Flotsam, part II

[Treasur]

There are moments where I feel I could not care any less about H. My love for him is safely on a shelf, locked away. I don't care what he is doing, who is seeing, or who he is talking to, or who he's with. And for the first time in a very long time, I r-e-a-l-l-y feel it. In trying to write about it, all I can say is I feel peace. I think that is what I am feeling.
Always grateful when I get that feeling. Never imagined I would, but it is a more peaceful place.

I feel like I can step back and see him for the hot mess he is.
Yup. Stepping back does help you look at things more objectively.


I can really start to see and truly feel that 1) I am not responsible for my H's affairs; 2) the marriage is not responsible for H's affairs; 3) that there is something deep inside him, that he doesn't even realize is there, that is causing him to react to things in his life with these maladaptive coping mechanisms; 4) that he is running from facing himself; and 5) that life with OW will not lead him to greener pastures (this last one is a biggy for me and still a bit of an issue, but I do feel it less and less over time; I can't say if that is because I think they are still really broken up or if it's b/c I am learning to let this go).
All true. And maybe necessary medicine for him. And OW? Who knows? But a relationship built on chaos and hot mess is unlikely to be a good place long-term. And it was never about OW; it's about him being a hot mess and he carries that with him until/unless he does the work on himself.

One of the hardest parts of this for me still is the fact that there is nothing I can do about any of the above. He is no longer interested in my opinion and my words carry no weight. That is part of this process. And really, I am no longer interested in his opinion and his words haven't carried any weight with me for a long time. Is that part of detachment? Is that part of falling out of love?
Yup. Yup. We're on opposite sides of the street. MLC man isn't interested in any opinion but his own or those who agree with him. We don't want the opinions of MLC to run our lives. It is detachment. Is it falling out of love? I don't know. Mr MLC isn't the man I love. If he turned up on my doorstep (and some people have had this happen), I think it would be easy to see the difference if the person we love was in their eyes and voice again, instead of the dead eyes/cold voice thing. That's the battered person we love.

I do still struggle with the difference between falling out of love and MLC. The lines between the two blur. Maybe they are interconnected. I do have trouble accepting the fact that his love for me is buried deep inside him. I'm not sure it's there. Admittedly, to maintain hope, I would like to see something more concrete on this. But that is MY want. Having blind faith in some things is really difficult for me right now.
Understandable. I think this is the most painful thing for me. To see someone behave as if so many years of love and friendship are erased. I don't know if they still love us or even remember it. I do know that they did and we didn't imagine that. I do know that a healthy person can't end years of a shared life without feeling some regret and emotion about it. I comfort myself by saying that unless my H gets well, his take on it is not very reliable so better to trust my own judgement! But it hurts to go from someone to no-one, from wife to stranger or enemy. Detachment though does help you see how far from 'normal' that is, how a normal M falls apart as opposed to what we've experienced. I'm not sure people in crisis are capable of focusing on other people enough to do what we would see as love.

I also wonder if the reason I'm not seeing anything more concrete on the issue of whether he really still loves me is because I need to just let him go completely. Is the lack of evidence and the deepening detachment an indication that I am being freed of my bond to him. I still question whether I'm being released, so right now, the answer is probably, no I am not being freed.
Yup and yup again. Maybe it becomes a different kind of bond? I've often thought how I would feel and what I would do if he'd died instead of becoming mentally ill. Would I still love him and miss him? Yes. But I would also have to let that love and yearning sit on a shelf because my H would be unavailable to me, and I would need to start living a different life without him.