2nd Thread - After almost 1 year, I keep going

[keep_going]

Hi,

I haven’t posted in some time.

I went to my home country with kids for 10 days over the holidays – tough and bittersweet experience.
I was very glad to have them spend quality time with all the extended family and cousins. It was very good for them and I made sure to enjoy every moment with them.

I did forget how much work traveling with kids can be, though. It was tough but looking at the bright side, it would have been much worse to be bored and just thinking of H all the time.

My goal for the trip was to work hard on detachment from my H. It has been easy some days and tough others – I understand it’s a process and I am ok with the ups and downs. I know how everything is more painful TO ME when I don’t detach and that helps.

The hard part was how absent H was during these holidays.
He went up N to stay with SIL and be with OW (SIL lives close to OW and has met her.) And usually when he is with OW he is practically MIA.

The only day he initiated a call with the kids was on the 25th – the few other times he talked to them, I initiated the call. Maybe I should have not, but the kids were really struggling w/o him. It’s very hard because they never know when exactly they will see or talk to him and all other cousins had their parents there. I made sure when I called him to be pleasant but not try to start conversations and just have him talk to them.

There was one nasty incident while I was gone that I am very much responsible for, though… MIL also went to spend holidays with H and SIL as well. So H finally came clean with MIL about OW and tried to use this opportunity to introduce OW to her. MIL told him not to bring her to SIL’s house – she didn’t care if it was SIL’s house, OW was not welcome there.

H was apparently shocked by his mom’s reaction and talked to SIL. She told him that my two other SIL’s also knew about OW and were not happy with him. I don’t know why she would say that and it’s not my problem. But needless to say, this created a huge problem.

H’s other two sisters are very close to me and I had told them in confidence about our R issues and developments throughout the past year as things have happened. They are both very good friends of mine and have been an integral part of my support system. I trusted them and I thought they would not be judgemental of H. Throughout all our conversations I always defended H and would tell them I didn’t want them to judge him or take sides.

Anyways, H left me a message while I was abroad saying just this:

“Hi, it’s me. It turns out all my family hates me… So I guess thanks for that.”

When he was finally ready to address this with me after I came back, He told me he has never felt so judged in his life and accused me of telling his whole family of his private life.

I obviously apologized for him feeling hurt. I asked him to please talk to his two sisters – they were all adults and he should first hear their opinions before accusing me of anything.

I also told him that I had confided in them about my private life as my friends and support system, not as his sisters and that I had always taken ownership of my faults in the demise of our M. I told him that I had even defended him on occasion and that I trusted that they would not turn their back on him, so to please talk to them and clarify everything.


I told him I had never talked to any other relative about his dating or OW, but I understand how upset he felt. He has been really careful and slow to introduce OW to everyone. . He told me that he wants his family to accept her and that my inaccurate description of how things happened was not helping. We both know his motivation is to legitimize his R with her so that people don’t find out they started a R before she left her husband.

And I could care less – I don’t want to be right or have everyone judge him or her because it will make it harder for him to come back if he ever reconsiders. I trusted that SIL’s would not betray my confidence, but I guess somehow someone said something.


The truth is that I never intended to have anyone take sides, or judge, but I should have known better. I had told my SILs about OW when I found out way back in the spring, because I was desperate and hurt and they are my support group and because they know my H and love him as much as I do. Yet one of the 37 rules of DB… don’t involve relatives. I found this out too late and it all backfired on me.

Yet, the worst part of it is that the next day after that fight, H acted as if nothing had happened. He has not brought up that incident ever again. I fear that he has swept it under the rug (bad dynamic he has had with me for years) and is just keeping that anger inside and let it fester along with all the other things he is angry with me about… L

I spoke to one of his sisters after this blowout with H and told her how much I regretted telling them anything about H. She told me that I didn’t do anything wrong – they both actually already knew about OW before I said anything to them because H has been very obvious about it with his own actions and had actually even made comments about OW to a mutual friend. She also assured me that the issue was not with OW, but how H’s actions were hurting everyone.

Apparently H asked all his family not to treat me as his wife anymore. He asked his mom not to invite me for Thanksgiving and both SIL’s and MIL are mad at him because apparently he wants the whole family to break contact with me and they are not willing to do that - they all want me to continue being part of their lives and will see me apart from H. SIL said he will need to respect that.

That explained MIL’s reaction last time I saw her before my trip. When we said goodbye, she looked at me and tears came to her eyes. She hugged me and just said “I am so sorry.” I gathered all the strength I had, smiled at her and said “Please don’t worry about anything. I promise you will be just fine.”

And I do believe that. It is a very painful road and I am owning and embracing all of it, the growth and the stumbles along the way as well, but after 1 year since all this mess started, I now know that I will be fine with my kids no matter what. And that to me is HUGE progress.