It's been a while since I was here. I stepped away for a while - I decided that micro-analysing every little spat I had with H, every aspect of his behaviour and what I was assuming was behind it was about as much of a waste of time as endlessly circling here and reporting my own anger, and unforgiveness and resentment. I decided instead to just drop the rope on my marriage and concentrate on myself, my boundaries and practicing acceptance for my current situation. I wasn't ready to make the move towards divorce, though knowing I could and it was practically possible and not-scary for me was a good thing to do. So I just let it all be for a while.
Things have improved for me. I am still working at home, and extremely busy at the moment, and here in the UK we are entering a second wave. I live in one of the parts of the UK that is under reasonably strict pre-lockdown conditions - there's no mixing with other households. We can still get out, and the shops are open, but socialising in person with friends is over. I am past my quiet time at work and into my very busy time, and it is going to get much busier over the next few weeks, and pretty unpredictably depending on what happens with lockdown (I work in HE). But I am in better spirits, and the kids are happier now they are back at school - that's improved things a lot in our household. There's still more work to do on me looking after myself - I tend to vanish into my work as a kind of escape mechanism when I am feeling unhappy, and that isn't healthy. And I do need to find that happiness inside, rather than from my H, my kids or solely from my work. So that's a work in progress.
H is being much kinder and more attentive than he has been in a long time. I actually think he's quite exhausted and depressed now. He's in medicine, as I've said, and while there was a bit of a lull over the summer, he and his colleagues are preparing for pretty awful working hours and conditions as the winter sets in. There have been changes though - he's told me he feels depressed (rather than just letting me work it out through his grumpy snapping and nasty anger - I've not seen much of that) and he seems to be leaning towards me for support and comfort more. That is extremely new. He doesn't want anything from me that I am not prepared to give - just for me to sleep in the MB and go to bed at the same time as him (which I will do so long as he hasn't been heavily drinking) - and that's nice. Just the sense that he is turning towards his wife and family for comfort rather than blaming me / us for the pressures of his work is a massive difference. His depression means that he sleeps a lot, so other than him working or sleeping I haven't seen a lot of him. But he is making efforts in the house and with the kids and being kind and more open about what he needs, which is good.
I think the change for me is that I don't feel as afraid of him when he's obviously worn out and exhausted and depressed as I used to. I think whenever he felt like that, I'd get very brittle and tense and anxious, because the moments when he'd start to take his anger out on me felt inevitable. I guess me pulling away at those moments probably helped trigger his angry behaviour (though he's responsible for that). I also feel okay about being clear with him when I am not available for comforting or listening or when he's being irritable in a way that I'm not willing to overlook. I do want to support him, but i'm not his therapist or his mother and I need to be able to safely set a boundary with him for my own self preservation without him responding angrily. We've had that happen a few times now and it has worked well.
He has also had some working patterns rearranged, and he came to tell me he'd been put on a couple of shifts with EA woman. I'd never have known or had the ability to find this out without him telling me, and he told me he was worried about telling me in case he sparked an argument, but he didn't want there to be any secrets. His honesty there when there was no need for it other than his own motivation and conscience counted for a lot for me. I asked him how he felt being around her, and he said slightly embarrassed and awkward, and he'd prefer to work elsewhere, but they are all so busy it's not like they're having lots of conversation, and they don't have friends in common. I didn't really feel much about it - glad that he didn't want to have a secret from me, but no urge to look at his phone or question him and no difficult feelings. She just doesn't really matter to me much anymore - I'm more interested in his behaviour and looking for consistent honesty and openness from him, rather than wanting to snoop on him.
I still have moments of being very sad that the marriage that we used to have is over. It was a terrible marriage, so that doesn't quite make sense - and it is better now, though there isn't the closeness that there was in the early days. I think we're both still very cautious with each other, though most of the unpleasant behaviours from him seems to have died down over the last few weeks. We don't really have R talks, but we do talk about the future - perhaps moving to a larger house (esp. if I am working from home long term, and the possibility that the kids will be at home with us and perhaps home schooled again at some point in the future.) It's early days, but it has also been a long time since I imagined a future with him.
So that is where I am. I am looking forward to catching up with you all!
