Trying to detach from WTF world

[Treasur]

Not a newcomer to crazy land but only recently been reading stuff here and realised that if it quacks like an MLC duck...

Quick summary. Much loved, much younger H. Very happy, but always knew H had a few unpolished dents from own family and surviving a fire at 15 where 2 other family members died.

Then life got really hard...H and me had first big marital bust-up ever over something very weird in Aug 14. (Unbeknownst to me, that was when he started talking to co-worker.) We talked, repaired a bit...then 33 days later, people started dying. Lost friends, cat, his grandmother and then my father to pancreatic cancer in June 2015. Both of us a bit numb, H unhappy with job & gets new one in May 2015. Means him being away from home but we discuss & agree to try it. H living in aunt's flat during week, home weekends. I notice he's not 'himself', ask - H falls apart, BD. EA which he denies was PA (probably believe him but EA ended he said because she wouldn't be his 'friend' unless he left me!). H diagnosed with OCD/depression in Nov 2015 & starts seeing psychiatrist. Refuses to come home but talking a bit.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the street, my mother disappears quickly into vascular dementia Nov 2015. Doesn't know who I am by Jan 2016. In care home by March 2016 but no power of attorney so have to apply to court to deal with her affairs in April 2016.

H stops communicating completely after coming home for Christmas until April 2016. Then wants to meet and try to 'work together as a team'. Still obviously ill - you know the routine, shark eyes, blank face, texts like a teenager. Week after spending day together in May 2016, says wants D by text. No reason given & won't talk at all. I say not what I want, but can't stop him so let's deal with practicalities calmly. Nope, he won't communicate about money, house etc either. (H has continued to work through this time, relatively high pressured job in financial services. I run my own - limping - business still.) First clue that PA was when I received anonymous death threats by email in July 2016. H unconcerned. Denies PA/EA until Aug 2016 when admits to 'seeing someone for a couple of months'.

I decide to put house on market in Dec 2016, but then tell him delayed because need surgery for cancer...no reply. Get D papers through door on Jan 6th 2017. H still won't communicate directly, even with his own lawyer. Still seeing psychiatrist & now says D making him too ill to deal with D...

I move out April 2017 to rent little house by the sea for own sanity...June 2016 H finally produces some D paperwork which shows some pretty shocking stuff including PA, huge debt, fraud and secret part-time life with PA a few miles from our old house from about July 2016. And stole the watch he bought for my 50th and refuses to return it. Same one he cried over when he gave me 'because he wanted me to know everyday how special I was'. Go figure...And PA's FB page is full of wedding dresses. And now I know her name I realise she kept popping up on my LinkedIn for the last year or so. Finally hit my WTF wall...my lawyer wants to refer D to court to protect me as H's behaviour makes all the sensible low cost options impossible. I'm just about to say yes to that when...WTF...H pops up from undergrowth wanting to talk (unseen since Oct 16 and unheard of since Feb 2017 by email).

We talk for 5 mins before I go to visit friends in Florida for a week. H has no idea what he wants to talk about or why, just thinks 'talking would be good'. By time I get back, H has decided a) we can't talk about anything substantive as he'd finding D so difficult b) but thinks we should now 'chat' every other day on the phone and c) when 'this is all done', we can talk 'properly' as he knows he 'left me in a bit of a vacuum'.

I could feel something had shifted but told him no thank you. That I couldn't talk to people who lie to me, steal from me and treat me with no respect. H says understands that he needs to 'earn my trust' and 'wants to salvage something kind from this horrible mess'. We agree it's a horrible mess and I point out that it is his horrible mess not mine, and I'm leaving him to it. I say we can communicate about practicalities by email. That this has never made sense to me and I expect we won't talk again. H says "I refuse to accept that paradigm...' and makes noises suggesting that 'things aren't as I think they are...not physically anywhere near where I think (PA's house)'. Blah, blah, blah. You've all been here...you know the WTF script right? And that pompous tone of voice? And the me-me, lets's feel sorry for me thing?

I'm summarising 2+ years of hell here, of course. I love my H very much. That has never changed. Lots of other emotions too...shock, bewilderment, grief, pain, anger, frustration. Still shocked sometimes by all of it and the endless supply of new WTF chaos and mad Catch 22s. Losing my father, husband and mother within 4 months nearly killed me, tbh. It broke me into immeasurably small pieces and I was suicidal twice. Did all the things you did. Same mistakes. Turned myself inside out trying to figure out how my life became this and why my H turned into an alien.

What brought me here? Three things.
1. I always felt that the OCD/depression diagnosis was a symptom not a cause after the first few months. Partly because H is just as he should be after more than 18 months of psychiatrist, CBT and industrial quantities of drugs. Partly because H's behaviour was getting more WTF not better. Mostly because my gut said it was some kind of identity crisis and he'd turned into a sort of anti-H opposite of himself, and I've learned to trust my gut.
2. I came here a week or so ago, and was reading story after story that felt like my life and like my H.
3. I've just read Shining's story and it felt like where I am trying to be, or get to.

I love my DH - did I say that? - and I wanted to believe he would reemerge from the fog. But as the WTF stuff piled up, I started to force myself into looking at what I didn't want to. Little building blocks of acceptance. The two biggest ones were realising that more after 18 months, none of this made sense and it wasn't getting better and staying here was literally killing me. So I started to accept what it is, to accept that my M was dead and that my H was lost somewhere dark. To stop hoping for H or my M in order to start finding hope for me. To find the difference between surviving and living because I was tired of just surviving. The second was choosing a couple of days ago to detach enough to say no thank you to his 'chatting' plan because I could see how crazy it was and how it wasn't going to help me. I don't doubt it was the right choice for me but it was a hard and sad one to make.

I guess the help I'm looking for now is to fight my way towards emotionally detaching, not just logically detaching if that makes sense. I need to build a new life. I need to be brave enough to stop secretly hoping for a miracle. I need to stop H being the first thing I think of when I wake up or talking to him in my head. And I need to do that a few weeks away from our D being final, while he is behaving like an idiot and a selfish child in the D process and while he is probably going to keep trying to pop back up on my radar.

I don't want to but I know I have to, if that makes sense. I need to feel like me again instead of the battered version. I want a life without lies and WTF and destruction and confusion and H seems to like living there, so he has to go. I don't regret a moment of our relationship, imperfect as all of them are, and I hate this inconceivable mess. But hating it doesn't change it. Maybe I want to detach too because I want to protect the things I treasured in our M and in my H before he finishes destroying my memories too.

Sorry this is so long.