Moving On

[may22]

Hi friends,

A little advice if anyone is around.

I'm not good at being fueled by anger. It is really hard to be around H when there isn't a visible "lying cheater" stamped on his forehead and he's being kind and sad and saying things that I want to hear. I wasn't able to keep up full hard as-little-as-possible last night. The dude knows me so well. He came to talk to me before dinner and was sad and sorry and doesn't know what to do. I tried to keep to the "this is your decision" and "I don't want to talk about this" but I did listen (as long as it wasn't about AP, I kept that boundary.) He asked me if I knew 100% that there was no chance he'd ever let go of AP in his heart but that he'd recommit to the M and be the best H and father he could be for the rest of his life, would that be good enough for me? I said, to live with an H for the rest of my life who isn't in love with me? No. He said, up until a couple of days ago, I was afraid your answer to that would have been yes. I said, no, I deserve to have an H that loves and respects me, and up until a couple of days ago I was holding onto the hope it was possible, that you could let her go and fall back in love with me and we could build M2.0 together. But now I've decided to believe what you say, and what you've been saying to me is that you don't think that will ever happen. So OK. He said, I don't think it is impossible. I'm just really scared it is the most likely scenario. Plus the fact that it happened between us, the fact that I did this enormous thing, that we both would need to deal with.

I didn't say that much. He made me a cocktail and then all of us a beautiful gourmet meal, all plated nicely. When I got up to do the dishes I didn't feel great and he took over and told me to go lay down. I did and slept for a couple of hours. When I woke up girls were down, kitchen was clean. I started getting ready for bed and he told me he didn't know where he was sleeping. I said it is your choice. He said OK and then got into bed. Then he went to kiss the girls and came back crying. I asked what was wrong and he said the idea that he may not get to do that every night.

He said he's seen me go through these anger stages before and that it takes me a few days to calm down and begin to think more rationally. (I bristled and he said, is rationally the wrong word?) But that he didn't want me to make any decisions out of anger. I said, I felt the same way and I hadn't taken the decision out of his hands, had I? He acknowledged but asked if we could just put this aside and if I could stop the apathy until we both had a chance to talk to our ICs. He also asked if I wanted to see our MC again. I said, I honestly didn't know. He said he was willing to, and also that he would actually like to talk to him 1-1. I said go for it.

So here's my question. I feel like I need to hold onto the "H is a lying cheater and unforgivable a-hole" in order to maintain my boundaries authentically. As soon as he is nice and I am nice back we just fall into where we were before, which makes me start to hope again that he'll choose the M. Even though I don't really think that is the best idea unless he does it differently this time. And I can't at this point even really say what that looks like. Even last night when he asked where to sleep, I felt a little panic that he would choose the office even though I had previously been happy with that idea because it would be a step on a path I think is probably inevitable and needs to be taken.

So how do I do this? Holding onto the anger is really, really hard for me, but I am also not to a point where I can swing to that middle place of detachment and not caring-- spending friendly time with him puts me back into the place of wishing and wanting him to stay and making it work. I'm purposely trying to NOT think about the children because that would send me roaring back to that other place. But being silent already is starting to feel more manipulative to me than protective. How do I process this and hold the line?