was writing my first entry for the journal. an interesting thought i had - i feel really reassured by the conversation with joann today - not because she gave me any indication that it would all turn out fine. actually it was so different -
what she said to me made me feel that i am really doing the best and the most that i possibly can, and later, no matter what happens i will always know that i gave it my all. that acknowledgement gave me a lot of peace suddenly, and it feels as if it is enough for now
Yes!! Glad to hear that the call helped give you some more confidence and strength to go forward
well - a bit of a complicated development. you guys are either going to 2x4 me over the top, or be like wtf!!
s wanted a sleepover at his friends last night and after i dropped him off - i called h to talk about b'day present, turned out he was trying to talk to me on a bike ride, and i just casually said well since you're just a few blocks away why don't you drop in. it was about 9.30.
i was really surprised when he said yes.(i've never said that to him in this s)
he had brought up and wanted to know what i thought of what s had done the other night - he definitely saw it as s showing in front of him for the first time that he was unhappy about the separation.
we made small talk for a while, and then h initiated r talk, so i let it go on. the gist of it - he owned a couple of pretty big things - one of them was so heavy for me that i got emotional and cried a bit. then what he's been cooking himself up to tell me - the same thing he told mil before ow came to town - that he was in another r and it was too difficult to have a r with ow and still be married and that he didn't want to keep it secret anymore and thought it was best that we file for divorce. he felt ready to have ow in s's life. that he had only come to realize now, recently that this is really what he wanted.
it was very calm - i did get a bit emotional and he did too. i absolutely did not ask anything about what he was planning to do with ow he kept taking the conversation back to old stuff and talked a lot about wanting to really be friends. and how he didn't want to lose the connection we had and was really afraid that i wouldn't allow it.
it went on for a long time, i consistently brought the conversation back to the present and just focused on how we could be better co-parents - i didn't ask too much, validated everything he was saying,. the conversation even got to where he admitted that he was really messed up and kind of knew that he wasn't doing the work and taking the easy road. he said that all his anger towards me was gone, and that now we were not angry with each other anymore
at some point i did casually throw out there the being frustrated because of too much you know what on the brain. he asked why i didn't do anything about it and i said i wasn't going to make that mistake again and would wait until i was fully out of this before i even thought about it. he took it to mean that i was pointing out what he was doing - and i was really like oh my god no way i was completely talking about myself.. the convo went on for a while - i was emotional, especially when we talked about s.
then i decided that it was time for him to leave. he got his boots on and tried to say he was sorry - i had asked him before that if he would let me know when he filed so that it wasn't a surprise in the mail - that led to talk about what and how a divorce is.
oh and at some point he kept saying - this is the way i see it - you really want this to work out and.. and i interrupted him and said uh uh, he couldn't assume that anymore. that i was very much on the fence, and that there were certain things i wanted in a r and there wasn't enough to convince me that they were possible with us.
so at the door he starts to apologize about coming over and making me feel terrible - and i just said - why do you thing i feel all that terrible - you're projecting on me. he kind of wouldn't stop and i just threw out - just come over here give us a kiss and off you go. and he did (oh did i forget to mention that throughout this whole thing the sexual vibes were so damn strong, it was ridiculous). i didn't let the kiss go on for more than a few secs, patted him on the butt and said off you go and took off to the kitchen to get some water. he called me back and the next thing - he's wanting to know if we could continue.
he said - i don't want you to get the wrong impression - and i just said actually the reason i stopped the kiss was that i didn't want you to get the wrong impression. he looked really taken aback. i said look the vibes are really strong you have to admit, but lets be really clear - this is just for fun - absolutely nothing else, and if you can't handle it, then lets call it a day.
well- it was clear for him that he absolutely did not want to stop - i didn't have any c's so we actually went on his bike to his house (he seemed to prefer to go there, insisted on it). and it was a lot of fun. this morning he sort of groaned when we woke up and looked at each other but we still continued
he brought me back to my place , i didn't ask him in - but as i kissed him i asked if he was okay - and he said no, you know me i'm going to be really f'ed up about this. i said - that wasn't the plan - if we do something like this we have to be on the same page about not getting messed up about it.
