Thank you ladies. I feel much calmer and more settled today and thinking about your words and suggestions as I was outside with the dog was a big part of that. The support here is amazing.
Yorkie - I will need to reflect more on this - I really need to consider it more carefully. You're a profound woman!
"The balance of your dynamic is shifting so that what you want is becoming paramount over what you want to convince him of. Eventually you will separate the two and for me that is detachment."
I think on balance what I need is more time. I can't ever have another experience like my last experience of MC with him. I think I'm in a different place than I was last summer, but i don't know that he is. And I don't even have a tiny bit of evidence that would make having a bit of faith and taking a well informed risk a sane decision.
I also know that the only peace between us at the moment is when I stick to the very superficial and make no demands on him at all - DBing, basically. We can be very cordial and even have a little joke now and again. I am learning to soothe my own anxiety around his moods. When he turns up tired and exhausted and snappy I get a pounding heart and sweaty palms but what helps is being able just to leave the house or the room or knowing he will only be here half an hour. I can't imagine being stuck in a room with him while he unloads.
I think the only thing that keeps our marriage afloat is if I take responsibility for his abusive behaviours and undertake to change my own behaviour so that he won't be provoked into doing the things I find unacceptable. I still live as if that were true but I know in my heart that it isn't. Each of us always had the choice to behave decently, and any departures from that were always our own responsibility. I can own that and feel genuine remorse for the harms I caused him and my part in the scenes my children witnessed. He's still - I think, though we haven't talked about it for months - stuck in that 'well if you didn't cry I wouldn't need to get so angry' mode.
I will not bring this up with him. He mentioned it yesterday when I saw him with the kids and I just said, very simply, I was in two minds about it and needed to think about it more carefully, but I appreciated him making the effort. I said he could trust me to give it some serious thought and I'd let him know when I had. And that was fine - it was a very gentle and brief conversation. I will think about it more, but I think for me to go forward to MC or any type of R with him I need to be better at maintaining my own boundaries and not being so upset by his moods, and I need to see him taking responsibility and showing some remorse for his behaviour. I am not there yet and neither is he.
I don't feel sad today. Very steady and peaceful and determined to enjoy this time. If I am to work on my marriage in the future, it will be really hard and difficult. Being married itself comes with its ups and downs. Being single and not working on the R is lonely sometimes, but it also has plenty of benefits and I plan to take full advantage of them today and get out and enjoy the sunshine.
