So a bit of journaling update. H neither spoke or texted me a single word Monday and almost all day Tuesday after the aforementioned groping & texting incidents over the weekend. Which a part of me knew that would happen. Whenever he allows himself to get just a little too close to me he has a guilt spiral over OW which the irony, my god, but I do understand it. I've been there.
It's a crappy feeling to have literally no idea where your loyalty lies. You want to lean into the AP because obviously your spouse is a problem and AP is not a problem, ever, they are magic and rainbows and unicorns. But when spouse acts like they used to, and treats you like they used to, and makes you laugh like they used to, and looks at you like they used to it gets hard to think about AP and all the glitter they offer in those moments, so you lean in to the warmth of the familiar. From there it becomes a genuine struggle to try to suss out if leaning in to the MR is really a violation to the relationship with the AP since it's the "right" R, and it's the older R of the two, and technically AP has known all along what the deal is and was.
But anyway, I digress into my past life and far more empathy than H probably deserves, it being a Tuesday yesterday, I had assumed he wouldn't be home when I got home. That he'd roll in from date night with OW some time after 11pm as usual. He was very much home when I got home from my work out class. He came to talk to me immediately when I walked in the door. And for the first time in 8 weeks he was home all night on a Tuesday night. He folded laundry with me since I had to put it off this week. We watched a movie as a family. He cleaned up the kitchen after dinner. Packed both of us a lunch. Took out the garbage and recycling. He didn't even have his phone out that much. He fell asleep on the couch before 9:30pm. Lovely for our girls to see him home. I had thought it would be lovely for me too. Nope. I ended up taking a triple dose of my anxiety medication throughout the night last night because of this. I took one when I came home and he was still there. I took one when he showered thinking he's going to make me watch him leave in front of these kids. And then the last one at 8:30 when he was still sitting on the couch watching the movie and not making any moves to leave for a quicky with OW like I've seen him do mid week before. I had a really hard time falling asleep. I'm going to bring this up with my IC obviously. But I for life of me can't figure out why it put me into that level of a panic last night. I don't know if it's because I've grown accustomed to our completely insane schedule and he crapped all over my expectations. Or if I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and I have no idea what that shoe is. I hate how on edge his good behavior makes me. But I'm starting to realize that most of it is because I constantly think that any good behavior is transactional behavior. That he's only doing something remotely human to either pay for something I didn't know happened or something he's about to do.
Originally Posted by may22
Finally, WF, you sound strong and balanced. I love that you're so OK with whatever happens-- he moves out, he moves out. Part of the process that needs to happen with your sitch and you're so cool about it. I totally envy that!
xx May
As you can see May, I'm no where near balanced. Strong, yes. But balanced not even close. But when it comes to the moving out thing, I am very at peace with it.
I know I'll be a disaster the day H actually leaves. Well probably the night when I'm alone in bed and crying. But I can't help but think about the power dynamics of our relationship right now. We are working with barely 1200 sq ft. so even in an IHS separation which we are half-a$$ing at best we are on top of each other constantly. And as much as he's engaging with me now he holds nearly all the power. Not because I'm lying in wait for his crumbs, it's because I can't effectively put boundaries in place because he walks through them. The only ones I've actually been able to enforce have been the closure of the muffin shop and kicking him to the couch. (which in his WS addled brain in the recent fight tried to tell me he chose to sleep there**hard eyeroll**) I can't limit my contact the way I'd like to because if I ignore his texts he'll follow me around the house when I get home. I can't make him wonder what I'm doing out because he's not only stalking my insta and snap stories if he's not out with OW (and sometimes even when he is) he's sitting up waiting for me to get home. I have so little power in our dynamic any more. The second he walks out that door, all that changes.
Not only does the power dynamic change, but it also ends my cooking, my cleaning, my 1/2 of the parenting for his daughter on the day to day stuff (i.e. buying her feminine products, making sure she's taking a coat with her, making sure she's not wearing a crop top to grandma's house, etc), my buying necessities for the household, me reminding him about things, me fixing his messes, me helping him talk through work issues, financial issues, family issues. All of that becomes the burden of him and OW. The fact is it's impossible for him to see our relationship for what it really was if we stay like this. It's impossible for him to see who I really was/am if we stay like this. Their sad little love bubble will never burst if he can't pursue his relationship with her fully. If he stays it will just end up as another nonsensical reason for resenting me. That some how our marriage and me specifically got in the way of his chance at real happiness or true love or his soul mate or whatever it is this week. If we ever reconcile that's not a hurdle I want to add to the dozens of hurdles we'd have to navigate already.
And the princess who has no kids and has never been married will not understand the weight and reality of navigating this until it's put in practice. She has no idea how hard her road is. She has no idea how people are going to look at her, or treat her. Or how terrible she'll feel when I'm not sad, or cruel, or cold to her. That despite all of his flaws and misgivings if she pits herself against either kid he will pick the kids over her. Not me. But the kids for sure. He's done it relationships before and I have no doubt, fog or not, that he'll do it again. She doesn't understand that neither of the kids will ever look at her as a person they can like or trust. They are far too old for this to be the kind of thing that'll just smooth out with time. D15 is about to be D16. And D 17 will be my D18 in fall. They aren't cute and little, they aren't babies, or easily adaptable any more. She doesn't know how attached he is to me.That he only has a handful of friends, and I'm one of them, and he's in no way ready to let that go. That not only is the bio mother of his child going to always be looming in their R but so will I.This is heavy situation she's walking into and has no idea how heavy. And if ran books, I'd say the odds are pretty good that once this little life of theirs is a reality and no longer a fantasy the weight of it is going to be the demise of their R.
I don't see any way out of the limbo we're finally truly in unless he leaves and chases this fantasy of his. He has to leave to miss me, value me, to miss our MR and to see the value of our MR. Or at the very least he has to go for me to continue on my journey of remembering who I was and finding her without his influence. I can neither win him back or move on with my life with him looming ever present in my house. He needs to go so we can heal individually, and maybe someday together.
I had posed a scenario where even if he lies awake the night before the move thinking it's a mistake he still would go. And I maintain that that's what would happen. But if in some strange twist of fate he changed his mind and didn't want to leave some time between today and move out day, I don't know that I would let him stay. He forced me into preparing for his departure in April, and if he wanted to try and we had to start M 2.0 I have a hard time seeing a path for us where we start from scratch in the same house.
