Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you FS. Thank-you for taking the time to respond to my pleas for help. And thank-you for such a thoughtful and heartfelt response. I will read it over and over again and borrrow your mantra, if I may. Another thing I’ve been doing a lot lately is listening to certain songs every day (sometimes multiple times) to get me in the right mindset. Sara Evans’ Stronger and Kelly Clarkson’s Breakaway and Since You’ve Been Gone are my three favourites.
My mind is still spinning as I try to make sense of that last seven months...all the times when I started to suspect something was up and so I would ask him...and he would always have an answer. Even when I discovered the place he was going, he had so many stories about why it wasn’t what it looked like. One night, about three weeks ago and a week post-discovery, I couldn’t sleep because my mind was nagging me about some things that didn’t add up. I wrote out everything...sent a few texts “damn you for keeping me up at night”, we need to talk, etc... He came home the next morning telling me that the night before he had been thinking about some things I had said (we were talking a lot prior to last Sunday) and that he had woken up feeling really good and then he saw my texts. I read him what I wrote word for word...all of the signs that I had noticed and facts that didn’t add up...that indicated to me he was having an affair. He just calmly smiled and said he would go over the entire list point by point with me...which he did...had an answer for everything...and then swore up and down “on our children’s lives” that he wasn’t having an affair. I have asked him to tell me...numerous times...he will just never, ever admit it. Even tonight when I texted him a bunch of angry texts that he is a miserable excuse for a human being and how disgusting it was that he would take our kids there and make them a party to his deceit...and when I called him to yell at him and to “own up to it” and called him a piece of s#*t...even then he did not admit it. Just said we will talk tomorrow. What is that about? It’s like he just can’t say the words.
So I am currently working really hard to put things into perspective (now 3:00 a.m.) and to understand that even though I KNOW about the OW now...nothing has changed. My H is gone...he is not coming back anytime soon. And truth be told, this is not the man that I married and my grief is not over the loss of him, this confused and broken man, but more over the loss of who I thought he was, the relationship I thought we had and what I thought would be a long and happy life together. All of these, it seems, have just been illusions created by my hopeful and trusting heart. Heart-on-her-sleeve girl (my mom used to call me that) has to go away for awhile and be replaced by someone a bit stronger, more realistic and more courageous. I’m not sure if that HOS girl will ever return... if she does, it will be a slow process, that is for sure. My trust will need to be earned.
So exceedingly grateful for this forum and for the wonderful, beautiful people who are here. I am pretty sure I would be a complete basket case if it were not for you. Much love to you all!
So it is almost 8 am... one hour until my H arrives to “talk” [see previous entries]. He will be on time no doubt. Any last minute advice before he gets here? I am feeling reasonably strong but have no idea what he is going to say and how it is going to affect me.
Hi Dejavu, I just read through your stitch and can relate to so many of your feelings. Since I am struggling myself a lot, l don’t think I can give you a lot of advice. Be strong, be the person you can be proud of, think of your kids. I just wanted to let you know, I am thinking of you this morning. My husband just signed a lease for his own place. He will be moving out in 4 weeks. Some days I hate him, some days I love him and every day I struggle how to interact with him. Good luck to you.
Well... that did NOT go the way I thought it was going to go. My H arrived 30 minutes early. Said to me, “you have a few things wrong that we need to talk about so let’s talk.” The woman who lives upstairs is out of the hospital temporarily until she goes into the hospital in mid-October to have a golf-ball sized tumor removed along with 30% of her pancreas. He says that he has told her about my suspicions and that she is open to meeting me. Currently she is quite sick though (can’t eat, morphine) and the slightest bit of stress makes things worse so she wants to wait until after the surgery and then we can meet. The kids did move in with their grandma but hate living with her so had come home this past weekend to be with their mom. They are trying to get the deadbeat dad who has left home to step up but that’s not looking good right now. My H apologized, said he totally understood why I thought what I thought and it is his fault. I told him he should have called me or texted the story but he said he didn’t because he thought that A) I would not believe anything he had to say and B) It was so unlike me that he thought I might possibly be drunk. Yeah, I said, drunk with rage. He then looked me dead in the eye and said, “you have to understand... and I really want you to hear me... I am not out there trolling around looking for someone. That is the exact opposite place from where I am at. I feel like I am dead inside... and I need this time away to try to feel something again. He also said that it would be horribly unfair of him to go out and find someone who is “looking for love” and drag them into this. apologized for calling him names. He’s right... very unlike me. He said that I didn’t need to apologize as feels like a piece of s@&t most of the time anyway and probably deserves it. I asked him what he is going to tell his daughter and he said, he didn’t know. “Maybe that he is on a time out for bad behaviour.” He also told me that he is finally on some anti-depressants and is still going to counselling. So... we talked a bit more... some current event kind of stuff... and then he went back to his place to nap [he said he didn’t sleep last night... that makes two of us] and he will be back to take care of some things around the house. So... that is the latest instalment in the ongoing saga that is my life. I’m pretty sure he is telling me the truth about the family that he shares a place with so I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. I will definitely follow through with meeting her though. 