KML, I've been leaving the windows open and the air circulating but it's hard to know whether the allergies are from indoors or outdoors due to pollen (or both). No one else in this building seems to have issues but my daughter is sneezing a lot too so I guess we need to see how it goes in the next few weeks.
Jim, thanks so much. I hope things will get better but there's no magic cure. I'm busy with my daughter, work, friends, and events but I still miss my husband.
Vanilla, yes I think you're right about what happened with my husband when he returned the first time. It's been the same cycle now three times (it happened once five years ago very briefly but he never left). First my husband is bored and depressed, then he finds a woman who adds excitement in his life and wants to throw away the marriage, then that doesn't last and he's sorry, or should be, but this time there's no sign he's sorry. He's angry and still shows no sign of wanting to reconcile this time.
All, I want to say this one more time - all of my friends here in the city where we moved know my husband and say he'll be sorry, he'll return, he'll wake-up, etc.. That just gives me hope that it'll happen. I guess they don't know what else to say. To some extent that's how I feel about other people's situations here on this forum, that their spouses will wake up and return too. I guess we all try to be optimistic.
I know the feedback I'll receive here will be probably be "focus on yourself, don't think about your husband..." but one challenge when having a young child is I need to communicate with my husband. I'm struggling a lot in figuring out how to talk to him. I stopped calling him except for essential child / financial matters, I stopped talking about our relationship completely, I try to be pleasant and respectful. Even now he waivers between talking normally back and being mean and spiteful. For example the other day he called and said he's going to send me the link for new ceramic pans he got so I can buy the same ones. He mentioned the other day he's getting sick. He'll volunteer short brief sentences here-and-there that make it seems like we're talking normally but then other times he'll be mean and angry. Like when I told him last week I got two consulting jobs. He acted disgusted that what I'll earn doesn't equal what he's making as a physician and said "it's not worth it." Or he'll call to ask a question and if I say more than "yes" or "no" he'll get mad and say "I didn't ask for a justification. I just want yes or no." He calls every day and asks directly to talk to our daughter. He's coming to visit next week but I don't think he'll stay with us.
It's just confusing. The threads and resources that talk about reconciliation say first you need a way to have positive interactions before there can be any other progress. Sometimes my husband and I have that, especially compared to January and February, but other times he's just as angry as he's been. He's always had a lot of mood swings so I'm not really sure what else I can do. Even if we don't reconcile we need to be in touch regarding our daughter. I know most of you will say not to care about him but it's difficult in real life to stop wondering how to make things better or caring.
The final area where I'm struggling is still with the emptiness my daughter and I feel in our lives. My daughter keeps asking when her father will come to visit. I keep seeing families every where who are happy together, holding hands, laughing. That's all I wanted with my husband. That's what he promised me. It's extremely difficult to feel happy without the other half of my life present and knowing my daughter is missing out on having a father in her life. My husband calls and visits but it's never substantive. It's always brief and always the same two or three questions.
My husband has had severe untreated ADHD according to what I can see and to his own admission but he's never been treated for it. Sometimes I wonder how his life would be different if he would get treated. I wish someone who has influence on him could encourage him to get on medication. It's too bad that so many people like my husband live the majority of their lives struggling and failing when it doesn't have to be that way. My husband's life is a disaster. He's in debt, working six or seven days a week and still spending too much, and dating women when he's married with a young child. I wish his father or friends or someone could help him but apparently they all just stay silent.
I feel I'm doing everything I can do on my end to move on right now, but I only feel marginally better and at times worse because nothing can replace the time when my husband and I were happy together before these problems started. I can't imagine any other man even coming close to comparing to my husband as he was when I first met him. I wish I could be more open minded but my husband and I have a unique story. We faced death together during a war, built our lives from zero when we came to the US (came back for me), and almost never went 30 minutes without talking or texting for many years. I still have hundreds or thousands of e-mails, texts, and cards from my husband when he used to tell me how perfect, beautiful and smart I was. He used to tell me he's doing everything within his power to give me a great life. He was so funny and we laughed all the time.
I wish our story wasn't over. It's easy to say someone else's spouse is a bad person and to move on but it's so hard to accept when it's your own spouse.
