A day at a time

[may22]

hi Alison,

That dynamic between my H and me has existed forever, too. It is only since this crisis unfolded, though, that we've talked about it and I have a better understanding about what is happening. Before, I thought he was just acting like a jerk. He is a mama's boy for sure-- chats with his mom on the phone nearly every day-- but she is generally kind and supportive, not critical (that would more be my mother). Regardless, he has a hard time disappointing the women in his life, and I include AP in that. He also has a hard time when we disagree generally, even if it isn't a fight. He wants us to be on the same page all the time. This whole we can't get divorced unless we both agree it is the best thing for him to run off and live with his AP is the same dynamic, just taken to a truly bizarre degree.

Anyway, I do believe this stems from a deep well of care/love, and a vulnerability and insecurity about disappointing me (or his mom or AP. He told me the hardest thing about breaking it off with her was disappointing her, feeling that he'd let her down, he'd led her to believe something that now wasn't going to happen, did this mean he'd caused her to waste three years of her life aged 31-34, barf, blah blah blah). With me, he's talked about it in terms of our relationship and how he feels about me, or what I mean to him, but not like he loves me soooooo much. I feel I could be more empathetic about it all if he said it that way.... but it is still his problem that he needs to deal with and I am trying to just understand it is happening when it does but not cater to it or freak out in return. And, most of the air goes out of all of it when I don't respond to his defensiveness by getting defensive in return.

Do you believe your husband is actually asleep when he initiates? I think you're pretending to be asleep so you don't have to say yes or no, and he's pretending to be asleep so he doesn't actually have to initiate. I could be wrong, but that strikes me as two people who are terrified, but who also really want to get close.

Oh god. This made me cry. I don't know. I've never questioned it when he says he is still asleep when this happens. At first I thought it was because his unconscious self had forgiven me for sexually 'breaking' him before his conscious self did. I do know that I can nearly always predict when it is going to happen before we go to sleep. There is sexual tension between us, whether he wants to admit it or not, and while some nights it happens without me knowing it would when I went to bed, I've been 100% accurate when I think as I'm getting ready for bed that it will happen tonight. No false positives. I'm going to need to sit on this.

I am going to ask you a tough question. A really tough question. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want.

Is there any other reason aside from the kids that you are trying to make this work? If you didn’t have kids would you try? Or would you be out that door and never looking back?

Do you love him?

Ginger, I do love him. I spent a lot of time on this early on-- is this relationship worth saving, the one between the two of us, not just the family unit? Is he a good person who screwed up or just an a-hole?

The thing is... he's my best friend and I'm his. He's my person. That is what has made this all so devastating-- I never in a million years would have believed he could have done this, the one person I trusted more than anyone else in the world, the one person I believed would always, always have my back.

There have been times in our relationship, though, that my love for him calcified under layers of resentment. I think if I had found out about the affair during the first year of it, I would have gone full scorched-earth D on him and never looked back. As luck (or non-luck) had it, I went through a process where I accepted my own contributions to our R problems and forgave him for his part, not knowing yet about the A, and rediscovered my love for him.

All that being said... while I do love him, if it weren't for the kids, I would have walked. Absolutely. There is zero reason to go through all this struggle if it weren't for those two girls. And not just for them, but for myself, and my identity as a mother and my desire to spend as much time with them as I can, even beyond wanting to give them a happy and functional two parent household if it is within my power to do so. I could find another love, I'm confident of that. But that person wouldn't be the father of my children, and if I can make it work with him, I will. I believe we have the ingredients to make it work if we both want it-- friendship, love, general compatibility.