I think I am too unsettled and anxious to do anything for or with H right now and I need to take care of myself first. I notice how resistant I am to reaching out to him in anyway after my first couple of attempts were rebuffed. And the suggestions I am getting for you both are really great - they are - and I don't mean to be a dingle about it. I guess I am afraid. And I want to notice that fear and sit with it a bit. There are parts of me that are still very afraid of my husband and that is as a direct consequence of his abusive behaviour towards me. The right thing to do here is to keep myself emotionally safe, make sure the kids see no arguments or unhealthy discussions between us and let him deal with his demons on his own for the time being. That might change sometime soon, but my priority today is me.
I had GAL last night - didn't talk about H, just a socially distanced walk with a friend who I haven't seen in three months because of the lockdown. I can't say I wasn't worried about what I'd come home to - given that he'd said he didn't believe me when I said who I would be with - but I didn't explain myself and just watched some TV on my own and went to bed after I got back. This morning I got up early to take the dog out. When I got back I went back to bed for a few minutes. He was awake and I guess I was hoping just lying near him would give us a chance to reconnect. He huffed and rolled his eyes and said 'what's wrong with you?' and I said 'what do you mean?' (this was a mistake and gave him a way in) and he said 'why aren't you getting up and getting Youngest's breakfast?' He's off shift today and I'm working and we didn't have any particular arrangement about who would do what - usually I do it if he's working and he does it if he's not. I just got up and left him to it. He tried another few times with some fight-picking statements but I ignored him and now I'm tucked away in the home office. He told me to clean it this morning (it's a stand-alone building he never goes in and it is untidy, but it has no impact on him or anyone else - it's my space) and I asked him why (another mistake) and he huffed and stropped away.
Sage - you ask a good question. I was so ambivalent about H coming back - I've never in my hear really 100% committed to this marriage, because of my fear - and one of my fears was that H would keep up his changes as long as things were easy for him, but at the first sign of stress he'd go back to old habits. He's in an extraordinary position of stress right now, and he's also had this job disappointment that he's found humiliating. My first response was to try to comfort and show him some compassion, and his first response was to start trying to bait me into the old dynamic. I can resist that, and I will - but I don't think he has any self awareness on this issue at all right now and has no idea the damage he is doing to our marriage - shaky as it was. So no, I don't know if I want to be married to him. If he can come to me and take some responsibility and tell me what is going on without attacking me then I'd have hope - people are allowed to be stressed and anxious and act like Dingles now and again. But this - this I cannot tolerate.
In terms of next steps? Putting as much distance between me and him as possible to keep myself safe. We're still in lockdown and if I asked him to leave it would inflame him and I am frightened of that.
