Working on acceptance and forgiveness

[AntoniaB]

Alright, H just spent 2 hours face to face in my house. He showed me the email she sent. It said "please refrain from contacting A. because any time you are nice to her or show emotion it gives her hope."

THIS IS NOT TRUE. This is her interpretation of things. Not mine. As much as 2 months ago, I told my psychiatrist and my family that I was through with thinking that we were fated to be together and that I had no more hope that we would reconcile. That if something happened down the road, it would happen like 5 years from now, and that I was not clinging to hope anymore.

I made this beyond clear to everyone.

She told him to stop giving me money to help with expenses as well because "A. needs to learn how to live on her own without your help."

Financially, I have been paying our joint debt--the mortgage--along with all taxes, insurance, and interest. He pays none of it. If he has given me money towards home repairs, I don't see this as "not living on my own", but as justified based on the fact that I solely carry his debt right now. I didn't ask my lawyer to work that into settlement either.

So now I'm even more bothered by what she told him.

What can I tell you? In person, he started to tell me that there were several times he wanted to contact me over the past month, particularly over the holidays, and that he didn't because of her email. He said on our anniversary, he wanted to text me "I'm sorry." He didn't because he said he thought that it would give me hope because it was what she said would happen, so he settled for the other text which he knew was badly worded and distant. He said when I didn't respond on our anniversary to that text, he contacted my sister again to ask if I was ok. He told her he was very worried about me that day and especially since I didnt' respond. I said 'but your text said you don't have to respond." He said "I know but I still thought you would." She said back to him "A. is fine. Please leave her alone."

He said on the days leading up to Christmas Day, his heart was breaking thinking about me being alone. He cried when he said this. He could barely get the words out. He said that his hiding his emotions from me even caused a fight where the OW blew up at him for how he was acting those days. He said he was a wreck thinking about what he had done to me. He said he wanted to contact me but since my sister said 4 days before Christmas "leave her alone" he did not.

I said why would you listen to my family? He said "I never see you; I don't know how you are. She said you were having setbacks caused by me and my contact. She told me that I was hurting you more."

After awhile our conversation went into other areas. Namely, the breakup and problems long ago. I told him about the letter from 9 years ago. He said he forgot all of that. But then later he did acknowledge his anger problem. I was telling him about a quote for a paper I'm writing about a character from a TV series. I said the guy says, "I don't know where the anger comes from, I see myself and I don't know how to stop it." And my H just started to cry spontaneously.

There were several times he showed real emotion. I haven't seen this in 8 months. He said several times that he has doubts all the time. But that she is "good for him" and calls him on his flaws. I said "I did too." He said "but I had shown you a new side of who I wanted to be when I left the first time and you wouldn't accept it." I said this was true. He said "so I came back and tried to just be the old guy I was, and to be perfect for you, until I couldn't do it anymore. Then I just wanted to give up. But I wasn't going to leave you. I didn't have the guts. I didn't want to be the bad guy. So I tried to make you hate me. My anger and rage and my way of treating you, I was trying to make you kick me out. I thought it was the only way. But you wouldn't do it."

I said "you had to know I wouldnt'." He said, "I didnt' know it at first. I thought I could make you hate me enough to kick me out. But you didn't."

And I said "and you resented me for that."

He said "No I didn't resent you. I just wanted out."

I said "why did you want out?" He said "I felt trapped. I felt like I didn't have feelings of love for you and I didn't know what to do. Then I met her and I was powerfully attracted to her. Other women didn't exist in my world when things were good between us. When they weren't, I noticed one."

I said "but you could have said something. You could have said you weren't feeling love for me. You could have said we have a serious problem. We need help."

He said "I didn't want to try." I said "why?" He said "because I didn't want to do the work to try because I didnt' think the outcome would be any different. I didn't think things would ever change."

I said "but when you kissed her and confessed, and I said I'd still take you back if we just went to counseling and you stopped seeing her, you still bailed. Why?"

