Meredith has given you some very good advise. Listen to what she is telling you. You are focusing way too much on your marriage, your husband, and what you can do to fix all the problems.
Like many of us have learned throughout this journey, there is nothing that you can do to fix your husband. There is nothing that you can do to make the relationship between his son and him what it should be. You are getting to involved in all that stuff and it is driving you crazy.
You have taken care of so many people and have been so responsible for others all the time that it is natural for you to want to fix everything and you have to stop that. You have to see your old marriage as dead and gone and stop trying to revive it. It isn't the marriage that you wanted or that your husband wanted because if it was, you wouldn't be here.
The best thing that you can do is focus totally on you and your son. If you husband isn't going to take your son for the weekend, then that is his loss. Make him miss it and want it and by forcing him to do that, you are not. Yes, boundaries are important and they should be set, but the more that you try to make him be responsible for things, the harder he is going to fight you because you are being like a mother.
You don't want to be his mother nor do you want him to see you as his mother. Meredith is right when she says that you need to work on goals that are only for you. Make a life for you and your son and enjoy it. The harder that you try to get him to see the changes in you in hopes that you will get your marriage back, the more frustrated that you will become.
There are many things that you are going to learn on this journey, but you will not learn them over night and you can not make things happen any faster then what the Lord intends for them to happen. There is much healing that you have to do from your past and present. Not all of the issues have to do with your marriage. You have been through alot and it is going to take time to deal with all of the issues that you have yourself and it is going to take your husband time.
I know how hard it is to realize that they are hurting and what they are feeling is very real to them. Too many times, we try to justify that what they feel about us is wrong and what they think about us is wrong; but we forget that that is how they actually see things. How does it make you feel when your husband doesn't understand how you are feeling? It is very frustrating when you are not validated for how you feel and those feelings are very real to you. Well, the same is for him. What he feels is very real to him no matter how right or wrong he maybe in what he is feeling.
The more you try to explain why he is wrong for what he feels, the more he is going to pull away from you. That is telling him that you don't care about how he feels. Yes, he doesn't have the right to treat you or anyone as a doormat, but in the same sense, he doesn't have the right for people to tell him what he is thinking and feeling is wrong.
Those are true feelings for him and he needs to heal as much as you do. As long as you are trying to fix things between you and him, the Lord can not work in him and heal him because of the interference. Put him in the hands of the Lord and put yourself in the hands of the Lord.
There isn't a time limit as to how long this is going to take because it is in the Lord's perfect timing as to when it is complete. When it is complete, there will be total healing and no more obstacles in the way. There is a site about standing for your marriage and it is www.rejoiceministries.org. It has helped me a great deal, but also praying and reading the word has helped as well.
I have learned alot on this journey and some things were not so pleasant. I had to learn to let go and let God. I had to realize that I had to love my husband unconditionally and forgive him for everything in order for me to heal. It has not been easy and the hardest lesson of is learning patience. Patience you are going to find out is the thing that you are going to have to have the most of.
If you want time for you, then set it up with your sister to take your son for the weekend. Let the people who want to be with him be with him. Right now your husband is going through alot and it does sound like MLC, but I could be wrong.
If it is, you are in for a very long journey and it is going to be all about him for a very long time. That is why it is so important for you to concentrate on you and your son and let the rest be.
