4 years pieced and still a work in progress!

[HopeCA]

Thank you for your reply, Blu!!
It’s so interesting to read your takes, and where you are now

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Yes, my H has the MNG syndrome and I still see it rear it’s ugly head. Just today, we were out with the family waiting for a huge pride parade — it was a hot day, a long wait and we were mostly standing in front — and he let a couple with a child move in front of us. The kid was the same age as our youngest. WTF. It doesn’t even occur to him that while he is being so polite to strangers, he is letting them in front of his own family. It just boggles my mind at times. And then I’m triggered. My kid was stretching to see around them and I had to talk some c-ap at him, which def suxked some fun out of the event. So while he has made changes, he will never fully change.

THIS. This is my H to a T. One of the frequent fights we had was about him going out of his way to be so nice to others that we would screw me/our family over. It made me SO MAD. It always felt like a betrayal to me, like I couldn’t count on him. It’s so interesting to hear that your H still does it (though not shocking, I suppose) and that it still triggered you. Also not shocking, ha! It also made me wonder, IF my H was to decide to come back, and that scenario played out, what would it look like? The only thing I can imagine is me getting triggered and getting mad, and him getting super defensive, and then me being panicked he would leave again...yikes. I know, I know.

The NG stuff was particularly hard to deal with during the separation. I had to see him often because the kids were younger and the days I had to work he would need to come over and get them ready for school. He would always be on time, make me coffee, clean up, so helpful and usually quite cordial. Yet he was still running off to OW! He still had an A and broke up his M and family! I was so hurt and angry and here he was being so nice to my face. It was truly a mind F!

So the mistake I made was roping myself into everything he did and didn’t do rather than letting him be. I was wearing my heart on my sleeve and acting on emotions. I would read here and try and follow the rules but it was hard and I felt fake — like I was being too nice and letting him “get away with it.” Cycle that with R talks, getting upset and lashing out, and trying to force him to admit he knew it was a mistake. I didn’t get very far with either of these so I would go back to ignoring and stonewalling him, which felt the easiest.

ALSO. THIS. This could be my sitch you are describing. For a long time my H was making breakfast and bringing me coffee and doing things around the house every Saturday. At the time I thought it meant something about the way he felt about me/the sitch. Looking back at all that knowing now that he was dating someone else is just...well, you know. Interestingly I hadn’t connected all that with MNG stuff before you said that. WOW. That makes it clear just how meaningless it all was. A mind F doesn’t even begin to describe it. And I too have cycled through all those feelings and reactions and lashing out and trying to be kind and settling on cold because it’s easiest.
And that very well may be where the similarities in our situations end. Sigh. I applaud you though. It’s so hard to understand the struggle of piecing from where we stand as LBS. We look at you all and think “I’d do anything to be there! How hard can it be?!” But I’m starting to get it.

I appreciate your thoughts on whether I may have pushed my H to file. I’ve been struggling with obsessive thoughts about it for the last few days. When I did it, I meant it, like you said; if that’s what he was going to do regardless, then he needed to just do it because I was done with limbo. So perhaps that is it, plain and simple. He always intended it, and strung me along for a year for who knows what reason. For some reason, it’s easier to swallow if I can believe that I didn’t push something that wasn’t inevitable.

Thank you, as always, for your reply, kind words and no nonsense advice. It really, really does help me. Enjoy your vacation!