Hey y'all. I have not updated much because there is not much to update. I continue to read the archives and honestly every question I would ask you wise people has been answered in old threads. There is so much wisdom here. I have wallpapered my refrigerator with quotes from you amazing people.
Also. There is the good girl in me who doesn't want to trouble anyone with my pain. I have limited my contact with H these past couple of weeks. For me. For my sanity. And it has helped tremendously. I am so much steadier and more stable on the days I do not see him or talk to him. I ignore most of his calls. I don't know if that is DB or not. I have accepted a couple of invitations to spend time together and of course have been generous in terms of him seeing the kiddos. I feel guarded when I am around him. The most recent encounter on Friday night I tried to go through the motions a bit more. I laid in bed next to him and put my head on his shoulder. I wanted to see what that felt like. For me. It felt humiliating and dirty. Is that weird? I just kept thinking about him with HER and I felt like bumbling, foolish, idiot. I know if I just completely distance myself from him there is no space to create good vibes, to remind him of what is good and true about us. (Am I right about that?) So I do make some effort. But I also know he is a pathological nice guy and much of him wanting to see me (at least at the moment) is about allaying HIS guilt and enabling HIM to maintain his self talk/ self image as a "nice guy" doing the "friendly" thing. Remember folks that he said to me that couldn't "bear it we aren't friends." I don't want to be friends outside of a marriage. Nope. No way. NO NO NO. I don't want to enable him avoiding bad feelings, avoiding confronting what he has done. There is NO excuse for an affair. No excuse for lying. No excuse for living a double life. I don't deserve that. All those months I jumped through hoops. Kept a happy face. Supported his crazy alien melt down. But I didn't know about the OW. And now I do. And I feel like a fool. An idiot. I feel so very humiliated.
I don't really know what I am supposed to be doing. Can you all tell me what I should be doing? How often should I see him? How should I behave when I see him?
I am proud (should I be?) for putting some space between us. I am proud of not responding to every call, every text. I am proud that most days lately (since meeting you fine folks) I don't fire off emotional emails. I sort of failed on that tonight. Okay. I really failed. Because I am so tired of the mind f*C& of it all. Because I have not once told him how despicable he is for what he did. And tonight I did. He came over today to work in the yard. Because grass has to be cut and our property is way more than I can manage on my own. He came over and did work in the yard. And then lingered and lingered. The longer he lingered the more anxious I felt. Because there is all this uncertainty. Limbo. Whatever. Finally he asked if he could stay for family dinner but also said he didn't want to stay after dinner... that he wanted to get back to his place and do some work... I said you should do whatever you want to do and he said he didn't really know what he wanted to do. So I said so you just should go. I don't want you here if you don't want to be here. Don't stay for dinner. And he left. And I cried and cried and cried. For the life we had. For the life I imagined in the future. For our children. For all of it. I cried so much. And then I started firing off emails. I have wanted to say to him for sometime that if this, *THIS* is how he chooses to end our marriage--- cheating, lying, dodging any responsibility, making NO effort to repair trust or repair anything- that there will be no friendly, easy going, quick path out. That he destroyed that when he decided to cheat and lie. We won't be friends. And any D will be acrimonious, long, litigious, expensive and stressful. I don't feel all warm and fuzzy right now.
He told me the other night that he wants me trust him but that he sometimes feels resentful about being accountable and transparent. That he thinks "why shouldn't I do what I want? To what end am I trying to be trustworthy?" And I said have you stopped to think about what anything looks like going forward if you can't be trusted? He really sat with that in silence and then said "Good God. NO. I haven't. I guess you will go nuclear. I guess I need to protect myself from you going nuclear." WTF? I have integrity. I don't even buy a vacuum cleaner without discussing it. There is nothing in 20+ years to suggest I would go "nuclear." He is the liar. The cheater. OMG. He also said he misses me. Wants to come home. Is skeptical anything can be different and wishes he didn't feel skeptical. This is still all my fault to him.
Serenity now.
Steve, if you are reading... I did move some money into a separate account. I am terrified of what happens when he finds out but I agree with you that being paralyzed by fear is no way to live. I hope he will understand that as a stay at home spouse/ mom I desperately needed to have some tiny amount of security right now. I have no intention of spending the money unless I need to pay a lawyer or in some worst case scenario. I am truly terrified of what might happen when he realizes I moved money. One day at a time.
