Nope, I am not in the indifference stage. And I do actually really want to be there. And also, I'm really terrified of being there. Does it mean he and I are really, truly over if I actually get indifferent? Maybe that's it. But I really, truly do WANT to be indifferent.
Also, my housing situation is completely up in the air at the moment and that always brings out the crazy in me. It could be awesome or it could be awful, and I have no way of knowing which way the chips are going to fall. Before I'd get worked up about housing but I tempered it because someone had my back (you should have seen how zen I was when I moved into this house!). But now, I don't know for sure what I can afford, I don't know if the kids are going to have to move twice, I don't know how all these options are going to play out once the settlement is written and I am SCARED of it all. So that's a big part of all this emotion too.
(I'm just back at looking at a rental house that is kind of far from my home, that is tiny and FILTHY but not in a scary neighborhood... and at the moment my life feels like two steps forward, three steps back.)
Betsey, you are completely right to call BS on me. I appreciate how nice you are about it, too.
At the risk of navel-gazing. You ask about my two speeds. You have to understand that in the last several years most of our conversations were about movies and television. He stopped reading during the years we were happy together and he never wanted to hear about the books I was reading. Then he decided to make it a personal goal to read 100 books in a year. Do you know how focused you have to be to read 100 books in a year? But he did it. But if I ever asked him about any of the books he was reading -- if I'd enjoy them, what he liked about them, what he found thought-provoking, whatever, he'd get mad and say his brain didn't work like that and why did I have to keep pestering him? The deepest conversations we had were about characterization on shows like Walking Dead and it was mostly just him holding forth about the White Hat/Black Hat thing. So reaching out to him on a playground level is too much for him... and yet he lingers in the house and won't leave. I mean it like playground conversation. But he wouldn't see it that way because for the most part playground conversation was as deep as he went. And I need him to just go but then again I guess not saying "Please go now" is a way of holding on to a tiny crumb.
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In your case, someone cleaned up the mess and you're still staring at it saying, "I can't believe you spilled the milk!" This is the insanity I had to point out. It doesn't mean it wasn't an colossal mess. It means that you do your level best to live right now. Quit looking in that rear mirror.
This is completely 100% accurate. Point taken. Thank you for phrasing it in a way that could get into my head.
I don't want to be angry for long, but I think till the move and things are settled (hopefully in the next few weeks) I'll be pretty raw. When we moved here barely two years ago. I had full expectation that a lot of the material factors that were causing us to be distant to one another would be resolved with this move here and then I found out that instead of caring about me I'd been dumped that way. I'm cleaning up stuff that was half-unpacked when I found out about the affair and since it was just one grenade after another I've only really been functional since October or so -- and I started a full-time job in November. So I never really got properly unpacked and I keep stumbling over things that ratchet the tension back up again. I'm trying, Betsey, I really am. I don't want to be stuck. This isn't a pretty place to be.
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Now, let me have a bite of our lunch dessert. 'Cause I need to ask you a really personal question. Is the reason you do this because you feel judged by others so much that you have to judge him and also to have him know you have weighed in on the judgement? I'm handing the fork back to you to mull over.
Yes. I feel very judged. Mostly by my parents. In the past whenever I needed help from them it wasn't long before my mother would mock me for needing them. I am kind of holding my breath for the day when she says something like "You couldn't even keep your marriage together" in a contemptuous tone of voice. She will. She has before.
I also feel judged by him. Weighed and found wanting. I am still trying to convince myself this isn't all my fault. I'm being defensive.
And I'm scared he's the best I could do and it's all downhill from here. Or that I'll find someone to love and it will be so complicated and messy blending our families that it won't work.
I did want to apologize to him last night but I don't know how to find the right balance with him without it getting too personal for either one of us.
Claire, that sounds good. Shall we set up a priority list for things to be mindful of?
Me42, H40 D12, S8, S7 A revealed: 7/13 Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15
