Newbie needs help:husband left Saturday

[dxw689]

I have been sharing some in other threads, but want to update those kind souls who have been helping me here on my own thread. I have finally been getting a LITTLE bit of emotional distance from husband: one thing I have trouble with is that he is still the first thing I think about in the morning (and in the middle of the night) - that feeling like, oh, yeah, I am waking up to a nightmare I can't change still...

I have learned not to be the first to initiate texts or phone calls and in person not to initiate conversations, to respond. We had a nice day shopping for a Christmas tree last Saturday (the 14th) - he stayed for dinner, but at the end of the day, I asked him to keep an open mind about things and he said that he was happier since he moved out. I have to come clean: I called him a selfish pig and he motioned to me like "see, that's how you are" - I said I was sorry and told him it helped me to get where his head was at because I was having trouble separating.

Sometime last week, he brought the kids back to my house after school and had started dinner in the oven (I had requested) but left quickly when I got home. This had the kids crying before dinner, so I comforted them on the couch - but my son in particular cried for about an hour- near the end, I called my Husband to have him talk to them. After he had spoken to them, I got on the line and told him that they hadn't seen this coming, I hadn't seen this coming and that his deciding when he was available all the time was hurting them and me. He said he was having trouble listening because he was standing near a road outside a store. I said, well, you have purposely engineered this so that you never have to talk about things. I went to his father and stepmother's house for their Christmas celebration this last Saturday and that went well, except when he was leaving, I asked if the choir director knew my daughter was singing Christmas Eve and he said he had told her maybe. I said, we have known for months that she was definite - I should not have corrected him.

Husband is coming over today at lunchtime to spend Christmas Eve with kids and me. We will go to see my daughter sing at church tonight, then he will come to my mother's tomorrow morning and I will cook for him, my kids, his mother and sister for dinner tomorrow. He wants all the trappings of the family for the holidays and wants to be with the kids. He is a good father. It is just me he doesn't want to be with: it is painful, but I cannot go back now and change things I did (principally yelling at him when I was feeling tense - no, not that often, but it was still too often for him: he doesn't yell and is conflict-averse: This is now clear after I heard the BD and subsequently all the things he was keeping score about me over the years). But I really mourn the loss of our family: It was a really good, happy family life - no simmering anger or tension - just I now realize too late, not for him.

M20 yrs
S11, D8
BD 10/8/13
Moved out 11/30