Last night H and I told the children that he is moving out and we are slowly moving towards divorce. The conversation was the hardest one I have ever had in my life and it went poorly (we had agreed to stick to the facts: H is moving out, the kids will split time between the homes, divorce is likely happening... any questions kiddos?). Instead H told the kids 'mummy and daddy have decided... mummy and daddy think this is best... mummy and daddy etc'. We had previously discussed not using this tactic because the kids know that H wants out, but that I do not. And I refuse to lie or be inauthentic with them (although I am dedicated to only giving the information they need, would never throw him under the bus, and am a pretty great mom in the emotional intelligence department). H also shut down a question from the kids about me getting a job (work to them means leaving for extended periods of time like he does and of course they are worried about it). He snapped at our S 'it's my job to take care of mummy' after which, no one wanted to ask anymore questions. Can I just say that his response is demeaning to me and untrue in the long-term?
A couple of days ago, we had a talk about how I am the cause of all of this and the whole '13 years of misery' schtick. I lost my ability to validate his cr*p and told him how deeply, deeply, deeply he had hurt me with his affair, how disappointed I was that he chose to lean out of the marriage instead of leaning in and how I couldn't move forward into friend zone like he wants because I hadn't had a whiff of him owning his side of the street/50% of the marriage. He stood up for himself, made excuses (that placed it all back on me) and basically left me feeling worse than I was before the conversation.
H takes everything personally, whether it is from me or the kids. His ego-driven emotions (shame, guilt, etc) overwhelm him and render him unable to empathize or see anything beyond his own pain. I keep trying to repeat the mantra 'I didn't break him, can't fix him' over and over. My nature is to try and improve myself, reflect, change, become a better version, so when someone blames me for things, I want to address it. But the load has become unbearable and I don't see how I can change anymore without losing the essence of who I am.
I am not sure if I should continue to stand for our M, or just throw in the towel already.
Needing 'you'll be OK no matter what' today, but not able to supply it myself at the moment...
