AS - sorry I wrote this yesterday, but forgot to click submit. Thank you for your input. The 2x4 is appreciated.
What you say is true. I was in full rant mode yesterday morning. It is difficult to see past my own feelings when I am like that. This is why I could not talk to him yesterday. Still can't if I am honest. I can count how many times on one hand when I have fully lost control of my emotions throughout our marriage, and again, only a handful of times in the last year. This time, I had the benefit of not being in his company when I lost it and have had time to regain some perspective. I don't think I am ready to talk to him yet, there is still some anger, there, but it has subsided a little.
I know that D12 is going through her own transition. She has seen a lot of change this year and not all of it to do with her parents separating. Being a teenager girl, and probably a teenage boy, means for the first time you really start to begin to compare yourself to your peers and undoubtedly find yourself falling short. Not pretty enough, not smart enough, not rich enough, not funny enough, just not enough. This is normal. I get that. But it is not normal to cry all the time. To have such terrible pains in your stomach that you can't go to school. To my H's credit he is very very concerned about her. He wasn't at the start, but he now recognised that something is wrong with her. He just can't face the fact, that maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with him leaving.
Don't get me wrong, our marriage was broken, but he never gave us a chance to fix it. That is what I can't forgive. We were broken, and yes, we broke us. Not him, not me, but we. I own my part in this. But he didn't just leave, he ran. Not just from me, but from all of us. Then the first time he was in that flat on his own, he realised what he had given up and doubled down on being a dad. I respect him for this. But, in the process of realising that he still loved our girls, he caused so much damage. His actions say he knows that he has hurt them, but his words still defer responsibility.
Re the hanging out at the house. He has never been at the house for that long without someone else being here. Normally the children are with him, or he comes to walk the dog and is only here for half an hour.
But two days now he has been here for a lengthy time on his own so, yes, the conversation needs to be had. I need to think about how I am going to have that conversation. One of things I own is that I was the one who escalated our sitch. Out of anger or hurt I was the one who suggested he MO, not once, but five times. Four of those times he agreed, then changed his mind. He was still unsure then and treating me badly and I know if I had just given him space, then thing could have been different. But I would push, and then he would retreat (by retreat I mean he would pull away from my touch, go on the attack, or just plain ignore me) and of feelings of rejection or hurt, I would escalate again. So, in the pat six months have taken a passive stance. I have let it play out without fighting, unless it is too do with the kids, and quietly gotten on with my life. But, passive and doormat are very closely related. It is a fine line, and the hanging out at the house has crossed that.
I am going away for a week next week. The only time I will see him before then is for 10 mins when he comes to pick up the children in the morning. When he comes back there is a days overlap between my coming back and him taking the children away for a week. I might see him for half an hour then during handover. I have not seen him more than 20 mins in the last week. This will be the longest we have ever gone without seening one another in the whole time I've known him. I might hold the conversation off until he gets back.
