Fierce compassion, equanimity, integrity

[Sage4]

Cardinal, you sound so strong. You are asking ALL the right questions of yourself.

I want to gently point out where boundaries are and are not in your post.

IC reminded me to keep repeating that everything is joint property, no matter what I choose, no matter what H says about whether it should be his or not. He might yell about our M not being a partnership so he can avoid responsibility, but that doesn't make what he's saying true. She reminded me not to drink his koolaid, and I feel like sometimes the koolaid is on slow drip, and I'm not conscious of it. And then I remember it and get angry.

This is a boundary. Everything is joint property. You can give him everything, if you want, that's totally fine if it feels OK to you. But he cannot take everything just because he feels like it. Sometimes boundaries don't need to be spoken out loud to be there. Just holding that knowledge in your head and making decisions with it there is enough sometimes.

For instance, I stayed calm during the last interaction as he told me what I would pay and when (because I'd already been planning to get my own account and stop depositing my checks into our joint account), but post-interaction, my anger starts to rise up, and it feels like I'm not defining or enforcing a boundary. Why? I'm trying to figure this out. Maybe someone here can help me untangle this.

This is a place where you may need to find a boundary. I am reading between the lines that maybe your anger is at yourself for allowing him to walk all over you. You don't have to come up with a boundary on the spot, BTW. And you don't have to come up with a boundary all by yourself. In this instance, when he starts telling you what you will or won't pay for, you might say 'I need some time to digest all of this, can we continue the conversation in a couple of days?' And then go speak to a L and get the boundary you need.

I'm starting to feel like he has crossed and crossed and crossed a huge boundary, which is: I will not be disrespected! I will not accept this treatment from anyone! This treatment being: my H wants a D but does not file and instead continues living here with me, his wife, while dating.

You have not set up a boundary here. You are asking him to do something, change his behavior, act differently. A boundary is about what YOU do, not him. But, this is tricky territory to navigate. A boundary would be YOU instigating D because you will not accept this treatment. And then you say:

Why haven't I filed? I still want him to own his decision. Faced with challenges in a M, my choice is to at least attempt to work through those challenges. My vows were for better and worse. I don't have control over what he chooses, and obviously he doesn't choose any of that. Whatever his reason(s), this is where we are. When DnJ says standing is for you, this is what I think of: I choose to live by my values and beliefs--at this point, even if I do hold out hope H will come back to the H I knew someday, that's not the thing driving me. Best-case, a great house would come up for rent, magically at this same price (hundreds lower than current market), and I could live my values and beliefs elsewhere, with separate finances, and not care about what the heck H was doing with his life. But now he's going to have a roommate (me) who's paying him for half the expenses--why should he ever lift a finger to D? To move?

Which tells me that maybe you're not quite ready to put up a boundary yet. Which is OK. You have good reasons to do what you need to do. Maybe you will need to put a boundary here (file for D) or maybe not.

I fantasize about calmly saying to him next time he brings up what costs we should be splitting, "Funny, that we're still married, and you've been dating for months now. Do you ever think about the fact that we're still married?" Or, you know, when I'm on conferences at home for new job, loudly referring to my husband over and over just to remind him and hopefully push him to, uh, start the steps to change that status. I know how pointless all of that is. I know! But especially when he is acting outwardly happy and like everything is normal, I want to remind him (and me), Hello--this is not normal! You are living as if we are D and we aren't!

Saying anything like this to him will not produce the effect you desire, sadly. I have started writing down my fantasy quips and responses to the things H is saying or doing. And then try to let it go. When I go back and read them from a few weeks ago, I can see so clearly how it would only have made ME feel worse if I actually said them. That his response (or lack thereof) would have been so hurtful to ME.

I sometimes wonder: if I wasn't so resistant to (and probably accurate to say scared of) losing so much money in this process, would I decide to file, simply because it is a formality at this point, doesn't preclude future R, and because I'm ready to embrace this new life on my own? Would I have hired a L to hopefully help get him out of this house by now? (Maybe if they had assured me that would be easy, it would be a different story.) One thing this last year has taught me is that I really, really value feeling secure, and financially secure. All of that was taken away with BD. It's one reason I felt ready, recently, to leave this state--it's so expensive, especially when you don't have the benefit of two incomes. I do not want to lose the money I have saved up in the last year on my own, the money that will help me get my footing in this next, independent part of my life, to a D I didn't want in the first place. Isn't that the main thing stopping him--not wanting to face the financial reality? Does that make me as irrational as he is? Oh, boy. Didn't this post start out about boundaries? I do think it's all related.

I have this little 'prayer' that I will learn more about myself and grow from this awful experience. You are learning some valuable things about yourself that will serve you for the rest of your life.

Hugs, Cardinal! xx