I'm really glad that you're looking to the future, Dilly. That's something I find so so difficult. Do you have any suggestions for me? I find it very hard to imagine or plan my life these days, and some days it feels totally paralysing (great word, 97Hope). I've alway been a planner and the time that H and I have spent together has been pretty carefully planned. We had joint goals. I think we still do, actually - the things we want for our lives and our family life are the same, as far as I know - we just don't seem to be in the same room as each other right now! It feels like my life's path has entirely disappeared and I'm just sitting here in the day, making sure the kids needs are fulfilled and I do enough work so I don't get in trouble. Most of my time goes into what I'd call 'healing' type activities - walking and resting and seeing friends and taking care of my kids and my house, reading, living quietly, managing my emotions. There's no forward direction or ambition any more.
There's a house that has come up for sale at the top of my street. For a few years now H and I have talked about looking for a slightly bigger house with more living space as the kids have grown and I work at home more and more, but not wanting to move out of our area, which is perfect for us in lots of ways. It's a lovely house. I can see us living there - despite everything I've said about him. It's a pipe dream. Don't worry, I am not going to buy it with him! But it's sad, because we could afford it and we should be jumping at the chance to get it - that was the future we wanted.
I have a promotion opportunity coming up at work and I should be using this quiet time to prepare for it and make an application, but I've done nothing about it and I am stuck. It would be nice to have more money and a slightly different type of work, but it would involve a little more travel. There's the potential, depending on all kinds of things, that I could take the promotion and reduce my hours without having a meaningful impact on my income. But that's the kind of decision a married woman makes after talking to her husband and thinking things through. After making a decision about whether they are going to buy the big house at the top of the road or not. After thinking about where they'd want to be in five year's time, and which secondary school they want to get Youngest into. I can't have conversations with anyone about that kind of thing any more, and the future years have just kind of... dissolved.
I can't even choose bloody garden furniture. It was always the plan to get some new stuff this summer, and I was going to do it on my own last weekend, and I couldn't bring myself to do it - even though I was angry with him and also planning to buy him out of the house. Maybe I need to get the furniture and take some small steps.
Planning for the future: maybe you should just start with the garden furniture? You don't have to make grand plans like moving house right now. You SHOULD go for the promotion though! More money for less work? A no brainer! That's not something you need to discuss with your H, that's something to just do for future you. I get the feeling you are a bit stuck doing all the domestic stuff and caring and living a small life. A new job would give you a bigger life, no? Go for the bigger life.
Plan for the bits of the future which you can control and which don't depend on your H. Make small plans, like your walking holiday. Ask yourself what you would do if you were divorced, and do those things. If you do ever R then he can fit round you or you can both flex round each other, but for now you are single, so act like it in making decisions.
