I went out to dinner with some colleagues last night. We went to a pan asian restaurant near work that I have been wanting to try. There was only three of us. One of them, a woman, is in the middle of a divorce. She kicked him out in December and she is just waiting for the paperwork to go through. It was interesting listening to it from the other side "I had had enough", "I tried for two years", "He just wanted to sit around and do nothing", "life is too short to be unhappy". She had had a bit of an EA with a co-worker which came to nothing in the end. He fed her ego, made her feel attractive and wanted, but it came to nothing. BTW - the co-worker is a [censored] who saw her as easy prey. The other colleague who was with us is miserable in his marriage. It was strange watching my two friends feed each other's unhappiness.
***
My interactions with H continue to flow lightly and be easy. There is rarely any awkwardness now. He smiles when he sees me. I smile when I see him. We smile when we say goodbye and say "see you later" or "see you in a bit". Normal stuff without any weight.
TBH - I would say our communication is better than the 6-9 months before BD. He listens to me instead of talking over me, he asks my opinion on things. We talk like two people who get on.
When we are living in the present then everything seems fine. Then something is said and we remember that we have split up. He starts to talk about a future without me (holidays he has planned with the girls, holidays I have planned with the girls). This morning he asked me what I planned to do with the house. It was a natural progression from a conversation about some boxes of toys that have been in the garage a while that he wants to take to charity because it's taking up too much room. Caught off guard (he has never asked before) I said "Sell it" as cant afford to continue to pay the mortgage on my own. He went quiet for a while and then we changed to lighter topics - D12's next counselling appointment.
This afternoon he was at the house. I am WFH so asked if I could join D9 and him for breakfast. After breakfast D9 asked if she could come home with me. We agreed that was fine and he said he would drop by after lunch to take her bike riding and to walk our dog and then pick up D12 from school. Before he left to go back to the flat I told him he could stay here sunday night (he lands after midnight) as he has D9 monday morning and it would save me waking her up and driving her over to his flat on my way to work. It would also mean he can stay in bed Monday morning (D9 will probably crawl into bed with him after I leave). It was asked in the moment. And he did not pull back or react negatively. He said thanks, that's a good idea and we could confirm Sunday afternoon (if the flight is on time then he will go back to his, if it isn't then he will stay here).
I don't know what any of it means. It could be he thinks I am moving on and no longer feels pressure to be guarded, it could be that he is responding in kind to the kindness, it could be he is being a manipulative [censored] and hoping to keep me in my place as long as possible, not because I am plan B, but our current arrangement suits him better than if we were to formally separate or it could be that the fog is lifting and he is realising that he misses 'us'. I don't know. Any and all of those things could be true.
