Not a hijack -- I knew when I wrote it how many of us would feel the same.
The night after BD#1 H and I sat outside with a bottle of wine and talked about how we'd gotten to that place. We asked one another a bunch of questions that had been bothering us and I thought we'd cleared the air.
His were:
did you get pregnant the 3rd time on purpose even though I didn't want another kid? (No of course not, we were planning a major move, and duh I had trouble getting pregnant the first two times so why would you even think I could?)
It seemed like you didn't like my sister when we were first married? (No, I didn't, and for cause, but she & I resolved that ten years ago, as you know)
I really hated the haircut you had when D8 was a baby (that one he's brought up repeatedly over several years. It's never looked like that since)
Why didn't you go back to yoga when we were on the west coast? (I told you why a lot)
No, he will tell a future girlfriend that he only married me because everyone else was getting married at that time and us divorcing was just him correcting that mistake. I even read a letter from his OW where SHE says she could never understand what was so wrong with the M except he maybe wanted a little more sex.
It makes me mad just to write that sentence.
I'm sorry, labug, if you're reading this I won't be writing about compassion today. I still feel it, deep down, but not enough to write about it.
H doesn't know what his plans are for today. He has an invitation from the couple we spent last Sunday with but he doesn't know if he'll go. As with every time he's invited to spend time with my friends, who were meant to our friends, he's reluctant to put himself out there because he's concerned about how he'll be received. I'm glad he's aware that he's behaving poorly. But he's still getting invitations! And from me too! Someone needs to find his big-boy underoos and recognize grace and opportunity when it nags for him to take it.
It irks me that he's willing to put me and the kids through all this but he's reluctant to show his face in public because he's worried people will think poorly of him. It's like he feels entitled to us loving him so he's worried about where the real damage might come from.
Yes, by trying so hard to work things out with him I probably gave him grounds to feel entitled. I'm done. He can have his lonely life in our small town and do the best he can with it. This is what he wanted, after all.
Wow, I am still really, really mad.
I think I'm glad about that. I've been treated horribly and I shouldn't have put up with it for so long. It's about time I found my limit. It's a year since BD#1. I should have found my anger a long time ago.
I do have compassion for my H feeling what looks to me like desperation. But I didn't cause it and I've done the best I could to help him address it. He has had better opportunities than most to address his problems and instead he chose to lie and dodge and blame me. My compassion has grown passive. These are his problems. I hope he solves them. I hope he doesn't visit them on our children more than I can compensate for. But I can't do anything about them and I'm done putting myself at his mercy.
Sorry for the ramble, y'all. I guess I've had a breakthrough.
Me42, H40 D12, S8, S7 A revealed: 7/13 Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15
