I just went for a drive to think things through and I used a digital recorder to record my thoughts while driving.
One note is that my voice sounds depressed. I wouldn't have known that if I had not used the recorder. H doesn't have to "smell" out my fear/sadness, he knows from listening to me. Now, I feel depressed when I'm around H, which is one thing that came clear while I was driving and thinking.
Some clarity came to me while driving, and the first is above. When I am away from H for any length of time, I feel strong, confident and forward moving. As soon as we spend any time together at all, I'm unsure, depressed, sad, angry, hurt, and impotent.
Part of why I feel like this is that I am letting him treat me like a doormat. I told him when he agreed to no contact that I wanted to work on the marriage and he can have his freedom to "find" himself, which is what he says he wants to do. It's not what he's doing, he's running around with OW, using me to maintain the house and the kids, and spending "feel good" time with me and the kids once a week - so now I feel like not standing up for myself is causing me to feel like a doormat, which is further depressing me and holding me back from becoming great and self fulfilled.
So, the question is, do I go dim? I could go dark and leave him to take care of everything behind me. The kids are ready to go down south to live with their mom, which would NOT be a good idea (past abuse in that house). So, I really feel like I'm stuck to take care of the kids, I may be their only chance at any normalcy right now. They're 16 and 20, so they don't need a lot of care, but they do need some. Emotionally they need me right now, especially the twins.
I really believe after taking that hour to think things through that what is holding me back is allowing the contact between H and I to continue. It hurts me and drags me down every time I see him and like say he wants to work on our M, or even ADMIT that something strange is going on... instead of acting like everything is fine and it's normal for two people to live like roommates like this.
