ILYBINILWY

[Soul.Searching]

CV, I can understand your H wanting to go to the funeral, even after not seeing them for 20 years.
I still love my H and I think I probably always will. I think the way I love him will change and may have already begun to, but I think he will always have a special place in my heart. I don't see how I will ever not love him, unless I try to rewrite history, which I don't want to do. That would be lying to myself.
I love my IL's, they were my family too for 13 years. It hurts that things won't be the same. I know we will most likely drift apart over the years but they will always have a place in my heart too.
I think your taking it as your H choosing them over you but I don't see it like that. It's a funeral for somebody he once cared about deeply.

My H does remember most of those examples. He remembers about the note at lunch. He told me the only reason he did that was because his friends laughed at him and he was embarrassed. The thing was, he went off. He yelled, he swore and I felt like I'd done something terrible. So I didn't do it again, he all but told me not too.
He didn't come and tell me what happened and how it made him feel. He lost his [censored] instead. Why would I continue to do it? Why would I think he wanted me to do it.

There are some examples he didn't remember.
I found a lost ring that H gave me when we were dating, he tried to tell me he didn't give it to me, that it must have been someone else. It was him, I didn't take it off for years.
It seems he has "forgotten" anything good or anything bad he did from our dating years, from our early years of marriage. Basically he only remembers the bad things I did from our first maybe 8 years together.
The good, happy parts are gone from his memory, a lot of the bad he did is gone, too. He does have a few good memories I think and some of the bad he did.
He gave me a teddy for valentines day when we had not long been dating. I slept with it every night for years, until H told me how childish I was for it. He says he never gave it to me, someone else must have.

Just last month he was asking me if he could borrow a tent. The tent had been destroyed a year before during a camping trip. We left it there, in the bin in pieces. When I reminded him, he sounded very surprised and shocked as he remembered, followed by a long silence. It seems he is already beginning to " forget" our last year together.
All the lies he told other people, the my wife is such a bit*h thing, has turned in to his reality. I think it started after I had S8. I put on weight and H was embarrassed of me. I put on a lot of weight, I didn't have a tan and was a SAHM. He was embarrassed and told someone his date fell through, so he came to me instead.
Thus, the beginning of rewriting history. He felt he needed to find reasons why he got "stuck" with me and he begun to believe it.

I didn't see these things clearly before, I think I choose not to think about it.
People really can be so complicated, I really thought I knew my H so well. I now don't think I did, not in the ways that truly mattered anyway.
Maybe try to take a step back and sit quietly. You might be surprised at what you found.

Do you know the reasons your H's ex left him? Maybe he was too clingy and too involved? Maybe he brought his baggage to your R? Maybe he is so scared if he gets too involved you might leave? He may be so stuck on that, that he is blind to see that, this way is much more damaging.

I really do belivev that sometimes we get so wrapped up in our troubles, we fail to see the bigger picture. I do know now, that there comes a point where the only thing left you can do is save yourself. That's why I can now begin to understand how H could leave. To me, he didn't try in the ways I would have, the ways I believe could have helped, that's probably why I missed him trying. It was a different way, than I would have used. I missed the signs, I missed his cries for help. That doesn't make me right and him wrong. It comes down to basic human differences.