On Higher Ground

[ciluzen]

HaWho...you amaze me with your patience and ability to try to understand your H. I get those stealth tears, too and I'm not even living with XH. You're so good at seeing the humor in the situation, or at least dealing with it in good humor. I agree that you do sound as if you are reaching a point where a break from him might be welcomed.

I wonder if somehow taking a break might shake him up a bit? He seems to be making slow progress in his situation, but maybe it is time to express your concerns about his behavior directly and lovingly. We're all not in the house with you, so in no way can we feel see, or hear what it is like to be there other than through your posts. But in reading your posts I feel the weight of your situation becoming heavy like hot muggy air...liveable, but energy draining. I felt that way before BD in my own sitch, but saw enough loving acts and did my own thing enough to just swim through. If you asked if I was happy, I would say yes; but looking back now, I was just looking forward to when things would be better; when he retired, when his business got stable, when summer came, when we moved, when we vacationed, when the kids were grown, when he pulled his head out of his a%$...when some future thing would fix it all. Surprisingly, he was feeling the same (I believe). He voiced it during our early R talks (ok, more like emotional cry and beg and defend sessions) by saying, "I looked at the next 20 years and asked if this is how I wanted it to be, and my answer was 'no'." Of course it was.

The problem there was that neither of us had the space to really gain any clear insight on our situation; even with him trying to create space by moving downstairs (sleeping and "hanging out in our guest room, parking himself in the tv room downstairs) he couldn't escape me. I was there. I was doing the shopping (he tried to a bit) and cooking...he had to eat what I wanted. I did everything, in fact. Everything around was what I wanted or how I wanted it. Except at work. Well, except I chose the paint colors and I painted the pictures. See? He really couldn't even escape me there. I see it in your sitch. The food rebellion, the Christmas tree. From our POV, it looks insane. From theirs it may just be a desperate attempt to take some control over their life. To not feel like they are once again, a child being controlled by a parent who feels they know what's best.

I have new understanding and insight into him angrily saying, "I don't NEED you!". I asked XH when he called to tell me he had filed why, after he moved out he had said some things that led me to believe he was still considering R. He told me he wasn't sure he could live by himself. It has taken real space, what most of our "MLCers" are begging for, to see how much love can go from googly-eyed togetherness to two people grasping to control each other's lives unknowingly in the guise of caring for each other. No wonder we see it as regressing to deal with childhood issues (ie; controlling or neglectful mom's)...they sometime's feel like children again, instead of manly adult males.

Just a few thoughts, HaWho. In case you didn't notice, I was writing to support you and had yet another realization about my own sitch right in the freaking middle of it all. But it certainly may apply to yours, as well. Ahhhh....stealth tears and epiphanies. The stuff that MLC is made of. Hmmmm....

Any who, truly giving space...it can do wonders for inner peace and insights...apparently. We're all just muddling through this. Take it easy, HaWho. How ever you see fit.