How do you trust someone who isn't sorry?

[grr]

oh, hope....
are you feeling better???

being sick on top of all this! something you don't need right now
i hope you are ok

it sounds like you are both dealing with so much
it also sounds like the end of the conversation was good, and while i know you don't and shouldn't read into anything, and "i love you" is a good thing

i think i would kill for one

it's so hard to know what to do sometimes but..remember this: you know your h better than anyone

it takes the proper combination of dbing and modifying it to what you know about him

last year, when i was here, i had been dbing, but as i know my h has abandonment issues, i knew how much i had to temper it to work for his needs

i really do hope you are feeling well and that you are having a good sleep

you are a strong, beautiful woman and you deserve to have this work out the way that you want

[Queen_of_Swords]

last year, when i was here, i had been dbing, but as i know my h has abandonment issues, i knew how much i had to temper it to work for his needs

Grrr, could you tell me more about this? My H's father walked on his family when my H was 8 years old, he has younger siblings. Left the family with no financial support.
I'm wondering how you handled a similar thing, if you would be so kind to elaborate?

[zengypsy]

Hope...just checking in to see how your feeling and doing on this Friday.

You and I are sharing some similar traits that your H and my STXH have. Besides the on-line dating thing initially, but when things get tough they run, the blaming....

You both are dealing with a heavy weight of various things. Not that I'm religious at all but I truly believe that God never gives you more than you can handle. You hold your head high and keep doing what you feel you need to do from your gut. Grr is right, YOU know your H better than anyone.

Feel better!

((((HUGS))))

[hope2011]

Reality check this morning. H is in California, in Newport Beach. Woke up this morning to the news and struggling to check on my people in Japan (all ok, thank God) and then the news that a wave may hit California. I know now they aren't expecting much to hit but of course I was worried at the news. It just puts it into perspective.

I only wish my H would see it as a wake up call too. Life is short. Stuff, bills, jobs, money... come and go. He woke up to the tsunami watch and wasn't worried. He's dealing now with someone using his credit card. As if he wasn't already at his limit. I know he's frustrated but life could be so much worse.

[AJM80]

Hi Hope - thanks for dropping in. H's don't work that way
I told my H a few days before he left, that if our lives were in one of my cheesy romance novels, one of us would get in a car accident or something and we'd suddenly snap out of the fog and realize what we meant to each other. I say crap like that all the time, it's my sense of humor...so he laughed and said, or we'd have amnesia or something, right?

Life is too short - he sees that as, "So I should do what makes me "happy" and what I want"

You see it as, we should respect the people we love and look at the big picture and not take them for granted.

good luck -- babies are freaking out, ready for bed here.

[AJM80]

Hope - one think DB coach said to me on phone recently. The tendency is to overly forgive/make it easy for spouse to come back. Kind of mentally saying, oh, I feel bad for you, let me help you.

Well, with that you are saying 1 of 2 things. 1) You're not good enough, you can't do this on your own (mothering or setting a low bar) or 2) I'm not good enough/I don't deserve better than ok. Well, he's capable of being good enough and you do deserve better. Maybe not having cash to check his bags would have given him a better understanding of what it was like for you, stranded in Jan. Not like he asked for help and you ignored him...you went out of your way to make life easier for him and to help him. It's not awful to be a nice, good person..just be careful not to do it all the time. Because if it is too easy for him, neither one of you are going to attach the high value to this relationship that you both need to have to be happy and recover from the crap lately. (Don't make his life harder, but don't make it easier either - he's making decisions and has to deal with consequences)

[hope2011]

Thanks everyone. Its been a bad week. I'm out of town, dealing with my grandmothers death and helping my mom. She died 5 states away from where she wanted to be buried so that was hard with the transport. She had 8 kids so there was drama and I had to deal with a lot of it and I was the one who had to check the coffin for damage to her body before the rest of the family saw here. H lost his job. The boys are in trouble. The furnace is dead. I am dreading going home tomorrow. Leaving a sad situation to deal with a bad one. H and I are getting along ok. He was there when she died, not for the funeral. But right now I just want to disappear from everyone pulling at me, all the pain. I feel alone and it $ucks.

[sandi2]

So sorry for all your pain, sweetheart. That is a very hard job, especially for one who already has so much on their plate.

