New Year, New Life (19 months)

[adinva]

H moving out has made a big difference for me; it was kind of a linchpin. I don't think it would have been better if it happened earlier, and I couldn't stand for it to have happened later, so I think it just happened when it needed to.

I am not a good pretender. When I said before that I was happy and content in my marriage, I really thought I was, even though I saw my stuff getting broken and my H disrespecting me and the kids, and constant nitpicking. I was the frog in hot water and I never wavered from my principle that married people stick together.

To go for an entire year with h telling me he didn't love me, didn't like much about me, and planned to move out and planned to get a divorce, and was only staying in the house to protect himself from a claim of abandonment of property, that was painful. I plastered on a smile and I pretended and smoothed things over, and doing that called into question for me why I had done that for so much of the past decade too.

I think there's an element of tolerating and accommodating that a healthy relationship has to include, and I'm not saying it's healthier to air your dirty laundry at every chance. But I was kidding myself for so long I didn't even really know I was kidding myself, and now that I'm not, it seems very false to pretend.

I had a very hard time with emotions based on my personality and upbringing, to the point where I really didn't even know what they were, and thought that even if I did know they didn't matter anyway. This whole event has changed that for me, and I don't see the value in going back toward that.

I feel like I'm no longer a bit player in my own life. I have my own legitimate feelings, opinions, and wishes, and I think it's real to share them where it's appropriate. (It's the learning where it's appropriate part that I am currently working on.)

I think about my life and right now I'm glad my H dropped the bomb and eventually moved out because I would have gone another 20 years suffering and plastering a smile on and riding the bus with these people who are my closest family. Not doing that any more.