Arsh, you've gained a lot of wisdom in a short time about marriage and divorce!
All, my husband has been in town these past three days. He's staying at his family's house as usual. The day before he arrived he asked if he could stay at our place for a night but then he never did.
The next day (Friday) he came to visit our daughter for two hours. He said he's working hard to find a new job. He asked about some of our mutual friends for the first time since last summer. When he left on Friday he said he wanted to stay here with us on Saturday night. He also wanted to take our daughter to see his family on Saturday. Our daughter was really happy. I have non-enthusiastic but positive reactions to his plans ("sure, yeah").
On Saturday I said I'd drop off our daughter at my husband's family's house since there was somewhere I wanted to go near there. I drove her there and she wanted me to come in and my husband said to come in. I went in. They've moved since we last saw them and now they're in a big house. I wrote recently about how they don't live under sanitary conditions but everything was clean and sparkling when I came inside. It turns out they have an Ethiopian maid living in their basement now who cooks and cleans for them.
My in-laws seemed happy to see us and my father-in-law said they prepared a special vegetarian dish for me. I ate and our daughter wanted my husband to take her to Target. I was going to leave then but my in-laws looked lonely and I felt I should stay and sit with them. Our communications are limited (language barrier) but we just talked about normal things and nothing about the separation. Then my husband's youngest brother came home and he was friendly and told me about his progress with his career.
When my daughter got back she seemed tired so we left soon after that. I was planning to leave her with my husband the whole day but she stuck to me and seemed uncomfortable. My husband said he'd be coming to our area to meet his best friend for dinner but didn't say anything about staying with us. He called while I was driving to thank me for some specialty food items I gave my in-laws and to ask how the drive was going. Then we didn't hear from him the rest of the night.
Today my husband called almost at noon and asked when he should stop by. He came a short while ago and took our daughter to a playground. She has a party in two hours so I told him to bring her back for that.
I don't know. It's still so hard to grasp what's happening. My husband's family doesn't seem upset with me. They were very nice. It's hard to understand though how they think it's ok for their son to stay with them and visit our daughter just briefly. In their culture this is unusual.
It's also hard to understand why my husband talks about staying overnight and then we don't hear from him at all, or he visits for a short time and has no problem spending most of the time with his friends and family.
I still can't tell if we're headed closer towards divorce or reconciliation. I don't know how long this period of uncertainty will last. My husband said he's trying to find a job in this area. If he does I assume he'll live with his family or get his own place. So I guess this is it? Our life, if it continues as is, appears to be staying married but separated until one of us files for divorce. For me it's still better than divorce for the time being, but still difficult. I miss my husband so when I see him it brings back a lot of memories. I was laying on our old bed working on my laptop on Friday and my husband came and laid down next to me and said he wanted to have a rest and I didn't have to move. I had to move though or else I'd lose all my composure and start to cry in front of our daughter.
It seems on this forum there's a lot of knowledge of wayward wives but not so much about wayward husbands. The therapist I'd been seeing wasn't terribly helpful. I wish to go back to the one I saw in NYC so I may try to see him when I go there later this month. I feel like I need guidance to understand what's happening now. Am I missing something? Is there something I should do differently? Is reconciliation still a possibility or are we just delaying divorce until a more convenient time? I'll continue to live with the uncertainty but I know within some reasonable time period (six months? one year?) one of us will need to talk about the relationship and what to do next.
