Moving On Rather Slowly

[may22]

That is sheer manipulation and head games. He knows he cant offer you what you want, but he doesn't want to leave either, so he's going to claim he's staying because you're not fit to navigate a divorce in a way he feels is appropriate. Can you see that's some version, more or less precisely, of my H saying to me he isn't leaving because I'm too incompetent to manage on my own? It's another way of failing to take responsibility and putting the blame for that on to your emotional state - which you are controlling and which is highly justified. Even reading this makes me FURIOUS for you. Does it make you angry?

Yes. I can see exactly how it aligns with you H saying he can't leave because you can't manage on your own. And I agree that it is failing to take responsibility and just shoving the decision back at my feet... well, I guess I can't do what I want to do because May is so unreasonable.

But... I don't feel angry about it. More exasperated. Annoyed. I want to roll my eyes at him and say WAKE THE F UP. Here I am telling you to GO and now you've made up yet another reason why it isn't your fault that you can't walk and are feeling sorry for yourself again. Tbh, it feels less manipulative of me and more pathetic of him. That is actually how I felt about your H too-- not angry, just pathetically funny.

Do you think one of the reasons you might not be ready yet is because there's a part of you that knows if you saw it really clearly and listened to what your anger was telling you, your marriage as it stands would be over? Is that a part of it?

Yes, I think so. Although I feel like I already know my marriage is over. It takes two people to be married and he certainly hasn't acted like a married person the last couple of years. It is the shape of the marriage, the house, the children, the comfortable dance in the kitchen in the mornings and the bathroom at night. The person who you can still vent to and who listens and validates and tells you you were right and so-and-so is such a jerk to have said that to you. Who picks up your D when she comes out of her room for the fourth time and can't sleep and goes and lays down with her until she finally passes out. Who makes you a drink after work and says no, sit, I'll take care of the dishes or dinner or whatever. Pays the bills and congratulates you for doing something great and texts silly jokes to your mom.

I know these are just the shell, the shadow of what a real H is supposed to be. But it still does have meaning and I will miss it when he's gone.

And I look at my Ds and my heart breaks afresh in two every. single. time. I think about him leaving. They love him so, so much. D8 was looking at a photo on H's nightstand of the two of us when we were first dating and said she loved that picture. H asked why? She said because you love each other. (This one is a total empath. She takes things so to heart. She has been all over me ever since this all started happening again, wants to sit on me, be my baby, cuddle me in the mornings and at night. I'm so frightened what this is going to do to her. I keep taking my rings off and putting them in a box on my dresser and she keeps checking there and bringing them back to me and putting them back on my finger. I'm not taking them off out of any real reason-- kneading dough or something is the primary reason-- but I also am not putting them back on right away either.)

I know that is a part of it. The IC wanted to know why I was holding more anger for AP than for H. I said, I know i should be angrier with H than with AP. And maybe I just can't quite yet embrace the enormity of his betrayal so it gets placed on her. And somehow she is the personification of all that he did, embodied in this perky marathon-running younger-but-better version of me and I simply can't stand the idea of her being a real human being in my life. So I think partially I'm still deflecting some of the anger that he so deeply deserves around him and to her. Again, yes, maybe to deflect the knowledge that once I fully accept everything that is going on, we are done. We have to be. And I'm not quite ready for that, I guess. Getting closer and closer. But not quite there yet-- at least, not to the extent that I could pull the trigger myself. But I am thinking of setting the July 25 deadline of the scheduled trip-- isn't happening for anyone but H on his own, unless things change mightily, which they won't, so there's a good end date for me.I can handle another three weeks of this, especially knowing that it can't go on forever.

Tonight was a good night. Read my novel, had a couple amazing Belgian beers a friend brought home from Europe, we all watched a fun show, no R talks.