Moving On Rather Slowly

[may22]

Wooba, I am totally unable to walk out. It has much less to do with him and mostly to do with my children and how I view myself as a mother. I can't really explain it except I'm just not there right now. It leaves me feeling so powerless.

i have been working and working at trying to examine and release my own fears about S/D. I feel I have made a good amount of progress here, actually. I asked one question today about a financial thing that would be a big ask on my end, and at first he was like what? and when I explained how I saw it he said he thought that was fair. If we could work that out it would make an enormous difference to me financially. I don't know that he'll stick by that when he sees what child support payments will look like on top of all this... plus I'm sure if he wasn't trying to be nice to me he would be asking for more of a split of time (also reduces child support) which would make it even less likely that I could afford the mortgage on this house by myself... but at least for now it does help me feel more secure.

Yesterday I barely ate anything all day, fell asleep early, then woke up to a nightmare at 2 am and was awake the rest of the night. I did better at eating today and hope if I can get a good night's sleep I'll do better tomorrow. This morning, though, was the first time I told myself I knew the girls and I would be fine no matter what happened and actually believed it. It wavers during the day, when we talk and interact, when I see him hugging the children, cooking food, just doing the regular things that people do. Wooba, I read on your thread about being lonely, missing coming home to your best friend to talk to and share the day with. This is probably the main thing I'm scared of losing right now, because all the other parts of a good H are not really there. But if one could wave a magic wand and erase the A and the lies and all the things he's said to me in the context of this, outside of that context he isn't the angry alien so many others have. He is still H. That makes it harder, I think.

Alison, I don't know why I listen to this. Maybe part of me thinks that I'll hear that last horrible thing and finally crack my resolve and can ask him to leave and mean it. I think you are right in that it is a total power struggle. H wanting me to give him the green light and tell him it is all going to be OK. Me still wanting him to change his mind, I think, as much as I pretend that isn't the case. I do still hold out hope that he'll say you know, I can't do this, I am going to stay and break it off with her. Even though my rational mind knows the chances of that working at this point are very small. He said today (again) what if this was an addiction, wouldn't you help me through it? What if this was just a relapse? Which is of course what I want to hear. I'm trying not to respond though. He keeps changing his mind. Today he took the kids for a hike and when he came home he hugged me. Said when he was hiking he made up his mind to stay. But then he isn't sure again. At least now I am doing better at just not responding to this.

I suspect this won't end until whatever payoff you're getting from the status quo is outweighed by the pain it is causing you.

I think you are right. Sadly. I like your suggestion of examining what I'm getting out of this, though, to push me towards dropping the rope.

I also think that the other thing I'm really dreading is him having a full-on R with the AP. That fills me with white-hot rage. I don't know why it affects me so much more to think of that than to hear him say how he feels about her. The idea of her being in his life, my kids' lives, seeing her at soccer games and school performances... I want to vomit and set things on fire. It is not healthy. So I think I'm also desperately trying to avoid that reality. Her being long distance has made it all not seem quite as real, either, so the idea of her actually being in our lives in the flesh is horrible. H says he thinks I just want him to not be with her and so am asking to work on the MR even though I don't really want to be with him either so that she moves on and he misses out on his chance to be with her. There may be some truth to that, IDK. I feel like I could deal with this all so much better if there wasn't this 11-year-younger, same mixed ethnicity as me AP who just looooooves my GD H oh so much that she can't live without him. It makes me feel like a crazy person to think about them together in the future. (Any thoughts on this one?)

I got a book on talking to kids about D and started reading it tonight. I am really trying to immerse myself in the reality and release these fears.