1) Because I need to know for sure and 2) if she truly is just someone that lives upstairs and she is raising these two kids while struggling with this deadly disease (my dad died from the same cancer), I would like to offer my support. It sounds as if she doesn’t have much. My H got quite teary when he described her sitting with a plate of food at Thanksgiving (a dinner he said that just happened and was not planned) and bit being able to eat it because apparently the tiniest amount causes her pain. He says she has gone from 220 lbs to 140 lbs. The hospital sent her home with a bin full of morphine to manage the pain until surgery because she is a “responsible adult” but she apparently rarely takes it because she is worried about becoming addicted so she is in pain. Anyway... I guess not super relevant to my sitch but I do find myself wanting to reach out to her - I’ve lost both my parents to cancer. Maybe I can do that when she and I finally meet in person. Thanks Kiwi and FS for your support. I really, really appreciate it. ((((HUGS))))
Interesting afternoon. My H left shortly after out talk to go back to his place and take a nap as apparently he did not sleep last night. I spent a bit of time with our kids and then took off to my sister’s to drop something off. When I returned, my H was out in the front yard working on removing the trees. I asked him if he wanted some help and he said that would be nice. We worked on the trees together and afterward, he went into the garage and said he would inflate the tires on my car II had asked him about that last week). After that he went into our shed to pull out my winter tires as I had mentioned a few days ago that I should probably get my winter tires put on soon. Again...without asking. I expected him to leave after that but he came into the house to say hi to the kids. He sat wth them for awhile and then went into the kitchen to have a glass of water. He went to put it in the dishwasher but noticed the dishes were clean so he unloaded the dishwasher. I asked him if he was hungry and he said he was so I gave him some leftovers from last night and we split a drink. He then hung out with the kids a bit longer and then told me he was going to get going as he had a sore throat and was feeling really tired still. I said, “no problem”. He then hugged me (initiated by him... first time in a week) and thanked me for a “good day”. He said he was glad the day turned out that way because he did not like how things were this morning and what had happened the night before. I didn’t say much. Thanked him for his help and told him I hoped his sore throat got better. So... not the day I had expected to have after last night. Oh... my sister and I made plans for our “girl’s night”. We got some gift certificates for a local restaurant for our birthday so we are going to get dressed up and go out for dinner. Really looking forward to it.
I responded on my thread, but just wanted to reiterate here. Proceed with caution. In the same way that it says here that when attempting the 180, we need to show consistency, your spouse needs to show you that he is committed today, tomorrow, in a week, in a month etc. It's not that I don't believe in forgiveness, but having read so much now about their "journey", they are living in a fog and their actions depend on whatever it is they are feeling at that time. Before he moved out, my H, cried on my shoulder and told me he wanted to have more "babies" with me, like more children would fix things. The next day he went back to ignoring me again. Another time, he came into my room (I think of it as my room now) and said "we were worth saving and maybe we should go away somewhere, just the two of us". When I spoke to him about it a few days later, he said "it is too soon" and went back to ignoring me.
So, by all means leave the door slightly ajar. But don't open it fully until he proves he deserves your forgiveness.
Thank you FS. I will definitely keep that in mind. My H has texted me a couple times today. He seems overly concerned about my car. Texted me to ask if I wanted him to make an appointment to get my winter tires put on at the same time as him so he could bring the tires for me in his SUV. I could put the tires in my back seat but I said ok and thanked him. Normally it would be me that makes the appointments but I’m fine with him doing it. Part of my challenge...when he wants to step up to the plate, I have removed to let him without trying to micro manage the details. That is hard for me. I’m not controlling, just detail-oriented which is something my H is not. I think he experiences it as controlling though so I am stepping back from the responsibilities that he wants to take on. Feeling pretty good today. Got my hair done and I’m wearing my favourite jeans that haven’t fit me in years. Feeling strong and confident and looking forward to my girls night out tomorrow.
So the last couple of days have been really good. My mindset has totally shifted from where it was a week ago which is why I think I am in a good place right now. I’m not sure exactly when the shift occurred… maybe in my sleep…lol??? Anyway, I woke up Tuesday morning, for the first time thinking about me and what it is I want. I don’t know if you would call it an epiphany but it feels a bit like that is what it was. I think I just came to terms with the fact that all of the panic and grief I have been going through has been over the loss of a relationship and a life that I THOUGHT I had or WANTED to have and not what I ACTUALLY had. Up until this point, I had been working on my PMA, GAL, and doing 180s on some of my habitual ways of interacting with my H. But… in the back of my mind, I was still doing these things with the hope that it would bring him back...that there was a definite outcome I had in mind.
