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...
Sage, first let me say I am sorry you had to tell the kids. I admit that telling my D was one of the things that scared me the most as looked forward to eventually splitting up if that is where my sitch ended up. I've often said, it if wasn't for my D, i probably would have told my W to hit the bricks the minute I found her EA. Especially since it was her second. But because of my D I took pause on that.
The good news is that the hardest part of your sitch is behind you. Now you can focus on being the best mother to those kids that you can be!
I do need to point something out to you:
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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.
And then....
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I am not sure if I should continue to stand for our M, or just throw in the towel already.
Is your H, right now, someone that you want to remain married to?? I really think the first quote above is your answer. He is no longer the man you married. He is a lying cheater. I would throw in towel until such a time he is no longer a lying cheater and can past his own ego. If that never happens then you can move on knowing that there was nothing you could do to save the marriage.
Also, "I keep trying to repeat the mantra 'I didn't break him, can't fix him' over and over. " Stop saying that. Stop being so available for him to dump on you. Learn to shut it down.
Him: "It is all your fault! You did this! You brought this about!" You: "Stop. I refuse to stand her and have you blame me for YOUR problems." Then walk away.
Learn the art of firmly standing up for yourself, then walking away. If more LBSs could learn that when their lying cheating spouse is engaged in an A they'd be way better off for it.
Here is the thing, whether you believe it right now or not, you will be ok no matter what. You will be better than ok! You will be awesome and thrive!!
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
Sage my dear when WS/WAS are throwing vitriol at you like that you don't have to validate. And it isn't poor DBing if you don't. It's a good thing you can be objective and see that he can't see things for what they are vs. what he wants them to be. And it's good that you wish you were in a more zen place to validate. But I'll leave this here for food for thought for you.You absolutely refusing to agree with his version of things doesn't make you a bad DB'er or doing the wrong thing. Your boundary is reality. And that's a perfectly appropriate boundary to have.IMHO draw your line in the sand and keep it there like Steve85 said. Standing up for yourself and refusing to eat the blame he was trying to feed you is protecting yourself and your mental health from his crisis and you deserve those lines in the sand.
To go with that if you feel you need to validate in the future just to keep the peace or stay out of the fray, whatever it may be, a lot of vets suggest saying "I'm sorry you feel that way" and either repeat that like a chant as they throw more irrational word vomit at you or say it once and find a way to leave the situation. IMHO I feel that is one of the most patronizing things on the planet to say to another adult. I used "I understand you feel that way, and that's a really awful place to be." I'll acknowledge that that was his truth but I'd be d@mned if I was going to allow him to think I agreed with his version of things. There was a lot of "If I felt that way I'd probably want to leave too, but I'm sorry I just don't see our MR the way you do." Or "I'm sorry you're so miserable. I've never gone out of my way to make you feel like that. So I'm not sure how you'd like me to respond." A few times I went totally off the reservation and threw "You are getting everything you want, a new life, a new love, a new you, rid of me, a full re-writing of our history, but you're miserable? You're the miserable one? OK." No one is going to be a zen master through all of this. You have to forgive yourself for that.
Last if you want to throw in the towel, you throw in the towel my dear. If you want to stand, stand. If you want to fence sit while this separation plays out for a little while you go right ahead and do that. This is your journey. You'll stop standing when you are ready. You will keep standing if you feel that's right. And there's no shame in not knowing what you want in situations like these. Time is on your side.
Wayfarer, Cardinal, Pommy, Steve, thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your words and wisdom. It's been a rough week and your collective advice has seen me through some really bad moments.
I have to admit that him moving out has allowed me to emotionally detach in a way that I wasn't expecting. For the first time in 10 months I no longer dream of ways to fix our MR. In fact, when I read your words below Steve, it didn't even take me a microsecond for my heart to answer NO, without even a hint of sadness or longing.
Originally Posted by Steve85
Is your H, right now, someone that you want to remain married to??
The sadness I do feel is compassion and empathy for the person I was that spent so long taking all the blame for the downfall of my marriage and trying to fix herself based upon a list that had no end. I know that everyone must go through their own path, which will be longer or shorter depending on the person and situation, but I GET IT NOW when I read all the vets saying that they wished they had dropped the rope much, much sooner than they did. Not to save a marriage, but to save our own selves.
But I could still use some advice, please. Right now I want absolutely NOTHING to do with H. I want to step so far outside his reach so that a) he can no longer verbally or emotionally spew at me; and b) I am no longer within his orbit to blame everything on.
