By the grace of God

[mleigh4]

Hello and happy weekend,

Here in Cali the weather is beautiful and spring is in the air! I am having a nice weekend. I went to a friend's bday party last night. A neighbor was supposed to come, who I have been told I should meet, but he had another birthday party he was at himself. I guess it wasn't time for that. Today I am draining the hot tub and getting my planters ready. This week S and I are both off work and school for spring break. It's a staycation, at son's request, but I have a list of things to do.

Well, I guess we all agree H is very stuck and would rather stay this way then do something about it. Too bad, I'm not and ready for change. I spent some time this week writing things down to get it out of my head and got it down to a simple to the point letter. I used a mix of my own thoughts and the wonderful advice I got here. I decided to read it to H when he picked up S yesterday. It was actually funny, it made it light for me to stand in front of H and read my letter.

He was kind, sat down and listened.

Me: when I ask to get together to talk, it's not to rehash how we felt or how we got here. I was there, we went through all of that together. Our relationship was not in a good place, we were not happy, so of course that strain resulted in not so good vacations, weekend trips and boating trips. 16 years ago, these same trips would have been a totally different experience. (Here I stopped reading and asked H, do you agree with that? That we were unhappy with each other and that caused things to be not so fun?)

H: yes, but the trips weren't all THAT bad. We had some fun in there too.

Me: (I continued reading) It wasn't us, it was the relationship. For me, that time is over, that bad relationship and those bad times are dead and buried, and I would never want either of us to feel the way we did again. I don't like talking about it, it's difficult for me, because it takes me back to a very unhappy time in my life that I have left behind. You seem to be stuck there, is there anything I can do to help with that?

H: he said ya, I don't know, shrugged.

Me: If there is anything I can do to help, let me know.

H: ok

Me: (I continued reading) So when I ask to talk, it's about where we are now and what we should do going forward. We need to decide what we are going to do about our marriage. Can we plan to meet again soon to talk about these things?

H: yes. But you bring up the past too.

Me: It seems to come up a lot. I guess we both have to agree and try not to do it.

H agreed. I told him, no matter what happens, I do want us to be friends and get along, for S. H agreed. We got up to walk out of the room. He was quiet, then stopped and asked, what if we run into the same problem of not liking to do the same things?

I answered, I don't think it's really about liking the same things as much as the problems being caused by a bad relationship. We did a lot of things together and had fun when we were in love. I told him, if I went boating with my friends right now, I would have a blast. Our unhappy boating trips were caused by us being unhappy with each other. I asked him, would you even want to do something with me alone and would you think it would be fun right now? He shrugged. I said, probably not because our relationship isn't in a good place. I told him, would you want to go wine tasting with me right now, something I love to do? Because you used to enjoy doing that when we were close, but I wouldn't expect you to want to now.

He said, well, I don't really like wine anymore. We laughed.

I said, ya, I guess I am just saying the level of fun and enjoying your time with someone depends a lot on the level of how good the relationship is. What we need to decide is if we have it in us to put the effort into making the relationship good, or if we want to move on.

I really think I saw a little light bulb go off, but we will see. He seemed to understand what I was saying, we will see how our next talk goes.

HW, my apron is off but I haven't left the kitchen yet. If H was to decide to "try", I would "try" too. No way would I end this without trying. I just don't have it in me to let this drag out for months longer without addressing things. That's all I have wanted, and I will continue to push it. So far, it seems H is ok with that too.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and week