18 Wheels and a Dozen Roses

[AJM80]

H came over tonight, we went to dinner since landlady would be around to do moveout review on neighbors. Avoiding her questions and keeping time private. H was able to have a relationship convo for about an hour.

I honestly have terrible recall on this, so bear with me. I started out by giving him an opportunity to set some guidelines on the convo. I asked if he was seeing anyone and quickly clarified that I meant a psych or talking to a friend, etc. He said, no - that it felt sort of bipolar - sometimes he'd be really consumed by it all and the thought of us leaving/new financial situation and in general he felt like he was doing ok.

I said that I was happy with how we'd been getting along and he agreed. He asked how I was holding up. I said I wanted him to be happy, the kids to be happy, and I'd decided I was going to be happy. That said, I refuse to ever be cheated on again. However, I really struggle with the kid side of things. Some days there are moments when it is hard, when D says something or I just have a trigger. I also said, I worry about having someone else raise our children with me, and not ending up with someone with issues/weirdo/etc. He agreed and said men like my BIL (an amazing step father) are few and far between.

He said sometimes he wonders about asking me to go to more counseling and see if we can patch something together for the kids. But that he struggles with what remnants of our relationship would look like. And he repeated that while he feels that I am a good, good person, we had issues before this happened (later, I said I felt like our issues were very confusing and that I felt like he'd made a lot of conflicting statements and had rewritten history some. Not that I didn't validate his feelings/emotions, but that it was very unclear to me. He said maybe he had rewritten history, but that he had definitely been unhappy for a long time. I asked if he knew when he had been happy and he hedged, but thought he'd been happy when D was born)

I said I didn't know how I felt about him/wasn't sure who he was. He expressed confusion about this - I kind of said I didn't know if he'd been faking the good person I thought I had married with who he is being now. But I didn't say it that bluntly. I also asked if he was still seeing the girl. He said yes. Long pause. I simply said, I'm really disappointed by that. He said, I know. He then said, I shouldn't say this to you, it's not relevant to the conversation/it's a lot to put on you, but "I've been trying to figure out how to end it with her. It's not like I love her and sometimes I really hate her." I let the dust on that settle and he said again, well, not that that relates to what we are discussing. I said, well, for what it's worth, some of the things I've read say that is pretty normal, to feel that way. I said my concern is that I would say something negative (like call her a prostitute) about her/him to the kids, and that I didn't like that potential flaw in myself.