But we have the kids and are in the tentative beginnings of setting the stage for our coparenting relationship. And because he is so GD sensitive (ego-driven shame and guilt, everything about him and his pain), I am concerned that going NC or too dark will impact the kids too much.
Go dark within what's an appropriate limit for you. Going dark isn't falling of the face of the earth. It's conversing about the kids and "business" only, and being inaccessible in every other aspect. My exH and I literally only spoke about those things when I moved out. It took a while to find a balance. My H and I only spoke about those things when he was in the process of leaving. You don't have to be kind. Or talk about the weather. You don't have to respond immediately about kids or business stuff. You don't have to respond at all if it isn't kid or business stuff. A big one Steve85 taught me was not responding to informative texts. "I'm taking the kids to dinner at 7." My instinct was to ask more questions or at the very least respond with 'OK.' Leaving it alone was the best thing I ever chose to do. We both have iphones so he could see when I read his messages. A lot of people mistake going dark for active avoidance, complete disappearance, or something like that. IMO going dark is really more in relation to the light house theory. You're turning the light off. You and yours on your little seaside island are safe and sound. But that ship out at sea is on his own. Take that as you wish. But it helped me a lot in understanding how to handle 'going dark' living in the same house.
Wayfarer, the little seaside island analogy is perfect. I know it’s still early days for me and I am hopeful I will get to a place where I can keep our conversations only about business and kids and maintain my little safe island.
The hard thing for me is that he has this dream of us somehow being friends right now. I have clearly communicated that friendship for me includes empathy, apologies and each of us owning our side of the street (a hill that I am not willing to die on, but that’s my line in the sand).
Yesterday we were discussing schedules and kids. I have a milestone birthday in a couple weeks and my FOO have rented a lakeside house for a long weekend together with our kids. He asked what that was going to look like and I said ‘well, I thought I would have the kids for that time as their cousins will be there and it’s been planned for a year?’ He said yes, of course you can have the kids, I was just wondering if I was invited too? I just looked at him and realized how out of touch he is. My brothers are fiercely protective of me right now... I know they would support whatever I decided was best for me and the kids, but what am I supposed to do here?
Honestly. Why would he even think that? Why would you want to spend your birthday with him? Or that any of your family will want to spend time with him? What a dumba$$. Sorry, don’t mean to be rude and I know my dumba$$ would probably say exactly the same thing. I hope you told him no. And then go and have a blast without him.
Me (46) H (42) M:14 T:18, D9 & D11 4/19 - 12/19: series of escalating BDs 9/20 - present: R and piecing
This seems easy to me Sage....he doesn’t want the family unit as it used to be, so he gets to sit this one out. This is the new normal, right - his plan doesn’t have you in it? Let him sulk, he’s the one who has chosen this path. (My H got all sulky just after we had separated when I organised a trip to the beach for me and the girls and he complained to them that he hadn’t been invited. Even they said to him that it would be rather awkward and he couldn’t understand why.)
M:49 H:49 T:20 M:18 D:16 D:14
EA: Feb 2019-May 2020 Separated: Mar-early Aug 2020 H asked to reconcile: Jun 2020 EA relapse: Oct/Nov 2020 Recon #2: since Nov 2020
Pommy said it much more nicely and more maturely than I did... and I agree with her 100%. Him going on this vacation is cake-eating. Don't facilitate it. It isn't fair to you (or him, honestly, if he doesn't get to see what S and D is really like.)
Me (46) H (42) M:14 T:18, D9 & D11 4/19 - 12/19: series of escalating BDs 9/20 - present: R and piecing
I'm here to 2nd and 3rd that. Coming from a person who left their ex and a person who was stuck with a person who wanted to leave desperately and also wanted to be buddies....you've made you're bed you lie in it. If you are feeling particularly kind you can say "No, you'll have to sit this one out. Maybe one day we'll be in a place to go somewhere together like that, but I can't predict the future. However, right now it's just going to be confusing for the kids. Sorry."
I guess I am not particularly kind. My response was to look at him wide-eyed in authentic shock and say ‘I think that would be a bit awkward, don’t you?’
I appreciate your expanded kinder response, Wayfarer. H and I come from different countries and there will be times in the future where travel will need to include both parents for logistical reasons. So I can’t dismiss this as a ‘never, ever shall we share the same extended family space ever in the future.’
Thanks guys for the support. Now please grant me the patience to navigate split time with grace... I am already furious about having to negotiate with him about doing something fun and worthwhile with my kids this week.
