Wow, I took my girl to story time after work, then thought I would see if anyone posted before I crashed for the night. Thank you all for your support and help! Just having a place to go where the automatic answer is not “run for your life!” is so helpful.
Because answering all of your questions and considering your advice has really helped me to regain my focus, I will try to answer some of the questions that were posted while I was dancing to “Shake, Shake, Shake Your Wiggles Out” with my 3yr old this evening. : )
Yes, H said he wanted a divorce very early on, even before he walked out. Just for background, we actually have been separated once before (in part because of an affair) and had worked things out. I thought we had worked through what had caused the affair and separation, but I am learning the hard way that we did not do enough. 3 years that included the birth of our daughter, 2 major job losses for my H, living for 6 months with H’s parents, the death of 2 of H’s grandparents, and having to go on food stamps for a while took their toll on our relationship.
My daughter’s reflux related sleep issues and my H’s lack of confidence as a parent meant that for almost 3 years I lived on 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night. Normally, I catch my H when he starts to spiral into a depression or some other self destructive behavior. He is good at hiding his feelings, but I am usually even better at reading him. This time I just couldn’t do it. There was a definite void in our relationship at that point. It appears that someone else stepped in to fill it. I was busy with the baby, and H was feeling rejected, hurt, and lonely. It was not ok for him to look to someone else to meet the needs that he was not getting met, but I understand it was him trying to cope. He was not trying to hurt me.
I have from the beginning told him that if we divorced it would be his divorce, not mine. I won't do the work for him and I do not believe our differenced are “irreconcilable.” Given that I am usually the family secretary, he may never get around to it. Guess that gives me as much time to DB as I want, right?
As far as money, the now empty savings account and growing debt do all the talking for me. I make him do the accounting with me and the numbers are very unforgiving. It was always my job before, but I told him when he left that I wouldn't do it alone. I believed it would have opened up the possibility of blaming and bickering even though money is a subject that we never had any (relationship) problems with before.
As far as custody, he already knows that he is losing a great deal of time with her. The reality is sinking in after almost 4 months of this. He is about to have even less time with her when the new restaurant he will be managing opens. He cannot blame me for his schedule, and I keep the focus off of me by not harping on it. He doesn’t need to me to tell him that he could have her every morning before she went to day care if he would come home. He already knows it.
Regarding exposing his affair, I do not believe broadcasting my suspicions would be helpful to my situation. I am fairly certain my H's family and many of our friends already suspect an affair and are trying their best to support both of us anyway. Several people have come to me with concerns or hinted that it is already too late. The reasons he gave for walking out on me sounded lame at best, and false at worst. He told people I didn’t keep the house clean enough, I didn’t let him parent our daughter, I had abandoned him, I was too dependent on him and it smothered him, etc… Even at the beginning just about everyone thought he wasn’t telling the whole story.
As far as my family, they will already have difficulty accepting him back into the family and are too far away to have any influence anyway.
Sorry this ended up being so long, but I wanted to address all of the issues raised. I also find the whole process incredibly helpful. Thank you all! I am going to get some rest and think a bit more about how to handle tomorrow's pumpkin carving family night. I'll post in the morning.