((hugs))

[hope2011]

Thank you, Sandi, very much.

I'm trying to catch up here. I never have enough time to do anything anymore it seems.

H and I are still on the roller coaster. Good days, bad days. Days when he seems to be really, really trying and to really care and days when he's an immature jerk. It's like being married to a 15-yr-old boy. Which means now I live with 3 15-yr-old boys. When it's good, I start to relax, let my guard down, allow myself to trust him a little and then when it's bad, he does immature little things like delete me off of FB again, give me the cold shoulder, etc. He's not committed. He's here while it's fun, when it's not, he'll want out again. Knowing this makes it impossible to really trust him or give my heart to him again. It's just really frustrating. There are days like this weekend when we spent the weekend together, 2 dates, ML, laughing, having fun, hanging out, talking about decorating the house and the future a bit. Then days like today when he just can't be bothered and little things roll into big things. I feel like I have to bite my tongue 24/7, we still don't talk about the R at all. That builds up a lot of resentment. And I fell off the wagon today.

I have a hernia, diagnosed last week. H lost his job, which means we lost our insurance on the 31st = no surgery for me. The charity needs office furniture. I can't pick up anything. We have 2 15-yr-old teenage boys. Am I wrong to think that maybe, as part of the family, it wouldn't be too horrible to ask them to move a desk? I spend 6 hours a week at baseball games right now, I'm putting food on the table, etc. Just 30 minutes to help me as the woman who has helped them with countless school projects... is that so bad? Apparently it is, because H doesn't want to bother them. I was supposed to go pick up furniture today (donated so on a time frame) but I was stuck. H was "too busy" (doing what?! He's out of work) to help me today. To pick up a few boxes and put them in the car for me and meet me this afternoon to get a trailer to pull furniture, pick up the boys after school and get them to move the furniture. And by the way, H wants to see if I can find him a desk too in this whole thing. So this morning, he tells me he won't help me today, that's he's so "busy" and I need to "take care of it on my own". He didn't lift a finger to help me put boxes in the car either. I was so upset when I pulled out of the driveway that I backed into the mailbox and took off the drivers side mirror. H comes out of the house, yelling, checking on the mailbox post, muttering "I'm not paying for this". Never asked me if I was ok. I lost it. I yelled, I asked him what type of husband makes his injured wife carry boxes, leaves me dealing with stuff again along and doesn't even ask how I'm doing. It's my fault I hit the mailbox, that I let him upset me that much that I didn't pay attention (my first accident, ever in 20 years of driving). But would I have had the accident if my H was kind, supportive, caring and I wasn't upset? No. I was running late for a meeting so I just moved my boxes into the other vehicle. Again, no help from him. He stormed into the house, no doubt upset about the mailbox. When he saw from his office window that I was putting boxes in the truck, he didn't come to help, he came out to tell me that he needed the truck today. I yelled back "H, what can I do to make YOUR life easier? How can I help YOU?! You need the truck today? Well tough S, I need it, so do what I have to do when I need someone's help... figure it out on your own!" and I left. I was upset and posted on FB "You can really tell a whole lot about a person by the way that they react to a car accident" as a status update. No names, no details, no nothing. Not the least big attacking of H and no one knew about the accident. At some point after that, he deleted me off his FB, again. I'm sure he'll want a D again now. And of course, it's all my fault. All of it. So I banned him from my FB - never again will he be added as a friend. After the 10th deletion, I am done. I'm not in high school, this is beyond immature so I'm just removing him from the opportunity to keep doing that to me. He knows it bothers me, so that's why he keeps doing it. No more. Boundaries.

Just yesterday, he was so very sweet. Snuggling every night this week, watching shows together. Going places I want to go, trying to be attentive to me. Saying ILY to me first, several times. He was trying, really trying. I started to feel like maybe he does love me.

Then today. I married Jeckyll and Hyde. Talking through matters isn't an option. He doesn't have time = doesn't care to talk. No resolving anything. Ever. I do not work like that. I cannot live in tension, confusion, unanswered questions, etc. No communication = no relationship to me. No communication = happiness to him. Ugh.

So my DB skills have flown out the window. Right now, he just got home picking up the boys after a game and I'm in the bedroom watching TV and trying to catch up with you guys.