Hi lostsoul13, thanks for dropping in. Seeing your stat info, it's really hard for me to imagine leaving a year after having a child together. It seems like something had to be good enough in order for that to happen. Plus, knowing what I know about D and kids, I think I would just be at a different place than your W. I'm sorry for the sitch you and your kids are in.
For me, there is no OM, so that obviously makes it easier to stay, at least in not having someone/somewhere else to go to, pulling at me. However, it does make it harder to get my emotional needs met. I've had opportunity for pick-ups (no thanks) but a deep connection with OM isn't likely. I work from home and spend a lot of time with S, whereas your W obviously had that opportunity. It isn't right, but I can certainly see the appeal. To be completely honest, I'm not sure I would have the will-power to resist it if I found someone I was connecting with like that. I would not, however, with the plans I have to stay until S12 is out, go looking for something. I suspect, for you, OM is one of the hardest aspects to deal with. ((())) Kudos to you for continuing to try to reconcile in spite of.
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Does he have any positives for you? For every negative he has, can you list positives? Or is the positives not meeting your love language and that is why you don't care?
Oh, he definitely has positives. He's not a horrible person. It's just that his positives aren't positive for me. For example, as I mentioned in my previous post, he'll drop whatever he's doing to help out a friend, but that includes me. If I need him for X, and the neighbor needs him for Y, he'll help the neighbor. So, yes, it's a positive that he's so helpful, it's just that I'm not the beneficiary. He's also quite good at golf and softball, but I don't play either. He loves his kids, but does so more than me. If they want one thing and I want something else, they win, his logic being that majority vote wins. Well, if it's going to be 1 of me against 4 of them, then I'll never get what I want. So again, devoted father, but at my expense.
My top two love languages are honesty/openness and conversation. To the first, he has proven repeatedly that he's comfortable lying to me when it benefits him, so honesty is not something I'm going to get with him. To conversation, he has explained to me that women have a greater need to talk than men, and therefore that's what my GF's are for. So unless I'm content just listening to his day or other superficial comments (the news, car needs to be re-licensed, taxes due, etc.) then I'm not going to get that need met either.
So I guess the answer is that I'm not getting my needs met. I probably never did, but I was willing to over-invest back then. I'm not willing to anymore. I've addressed some of my apparent co-dependency issues from the past.
Yet if you met him, you would think he was the most devoted H in the world, a H that I would be a fool to walk away from. I had a mental vision of him this weekend being one of those beggars standing at the street corner with a sign that reads, "Will work for food." It really pulls on your heartstrings, and many people just hand them money. But if you call their bluff and offer them work, then you get the real story. Unfortunately, no one ever calls his bluff. Or if they do, he has a ready excuse of why he didn't "show for work," and usually it's another fabricated story that also pulls at your heartstrings. No "work" is ever actually done. I'm just not falling for it anymore.
I don't think M should be tit-for-tat. It should a voluntary desire for each party to contribute to the happiness of the other. But I believe with H, that's what is required. I see people that would be much better suited to be his W. Heck, even the sweet widow across the street would be a great match for him. They're almost the same age, she has kids so H could experience the "step-parent" role equally, she likes sports, she seems to be willing to get walked over by family "for the sake of family," she doesn't criticize anyone "to their face," only behind their backs, etc. She even loves my S12. Honestly, if H told me he was having an affair with her, I would give both of them my blessing and offer to pay for the rehearsal dinner!
What does it say about my M when that's the sort of thought process going through my head??
