Going around in circles

[angel61]

Hi Accuray, Thanks for swinging by!

I’m not sure I know how to link my threads together, but if you click on my posting name and look at the topics I’ve created, you would see my story.

I see our similarities now, but I got to that conclusion in a very convoluted manner…..

I’ll give you an abbreviated history of my sitch:

Married 15 years, together 17. I am 5 years older than my H – I’m 50, he is 45. One D, now 13 years old.

We started as friends, and our R developed along the way until we got married. No goo-goo eyes for us, no mushy stuff. But although my H was not the affectionate type, he was very caring, cooked for me, we had many fun times together, we traveled and our sex life was good. We soon had a daughter, and our careers were blossoming. We migrated to the US, had some hard decisions to make, made some mistakes in real estate, had elderly parents to deal with, but otherwise, I thought we were OK. My only complaint, which got louder and more frequent as the years went by, was the lack of affection.

Until I got the bomb (June 2010) The usual script - it was all my fault, I killed his love for me with how I was - demanding, controlling, too much expectations, yada yada. H said that maybe it would be better if we parted ways. I did everything wrong but somehow later started DBing naturally, then I found the DB book and everything resonated with me.

Of course, later, I found out that there was an ongoing EA. (Sept. 2010) – a girl from a foreign country where H went for research work.

He helped the girl get accepted for a post doc position in the US, which started Oct 2010 and ended December 2011. That time was pure hell for me, and many times I just wanted to give up if not for our D. A few times I gave H the ultimatum but in the end, he would not leave.

He claimed that the EA ended in November 2010, but they continued to keep in touch on a more superficial level – more to help the OW finish her research work (H is pretty smart, OW is not!). But of course, it continued to keep H heart away from me, as his emotional needs and fantasies were concentrated on OW. He stayed home all the while though, and continued to fulfill his roles at home and as a dad, which I could not ever find fault with. For a while though, although we slept in the same bed, we did not ML at all.

Ultimately, he told me that he could not leave – he could not throw away our life together, and he could not hurt our D. Problem was, he did not feel anything for me. He did not know how we could exist that way. He told me that he feels he made a mistake in us getting married, that he married his best friend and that our foundation was not strong enough.

However, he was still in contact with OW even then. I asked that if he wanted to keep our marriage together, that he had to stop his EA and he asked me for time, and that he was going to do it his way.

WE decided to go to Retrouvaille. It was a turning point, and I thought that things would be good after that. We started to ML again, and he said that he wanted to make the decision to love and commit to our M.

However, that’s when I started feeling the same way as you are now. Although my H said he was determined to stay, he did not seem to be doing the work. I pushed, and he withdrew. He felt he was back, but I did not.

We went through tough times all over again, more because he felt that instead of moving forward, we were backsliding, and that I was expecting that he become what he was not all over again, just like pre-bomb. That was what pushed him away in the first place – his perception of me being unhappy in the marriage.

It came to back to a point where we started to think of separation again – discussing that we should probably think about it when D has graduated, etc. Our D has issues – she has an anxiety disorder and once even cut herself.

The rest of the story you will see here in piecing….. and this is where you will see my effort at self evaluaton, all this discussions about boundaries, tough love, etc. which I feel have merit but which I am not ready to implement as I still see changes happening in our sitch without me having to stir the pot.

Anyway, I have read many of your posts to other people and they resonate with me, and have started following your posts more closely. We may have different sitches but there is also a lot of the same things.

I feel like my H is an emotionally unavailable person. Even with his family and friends. he kows this and even during our Retrouvaille sessions expresed his frustration at his being unable to convey his feelings in words.

However, the EA brought out a side of him that was really surprising. I snooped and read his emails to her, and his journal, was so shocked with how he was able to express his emotions to her, especially in his musings. I think t was that part that hurt a lot - but again, I have read from many of you here that A's happen to easily and without the "strings" that a real relationship has that most people in A's feel their emotions so much more deeply.

Anyway, right now, its all quiet, and I haven't been posting coz I have just been enjoying not having to deal with emotional cycles for once.

Thats it for now, hope it wasn't too boring!