Just updating or journaling or whatever....I realize that this is a major emotional backslide. I'm sorry.
It was pretty much a long hazy-feeling weekend. I was luck enough to have a friend that was kind enough to spend a lot of time with me that has been through a lot of this before, so that was helpful. As I tried to stay out of my own head this weekend I kept finding a mountain of questions that will probably never be answered and that just made things all the more frustrating. I think I cycled between hurt, anger, fear, loneliness and confusion over and over -- it was a lot like the first BD but not as unexpected.
I keep going back to the basic questions again - what, exactly, was so terrible about me that the door had to be slammed for good. Yes, there were things that I needed to learn how to do better, I needed to find a better way to "show up" for her in our M - but I know that I was not some deplorable beast incapable of reason or listening. In fact, most of what we experienced is so typical of couples -- especially ones with new babies. Why was I viewed as so "unsalvageable"?
I find myself wondering why she never even told me that she was unhappy to the point of seeking a D beforehand? It never came up - ever. Had she let me know that that was how she was feeling, or that was how bad off she was I think I would have listened. Tell me that you contacted a L, or you have started the filing process -- I would have listened....and I would have gone for help. I loved her and my son enough to do just about anything to keep us all in tact. I cared. I valued her. I valued my marriage. I would have worked with her to save things.
The other thing that is jabbing a spear through my heart is our son. Not the fact that he hurts too (though that does get to me) but the fact that we were a couple that had to go through three years of infertility and 5 different treatments before we were able to conceive and have a child. During that whole time she told me that she loved me, that she wanted a family with me -- and I believed her. I poured my heart and all of my love and support into her and into our relationship during that process. It was so emotionally difficult that I thought if we could make it through it as a couple it would be a galvanizing experience that would help our relationship. It was like a test. And after we learned she was pregnant we were on cloud 9. Life was great again and we had conquered what was once unthinkable for us. We were going to be parents. I was so in love with her, my life and our unborn baby - I was beside myself. And she, it seemed, was in love with me. The same held true after the baby came.
I am not re-writing history. There were times when we were getting used to being parents where I was a not a good partner. Not out of lack of love, but I was selfish. I didn't know how to give of myself for the greater good of my marriage. I did not know how to serve my wife in the role of "father". Notwithstanding, those 18 months as a family were some of the best of my life. I had never been happier. And when I would tell her how happy I was she would say "Why can't I see it?". I wish I would have seen that question as severe as it really was. Then - she left. I was devastated. The child that we had worked for three years to bring into this world was taken away from me - and I was left as a single dad to an infant. I had no idea what I was doing - all the while trying to keep my head above water from attacks from her lawyer and crippling depression and sadness. What did I do? I wondered that all the time. Why was I so disposable? This was a woman that just 18 month prior said she loved me and wanted a family with me.....was she lying? Did I change dramatically?
On her way out the door she began to say she had been unhappy for 8 years. Why, then, did she say yes when I proposed? If I thought she was miserable I never would have asked her to marry me? Why, then, did she go through the years of physically and emotionally grueling infertility? How does that happen if you are that unhappy?
S told me yesterday that OM came over the play with him and he is "mommy's new best friend"....they all went for ice cream. S mentioned his name and said he is really nice. I look at that and my heart shatters. That was supposed to by my life. That was what she committed to me in marriage and with starting a family. I feel cheated. Lied to. Betrayed. And I feel as though she does all of that without emotion and without consideration of how it impacts (or impacted) me or our S.
She is still in a place where she blames me for things....if S cries during exchanges it's MY fault. If he mentions that she wasn't at a bday party that we went to then she says I TOLD him that she didn't want to be there. Everything is still my fault.
Last week when we saw C together, she dropped the OM bomb on me with a cold, clinical kind of delivery. Just matter-of-fact. There was not emotion in her eyes or face. It was like she was telling a stranger.
I get mad because, selfishly, I look at this trail of wreckage she has left in my life and my son's and now SHE gets to be happy. SHE gets to be in a relationship and find love. I know the world is not fair - but that seems supremely unfair. SHE gets to put another man in front of our S....the child we both longed for for years. Why does she get to be happy? She was willing to go to hell and back to have a baby - but threw in the towel when it was time to work that hard to have a family. Why? Why does she get rewarded for that?
I apologize to all of you for the rant. And I acknowledge that this is a major emotional backslide.....but I just feeling dead on the inside from so much hurt in this....from missing my son....from having her fight for more than equal parenting time...I just feel dead.