I had the day off on Tuesday and I went to get my hair done. Looking in the mirror for that long forced me to make an assessment of myself. The truth is, I’ve been feeling really good lately. The weight loss (started a while ago but has been escalated by the stress of all this), my PMA and my GAL activities have helped me to remember that I was a really strong and capable person when I met my H…much stronger and more capable than him, IMO. So it dawned on me that I had a good life before him and I can have a good life after him…if it comes to that. I started to really think about what it is I want in a relationship and what it is I deserve and the truth is, I haven’t done that in a long time. It's always been...what does H want? What does H need? So in that moment, I made up my mind… and I thought about it for the rest of that day and all day yesterday. I made up my mind that I’m not going to accept less than what I deserve anymore and I wanted him to know that. So…before I could lose my nerve and before I could have second thoughts, I texted my H on Tuesday night that I wanted to talk to him after work on Wednesday before I left for my girls’ night out. And this is what happened…
H showed up at our house while I was in the bathroom putting on makeup. He came right in and stood there looking at me expectantly… maybe a tad worried looking, not sure. I almost backed out because I knew I needed to leave in about 45 minutes to pick up my friend and I wasn't sure how long I would need to say what I needed to say. But… I could see that he was ready to talk and we hadn’t really talked in over a week so I took a deep breath and I talked…
I told him that some things had changed for me - that I was starting to feel good again and getting in touch with who I used to be and who it is I want to become. [He said… “I know. I’ve noticed.”… he said that about five times throughout our conversation.] I then told him, “I do not want you to come home.” I kinda left it for a few seconds for maximum impact and it worked cause I could see him flinch a bit and look confused. Kinda cruel of me but I really wanted him to feel it. Anyway… I qualified my statement by telling him that I absolutely want to be married and raise our kids with a partner and that I wanted that partner to be him BUT that I do not want my old marriage back. That marriage was and is unacceptable to me. I then listed my expectations of a partner… 100% there, a full-time dad to our kids, someone who will appreciate the best things in me and forgive the worst, someone who will TELL ME when he is upset so that we can talk and work things through, etc… I told him that I think he has it in him to be that person but he is clearly not there right now. I also told him that I feel like I don’t know him anymore and I don’t think he knows me… at least not this new and improved version of me. He agreed.
I said I had been thinking a lot about what needs to happen before he can come home. I told him that I don’t want him to move back and into the basement. When he comes back, it will be because he is 100% committed to staying...with me. In order for us to get there, a couple of things need to happen. First, as crazy as it sounds, I would like us to date. I said, "I want you to pick me up, take me out (dinner, or an activity), for us to have conversations that aren’t heavy, drop me off at my house and kiss me goodnight…or not… basically I just want us to go out, have some fun and try to remember what it is that brought us together in the first place… before we had our kids and all of life’s stressors descended upon us. Secondly, if/when we decide that a move home might be in the cards, I would like us to go to MC. And I would like to go to a pro-marriage counsellor… not some guy who’s been divorced a couple of times and secretly thinks that all women are controlling [which is the vibe I got from the guy we saw four year ago]." Anyway… that is the gist of what was said. There were a few tears [his] and I saw glimpses of the shame and regret my H has been living with. I fully believe now that there is no OW. He has maintained that from the start and has never gotten defensive when I have accused him… always willing to talk… has repeatedly said that that is not what this is about and he is just really lost right now.
At the end of our conversation which was incredibly calm, respectful and validating… he said, “OKAY”. Next week is looking like a really stressful week for him work-wise but he said that, after that, we will see about going out on a date. Do you know that the absolute best thing about that is??? If a couple of weeks go by and we don’t go out on that date, I am okay with it. There is no time frame on this. I am not in a rush. He understands and accepts my terms. I am just going to keep GAL and leave myself open to what is to come.
I also told him that the days I had allotted for him to spend time with our kids is the MINIMUM amount of time he needs to be here. I told him if he wants to come by on a weekday or on a Saturday and we are here, he is welcome. He looked relieved and thanked me. Said he had been trying to be respectful of my space and was happy that he could see them more.
Oh… and my H finally talked to his daughter. He told her that we were “on a break” and that he is “temporarily renting a place to sort myself [himself] out.” I feel good about him using the word “temporarily”. So that is the most recent chapter of the drama that is my life. I really wrestled with the idea of having a “talk” with him and possibly putting more pressure on him. But I actually think it did the opposite in that it enabled me to take back some of my power which is very freeing mentally. It also made it clear to him that I am okay on my own. In fact, I actually told him that I am grateful that all of this happened because, regardless, I think I am going to be a better person for it and I think he will be too. And I honestly really believe that which is why I find myself in a very unexpected place right now. NO FEAR and moving forward.
