Thanks, NB. I really appreciate your long posts and thoughts.
I still do most of the things I did when I was younger. The only thing I really stopped doing was volleyball and I don't do as much with friends as I used to. I will be more social when I find friends here. I'm definitely going to check out meetup. I've never heard of that before. I have some very good friends I talk with on the phone regularly and I am very close with my husband's family. I know people say not to bring family into this stuff but they love me and my husband and have been very supportive. Not one person has every been divorced in his family.
I am glad to hear you've got some support. You haven't posted in a couple days- everything ok (under the circumstances)?
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My husband was in the midst of his affair when I was getting IC. My counselor felt as though he really loved me but she thought he had a lot of personal issues to work through and that he was an alcoholic and that I might have to let him go to work on those things. I think she felt I was too together to be with someone who had so many issues.
Our MC told me the same thing! Wondered what I was doing with H- didn't encourage me to get a D, but was baffled after knowing us for 8 months.
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My husbands complaints about me have been that I don't follow a budget so that's why one of my 180's is to learn about finances. He also says I don't listen very well which is true and I'm working hard on that. I'm pretty impatient and tend to interupt people. Another complaint is that I yell at the kids too much and I do that mostly out of stress because he hasn't helped much with raising them and raising 5 kids can be stressful! especially when I also work. I'm really working on that and have been much better since I've been here.
Sounds like you both agree and value all of these things, so that's good. For YOU. These things are good for you, for your kids, for independence and any future R's you have, platonic or romantic. Good goals, good job.
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H is not seeing or taking the kids at all. He pops in about once a week for dinner. I'm totally baffled. He is the one who wanted a large family and he loves and adores them. I think he is so lost and confused right now that he doesn't even realize that he hasn't been helping me or seeing them. I've been here two months and he took one of my daughters on a daddy date for her birthday and that's it.
That is disgusting. How a parent can totally abandon his kids for his selfish reasons is just incomprehensible to me. I'm sure he has good qualities or you wouldn't have married and had a fmaily with him, but where is his duty to his kids at least, if not you? How old are they? How are you explaining this to them??
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He was pretty upset when I told him he was free. He says he loves me and he is sorry he has been acting like an a$$ and has been hurting me. I definitely don't want my marriage to end. I really love him. It's just so hard to be in limbo and part of me thinks I need to let him go in order for him to realize what he is doing. We did not have a rocky marriage. We were genuinely good friends and enjoyed each other's company. We have had to live apart for an entire year and I think it gave my husband so much time to sit and think and dwell about his life. He is really miserable and I don't think he knows how to get out of his pit and enjoy his life again. He is trying to figure out why he is miserable and I am the easiest person to blame.
Yes, I can relate. Funny, when I feel down I go inside myself to seek answers. When our H's feel lousy, they look around for a convenient target to blame. The sad thing is that they can get rid of us but it's that saying: "no matter where you go, there YOU are." they take themselves with them.
Do you ever think about if he is incapable of changing from how he's acting now, what you would want to do? Hang in there forever? Go your own way? What that would model for the kids either way? No judgement here, just asking- I had to ask myself this, too. I've decided (though still sad and a tiny bit of hope that he will turn around) that I do not want anything I'm seeing now, the way I'm being treated, and my sadness and sense of loss is over what USED to be and what I thought COULD be, not what currently IS. The thing that sucks is that they weren't always this way- so we are able to remember good times and know they're capable of so much more as partners. But unable to give it to us now.
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I reread DR today, especially the act as if part. I get it better after reading it the second time. We are supposed to act as if our spouses are going to respond in a positive way instead of a negative way because the way we approach them can impact their behavior. I've been guilty of that for sure. I tend to mind read too and am usually way off base....need to stop that.
Yeah, that's good to stop that if you can :-). I think it's more than about their response though. Remember this is for you first and foremost. I know, as someone else recently wrote, most of us start out DBing hoping to get the other person to notice our changes (and the book even says that), and change their minds. But if that's our primary or sole goal, we're not much better off than before, b/c we'll give it up if they don't- it won't be a lasting change. It's like the comparison of people who go on a diet to achieve a short-term, often external superficial goal and then go back to their bad habits and gain it all back, vs. someone who makes a lifestyle change to feel better and live longer as a way of life, if they look better, that's a great by-product, but that's not the only reason they're doing it. It's to make them feel better and healthier. As, IMO, DB, 180s and GAL all should be.