there were many times he got pretty vulnerable last night - said somethings i didn't expect him to say.
well - how am i? i'm actually pretty okay right now. the only thoughts in my head are no expectations, have fun, and joann's words from a couple of days ago - allow him to make mistakes.
about him filing now and saying it calmly - yes he could do it, and yes i'll probably come here and weep and wail - but i can't say that it wasn't a possibility that i wasn't sort of preparing for. what i made sure i did last night was absolutely no resistance except at the end when i had said to him that he should look into the divorce thing - when he asked, i said not the way and details about how a divorce is done, but what a divorce means and the effects of it for all involved. he seemed a bit surprised and asked why i just couldn't tell him - and i said go find out for your self (nicely)
i also let him know that there was mandatory children's counseling during and after divorce (that shocked him - he hates counseling ) and when he said that he was afraid that s would hate ow and blame her for our split , i said well - that can be handled during s's counseling and it was his thing to deal with.
i also requested right out (adding that it was not in my control what he did) that ow is not in s's life until well after the d, when he seems okay and there is a strong commitment between them. he insisted that he wouldn't ever do anything without talking to me first about it. i let him know how much i respected how he had gone about things during this s, and not involved s in anyway.
interestingly he told me slightly bitterly that his parents wanted nothing to do with ow and had made it really clear to him (i don't think they said anything literally - mil would have told me)
maybe we shouldn't have slept together, but we both admitted this morning that it really broke the ice- he called me babe non-stop, which i was surprised about -
oh well - i think i've just sort of given up hope and don't really know where this is going to go. my IC was right about "gathering data" - it was fun, but i did find myself wondering if there was something better for me out there. heck, if you think about it - ml'ing with your husband after he's told you he's filing for divorce. there's got to be something better than that!!
well, right now i'm calm - i don't even know where i'm going next with this - i am just going to trust that i am going to stay in the same state. i really don't have any expectations!!
gosh sorry this was so long
thanks for any input zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
I have no 2x4s, who knows what might happen? The sun still came up today, life will go on.
How would you feel if you had replied just after he said he was going to D you: H, do what you need to do, right now I need time to think. Good night. ?
Me 57/H 58 M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13
Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do. I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering. Caroline Myss
well, KD there you go again making me dig deep. i'll try to answer this morning and then the same ones again in a few days, just to see how consistent i am
Originally Posted By: Kaffe Diem
The real test could be not whether you have expectations as might as whether you took any meeting out of what happened between your H and yourself.
the meaning i took: was that we were just acknowledging the very present and real attraction between us. the sexual energy between us has been HIGH for all these months - every time we interact. what i felt and saw last night - h is emotionally still very connected - but fighting it really hard (he has said in the past - "i'm in love with you but i want those feelings to go away and i'm going to fight them as hard as i can"). i was surprised at how i was during the whole thing - quite detached but totally acknowledging the deep connection - and we both were - verbally. we talked a lot - extremely intimately, each telling the other things we were never able to say before. i saw him feeling extremely vulnerable - many times during the night. what i came away with? i'm not totally sure - that he confirmed verbally and physically many times the deep connection, and i find myself thinking yes ok we have it, but that doesn't mean things will work out, and i was sort of okay with that.
