New Year, New Life (19 months)

[Accuray]

I also wanted to comment on the "what does giving up look like?"

To me, giving up is telling yourself that there's nothing you need to work on, that you are the victim, that your spouse is a jerk and completely at fault, and that you will refuse to work on the relationship with them at all if they present you with an opportunity to reconcile, no matter what they are willing to do.

Agreeing to a divorce is not "giving up". Separating is not "giving up". Sometimes those are necessary steps to create distance. Moving on with your life when your spouse refuses to engage with you over a long period of time is not giving up either provided that you've learned from the experience and become a better person.

Sometimes there is simply nothing you can do to "get your spouse back." Accepting that is not the same as giving up.

Accuray

[Grace_O]

Advina,

While I can appreciate the honesty in the message (re: too painful to pretend), she may not.

Personally, I would have left it at: "I am not available to come this time, hope to see you soon." or something of that ilk.

As to her keeping it to herself, well, I think it's better not to say it if you do not want it repeated back to your H. Blood is thicker than water.

You can be true to your feelings without putting it out to the world exactly what they are and it might help you to feel less judged that way.

If you think a particular situation is not going to work for you...don't go. You do not have to justify why to anybody. Being busy might mean you sit on the couch and read. Just sayin'

HUGS

[adinva]

All good points, and very helpful.

Just saying I'm busy would be the easiest way out. However, it is exactly this kind of avoidance and glossing over that I am sick and tired of doing. I might as well just go if this is all going to be just another chance to not talk about how I really feel.

I would be fine going. I enjoy being with MIL, I'm fine hanging around with H, and it would be just like normal. What bugs me is that it is not normal. H left me and we need to start acting like it. I am conflicted in my own head here, nothing is clear or black and white.

By the way, H has this annoying habit of coming over as expected but ringing the doorbell 20 time while also unlocking the door. The only ones impressed by this are the dogs, who go nuts. The rest of us can hear the 8 beeps it takes to get the door open and we know he's coming and no one's running to the door because we are not 4 years old. So the 20 doorbell rings and H jumping in like ta-da!!!! I'm here!!!! to the cacophony of the dogs going berserk is really annoying to me.

So last time he came in like that I asked him why he was doing it, and got a nonresponse. I said it is annoying. More mumbly words. So, tonight he texted me that he's coming over to pick up mail and I texted him "will you use doorbell etiquette when you come over?" We will see.

I think he would like to be the much loved long-awaited hero arriving but no one is buying that but the dogs.

[adinva]

So all day I've stewed on this. I think my message is meant for H not MIL. For MIL I need to just back all the way down to perfectly clear and pleasant. We are not going to have it out emotionally, come to understand one another better, and go on to have a relationship without H in it. That's just not reality.

BTW it was IC who suggested I should talk directly to MIL, ask her why she decided not to see us on Christmas. So I could find out if she just didn't know I wanted to see her and the kids did too, and we were disappointed not to. And I did not know that H never passed my invitation on to her, if he in fact didn't. Since that is water under the bridge I was extrapolating it to our next interaction. But it doesn't feel comfortable for me to try to be real and authentic with my MIL. She comes at things from a different angle and then I feel misunderstood. She can be very judgmental.

For H, what I wrote down wasn't exactly right either, but this is what I was thinking:
[H], this has been extremely painful for me to go the last year and a half and all through this Christmas again, pretending like we are together and putting a smile on and acting for your family, and I do not want to do that anymore so I'm not planning to go this weekend. You have decided to split up our family and I think we need to start acting like it so I am not confused and no one else is. Maybe in the future we'll do activities together, but you are in the process of divorcing me and we just went public with that. It is very raw for me and it bothers me that no one acts like they care at all. I need time to heal from this."

BTW I got a response on the doorbell. He texted me "Does that mean ring the doorbell or not?"

I wrote back (after stopping to laugh incredulously that I am having this conversation with an adult): "If you need someone to open the door usually one ring is normal. If you are just coming in the 8 beeps are as audible as the doorbell so it is really extraneous. A dozen rings is far beyond extraneous." (did I really need to explain this? he does not ring the doorbell 20 times and jump in like ta-da!!!!! at our friends' houses?!?!)

