Rumspringa

[mamabird]

Hello all,
It's been a minute. Things have been a bit crazy in my home town of Los Angeles with all the fires, etc. (We are fine. Thank God). Feeling very grateful to have a home and good friends.

Over the last month, I really got to a much better place of detachment. I immersed myself in attachment theory and that helped me really understand that H can't help his behavior and I actually stopped caring so much. I didn't think about H and saw him in a much different light.

Interviewed a few L's and found one I liked. Armed with knowledge.

Did a lot of social stuff, made some new friends, hosted a game night. My sister came to visit me and we had a great time. And I'm teeing up for an amazing business trip to the Middle East next week. Life feels rich and full and great.

I did feel like I still wanted to have that conversation with H. I moved from a place of anger and anguish to a place where I actually started to feel sorry for him. He came over to my house and we talked, with my intention simply being to be heard and for him to begin to take some accountability.

It was hard to get him to truly listen and he launched back into his usual narrative of everything that happened 12 years ago. For those just tuning in, I made some poor decisions which were driven by my unhappiness in my marriage and at work. Not an affair, but I was "inappropriate texting". Anyway, H finally admitted that he has never forgiven me and has pegged me at that point in our marriage, despite all the work that I did over the years to repair and make amends. He also acknowledged that he needs to work on forgiveness, which is a big first step.

I have a hard time truly believing that he never forgave me - things were good for a while, then bad, then good, and then bad... I feel like when external things got hard or went bad, he took that out on me. Or whenever he was unhappy, he could always point back at "well you did THAT".

Not to mention that now H has actually had an affair, which he first tried to deny, then said he couldn't help his feelings, then said that he was just lashing out. Interestingly, he didn't ask me one question about how I found out about his affair. Not one question.

Anyway, the one very surprising thing that came out of the conversation is that H is not "done." I was assuming that he was, given his behavior over the last 5 months. He really hasn't given me much indication that he wants to stay in the M. He doesn't call, he doesn't ask how I am doing (even though he thinks he does) and literally makes no effort. But, when I said something like "I assume we are not going to stay together" I saw a very subtle shift in his face that told me he was not thinking that nor expecting to hear it.

He's not ready to move back in nor do I want him to. Our financial arrangement will continue and he'll look for another apartment.

Trying to figure out how I feel about it. I'm not really hopeful that H will figure himself out, and part of me thinks that this isn't really about preserving the marriage but more about avoiding pain. Avoiding pain of D, avoiding pain of having to finally deal with all of his [censored]. I can't even say that I am cautiously optimistic.

So my plan is to continue on as I have been - moving forward. I have said from the beginning that I would leave the door open, which I still intend to do, but I'm a different person and I have a much better idea of what I want and need from a relationship. So, if he can be that person, great... but I'm not waiting for him or holding out hope.