melissag VIII - but I'm afraid to have no fear!

[melissag]

25, don't edit on my account! You may have noticed that I have a bad case of diarrhea of the keyboard myself. All your stuff is good and what I need to hear, so please don't edit any of it out!

25, willbwell, RT and UD . . . wow. Just wow. Thank you. I have been struggling quite a bit the past few days and what a lift it was to see all your kind words and thoughtful advice.

Here comes the diarrhea . . .

I have been having so much trouble lately trying to figure out how to deal with H. How to interact with him. How much to interact with him. Whether to move closer or pull away. And generally driving myself crazy. I have gained more clarity on a couple of things, though.

I am still (though trying to keep it a secret even from myself) putting too much thought into what will make my H do something or think something, or say something. I need to be thinking of what I need. So that's what I am going to do. I am going to follow my instincts and act accordingly. If I feel that it is OK to say, go to dinner with him and the kids, I will. I do know that, at least for now, there will be no more ML. I don't think that I can feel good about myself ML with him when he has essentially told me that it's no strings sex. I did go ahead and ask him if he wants to go to the NBA game we have tickets to Saturday, because I feel that I can enjoy spending time with him and not be more hurt. If that turns out to be wrong, I will not do that again for a while. I just don't think that I can make a rule of limited contact or dim or dark or grey or whatever . . . I feel like the situation is fluid and I need to be able to roll with it. But, I will do so depending on how I am feeling, not how I think H is feeling or how he will respond.

I have been GALing, I have a great support system, I have made so many improvements to myself, and am regaining my self esteem, But in many ways I am still stuck. I am not moving forward, not because I am unable to focus on me and not my H, but because I am not breaking through a few specific hurdles that are holding me back.

I am ready to start removing those roadblocks. The first one is my house. You would never guess it by walking in (people tell me it looks like it's a model home and nobody lives here, ha ha!) but it's a total disorganized mess (drawers, closets, etc.), full of a bunch of crap I don't need and is weighing me down. When I try to tackle this project, it becomes very emotional/painful for me, and it seems too overwhelming. So, I am going to hire a professional organizer to come help me go through it. I know that I will feel liberated once I can get it done, and it's well past time to do it.

I also have a lot of fears around the process of D and the end result. Yet I still need to process a lot of anger on this front before I can move forward. As most of you know, H and I went to law school together and both had successful careers pre-kids. When D9 was born, we made a deal that he would work and I would be a SAHM. I have now been out of work for 9+ years . . . I can't possibly make anywhere near as much money as he can.

This is how it looks to me:

I will have to get a job (likely FT);
My kids will end up sitting in the kids club at school, or with a babysitter;
I will have to sell the house and move into a smaller one, or older one, or farther away;
We will be able to take fewer vacations and do fewer fun activities; and worst of all;
I will miss out on 50% of my children's childhood.

I am PISSED. Somehow H can make a unilateral decision to renege on our deal; to do his own selfish thing, then to take his (our) money and my (our) children with him. When I have given up my career, and my priority and focus all these years have been my kids. It seems so messed up - he gets the benefit of having worked these years, and he still gets the kids half the time (theoretically), whereas I get much less of the financial benefit of his working, but keep the burden of my not working; AND I lose half the time with my kids. I can't work out how this is in the least bit fair.

If someone else wrote this, I know what I would say. I know what the answer is. But emotionally, I am not there yet. I am still in tantrum mode and feel like yelling "THIS IS NOT FAIR!!!" I just haven't gotten to this part yet. I am still so focused on grieving the loss of my H and what I thought my future was going to be, that I can't even start this work yet. I am counting it as a positive step that I recognize it is holding me back, and it's on my to-do list.

As far as legal issues go . . . I have already been to a lawyer. Didn't learn much I didn't already know. We agreed a long time ago that we would handle this with mediation. My H claimed back then that he would give us well more than any court would order as far as financial support goes. We'll see what happens when it's real.

I have spent countless hours in therapy, on this site, reading, talking with friends, digging deep and working on recognizing the changes I need to make, and making them. But there is still so much work to do.

I realized today that I am still judging my H. I am doing it less, but I am still doing it. It is obviously a protective reaction . . . if I can blame my H or think he is bad, it takes the burden off of me. Well, that's the flawed logic, of course. This habit has gotten me nowhere good in the past. And I realized I have more work to do in this realm.

Same for this kind of thing . . . I can see that indeed, my H will lose far more in a D than I will. Even if he does have the kids 50% of the time. (BTW, UD, my H sees the kids almost every day of the week, and has them overnight two nights a week.) But I am ashamed to say, this doesn't give me much solace unless he realizes that this is true. I know . . . this goes back to the above where I admitted that I am too focused on my H and his feelings, and where I said I am still judging my H. I don't know exactly where this comes from - am I just a selfish person? Do I need everyone to see things my way? Do I need to "win"? I don't feel like any of those are true (anymore), yet I still find myself with these petty thoughts sometimes.

25, I admit that I have been unable to imagine my life five years from now, happy without my H. I have no idea what that looks like. The idea of imagining another man in my life - I can't even fathom it right now. That's not to say that I think my H is the best man on earth and I will never find another (though, as you said, there is a reason we got married, after all). I think it's more that I am so knee deep in this grief right now that I just don't see that; and I feel that with kids it is too complicated; and that I feel like if I did find someone, I wouldn't want to get married again, but I can't fathom a R that goes nowhere either . . . these are all things I am nowhere near addressing, of course.

I just don't know . . . I know I can have happy times. I can imagine five years from now, going on vacation with my kids and having fun. Being with good friends and enjoying myself. Maybe having a job that fulfills me (though I have no idea what that is). But I still see that cloud hanging overhead. The cloud that is there because our family is broken.

I have IC today and I think I am ready to really start focusing on me and what I want and need to make me happy. I am going to ask my C to help me with this, starting today.

I think that I lost a lot of myself in this M, and I need to find it again to know that I will be OK without H. It's definitely a process, but at least I have my work cut out for me.

I know I can do it.

As I was typing this, I had a short text convo with H - there is an event coming up that we all usually go to (actually, it was just me and H for about 5 years, then we started bringing the kids 2 years ago), and I thought we needed to figure out how that was going to go this year. So I put on my big girl panties and just said what I needed.

M: I would like to take the kids to XYZ on DATE; I don’t know if you had planned to go. I am happy to all go together, but it is important to me to be able to take the kids one way or the other. Let me know your thoughts.

H (20 seconds later): I'm not interested in going. You are welcome to take the kids. I'll put it on my calendar.

And when I read that, it stung - not because he doesn't want to go, but because of the way he talks to me. Maybe I am just oversensitive because of years of feeling slighted by him, but the "I'm not interested in going" just came across as kind of cold and mean to me.

But then I remembered - this is the way he has always talked to me. And he claims that it's not intended to be rude or cold, so therefore I should quit nagging him.

Oh 25, how right you are. He is losing way more in a D than I am.