Do you think maybe you are mourning the fantasy marriage you had always imagined with H?
Thornton, I don't think so. We had our problems but he was mostly open to discussing them and a majority were caused by his ex. She wanted to create constant problems and conflict as a way of hanging onto him/control. That had an end date of just a few more years since the kids were already teenagers and there'd be little need to communicate with her since his main relationships would be directly with his adult children.
Being legally mandated to communicate with a horrible person who knew how to push his buttons was hell. And she resorted to emotionally hurting the kids to try to hurt him. It was some really tough stuff. I would not have stayed in a relationship with those challenges unless I was happy, and I was.
I honestly think that depression took him over, made him feel hopeless, and he lumped our R into the hopelessness. I feel that his ex was hitting him on several fronts, in order to encourage the depression along, since she had many years with him to learn how to push his buttons. And it worked. He panicked and self-sabotaged.
By the time I found DB, it had already been two months of him doing everything he could to show me how little he cared and to try to start arguments with me. So there was no opportunity for me to turn it around and start doing much validating. I regret that.
Now I just feel hopeless and stuck in a no win situation. I have enough trouble deciding what I'll eat for lunch, let alone a major decision like this one.
I believe I could be happy with him again if he were willing to finally get into IC and address his past. I don't think I could trust him to not do this again in his 2/2.5 year cycle if he didn't.
I'm sorry for what you are going through. I know the pain of caring about kids that aren't yours, though I was never able to develop close relationships with them due to their mother putting them in loyalty binds. But still, it was painful to say goodbye.