What was the purpose of your choices and the subsequent "events" that followed?
frankly KD - when i said on the phone why don't you stop by (he had just found out from me that s was away) the way he replied yes, i already knew that he was thinking about that. and it was really obvious when he walked in.
my choice to do it: the DB coach joann and i discussed what i should do if this came up. she advised me to hint at it and throw it out there and wait to see how he would react. she said take every opportunity to allow him to make mistakes - as many mistakes as he can - and she said him sleeping with you is a big mistake for him in his r w/ ow. so that was one purpose, and the other was - heck , i've written here how i feel and it just felt good to enjoy that. the odd thing was that it wasn't just spontaneous and over with - we biked over to his place, and there were plenty of opportunities for him to withdraw and change his mind. and it continued this morning when we woke up.
i felt in charge of myself and what i was doing - which may sound a bit strange, but i think it's an indication of where i am in the detachment and letting go
Has the events changed the meaning you initially thought your choices and actions would validate?
actually yes - i was surprised at how i found myself thinking - this is fun, but i want better things for myself - the attraction is deep and powerful but without the complete emotional connection and commitment, it wasn't quite what i need. on the other hand, i could see that it deeply affected h. much much more than i expected to see. what he was affected by, i don't know - can't read his mind, maybe he'll tell me sometime.
That's deep perhaps, but dig... and see what you might find there...
Are there any meanings which may be false or may have changed?
not sure what you mean by this question, but if i understood it right - i had convinced myself that for him the connection was gone - and found out last night, in spite of what he was saying, it was very much there - more so than i thought. so having it validated for me was good. just recently i had said to a friend that i always remembered that our sex life was amazing but after h trashed our whole marriage, i'm wasn't sure if i was right - maybe it was only for me and not for him at all. now i really know it was good for him and that makes me feel better, not because it may lead to anything but at least i had seen it correctly for what it was.
on an additional note, h said while we were talking - he spent a lot of time trying to talk about how we could be from now on as friends and when i asked him to be specific of what he thought us being friends meant his answer was - i want the whole connection that we've always had, the only difference would be that we weren't living together. i added - well actually it would mean not living together AND not having sex, and besides if you are turned away towards someone else, you won't be able to truly have that whole connection even if you want it. he said pretty painfully that he realized that. at some point he added that he thought us separating completely could lead to other stuff... i didn't know what he meant by that, really so i just kept quiet and didn't respond
thanks for your questions kd - this was a completely unexpected thing that happened - but i can't help thinking that events were leading up to this in some way, these last weeks. also i came away with the feeling that h was testing the waters - to see how available i really was, as he senses my detachment and letting go, especially after the trip i took last weekend. i did make it clear to him that if for any reason he changed his mind and wanted to try to work it out that i would probably agree to give it a shot, but honestly couldn't say right now that it was a guarantee, or that him wanting it would guarantee that it would definitely work out.
so lets see how i'm doing in a few days here
thanks zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
I'm glad you had Joann's advice with you to get through this. No 2x4 but as bug said just make sure you're not stepping into quicksand without a lifeline!
How would you feel if you had replied just after he said he was going to D you: H, do what you need to do, right now I need time to think. Good night. ?
i did say the do what you need to do, i respect your wishes etc. and several times in the subsequent hour i thought about ending it with a casual goodnight.
but i chose myself to let the conversation go on - not like before where h pulled me into it. heck labug, he was validating some of my hurts , he was owning stuff, he was (after the d stuff) telling me how messed up he was - he needed to talk, and he said so several times.
i kept my space, i didn't so much as hint at pursuing - i could sense that he was trying to get me to change his mind, practically putting the words in my mouth
if i had done what you suggested - i would have done more of the same as i have done these past months, which obviously isn't working. what i did was allow him to come closer - the other way was withdrawing, and what joann and i discussed was that it seems the more i withdraw the more he withdraws. the more i allow, the closer he seems to come. the message i would have given him if i had done that was 'i don't like what you are doing" = i'm not going to validate your feelings=i am really angry with you (his biggest fear that keeps him away). what i did for once was just validate my own needs.
And I con't think it's complicated at all.
did you mean can't or don't? did you mean that kd's questions aren't complicated,or the situation isn't complicated?
if you meant the second - no, i agree i don't think it was complicated at all - it may be for him, but not for me.
what was weird last night was that it felt as if we were doing it for the first time - the whole rush - the bike ride - sort of like how you just meet someone and you're just going to go for it kind of feeling. very weird!!!
you're right life will go on:)
thanks zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
