do a LOT to save this M...but it just doesn't look like I have much to work with here. I think that we just let the problems go on way too long. Who knows how long he's wanted to leave

[june72]

FM, I really want you to hear this and absorb it when I say this to you. Really he is the one who screwed up and it's totally his loss. He is throwing away not only a woman that knows him and will love him more than anyone but relegating his kids to part time status.


You are more than willing to bend over backwards to make this man happy and it still is not good enough. When a person rejects someone willing to move mountains to make them happy, when a person feels justified in hurting loved ones, when they feel justified in pursuing other people. They are fundamentally flawed. I look at them as truly, truly broken.

I don't want to say mean things about your husband. I know that people make stupid mistakes and come to their senses all the time. I really believe in "falling" and then atoning and forgiveness. But the longer a person follows the wrong path. The less respect, compassion and empathy I can feel for them.


His decisions, his choices are all about him. Obviously.

I really think that even if you were the perfect wife and attempted to meet his every need....something inside of him still would be broken. I really do.

I do not think there is anything that YOU could have done to derail this. I think he was unwilling to do the work and would rather find "quick fixes" to make him happy.


What baffles me about people like this is how the guilt of leaving their children behind does not eat them alive. I figure that they must temporarily have no soul. I know sounds nutty. But I think eventually maybe years down the road when there children are grown up and they miss them, then they get it. That blew the chance to be with their own children and it's gone, forever.


But how for the love of God! How can a person walk away from small innocent children! How! They are their own flesh and blood! They are the most important things in our existance. More important than our own lives...


Gosh, where was I going with this here... I am trying to make you feel better here. I guess, I guess the message I really want to drive home to you is this....
This is NOT your fault and you did everything in your power to attempt to save your marriage. You did not fail at all, he did.

I love to speak on these message boards about future deathbed scenerios since I watched people die as a nurse. I love the perspective it gives you. (I mean not watching people die but imagining your own dying moments) It really grounds you and refocuses you on the big picture.


If you were dying tomorrow. You would in your heart of hearts that you were a good woman, a good mother and sure as hell a good wife. You know it, we all know it, and he can go f*ck himself b/c he took it for granted. Do not feel rejected, feel that you lived with a screwed up, broken person who could not... God, words escape me.....feel the love that was given to him. How sad is that.


(sorry i get a little heated up about these things....)

[Geomom]

Hey flowmom, I can relate ... I'm also self-employed and this past week-and-a-half has been murder on my work routine. Everything is just so emotionally chaotic, it's hard to concentrate, especially if your children are home with you at the time (I get most of my work done when son is at school, though I've had real trouble focusing since the H situation exploded.) And, like you, I'm facing serious pressure to step up the work even more if we're to keep living where we are.

H has completely separated himself from anything at home (outside of occasional times with our son): stopped grooming the dog, hasn't mowed the lawn once this year, left months, even years, worth of mail unsorted or unopened on the countertop, etc.

I finally worked my way through that mess yesterday and found not only unopened, unpaid bills (car insurance overdue) but bank statements from four years ago. Looks like I haven't been the only one responsible for the disorganized state of the household.

As far as getting work done, what I've found has helped me this past week is writing down a numbered to-do list early in the day and checking off each item as it gets done. When I find myself getting overly distracted -- as in checking in here multiple times a day -- I try and go back to the list and pick up again with another task. Seems to help.

[june72]

Geomom, I love checklists too!
Reading and posting on this site is my "reward" for doing a certain amount of work for my employer....
haha! How lame is that... I love this site too much I think...

[courageous wife]

FM...I just want to say that you continue to amaze and ispire me!!!

[flowmom]

Thanks so much for your post June. I'm trying to let it sink in.

I was talking about how this is affecting the children tonight with my parents, and the minute they left I started crying. I started to feel that desperation about H...that feeling that I would endure anything short of physical abuse in our M to restore an intact family to my children. They don't need their parents to have a perfect M or to be personally fulfilled, they just need us to all be together. And now I'm trying to remind myself that I don't even have the option of making that deal with the devil...even that's outside of my realm of control. I am still struggling with a lot of guilt about this. I see so starkly every time I let my hurt lead me to present a harsh side to H. I still believe that I could have prevented this situation with better coping and relationship skills. I know that there's nothing I can do about that now, but it weighs on me. Either I'm at fault for not being a better wife, or I'm at fault for choosing the wrong man to father my children. I'm writing honestly about how I feel here.

Thanks for your post Geomom. I'm good at writing lists but not good at doing the tasks on them .

[newmama]

Either I'm at fault for not being a better wife, or I'm at fault for choosing the wrong man to father my children.

This is not your fault. You didn't walk away.

[Geomom]

flowmom, I've been thinking the same thoughts over and over in my head, and I'm left with this: in retrospect, there were so many warning signs of H going through a MLC (and EA/PA) -- waking up in the middle of the night and sitting for hours in the living room rocking chair with his Blackberry, buying expensive new exercise equipment then never using it, losing interest in everything home-related. (I was sad to realize a couple of days ago, for example, that this was the first year in five years H hasn't taken our son to the local annual Monster Truck show -- that's been their special Daddy-son outing since our boy was 2. He never even brought it up.)

So here's my question: is there any way someone else can help someone deal with an MLC before it reaches a crisis point, or is this something he has to figure out all on his own? I don't know the answer. All I know is that, even if I had transformed myself into some kind of Stepford wife, I don't think it would have kept him from going where he went.

[flowmom]

So here's my question: is there any way someone else can help someone deal with an MLC before it reaches a crisis point, or is this something he has to figure out all on his own? I don't know the answer. All I know is that, even if I had transformed myself into some kind of Stepford wife, I don't think it would have kept him from going where he went.

Good question and good point Geomom. From what the experts say here on this forum, it sounds like there isn't necessarily a way of preventing a MLC. I guess it's just not obvious to me in my sitch how much of our marriage failure is due to H's MLC, and how much is due to life stress and our not caretaking our M and taking proactive steps. In my sitch, I think there were quite a few contributing factors.