Limbo over, now separated but in lockdown (part 3)

[Pommy99]

May, thank you, I wish my H was as in touch with his emotions as yours. Your H does seem to be able to articulate his thoughts well, even if his honesty with his feelings has been so painful for you. H admits he struggles to express his feelings to me. I think we are both emotionally dysfunctional in some way. I'd really like some neutral ground for us to table our thoughts and emotions, but I dont believe we're in the right place to have MC right now.

I have an uncomfortable question for you. Are you 1000% sure that the AP is in the rearview mirror and he has not had any contact with her? My H sounded a LOT like your H and has throughout all of this. And I thought for a long, long time that it was a long-distance EA only. I don't think we'd be where we are right now unless everything had come out on the table and he dropped his "I just want the chance to be happy, I don't even know if we D-ed that I'd end up with her" to finally understanding the depth of what was happening.

Nope, I have no idea how he feels about her. He wont have seen her for 10 weeks or more and he wont be seeing her in the foreseeable future either because they are 250 miles apart. I believe she is at home in lockdown with her H. I said that his R with her was something we would need to discuss and he said "absolutely if we R then I will make sure that is dealt with". So i guess he may have little to no contact but has not formally ended the friendship.

Yesterday he announced that he had applied for a job locally. I'm pretty sure he wouldnt have done that if his intentions were to get back to the city asap and see EAP. I still think he sees happiness with someone other than me, however (or moreso, he cant envisage rekindling that spark with me and therefore there is only one option).

But what I don't understand is if there isn't someone else in the picture, what has he got to lose by actually trying to work on his M with you? To go all in and give it six months or whatever of hard work? So what if you guys end up getting Ded anyway a year from now-- that just seems so inconsequential compared to really, truly, 100% knowing you're doing the right thing in getting Ded and breaking up a family.

I so clearly remember the night my H said to me for the hundredth time, this isn't about her. It is about you and me. And I was like BS-- if it wasn't about her, then why wouldn't you TRY? What have you got to lose?

I ask myself this 100 times...why wont he just TRY. He tells me he loves me, finds it hard to imagine a life without me, he tells me he REALLY wants to make it work with me...but something is missing. He has tried to talk himself into coming back - getting a puppy, buying a 2nd property...all the things that make him feel like we could plan a future toegther...but he won't take the next step. He told me that when we got intimate last week he was feeling some of the things he wanted to feel (yay!!) but there was still something not right - and that's when he finally booked himself IC. He says this is killing him as much as it is killing me as he doesnt understand what "triggers his problem". There is a deep-rooted blocker and I think it is to do with the SSM and how I made him feel. I just hope he has found a good IC who can help him work through his issues


I know I need to detach, work on me. I feel a lot better since I had IC 2 days ago and reading the replies on this board. I spent last night cosying up in my room with D14, unable to decide whether to buy me some clothes online, read a book or catch up on Ozark! I realise there is so much I can do to fill my time and not emotionally drain myself thinking about H. I'm still very much on a rollercoaster although my IC had me draw out the rollercoaster on paper and plot the events that lead up to each dip and fall. We were able to identify my and H's behaviours, and how we both react to those behaviours. It was incredibly simple but insighful. I felt more relaxed afterwards knowing that this was a pattern we have been acting out for a long time, and I think I am more aware how to behave and react in order to break that cycle. It's very much focused on me and my trajectory, and not the rollercoaster, which is H's world.