More detachment, less anxiety and the continued joy of limbo

[Phoebe]

Well, today is just mediocre, at best. All day long I have been feeling down and on the verge of tears many times today until a little while ago when the tsunami came again and finally knocked me down, and it's still rolling on in.

I worked with my dad most of the day on our tractor and mower projects, and that was good, but at one point he just stopped and looked out over my land and remarked on what a beautiful piece I had. I could only respond that I must have been been pretty awful for H to leave all of this because of me. Dad tried to say something nice, but my head just wasn't into what he was saying.

A while later we had to take the mower deck back to his place because I didn't have the right tools, and he asked me on the drive if I had changed my will yet to exclude H. He said he didn't imagine that if anything happened to me that I would want H and his girlfriend to have my half of everything. Of course I haven't changed my will, and then I just felt a bit worse.

So, it's been that kind of day, I guess. I had dinner with my parents after the repair stuff was finished for the day, came back to my place, showered, and then just started sobbing and hyperventilating again.

So tired of this. I know that all I can do is just let myself feel it and get it out, but I just feel really awful about myself right now.

Marriage forensics:

How much did I miss or, worse, ignore? How did I lose my best friend and H after 25 years and have no idea it was on the horizon, except in hindsight? I haven't felt totally safe with him, emotionally, for 2 1/2 years, since the first time he blew up over something seemingly-random and then it devolved into him having to leave before he said something he couldn't take back. He ran away then, too, to our other house in the other state, and I followed him.

We just sort of mashed things back together and went on. That was the time I begged for his forgiveness for something or other, and felt awful about myself for doing so. We talked the next day and he said he couldn't handle it that he felt like he couldn't make me happy. That was when I found out he was seeing the therapist about his dad's death. I was shocked he hadn't told me about it when he started going to her. Why didn't we start seeing a MC then? Because we were both afraid that the experience would make things worse, that it would tear us apart by encouraging us to tear each other apart in front of a third party. I loved my life and H, and had no big complaints, but plainly he had some major things going on that I didn't get.

In hindsight, I found out he'd already started lying and going out to clubs without wearing his wedding ring by this point. Lying by omission about seeing the therapist was par for the course. At the time I knew nothing about that.

We ticked along until a similar episode about 1 1/2 years ago now, and that was when he cut back his work hours and we started really prioritizing being in the same house each night, commuting back and forth for his job, and being together. Again, in hindsight, this is when he told me he broke contact with his clubbing friends and he no longer had any opportunity to go out without me. I didn't know any of that, of course.

More hindsight, I had to stay here while the chicks were tiny, so that meant every couple weeks he was back in the other state alone for a three days at a time. He sometimes would stay an extra day for "work." More lying, but I took him at his word.

He seemed more committed than ever and really seemed to bond with the farm. He was affectionate and loving. We got a business certificate together for the farm, bought a new tractor in September, and other things that seemed like he was liking what we were doing and moving forward in that direction. There was nothing after that until he walked away, beyond an odd feeling about the way he reacted to a couple things I said (not arguments at all) over the last 2 weeks before he left.

Oh. There was the way he acted really strange after returning from that business trip in the fall, absurdly jet-lagged from Europe, but otherwise OK. In hindsight, that was when he told me he had to stay longer for work and I found out online a couple months ago that he actually went traveling on his own instead, doing who knows what. At the time he just seemed exhausted. My therapist says it was probably avoidance behavior. He didn't want to talk to me, so he feigned jet lag and just slept.

Anyway, a not very good day. I did a lot, but felt unsettled all day long until It finally broke this evening.

I've had mostly fine to good days over the last 10 days or so, and I knew it couldn't last, but it's still no fun when the tsunami comes roaring in again. I'm feeling a bit better now. I didn't take anything, just letting it pass on its own. Journaling here helps.

Thanks to every one that's checked in on me today - Zeus, ciluzen, Blu, Grl, Painter, and my fellow traveler in the land of Oz, SadHUb. I'd like to click my heels and go home now, except H was always my home.

I wish that H hadn't strung me along with all those nice things he said over the first 3 months. He was lying to me. He gave me hope, and then dashed it in March when I discovered the affair and he said we 'were over" for the first time, even though he back-pedaled that statement. What little hope for our M that still remained when I went to see him in April to talk about our "new direction" was just crushed by that debacle.

I looked up the Stockton Paradox, and I know that I will be fine, with him or, more likely, without him. It's just going to be a long journey and today isn't one of the highlights of the trip.

I hope that everyone gets some sleep and some peace.