Keep breathing...

[mamabird]

Well, today went fine. I notified my H that I was feeling extra sensitive due to my hormones and he said he hadn't noticed, but thanks for the heads up. Probably he hadn't noticed because he's not all that interested.

I had an interesting conversation with a different woman at school. This woman is D and she makes it a point to tell anyone considering a D to WAIT. She was actually married to a fairly well known celebrity but rushed into a D thinking she was just done. And one day, she woke up and realized that SHE needed to change. So she went to Al-Anon (even though there weren't alcohol problems in her R) to get the support she needed.

She gave this spiel to my H just after I moved back - Labor Day weekend - and of course, now we know that he ignored her and called his lawyer one week later. She did say that she felt like he was very strongly attached to his own narrative about what had happened, but she also felt that he did want to stay together in his heart - it would just have to be on his terms. She told me that she asked him how he might have contributed to the situation that led to me betraying him, and the way that he answered her made her think that he hadn't even considered that before.

This is kind of shocking and kind of not. It's shocking in that he is so attached to his story that he thinks he couldn't possibly have done anything wrong, and shocking that no one else bothered to point that out to him. On the other hand, he chooses a cohort that is not going to challenge him and tell him that he had a part in it. And of course, I haven't seen any evidence that he takes even a shred of responsibility.

Anyway - the rest of the day proceeded normally - I made a really wonderful clam chowder for dinner and H said he liked it, but then at 8 pm he trotted out the door to meet up with his friend, without lifting a finger to clean up from dinner. I know for 99% sure he was meeting up with this friend, or else he had a fairly elaborate decoy plan in place - the friend called just before 8 and I spoke to him. So I have to believe that was the plan. This friend of his and I have always liked each other a lot (and his wife has kindly reached out to me) so this was a little difficult, but I managed.

However ---- after H left and I went back downstairs, I was pretty annoyed that he'd left all the dishes. He did say he'd wash them tomorrow, but he hadn't even cleared the table, and as you all know I can't stand dishes around. PLUS - I was in the middle of making a cake for someone and couldn't exactly work around the pile of dishes.

So I decided to call H on the phone - and I said, "You know, it just wasn't cool of you to leave without washing the dishes." I was very calm, not angry, not b!tchy. He said that "he didn't feel like getting all sweaty" and "he didn't feel like leaving later than he already was" blah blah. For my part, I was glad having said my piece to him. I'm still a little resentful but not as much as I would have been if I hadn't said anything. I'm not sure why he thinks it's appropriate to just go out and leave a huge mess, and in our new M, I'm going to be brave and call him on his BS.