Claire learning to accept

[Maybell]

It's nice that your WAH replied with kindness to your note.

I'd like to respectfully suggest that you aren't acknowledging his feelings because you are so sure that you are right about the marriage. You get so angry that he feels the way he feels and your intent is to prove him wrong.

Would you really want your marriage back under those circumstances?

Wouldn't you rather he see your value and want you back because he came to that place himself?

And if he is dysfunctional enough to see leaving as a viable option, would you ever trust that life could stay good enough for you to feel safe in the marriage?

Sometimes I think you're wishing for him to be someone he's just not.

And I get it. You follow my threads; you know I struggle with the same things you do. But you focus an awful lot on him and how he won't come back to the marriage. But you're being just as stubborn in insisting on it.

I'm not going to lift myself up as any kind of poster child. But what I'm working towards is conducting myself in ALL my relationships the way I'd like to be in my future intimate relationship/marriage. You aren't. You're doing so much STFU that you're going to explode. Try a third way: changing your thinking so that STFU is just to give you time to practice being Claire v.2. Not a way of life in itself that breeds its own resentment.

Also:

--We told D4 together here this afternoon. She was so upset. She asked WAH if he could stay for a bit. I told him he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted. He said to her, "But I have things to do. I have to do laundry, take my dry cleaning in, unpack my suitcase." I'm not kidding. Does he really wonder why she wants me to hold her instead of him??

You know this is how things are in my sitch too. Have you been reading what Betsey says about this? That her D20 told her XH that home is with mom and dad's is where she stays. And it broke her heart almost as much as his. But it also warmed it, because it was important to her to be home to her Ds. Go back through and read ALL of Betsey's posts to me. They will help you.

Last thought:

Please throw me a life preserver. I feel like I'm drowning.

The image that comes to my mind is a lifeguard trying to save a drowning person who's panicking. Safety classes ALWAYS say that when that happens you have to let go of the drowning person or they will take you down with them. To my mind, this is where you are. Drowning because you are hanging on to a corpse. Let it go, create your new normal, acknowledge where you are. If the marriage is meant to be you'll have a completely new one that your WAH will have had a hand in creating.

Hugs to you, Claire, I know this is hard.