Thank you Bttrfly, Gordie and OwnIt. I appreciate your responses.
I really appreciate the validation and the support you are expressing about following my instincts. At times during all of this I feel like such a child. It's like I don't know what is right or wrong and I definitely do not trust my instincts. And I get angry at myself for allowing H's actions to impact me and question them.
He has repeatedly told ME that I live in fantasyland. And because of my FOO issues, I believe him. In order to survive my childhood, I placed all the blame on me. Children cannot blame their parents; they cannot see their caregivers are being the ones at fault, so they blame themselves.
So when H says these things to me; I believe him. It is difficult for me to accept that someone I was once close to and proclaims to care about me, could be wrong. Therefore, it must be me.
This is a difficult hurdle for me to jump over.
I am also finding that I still get bothered when I see him on the phone or when I hear his message alerts. I really don't like it.
Wednesday night after I put S down for bed, when I came out of his room, I noticed H had vanished. He wasn't inside the house or out in the yard; he wasn't in his personal car or his work car. Just gone.
I had noticed he was acting off while giving S a bath, but I didn't say anything. If he wanted to tell me what was bothering, then he can make the choice to reach out.
I was really worried. We live in an area with a lot of remote hiking trails. Given everything going on, I was concerned he went for a hike and was going to hurt himself. I called his cell and he didn't answer and I text and he didn't answer.
An hour later, he texted me to say he was fine and that he went for a walk. (Of course, my mind thought, "yeah right, you went to call one of your OW.")
I was in bed reading when he finally returned. He banged on the front door to get in the house (he didn't take keys with him). By the time I walked to the front door, he had moved around to the back of the house and was pounding on the back door. I couldn't see a thing and kept calling out, but he wouldn't respond. He turned on the flashlight on his phone and I saw his face so I let him in.
He has never done something like this before.
He brushed right past me and grumbled something about "of course all the doors are locked for the first time." I told him I was concerned about him and next time could he please just leave me a little note. He got angry and spewed about how I don't leave notes when I leave and nothing about our relationship has changed. I let it go. I told him I was glad he was all right and went back to bed.
I have been pondering the "nothing has changed" comment. From my perspective, much has changed. Nevertheless, I do think this is a kind of MLC script. He wants to know where I am at and what I am doing, but he will not reciprocate. And I think it is more justification for him.
Someone was definitely looking for a fight and it certainly wasn't me.
Thursday morning before he left for work he grumbled a very forced apology. I told him thank you and went about my business.
I am happy with how I handled the interaction when he returned home. Looking back, I am not so sure I should have called him or sent a text. If he were to do something to himself, there would be nothing I could do about it. And his answering a text or phone call would do nothing to change the scenario. Next time, I will just leave him alone.
From that whole exchange I can see how he is trying to project all of his negative emotions onto me. I can also see the emotional turmoil roiling around in his head. I am trying to have some compassion for him. I struggle with that.
When I woke up Thursday morning I had an old familiar pain in my stomach. That kind of doom and gloom feeling. The same feeling I had when my mother was in one of her moods and I was anticipating what would happen when I had to see her again. To calm myself, I reminded myself that I am no longer a little girl. I am not defenseless. I have a lot of choices on how to handle this situation. I don't have to take his venomous words or his mean attitude. I can ignore it. I can remind myself that all that bad behavior is all about him - it has nothing to do with me.
