Thank you everyone for your wonderful words of support.
Ginger, those why questions are stingers, aren't they? They do help me get to the center of the matter. When I think about "why" I want or need to change things, part of the reason is what I am doing isn't working and two, I feel like he needs to experience how divorced life will be like.
The real battle in all of this for me right now isn't H; it's the fact that I will be losing S 50% of the time. Let's face it, H is not behaving like a mate I would like to be with for the rest of my life.
I fought so hard to bring S into this world. I wanted him so badly. I am so happy to have him in my life. I love him so much. I read a quote somewhere that said that becoming a mother reaches places in your heart you never knew existed (or something like that). And it is so true for me. I never knew feelings like this before.
I feel like S is being taken away from me. The situation is so unjust. Almost like a cruel joke.
H spewed via text this afternoon. More justification. He wrote that I never apologized or owned up to my mistakes. Never. There are those absolutes again. I will agree that I should have apologized more frequently than I did. I should have stepped up more often than I did. I will own that. Absolutely. I regret not doing a better job of it. I see now where I have made mistakes and allowed my pride and my fear and my past issues with my mother to guide my actions.
I can't change any of what I have done. But H is still there. I have apologized to him for that. More than once. Somewhere in here, I have read to apologize and move on. Don't keep apologizing. So I won't.
I do feel incredible guilt and shame on that issue. He is right in the sense I should have owned my stuff more quickly, more readily, and been more apologetic. I feel awful about it. I am trying not to beat myself up over it.
I think a lot of my doubt about what he says stems from my guilt over what I could have done better. He sounds so certain of himself; he sounds like he has got his stuff together and like he knows exactly what he wants and where he is heading. But I have read that simply is not the case. I have read that it is all a carefully crafted facade MLCers build for themselves.
I want to believe that ^^. It makes sense. But I have doubt though. Doubt that stems from my guilt and from willingly taking on too much responsibility for what has gone wrong. This is a childhood issue stemming from my father blaming me for my mother's bi-polar/borderline rages (e.g., "you know that makes your mother angry, so don't do it . . . if you would only behave, then your mother wouldn't act this way.) So I blame myself for the state of my marriage. If only I hadn't acted this way or that way. I feel so much guilt. That guilt turns into self doubt. So much doubt that I have trouble accepting what others tell me and what others see about what is going on.
I still have a lot of work to do. But I have uncovered all of this ^^ during therapy and reading and researching. It's a good start, right?
I also have a better idea what triggers me to become angry and defensive. Whenever I feel like I am being treated unjustly or poorly, or being accused of something that I didn't do, I trigger. (All from how my mother would fly into rages and beat me over trivial things; now as an adult, when I start to feel or think I see this kind of treatment coming, it's all bad for the perpetrator.)
I can't change H. I can't make him love me. I can't help him deal with his issues. I can't make him admit his mistakes. This is all his work.
I still have a lot of work to ahead of me. But despite being served, I am trying to stay optimistic about me and my life.
They do help me get to the center of the matter. When I think about "why" I want or need to change things, part of the reason is what I am doing isn't working and two, I feel like he needs to experience how divorced life will be like.
