First time here, part 3

[leahsue]

Leah,

What was his story in his first marriage? I know you mentioned that you were both in marriages with controlling people.

Just wondering if there's a pattern.

In his first marriage, they dated in high school and married young. His sisters begged him not to marry her. Evidently she was always quite the control freak. They were married 15 years. They separated 3 or 4 times during those years, but he always went back b/c he couldn't stand living away from their children, who were very young, like 2 and 5 the first time they split up. She is a screamer, and didn't mind shaming him in public, mainly about little, trivial things. She's very hot- tempered and seems to have little self control when she flies off the handle. (My personal opinion, after hearing his sisters discuss it over the years, and just my own observations during my marriage to him, is that she seems to be a very unhappy person, no matter what her circumstances are, and she seems to feel better about her self when she can bring down the ones around her.)

I just cannot believe this guy. Is it fear? I know that mine will make plans with the kids and then at the last minute text do you still want me to come. Once when he had not been here for quite a bit and was coming I told him I wouldn't be here. He said what if they don't let me in. I said call me and tell me and I will tell them to let you in.

Has there ever been a dicussion of you going there instead since his schedule seems so unpredictable?

Do you guys still talk and text regularly?

At one point in May, I mentioned coming there, and he said I think out best chance at getting back to "us" is for me to come there, mainly just due to the changes I've made to the apartment (he had sent me some photos of some things he had switched around that kind of hurt my feelings, like he had no intention of me ever coming back, and had kind of turned it into a man cave, so he knew that might come up again, and he was probably right) and also there's a young man (our son's best friend) who is staying with him right now until he can afford his own place, so privacy would have been a factor.
And no, since he canceled the last time and I lost my $hit and told him how I felt, the talking/texting has stopped.

I am also wondering about his first marriage, and also his relationship with his mother.

Leah, I'm sorry for you but I'm also really happy for you in that you're getting some relief. I don't think I could hold it together and have low expectations with the frequent contact you had with your H. So I'm happy for you that this break will allow you to re-center yourself and focus on you again.

When you need things that are in H's apartment, is there someone local to him that you could contact and send over to H's apartment to track down your belongings? A friend? I think it's best for you not to be relying on H for anything right now. A bonus would be that the friend could tell you how H is living and what his demeanor is. Knowing those things might help you, because something tells me he's not truly out constantly living it up in the city.

Yes, I could ask the young man staying with him, and I also have a couple of girl friends there who would be glad to go over and find some things of mine, but it didn't seem right to ask them until I'd asked him first. Looks like I will need to do that now.

His mother...... they are a close knit family, but there were some really hard times when he was growing up. His mother and father divorced, and I get the feeling his mother sort of abandoned the 5 kids when she fell in love with her current husband. My H went to live with his father and step mother and I know there was some abuse, but he won't talk about any details. What I know, I've learned mostly from his sisters. He had an incredible work ethic from a very young age, worked in the school cafeteria in high school, etc. and basically raised himself. Which is one reason he married so young, just to get out of a bad home life. Now, he and his mother seem fine, and he was seemingly devoted to both her, and to his siblings, but according to one sister that I am very close to, he's cut most communication with all of them too, since January. The sister that he was closest to in age, passed away in November of 2015 after a 10 year battle with cancer. He had only been in the new job up north for a few months, but he took a month off and came south, and stayed pretty much at her bedside that last month, feeding her, etc, and rarely left her side. I think there may be some unresolved issues or maybe un-dealt with grief from that also.
And yes Cadence, I think you may be right about my keeping up with all that push and pull. It was very hard to know at any given moment which way the wind was blowing. At least now, I'm back to kind of knowing that things aren't going well.

If I don't hear back from him about my things over the weekend, I think I'm going to text him and say something like- Would you be OK with my asking (friend) to come over to apartment and find some of my things and maybe box them up to ship to me? (I'd love some feedback about how to handle/word this.)

I don't want to make things worse, and he may be still planning to visit at some point and thinks he'll just bring them then (which has been the plan in the past). That doesn't excuse his just not responding at all. How hard would it be for him to just take 15 seconds and text that back to me? But I realize he's not the man I used to be married to. That man would have walked the 1000 miles to bring me anything I needed. So sad (and weird) how people just disappear inside themselves almost overnight.
Like his sister said to me yesterday, I just don't have any words for this. None of it makes any sense.