lol Blu Thanks for all the input, I'm sure the bruises will heal at some stage You are all only saying things I've said myself to my IC and my friends, it's not like I don't know this stuff. But knowing and acting are different beasts. LL you're right about the conflict avoidance, I was increasingly like that over the course of my M. I just felt it made life easier to give in to H, to tipetoe round his bad tempers and avoid him. It wasn't healthy but I didn't know how to do anything different, so it got worse and worse over the years.
You all believe he's having an A or As, I know that statistically it's likely and that I should probably assume he is unless I have proof otherwise, but I don't have any proof. When he left he said he wanted to be a better person (which is far less annoying than the 'I just want to be haaaaaaapy' teenage stuff he's said other times) Right now I'm thinking his A is with his job, because it feeds his ego and meets plenty of his needs. But it's also slowly killing him, along with his wine addiction. He used to say that he had to retire early before his job killed him, I didn't realise at the time how true that was. Anyway, yesterday he said he had the whole week off this week but hadn't decided where to go away yet. This is the kind of thing I would do, and is a 180 on his 'we have to book a holiday now for 6 months time because I need something to look forward to' approach. Strange times indeed. I've never seen anyone in such need of time off work, so I hope he can relax because he looked utterly exhausted yesterday. Sometimes I wonder if he's suffering burnout as much as an MLC. I feel sorry for him, but I can't fix him, just take care of myself and the kids.
And to play devil's advocate, his offer to book a holiday for us I think was controlling but I also think it was intended to be kind, because I find booking holidays overwhelming and I've also been struggling to come up with ideas which will suit me and the kids will agree to. My indecisiveness and procrastination in this area was a source of frustration for both of us, so I won't wait long to decide. And although it seems ridiculous for him to offer to come for a weekend, that might be a response to ds2 asking for him to come, but H can't deal with longer than a weekend. His tolerance for family time is really low. He took the kids away by himself about a month after BD last year for a long weekend and I think it was fairly disastrous, the kids complained and H was in a state of depression, he's horrible to travel with so everyone had that anxiety to deal with and nobody has expressed any desire to repeat the experience. Him coming home yesterday wasn't cake eating but him taking ds2 to an activity which I couldn't do because of my work thing. Ds2 is the trickiest of the teens for H to bond with so I was happy that they spent time together.
Anyway, back to the important thing: me. I have 2 evening things I have to take ds2 to, a midweek race I'm looking forward to, several runs with friends and a LOT of work to do. I'd better get on with it. I'm feeling positive about life, my embarrassing meltdown last week I'm using as fuel to be a better, more stable person.
