Good time to reflect on my Mom .... mother's day indeed!!!
In my country of origin,we tend to be more matriarchal. My mom is typically a strong woman, very intelligent, an MD as well, and all my life I had a sense of her frustration at being tied down by motherhood and an unhappy M as well. She never was really maternal, did not breastfeed (eew!), me and my sibs were brought up by nannies. Not unusual in our culture. She valued her freedom, but conversely, depended on my dad for the daily grind. My dad on the other hand was the steady one, but not affectionate. My mom craved affection but I think not being used to it, she was awkward in showing it to us kids, and her attitude towards us was a little confusing. As a result, we were distant from our parents, seeing them as authority figures, and not touchy feely. I leraned to be independent pretty early as I was in boarding school at the age of 12.
I had resolved to take the good things she taught (that women can be achievers, that we should not be dependent on a man for our money) and change the things I felt were not right (the lack of affection in our lives).
However, I now see myself going that same path as she did!
25, see what you think of that.....
On another note: Thank you for seeing the effort my H does. I thought a lot about that, seeing that other posters here seem to think he should be doing more, that I should be expecting more.
I don't know if its because what you say is what I also believe in, but it does resonate with me. I had been thinking that in our situation, laying down boundaries and ultimatums at this point will only lead us to separate, as the way my H will see it is that he has tried so hard but has never been able to make me happy. His problem is that he had such a sense of failure that he does not think that anything he does will work. Come to think of it, he had said before, a long time ago "if only you could have been happy with what we had then,things would be better" and its true, I do examine every little flaw, because I do not want to go down the path that my mom's M took.
But now, I think I will stop all this examining and analyzing and thinking, and will try to keep my mind and heart quiet, allow myself to appreciate the good times.
We did have a good Mothers day celebration. H over-exerted himself by cooking a 4 course meal, with all the best ingredients - lobster, crab and filet mignon.... he apologized for not buying a gift and I said his efforts were worth more than any store bought gift. There were a couple of times that he had small flare-ups of anger but I just ignored them.
He now left for xOW's country for work but I do not feel threatened at all, nor worried. I will really just take this day by day from now on.
Me:49 H:45 D:12 M:14 T:18 Bomb: 6/26/10 EA: 9/3/10, fizzled out slowly, now ??? 11/5/11 Retrouvaille Finally piecing.... Its peaceful at last, but we got a looong way to go