1st Anniversary of Limbo, Indecisive WAH (part 2)

[Pommy99]

Regarding telling the girls, I understand you want them to know this isn't your doing but be very, very careful about this. Kids tend to blame themselves even though that makes no sense. What you should stress is that it isn't about them, and that both of you will continue to support them. No matter what happens to the M, that you will both continue to be their loving parents and put them first. Here's the thing about blame- you think it's his fault, he thinks it's your fault. You say he is the one moving out and pushing for D, he says it's because you were a bad wife and neglected him. Who is right? Your kids won't know, it will just confuse and upset them. This is why most states have gone to no-fault D, it's just too hard to sort out who is to blame in these situations.

You are so right. It is easy for me to pin this on H, as being his doing. I feel like my conscience is clean because I have been trying for a year. In truth, he checked out of the M because of the unresolved problems, and he can argue that he was the one who took us to MC 2 years ago - he already tried to save us from D back then.

Without doubt the priority will be for them to know they are in no way to blame, and that they are loved deeply by us both. In spite of how I see this as Hs decision right now, I will never ever try and turn them against him, or use them to get back at him.

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Little update from today....

H has initiated talks with me 3 times. He has been coming to me more and more to talk since I really started to consciously validate. Each convo today has really been around the theme of telling the children, how much his head is in a spin, but also still feeling uncertainty with what he is doing and still questionning why he feels the need to go. He made reference to how stable he feels with me. I didn’t really think about what he meant until sometime later, when I pondered over what on earth was stable about our sitch right now. And then I wondered if he meant that I stabilise him? Is this what being the lighthouse is about? He told me just the other day that I am calming and he likes coming home to that. He seems in more turmoil than ever but somehow he feels stable with me. I could be interpreting this all wrong, I know I shouldn’t be interpreting it at all, but it did make me reflect on the lighthouse story.

H had planned to tell the children tonight, having paid a small deposit for the rental this morning. This avo we went out as a family to an ‘escape room’ and had really good fun. It was actually a REALLY good activity given the sitch because we had to work together as a team, a single unit. One Family. After we had finished he looked ashen. He told me he didn’t know if he could go through with it. I wasn’t sure if he meant telling them, or actually leaving. He meant both. He said he’d had a great time as a family and how much he loved being in my company. The the thought of telling them was making him feel physically sick and he felt like he was about to break down. I suggested maybe he just needed to apply the brakes a little and he agreed.

We went for family dinner, then when we got home I left him alone and came upstairs to the MBR to read. He came looking for me, went and got me a tea, and then asked if I minded if he stayed to talk. He talked some more about how much dread he had felt about telling the kids, having listened to people telling him “oh the kids will be fine”, and the reality of it seeming completely different. He said right now lying on the bed he felt calm, as the pressure had gone. He wanted to freeze time, however, because there was a deadline to submitting some rental forms and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to commit. He mentioned again how he swings wildly from needing to leave, to wondering why he would want to.

What I’m really pleased about is that I feel mostly calm, that actually, I want him to leave, because, going back to Wayfarer’s point, neither of us can see clearly. We need to get outside of ourselves and of each other and look at everything from a bit further afield. He said goodnight and went back to his room. And I wasn’t sad he was leaving. Nothing has changed in our sitch, but I feel a change in how I am dealing with this.