Yes, you’re right. I do turn it inward and look at myself as insufficient when he says I don’t understand. I was good enough when I was in the trenches building his career, believing in him, being his only supporter financially, physically and emotionally. When I met H, I was out of his league—young, beautiful, free, and very responsible. I fell hard for H, a risk-taking and shy artist, I guess you could say that opposites DO attract. He just started his career, he lost his day job because he couldn’t find a balance, his car was getting repo-ed, and he was getting evicted. And here GAL522 came along, rescuing him. That was the dance for many years, and it worked.
It’s hard to feel sufficient when I feel like I’m constantly compared to the women that throw themselves at him. I can’t outshine desperate women. I’m attractive, I take care of myself but I’m not the groupies that he attracts and the women that are looking for men in night clubs. And right now, he likes that. As a local celebrity, his presence is needed everywhere and he feels obligated to being there because that’s his fanbase, it’s work, but he also gets a lot of validation from it. Also, I do feel insecure when I know that his pool of available women is different, he can pursue the TV personality, the model and actually have a chance.
When we had our son, everything changed. We had a hard time getting pregnant, so after 5 years of trying, it was as if my dream came true when we suddenly became pregnant. H’s career was taking off and it felt like both of us were living the dream except my dream included H engaging in being a father, by my side. This was the time things shifted, my attention was on our son whom we nearly lost while I was pregnant and H had to navigate his career without me being his right-hand man.
He does feel like a life with me is “conforming” or “settling”. He said that he can’t be the father and H he needs to be because of the demands of his work—he feels so unique. He says his work doesn’t allow him to be present. He has projected on me, that I should be with someone “normal” and he can’t be “normal”. This is when I second-guess what I’m asking for, who I am, and what he wants of me.
I’ve done nothing but compromise for this M, most of it driven by fear, my faith and my desire to break the cycle of divorce. I feel like H was aware of this and tested how far he could go. Long story short but H set me up to be his co-signer to lease his new exotic car. Up until that moment, I gave in to all of his reckless financial decisions. With this sitch, I told H that if he insisted I go through with it, I was done. We went to the dealer, I signed because I wasn’t going to embarrass him in front of his peers, and I told him I was done. I asked him why he made me do it knowing the consequences would be a S or D…he said that he felt we could talk it out. This is just an example of the lack of partnership and respect in our M.
If you were to ask H what he has given up, he would say that he has declined on some invitations out or shows to fly home to be with the family. H deleted pics of OW on his phone. He hasn’t given up his privacy—I used to have access to everything which I didn’t abuse but over time, he became more and more protective of HIS life.