He said "because you had never shown the ability to forgive me last year when I left the first time (this is true, a week or so before he kissed her I had said I hadn't fully forgiven him and was still harboring anger) and I figured that you would say it but it would never happen."

So I said "so you were afraid you'd lose her if you tried with me, and you might lose me anyway, so you hedged your bets and tried with her instead as she was more of a sure thing."

He said "no. she is less of a sure thing. You were much more the sure thing. I chose her because I have never gambled in my life. I took a gamble. I was trying to do the opposite of what I always do. I plan. I think of the future. I chose to stop doing that. That's why I chose her."

So with that "settled", I asked about the anger. I said "now that you're out of the marriage, has your anger and such gone away." He said "no." I said "but you blamed our marriage." He said "I know." I said "and it's still there." And he said "at times." I said "where does the anger come from?" He said "any time I don't feel in control of my life."

He says that OW has seen the anger several times. He says he feels he can recognize when it's coming on and keep it in check sometimes. I said "you have two types of anger: anger towards yourself and anger towards your partner. Has she seen anger towards her?" He said "not really." I said "don't you think she will?" He said "I recognize when it comes on and I stop it."

I said "doesnt' this still make you a pleaser". He said "I'm working on that." "How?" I said. "I just am," he said.

I said "are you going to regress (because he is maintaining that he is better now)?" He said "I don't know."

He said he is happy with her and she is good for him. He said he isn't happy with the situation and has regrets. He said he feels horrible many times about what he did and then his brain tells him that's the cowards' way, living in fear, and that he needs to get past those feelings and live in the present and not in the past or let the past affect his present.

He said that many times other men tell him he should be happy he is divorcing and try to run me down, and he says "I don't understand these people. This was a failure. I'm not happy about it." He said that he has no more friends than before, that he has only her and two other women friends from before. He said he doesnt' want more friends, particularly guy friends, because they are rude and obnoxious and say insensitive things about divorce. I said "you're putting all your eggs in one basket--one person." He said "yes." I said "and isn't that what got us both into this mess?" He said "that's who I am."

He said his relationship with his parents is better than before--that his mom loves the OW and is talking about how this means she'll get grandchildren out of him. He said "that won't happen." I said "what if she wants them." He said "she doesn't." (so my suspicions were confirmed that the lack of contact with me from his parents comes from their accepting this woman in that they like her better than me). He said "they won't let us stay in the house overnight though.

I said "whenever they let you, and you sleep in the bed that you had sex with me in many a time, I hope you can't get an erection." Then I laughed. Sorry, I couldn't resist ;-)

He told me she is very insecure about him having contact with me even though she tries to act like she is ok with it. He told me that he was really bothered by what to think about the Christmas gift I gave him but that she said she wasn't, that he should take it as a gesture of good faith. I said "did you put more significance to that gift than I meant?" He said "Obviously I did if you put it that way."

So anyway that's a huge amount of stuff but I thought for an MLCer he was fairly open and you guys might get something from reading it. The end result of this is that I think he is at least human and not so evil, that I feel better to know that he has some guilt or pain over this as opposed to indifference, that he clearly still has issues to deal with, and that I wouldn't have been able to make any progress as an individual if he hadn't ended the marriage. I was shocked at how emotional he got in terms of tearing up. I just haven't seen that level of honesty in a very long time.

I'm not taking hope from this, let me be very clear. I have no illusions of this conversation making any difference to him. But it made a difference to me, because at least it made me think that he has a conscience and he has remorse and that he's not celebrating the end of this marriage, despite having someone in his life already. I have been trying to figure out so much of this puzzle for so long to get some closure, and this actually helped me with that. Him? Not so sure. I felt better when he left. He said he didn't think he did the right thing by being that open with me. I said "do you feel like you betrayed her?" He just said "I was too honest with you and too open. I can't live in two worlds. I can't break another person's heart." I said "she could break yours. And with no one else in your life, where does that leave you?" He said "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."