Looks like I’m going to have to get a D. H and I were separated for over a year and came within 24 hours of D about eight years ago. I was DBing and he backed down. Now I wish I hadn't bothered trying.
H and I have been living in different states for over five years now. We mutually agreed that I should take a promotion out of state, and he would stay behind a few weeks to finish up repairs on our house and be out with me in a few weeks or months at most. He can work anywhere, so that seemed reasonable. That was a very long time ago.
I like him. I even love him. I just don’t want to make life decisions with him anymore. He has held me hostage to the house renovation promising me that he’ll be done soon. On several occasions in the first few years, he recommitted to the idea of finishing our old house quickly and moving here only to tell me that things didn’t go as planned or that something new came up. In 2006, I moved into a hovel for what was supposed to be six months…I spent three and one-half years there with all of my belongings in storage. Over and over he told me that the house wasn’t ready for a contractor and that he only needed a few more weeks. In 2009, we started seeing Michele and I was pretty much done trying to be patient. Finally he agreed in counseling that he would hire a contractor and that we could rent a nicer place. We got the nicer rental, but he never hired the contractor. He said it was impossible to find someone who would do the job, even though there are contractors being hired all over the city every day. It’s been over a year since that promise and he’s still telling me that he’s almost done.
H pressed the issue yesterday, saying that after five years he is getting ready to finish the renovation in our house. He said that if we sell it and buy one here then we’re making a commitment similar to marriage. He wants to know if we will be together before we do something like that. It’s a fair question. (Of course it’s just like him to compare buying a house to marriage. I always thought marriage was a considerably more important commitment than a house, but I’m weird that way.) As it is the idea of spending ten years with him under the same roof is not appealing. I’m very used to running my own life without him now that I’ve spent more than half of our married life without him around. When he is around, he’s hypercritical and insecure.
At first I thought the delays on the house were because he was on a mission to do what he had promised and that was fix up the house for a good sale. Not a bad assumption since the front porch had been torn off and there was a ceiling repair in the back that still needed to be done when I got my transfer. The projects kept growing in quantity and size. Then he started tearing out walls and I realized that he didn’t want to live with me. He was probably avoiding living with me, because I was really PO’d after a year of waiting. I went into divorce mode in my head and haven’t left since. After the first two years, I tried to be more zen about it and accept that he needed to finish for his own sense of accomplishment – maybe I could take the insult of him choosing the house over me if it would give him some self-esteem. My feelings were still hurt, but I could sometimes rationalize that he “needed” this. After three years I decided that if he really wanted a marriage he should swallow his pride; and console himself by building something with me. Of course, that would have meant I’d have to take an interest in building something with him. Maybe I would if he showed more of an interest in being with me.
I thought when he and I went to counseling and he committed to hiring a contractor that he was taking the baby steps toward that, then it turned out it was just another one of his lies. He lied to me, he lied to the counselor, but really it was just another one of the many lies he tells himself. Poor H. I wouldn’t be surprised now if he doesn’t want to finish, because he thinks I’ll divorce him first chance I get – because all I needed was a handyman??? Anyway, he may well be right, because it’s all disintegrated into absolutes. So now, H promises he’s almost done, and he probably isn’t … but there’s still that insidious question “what if he is almost done? When H told me yesterday that I need to make up my mind, my first thought was “then I guess we’re getting a divorce.” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, but the truth is I don’t want to live with him.
He’s the sort of person who needs to be in charge… erm… so am I. I come from a family of debaters, so a good argument about the minutia of everyday life is fine with me, so long as it ends in some mutual understanding. Our arguments just end in stalemates. Agreeing to disagree doesn’t work so well if it’s the only way every argument ends -- from how much closet space we get to whether we have kids to the position of the toilet seat. Ultimately, what happens is that one of us imposes the resolution on the other and the losing party spends the next … forever… being PO’d about it. Who wants to live with that? I tried to be open minded, to see things from his point of view, only to have my views dismissed out of hand by him. We’ve both been lonely. We’ve both been overwhelmed. I’ve tried to consider his need to accomplish this project and keep in perspective, but I don’t see him considering what I need or what I want. He likes to tell me what I need, even when I tell him that he’s wrong.
He also likes to tell me what I think. He likes to tell me what I feel. He even tells me authoritatively what I’ve done and not done, based on NO first or second hand information. I digress… the point is that when I consider his feelings and open up to the possibility that I’ve got something wrong or misunderstood something or that there’s another perspective as valid as my own, I’m met by a person who takes that to mean that he must be right, because I’m the one who is in doubt. It isn’t fair, it isn’t considerate and it isn’t respectful; I’m the only one in this relationship who is going to look out for me. I’ve tried looking out for him, and all it gets me is miserable.
Lately, the threat of D has been the only thing that has ever gotten him to back off of his ultimatums about how we’re going to live our lives. Unfortunately not any of the important ultimatums, there are some things he’s more than willing to divorce me over, and maybe he’s right on those points, maybe I should be thinking more like him on those issues. I realize now more than ever that the big D is the ultimate line in the sand. If I choose to stay with him, I lose all of my leverage and then I’m as good as saying that we’re going to do everything his way from now on. Maybe some women can do that. I’m not one of them. I really want out of this. Just wish we could be friends and leave it at that.