He wrote back "Ok."

I am going to hit myself on the forehead with a slipper.

He just got here. No doorbell. S12 just went over to talk to him. Aaaaahhhhhhh.

[mamabird]

Accuray, I love your description of giving up vs not giving up. I can really see that my H gave up a long time ago, as I describe in my signature. You just made it so crystal clear.

[Grace_O]

Advina,

I agree that being authentic with people is a good thing. I don't think that means you have to share your feelings with everyone though.

I know that early on for me it was difficult to really know what some of my feelings were, outside of fear, anger and hurt. It was too easy to be reactionary and to want everyone to understand my truth.

His asking about the doorbell seems silly to you I know. Perhaps he really just doesn't know what to do and how. It might have been his way (albeit an odd one) of letting you know he was there.

I found all kinds of things like that really annoying. In truth, my H could do very little "right". He didn't know how to be around us in this new way and was honestly trying not to make me angrier or hurt me more. I know you probably can't really look at things from that perspective yet. Sometimes, I still can't

Whether you go to see your MIL or not, whether you are judged as pouting or not, doesn't matter. Do what's best for you and take care of yourself.

HUGS

[BklynMom]

Your emotions regarding this decision to see mil are so familiar to me. Also you criticized yourself for "stewing" over this decision. Think you are being too hard on yourself.

Alanon had taught me that very few decisions need to be made immediately.bin fact it is a good habit to always say let me check my calendar even if you know you are available.

It seems like you came up with an appropriate answer of what you needed to say and to whom it just took longer then you thought to get to the answer.

You are on the right path and it is not the easy one

[adinva]

I still haven't answered anyone yet, so I guess I'm doing Alanon and didn't know it.

Thanks for understanding. My little problems are my biggest ones, even though I know a bunch of people here have bigger ones, and people in the world have even bigger ones. I downplayed the importance of my sitch to my neighbor saying that there were more terrible things happening in the world, and she said yeah but this is the most terrible thing happening to YOU right NOW. That's a fact.

So MIL. I'm leaning now toward just going. I've been thinking about 25's difficult vacation where she decided to just leave all the pain to sit for a while and she acted as-if for the whole trip. This is 2 hours to see MIL. Maybe it would be good for us.

I was very very disappointed to find that no one in my H's family CARED enough about me to ask me how I'm doing or acknowledge that I'm in a hard situation. If you ask them they'll say they care. But what they cared about more at Christmas was to avoid any unpleasantness my emotions might cause. That was very meaningful to me. But not every interaction has to be epic. This can just be lunch and not about the larger picture at all.

At some point I need to step back from being the puppetmaster of the relationship between H and his mom and H and our kids and MIL and our kids. That role was not appreciated by any of the other adults in this situation, and I was knocking myself out in vain. I went ahead and set up this lunch - again playing that role - and can start to step back after this an no harm done.

I do not think I would feel good about not going. I think I have more to gain by going with a smile, again.

[BklynMom]

It could be fun! Look at how Lbug made lemons out of Lemonade en route to the grand canyon

[scaredsilly]

ad, what my sitch has taught me is that my H's family is HIS family. they are not mine. i had 16 years of giving and doing for them, going to all the things they expected me to go to, giving parties and attending significant "family" events.

no one ever called to see how i was during our year-long separation. i was really hurt.

but then, i thought back to a time when i could have done better about someone's loneliness and it gave me some compassion for their confusion and fears.

i'll tell you what else it did, though. i helped me to know that i will never really be "family" and i no longer have to "pretend" to be and sacrifice so much for those i mean so little to.

my "real" family always kept in touch with me and made sure i knew they cared and gave me their support and more importantly, their time and thoughts.

it's liberating, in a way. i can now have my own life and my H has to maintain a relationship with his family without my efforts. we don't have children together but even if we did, i would be cutting WAY back on my sense of obligations to them.

now, i have none.