Help please

[Maybell]

I'm still in moderation so if I'm repeating myself I'm sorry. Can't see what I posted most recently.

Had a long conversation with my H yesterday evening, trying just to connect without talking about relationship, separation, OW, or divorce. His end was talking a little bit about his travel and it was honestly so good to hear from him casually, that he was doing (even though it's for work) things that he used to enjoy that he hadn't done in years (golf, mainly, also poker with other guys, that sort of thing), and I felt bad that on my end what I was mostly telling him was how hard it had been with the kids. It was what I felt in the moment but we have been talking about strengthening our friendship and the kids are a tremendous worry to me right now. A lot of the joy has gone out of our house -- during car rides we don't sing together anymore, on our walks home from school they aren't as quick to notice the beautiful nature we enjoy in our town, they don't get excited about participating in family game night with me by myself.

A lot of this is on me, and I'm really trying to pull myself together and give them more of that cheerful energy. I'm not sure where to get it from, though. We're going to tell them about the separation this weekend and having that in front of me makes it almost impossible to find light-heartedness. Also kind of cruel, like it would make the blow seem even harder because they will fall so much farther. I've been trying to give them lots more hugs and cuddles, reassurances, encouragement, and attention to make up for the decreased happiness level in our house. I feel terrible for them, and guilty for failing to provide them with the sort of home I so badly wanted for them.

And I wish I had told my husband more about the good things about the week, how I had started getting back into my running & yoga, about the fun evening I had with my friend after the kids went to bed Saturday night, about going back to church. But I'm so worried about the kids... and part of me feels like he has made light of how this is going to impact them because he doesn't live it, and I need for him to understand how much they're going to need from him once he's back from all his trips. (In his letter asking for separation he said "the kids will be hurt but they'll be fine" -- like it was OK to hurt them now because they will eventually grow up.)

This morning I took a long walk, trying to figure out what I'm going to do with myself this week. Somehow, I don't have anything at all on the schedule except my IC appointment (I can add lunches & coffee with friends, yoga, runs, but at the moment my calendar is empty -- VERY weird, it almost never is). So I decided I'm going to clean and purge the house. It's something I have been wanting to do for a while, so it feeds me, and also I will have to do it if we end up having to sell the house, which would be one of the consequences of our failing to come back together. And I started going through the house in my head and thinking about things to get rid of and two of the things that I never use are a really nice, expensive mandolin for the kitchen, and also a VERY nice, expensive cookbook that my husband bought me several years ago. Both of these items are really complicated (the mandolin came with a DVD explaining how to use it), and both were given to my when my 3rd child was less than 2 years old (he's now 6). So I wasn't able to take the time to mess with them at the time he gave them to me and then they fell off my radar during multiple moves. Everything was always rushed. My H complained, once, a few months after he bought it, about me not making anything from the cookbook; this is VERY unusual for him, as he doesn't really talk about his feelings ever. And looking back, I realize that he probably feels like I didn't appreciate his thoughtfulness on those items, and perhaps felt disconnected because cooking was one of the things that we really enjoyed doing together when we were dating and newly married. Somehow it became a chore and a source of contention.

So I got to thinking about those items, and the ways in which we have disconnected over the last few years, and why, and what my responsibility was that I failed to meet, and it was humbling and upsetting. I kind of had almost a panic attack /breakdown right there on the sidewalk, but I breathed through it and thought through it, and though I'm still upset I feel like I've had a revelation. I can see some of the ways I've failed him and I need to change those things for myself, because I will take them to any new relationship if we fail to come back together. I realize I'm not a preferable, desirable, or even viable option as a partner for him at this time because of the ways in which I've failed to support him -- like, I tried to support him in ways that didn't matter to him, and failed to understand how to support him in ways that would, and he talks so little about his feelings and is in many ways so passive that I never understood how we were missing each other.

I don't know if I can make this right with him. I hope I can. I don't want us to divorce. He is my best and longest-standing and closest friend and even though we aren't connecting now it feels to me like he wants to nurture the friendship as much as I do. But he doesn't trust me with his heart, and I think I can see why. The OW doesn't even really factor into my thinking, because I feel like I wouldn't want me either, the way I've been. Is it a mistake for me to dismiss her like that? I mean, she's a deal-breaker as far as the relationship is concerned, of course, but at this point there is no relationship to speak of. Only a friendship I'd like to save, as potential precursor to building a new, sturdier (more thrilling) marriage.

Of course he has responsibilities and failings too, but I can't do anything about them. He certainly isn't motivated to. His relationship with OW has absolutely no future, even as a friendship, owing to the circumstances around it. So he can enjoy that fantasy for now. Is this a good attitude? It certainly goes against what my counselor, friend, and mother think, but I feel like it's letting go of a thing I can't change in order to invest myself in the things I can.

But then also the more I was thinking, the more I realized -- there are certain ways in which he has always failed to meet my needs, and that will never change, because of the kind of person he is. It just is, and a lot of what I love about him is the flip side of the reason why I know that he just will not meet my needs in those ways. I have a friend who, with a lot of counseling, has come to realize that her husband won't meet some very important needs of hers, and she has come to be OK with that. I didn't realize before today how resentful I was about things that I thought I had accepted. That resentment has certainly fueled a lot of the ways I damaged our relationship and I didn't even acknowledge it. Can I detach from having those needs met?

So now I'm thinking: If we split up, I have the chance to make a new relationship with someone who will meet these very important needs. (there's no OM waiting in the wings; I'm only talking about open-ended possibility here) But the cost would be VERY high. And I need to think about whether or not that is worth it. Right now, it's not. Will that change?

I'm sorry this is so long, and I hope it wasn't terribly repetitive. A lot of this is journaling for myself, too.