1) all you can go by are his actions. He needs to get that.
the post I wrote earlier today discussed the discomfort of his choices...I want you to really think about that for a minute. 2) Comparatively, it must be easier for him to be and wallow where he is, than to change, and face the damage.
In a nutshell, that's it isn't it? I mean, otherwise he'd be home now.
I wish he could grasp that the damage he is STILL doing, will ultimately lead HIM to so much more pain...
not to mention yours and your children's pain.
The kids will grow up with or without him. If he remains gone, HIS loss will be very great. (a Greater loss than theirs, given the givens...)
You, OTOH, have no healthy choice but to move on...and to grow and become healthy and in time, happy. You won't be looking over your shoulder every time something goes wrong in your new life. (He will....)
Looking at the future...various paths...regardless of whether you remarry, there will be other positive male role models in the kid's lives, thankfully. (And if you do remarry, imagine what they could see in a healthy m...just saying, there are upsides to divorce, when the alternative is crap).
Anyway, the kids will grow up with or without him. They grow fast.
They will have graduations, weddings, child births new jobs and trips....where will he be?
WIll he walk someone down the aisle, be there as "the father of..."?
Will he proudly beam at his new grandchild in the maternity ward, or will he simply get an "indirect" announcement via another family member who was acutally there?
He has avoided looking at the enormity of his coming losses...and hasn't had to.
While it seems overwhelming to him now, in some ways it's simple.
He just has to return & make incremental but consistent changes in himself,
(Life, think "geometrically" for a minute...a small change in angle, of just a few degrees, leads you to a very different place than if you had not made the change, once you get down the road. Make sense?)
So let's say he returns and he regains some trust with the kids. (They WILL forgive him if he returns. They are simply built that way, thank God).
He and you can help create a legacy of commitment, forgiveness and redemption. It's a generational thing here. Not just the coming weeks or months... But He has to do his work.
My worry is that he's lost, selfish, fragile and weak. The longer this goes on, the less likely it is that he will do what's needed to get moving. He has work to do.
I don't know what will make him do the work, or if he will or if he can...I just don't know. Maybe filing will make him wake up at some point.
But isn't the question what filing will do for YOU?
YOU have to decide what you can tolerate and for how long. Only you can make those choices. No one here will judge you.
We do have to set examples of boundary setting for our children. And we are teaching our children, whether we mean to or not. We (and they) do Not need the "company" of someone who isn't actually there for us. We must teach our children not to go to "empty wells" to drink, to quench our emotional thirst, or we'll always be thirsty.
Teach them how to recover and heal and be happy again. That is our job.
As for your h, his confusion is confusing to the rest of us. So all you can go by are his actions. He either walks the walk or just talks the talk.
So, What do YOU do?
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
