A lovely week away. Really nice and restful and calming. It wasn't activity packed, and there was a lot of lying around watching television, reading, messing about, playing games, but also some long walks and time by the sea. It was really great. I'd kind of promised myself that i would just take a break from being married (I don't mean go and find another man - just take a break from trying to find a way to be in healthy relation to H!) but the situation was on my mind and I found myself very anxious at some points. Anxious that H would be angry with me, anxious that this would be my life from now on, anxious about what he was doing / thinking / feeling while I was away. My detachment has been so great, but during the holiday it was - intermittent.
H, on his side, was very kind and nice and stayed in touch (I did not initiate but I was responsive). At one point he said 'nobody else would suit me except for you,' which is one of the most affectionate and heartfelt things he's said to me in a long time.
We have a pattern, I think - in that when we're quite distant (by my standards) he seems to relax, become more affectionate, less critical, and generally easier to be around. This makes him more attractive to me, so I draw closer and this seems to provoke behaviour that is unacceptable to me. I do genuinely feel this is a bit of the old push-pull at play, a bit of basic incompatibility (this plays out in our sex life too - I'm the HD partner for all kinds of closeness and connection, and he is sometimes responsive, never initiates, and if I initiate too much - conversation or affection or sex or any kind of closeness - he withdraws or lashes out in anger or nasty critical behaviour to make me go away. So I do go away, and when he feels safer / more recovered / less smothered, he makes his own tiny moves to come back close, and i'm so hurt or resentful by that point, that I can't respond. It's a really well established pattern being played out at lower intensity between us right now, but it is still there.
I think the key to this is GAL and detachment - whether we stay married or not - but I have no idea how to build a loving connection to a man who has such a low tolerance for company. I think we may just be basically incompatible in this area. I think I can be too intense for him at times, and I have made changes to dial that back, but i can't exist in a marriage that only functions if I hold my breath and make myself small whenever I am in the room with him.
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I imagine that for you, the EA was a part of it but the repetitive, ongoing betrayal in his actions and words towards you both before and after the EA is even harder to address than the EA. I wonder if once the EA happened, it allowed you to take your unexpressed anger and resentment over his treatment of you and push it through the justified anger channel of the EA? Then your behaviors and the dynamic between the two of you between the BD of the EA and him moving out was partially the EA but maybe mostly everything else? I think I mentioned on my own thread reading the Gottman book about trust, and betrayal can happen in so many ways. I think his behaviors towards you-- the meanness, tantrums, belittling, weird mimicking-- constitute betrayal in a major way, since the person who you signed up to be your partner should have your back, not knock you down.
You have hit the nail on the head here, May. I don't think about the EA much at all any more. What hurt the most wasn't the actual actions - it was short lived, but intense - there was a LOT of contact over messaging and secret meetings, but I clocked what was going on fairly quickly. He denied it for a while, tried to gaslight me and say I was getting depressed / anxious and should see a doctor (!) and when presented with evidence, became more or less remorseful and transparent. I do understand why it happened. What hurts - and still does hurt, really - is that he was very definitely the pursuer in that dynamic - he was attentive and eager and WANTED closeness and interaction with her - and he never ever pursues / woos / courts me in that way (with me he's a very much silent-acts-of-service should be a good enough replacement for kind words and a sex life kind of man) and when I attempt to court him, he is generally overwhelmed by it and does the withdrawal / lashing out thing. I find THAT much much harder to come to terms with - and the ways he sees fit to behave when he's lashing out - than the EA itself. I think I do generally trust he isn't in touch with her any more - I don't snoop but I could if I wanted to, and he's transparent about where he is and what he is doing. But I don't trust that he wants me in the way he wanted her. I don't feel courted or desired and wanted in any way. I feel that he's committed to doing the right thing. I know everyone has to start somewhere and that commitment is a lot - but still, isn't not being loved. I don't feel loved. We have had the 5 Love Languages talk. I know he feels loved when I do domestic work that gives him rest and space, and then leave him alone to rest and recharge. He knows how I feel loved, and I do think he tries to do that, and I can see him now and again attempting to show empathy by delivering these 'empathic phrases' in a fairly rehearsed and robotic way, but he's cold.
There's not much on this board for piecing. I am going to read Blu's old threads, as I know she struggled with piecing and had the sense of disappointment that I had for a long time. He's been back just under a year and I think I am heart-deep disappointed and my marriage is most peaceful when I am in full on distancing, self protection and GAL mode.
