Thank you Job. I feel slightly better but have to stay home a few more days... Then if the blood test shows that the virus is gone, they will put me on some meds that apparently make people either tired or euphoric. Doctor said I may be flying around and seeing everything through pink glasses. That would be great! Now before you think it's some kind of drugs I have to tell you it's "just" cortisone - to treat my eye problem. We'll see. But pink glasses for a few months would be really nice :-).
So before I see everything so positively, I need to journal a bit and reply to Cat.
Cat, I hope you are having (or had already) great holidays!
First, I'm happy to report that I'm now more detached than before holidays. Not sure how exactly it happened but maybe being sick and worried about myself and being so busy with the kids (which was the best thing about my illness - I got to spend so much quality time with them!) I just put my H aside. Also, him coming home almost everyday and at any moment he wished, it just made me increasingly uncomfortable...
Regarding my H's "parenting" if we can call it that way, I agree with you, I cannot do much. But it does make me angry what he does. He made plans with kids again last week. Asked them to help him putting his new furniture together in the new apartment. It was on a school day in the afternoon. Kids were not happy but accepted. Not only that he did not show up on that day, he only sms-ed me around 8 p.m. to say he was dead tired and he will come the following day to cook dinner. Then on Sat he informed them that he will come to get them on Sun to do that. On Sun he came, went to talk to kids then came downstairs, told me he was leaving and to call him if he can be "of any assistance". He was quite angry when he was saying it and his voice was weird. I guess I looked puzzled so he told me that "they" refused to help him and because it's becoming rather urgent he does it he was going to do it by himself (not once he put together a small Ikea shelf, neither did any drilling, it was always my job - I wish I could be a fly on his wall when he was doing it). I didn't say anything. Neither to him. Nor to the kids. Kids already told me several times not to keep helping him, accommodating his needs and accepting things on his time, that he doesn't deserve it (my teenagers smarter than the mother?)...
I truly believe that I'm detached enough not to be angry with anything else, but I will keep alert to my true feelings in case I'm in denial. Thank you Cat for pointing this out. And I'll work on not getting upset about his "parenting" and ignore it. Just support/talk to kids about it when they need it.
As for his "executor" role. Well, I can understand how he can feel like that. However, it's one thing that I cannot do/don't want to do much about anymore. My H never did anything by himself. He was comfortable just doing his job and coming home to rest. Cat, I read somewhere that your h never helped enough for you to have time for yourself or something like that. It was the same for me. When kids were small he was coming back from work when they were already in bed and during the weekend it was his time to rest as he had "such a demanding job". Then I got back to work, had full time job just like him, with the same high responsibilities but he was not helping though he said he would, it was me who had to do everything. If I didn't, it simply didn't get done. I remember when we were building our house in this country I didn't speak the language very well. The language of the country is my h's first language. Whenever there was a question from the builders or something to do for us, decide on something etc., I asked my h to translate, explain, deal with it. His answer would either be he was busy and he just could not drop everything, what do these guys think, he has to be available for them when they need it. He has a job. Or he would say he doesn't understand what they want, he's not a plumber, builder.... to know what those words mean. So I ended up dealing with it by myself, using dictionaries and/or with my in-laws on the phone (in-laws who are also not plumbers, builders...). And the best example of how things were: neither me nor my h can swim with our heads under water. Because we wanted our kids know how to swim properly we agreed we will find a coach for them when they were little. I got a few names through our gym but they told me the guys did not speak English. So I gave their phone numbers to my h and asked him to make calls. To cut the story short: 2 years later the kids started their swimming lessons... So, I do understand why he may feel that he had to do what I asked or I did everything the way I wanted it. I always discussed options with him before I decided on something, he would just say "whatever, do what you think is best, I really don't have time to deal with this...". While I didn't mind so much as he seemed to be happy and though I was tired I was happy to do that for our family, now I see it was a mistake.
I do admit that I'm a planner and therefore things drive me crazy when not planned and arranged ahead. But on the other hand, I accepted for many years that we did things at the last moment and in a chaotic way. It was stressing me out but I accepted. It costs us a lot of money, energy and nerves over years. I was fine. But since the crisis and his criticising and blaming me for everything and having too much on my plate I just started to do things my way. Maybe not the best thing to do, maybe this really helped to create more distance between us but... And not maybe, for sure, I know!
Regarding the therapists, I still cannot get over that. But I think, it's a general problem, at least here in Europe. They just look at individuals and individual happiness. The fact that by being selfish (which they all kind of suggested to me to become) you can do a lot of damage around (e.g. kids, spouse, extended family...) does not seem to be so important. No wonder there is so many people with psychological issues around. My experience with therapists and the fact that for good ones you need to wait several months before you get an appointment (and then you are disappointed by their behavior) I decided to look up long distance learning schools. I found one psychology degree which seems good and manageable with my full time job (and full time parenting). My grandfather was a psychiatrist and I always had interest in it too. I still like to read a lot of psychology books. My husband always says that I have a gift and he calls me Mrs Freud (though I would prefer to be called Mrs Jung :-)). So, I decided I will try to get a degree and maybe change my profession in a couple of years. I'm in finance and in high demand for the moment but have no illusion that in a couple of years the demand will be for much younger sharks than me :-). I have lot of friends who confide in me and are telling me I should have been a psychologist. Well, maybe that's my calling. Another advantage is that I could do that anywhere in the world... Will try to enroll in the semester starting in March. Wish me luck! And even if I will never practice, it will still be nice to learn more.
As I said, I have some more journaling to do. I think I'm done with my h for now. Will try to limit my contact with him again. And I have to confess I sent h an e-mail which...let's just say is not a good DB-ing. Tomorrow. It's midnight now.
