You make a great point about being in the moment of the holidays. Yes, the portraits would be for me and D, and maybe for my family.
I've been thinking a lot about your question about how I measure H's character. Your comment stung a lot at the time. And the obvious answer is of course there is more to his value as a person than whether he returns to our M.
But there are other, complicated sides to it. His choice to abandon the marriage without any REAL effort to improve it (he says he tried hard and did 'everything'-- but I'm sorry, that is just a load of BS)... that choice feels so incredibly selfish when I think about the pain that his choice has brought to so many of the people he cares about-- his D, his parents, his family and friends.
Some day I know I'll be past it. But I'm not there yet. I'm just not. Maybe it's because I don't feel very close to my family--though they are emotional terrorists to me-- and that I don't have a large group of very close friends (and right now during the holidays, most of the people I would want to spend time with are away, or spending time with their own families-- while H and my D are spending the next two days with his friends and their kids.
It's so incredibly hard right now to not have anger in my heart towards him for snatching a life away from me. I want to be a family. I don't want to be a part-time mom. I don't want to have to go over the calendar with my D and say, "You're going to spend the next two night with Daddy, and then after that two nights with Mommy".
FOR WHAT? Because he is too immature or emotionally stunted or weak to be willing to put in ANY effort to explore or change feelings about our M? Because he has this infantile idea that feelings can't change (well, I guess he believes they can only change in a negative direction), and that people can't change, and that you either love someone or you don't?
How do I not feel betrayed and angry about that?
I've had a couple of vivid dreams the past week where H and I ended up in a R discussion, and I was able to really articulate how this felt, and he was actually able to hear it and understand, and there was some hope that we'd be able to work on our R. And then I woke up and realized it was a dream, and felt hurt all over again.
How does a man of integrity do this to a family? Not just me-- his D, his parents, his family and friends. How does NONE of that impact encourage a person to be willing to choose to have some hope?
labug has asked me what my fear is. Maybe it's that I'll never trust someone again. I'd need to know that someone has a realistic expectation of what marriage and relationships are like-- and that someone would be willing to do the work. And I don't know how I would find that out before it's too late.
Maybe it's just because it's a holiday, maybe it's because it's raining out, but my heart is really hurting right now. I guess it helps to just share that. I don't really have anyone else to share it with. Sometimes I want to just let myself feel this hurt-- it is a legitimate hurt to have to miss out on huge chunks of your child's life, and to miss out on other relationships that came with the marriage. Right now I don't want someone telling me that I'll be ok. (I know I will). I just want someone to hug me and say, "I'm so so sorry you are going through this. I know it really [censored]."
I know I won't feel like this forever, I don't feel like this all the time, but I feel like this right now. And that's ok.
