I don't think the LBS / WAW / WAH/ WW labels matter 1 jot Alison. I think there was a pretty good reason why you asked and then begged him to leave. You had a marriage in crisis. My reading of DB was that it was for a marriage in crisis. A spouse that has left is one aspect of that for which it is suggested there may need to be special considerations.
I was a LBS who was then the one who pulled the plug on my M. My H was genuinely surprised that I wanted to Divorce. Distance showed me that the grass was actually greener and there was more out there for me. I am starting to suspect that in a few months / years I would have pulled the plug and been a WAW anyway.
I worry about you Alison because you come across as a tightly coiled spring who is trying to spin plates and juggle with burning coals.
He has told you that he isn't going to meet your need to repair this R yet.
Either accept that and sit and wait whilst working out what it is you fear. Or decide that you are not waiting.
I know you want to wait, so do your R a favour and back off.
Up 'ere in the North we would describe you as 'mawking' at him. Hovering and mothering and trying to fix.
Leave him be. Not to punish him, but just to identify yourselves as independent human beings.
This makes sense to me, thank you. And yes - I can see that I am still tightly coiled with my hands all over this situation trying to manage it and control it - and him - in order to get myself out of uncertainty and pain. It must be terrible to be on the receiving end, because it's only part of me that feels like that - the other part knows he has a long way to go before I'd be able to be in a functioning relationship with him, that is his journey and not mine, that he's not taking it, may not even want to take it, and I am about as terrified of being back in the marriage that was as I am of a future without him. It's veering between these two states that makes me so erratic and probably awful to be around. At one point making him soup and mothering him, at the other reminding him of the flaws of his he needs to work on before I'd be interested in him. It's horrible and exhausting for me and is probably deeply unpleasant for him too.
Quote
You used the word "cruel" in how he interacted with you while stressed. Is that word accurate? Because if it is, I think you really need to reflect on it.
I've been around/with people who are stressed to the max. People I'm very close with, people I love. And they can be short, they can be snippy and they can be rude. But they can NEVER be cruel. That is a line that is crossed and just not how you treat someone you love. It's not.
Yes, I believe it is accurate. He knows what hurts me. He knows that if he makes nasty remarks about my childhood or my father, or an illness I suffered from when we first met, or he does mocking and belittling impressions of me being upset, or says nasty things about the children, that I'd get so upset I will leave the conversation - leave the room or the house or hang up the phone. It's a desperate act on his part to get out of a conversation he doesn't want to have (and I can take responsibility for my part in us being in that conversation in the first place) but it is also very calculated.
We discussed it in MC and I basically begged him to take those techniques off the table - for him to agree that no matter what else happened he would stop doing those things. He had stopped - for a while - but the other night I guess he'd had a drink and I was upset and he wanted to get out of the conversation and he knows that's a great way of getting me to retreat. So he did it again. He doesn't seem to feel any shame or sorrow or contrition about it - and yes, he did apologise, but basically because I brought it up.
He can be a very cruel and nasty man. Or rather, when he feels threatened he will do whatever he thinks will work to get me to go away and leave him alone. And he finds even very gentle approaches threatening sometimes. He has an awful relationship with every single one of his female relatives, is very contemptuous about people's emotions, and is generally one of those people with a terror of being engulfed. And yet he was round yesterday to take care of the kids so I could go out, he was asleep when I got back so he stayed over again, and is here making no plans to leave and is clearly miserable and wanting the comfort of being at home.
