I have been thinking about your situation as mine has taught me some new lessons lately (I hope to update my thread soon!) and wanted to share some thoughts.
I know this is hopelessly pedantic, but I think you need to find ways to further detach. Not in the unloving sense, but to really, really feel deep in your bones that you will be just fine whatever happens. What would it take for you to get to 'meh'? I think that complete detachment will really allow both of you to start from a clean slate. I can't imagine how impossibly hard it is to get to that point with someone whom you interact with day in and day out, with how hard you have worked to save this M and get to M2.0. But I really truly believe (because I am living it at the moment), that total detachment is the only path to move forward, whether alone or with H.
I made the mistake of believing that total detachment was going to be fueled by my anger towards H, so that's where my focus was. That his unsavory side would be the thing that brought me to 'meh'. But total detachment comes from within-- more of a deep, deep understanding of your own self-worth, a recognition of YOUR values (irrespective of how H is or is not validating your values), becoming into your own, and completely differentiating from H. Basically, finding yourself again. An amazing poem was shared with my recently that encapsulates this so well:
LOVE AFTER LOVE
The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.
--Derek Wolcott
I don't have a recipe for reaching this place. In my own process, once I came out of the sadness and depression, rocketed by anger, I settled into my true stasis, which is love and compassion. I had to fill my own empty cup first; self-love and self-compassion, before there was any to share with H. But now that my own cup is filled, I am able to differentiate and slowly finding there are reserves left over that I may choose to share.
I reached far out there in woo-woo land to help me get here. I have relied on psychotherapy, tarot, psychics, amazing astrologers, energy healers and my own inner faith to help me find this place. And I know I still have a long journey ahead of me, but for the first time I see it as MY journey, not one that is attached to the outcome of my M. I can say without hesitation that I am now truly detached.
Do whatever it takes to get yourself here. My guess is that once you have a toehold on detachment, it will capture H's attention (not that this is the intent, simply a byproduct of the journey). This will do the inverse of what has been happening in your situation so far: H will start working for you in earnest, which will free up more psychic space for you to continue to examine yourself and your R objectively.
And although it is a good start, I don't think detachment comes from ignoring H's jabs or your triggers. I think that detachment comes from a deep wellspring within YOU. Who are YOU, May? What do you love about yourself, what are you worthy of, what would you say to yourself if you were truly a friend to you? Can you separate your self-worth from your coupledom?
You are amazing. I have every belief that you will come on the other side of this journey an even more amazing person than you already are, if that is even possible. And every single lesson you learn, you are teaching to your daughters. My wish for mine is that they see that self-love is more important than being loved by others. That they will ALWAYS have themselves, that there is a deep well within them that will serve them during the hard times and get filled back up during the easy ones.
