Stranger In My House Part 3

[HesAble]

HesAble: I have been working on dropping resentment, having zero expectations and not feeling self-pity for about 18 months now. Some days I still fail badly at it (like even yesterday). And the 'finding happiness' I always reframe as 'I feel miserable and am running away from responsibilities to see if that makes me feel less miserable because the pain is unbearable'. That helps me, not sure if it might help you? Because the best way to decrease resentment is to have compassion for the pain of your spouse. Yes their method of trying to escape is hurting so many other people including you, but they feel compelled to do it, it's not deliberate. And I have compassion too for the time when they wake up from their fog and realise the damage they have caused. If you are a half decent person then the guilt must be terrible, at least in our pain we know that we have conducted ourselves with dignity and with love and compassion for our loved ones, they don't have that consolation. And if they never wake up, well living in denial for your whole life is a pretty awful place to be. My MIL has been like that ever since she abandoned her family, and now she is old and lonely and not loved by anyone including her kids. Karma biting her hard.

Kudos to you for getting through 18 months of this! I am only on month 3 and some days it all seems so unbearable. I can imagine that time heals and my ability to cope will get better over time. The GALing is helping some, but H still lives in the home with me so a lot of his behavior is hard to ignore (although he is staying overnight somewhere else atleast 50% of the week and it seems to be increasing - I get no warning which nights he will be gone or at home).

I am working on the compassion and trying to remember that H must be in emotional turmoil, but I always start wondering if his actions are in fact deliberate...if he is just a selfish, sorry narcissist who does not care who he damages, etc. Sigh. It is so hard to have compassion or remember he is in "pain" when he walks around smiling, wearing fancy new clothes, planning "fun" outings (kids & I of course are never invited), posing for social media photos, and appearing to be having the time of his life.