Thank you SOOOOOOO very much for getting back to me. While I knew in my head that it was more about him than me, it is very difficult not to get sucked in emotionally when this happens. Also, he keeps using the threat of financially pulling back while saying he is full of concern for me and D.
Anyway, I was teaching this lunchtime when the phone rang. I knew it would be H but had to pick it up in case it was a student cancelling or something. It was H. I said I couldn't talk, I had a lesson on. H said, when can you ring me back? I said, much later, I am very busy today. He said in a very low voice, I am sorry for what I said on Saturday, it was out of order. I will ring you back later this evening. I said, OK.
I just finished work for today and came to check my email. H has sent me a nice photo that he took up in the hills. A peace offering, I think.
I don't know what he wants to talk to me about this evening, but I hope it isn't too heavy, as I am mentally and emotionally whacked.
I have to limber up in the Validating Department!
I was going to post the gist of H's email here, but as Ellie says, the details for the most part can be ignored. There are obviously clues about the way his mind is working though. Maybe I will post it later tonight when D is in bed.
I have noticed a correlation between Livnlearn having some fun and H going crazy and abusive. He says it is all done on his money.
Later,
Livnlearn
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates
H rang just now and said he planned to come down Wednesday and take out D for a couple of hours after school. I pointed out that it was a school holiday, and so he said, oh, I will find out about the buses and let you know tomorrow. Said he couldn't take D out for lunch as he had lots of things to do. (Implication being that he will be staying the night somewhere or the other, if he is taking D out late.)
The whole conversation took place as if he hadn't sent the emails, and after he told me about taking D out, and asking me if I had seen the photo he sent, he said, right then, that's it.
Here is the gist of letter #1 (the contents of the brackets are my additions) -
It is full of foul language and tells me he won't pay the full mortgage this month (he had agreed that already) and that he has to pay all this money for a house he can't use ( ??) That I come top of his list, and why does he come bottom of mine? Says I don't give a f*** about anyone but myself, that he's sick of my sense of entitlement.... etc etc etc.
Letter #2 says -
He first apologises for the last line of the previous letter, which was "unecessarily insulting". Asks how long he has to go on being cold, poor and lonely. Will he have to support me for the rest of his life? He sees that I am depressed, as I go to bed in the afternoons (that only happened when he was here at the weekend, as I was tired and at a loose end with him "in my space" but with H concentrating on playing with D and leaving me out, as it were). My depression concerns him, but he is tired of being supportive of everyone, including his father (this is a new one on me!) OW 1 and OW 2, leaving him paying the price ( ????) He is sick of playing the saint. (More !!!!?????? ) Does he hate himself so much that he is always in these one sided relationships?? (As far as I know, both OW broke off with H, not the other way around.)
My "not working" was one of the main things that killed his love for me, which was strong enough at the beginning. (At bomb time he told me we got married in haste and should never have done so etc etc) He couldn't see me as his equal because I wasn't. (He is still stuck seeing money as the only measure of work) Says him paying for "everything" (he doesn't) is doing neither of us any good.
Says Saturday night he was angry after being stuck indoors because of non-stop rain, then drinking a glass of rum, which explains his over the top reaction to the cell phone call. Says just a year ago he would have finished the whole bottle. But he is not like that any more.
Says he has made his peace with OW 1 and OW 2, and he wants to make peace with me, but it is not possible until I allow him to live (ie I don't depend on him financially. He was with OW 1 and 2 a total of a few months, he has been married to me eleven years, with a kid). Says I have all the power (making him stick to the SA. He want it revised.)
Thinks the best thing to do is to sell the house and divide it 1/3 to him, 2/3 to me. Tells me to rent a small flat, invest some money, set up a trust for D. Get rid of the mountains of junk in the garage (from our move, lots of that junk is HIS!! He has not lifted a finger to help sort out this house since he left, except for being forced to pay for the roof repair.)
Then proceeds to give me the usual advice of getting a job in the schools etc that he has been saying ever since the bomb, but this time didn't mention best friend of OW 1 at least!
He was angry about my ten week holiday this year, not only because it took D away form him but it was a lost opportunity to get income (Schools close for three months here...) Asks how a judge would view this, not that he intends to go to court or anything... (veiled threat here.)
Says it has never been easy to talk to me about things that really count (he means money) 'cause he says that I always assumed that they didn't really count, only my sacred womanly task of bringing up a child at home mattered. But the world is not like that, all the mothers at school work (not quite true, but many do and have the full support of the extened family, which we don't have. The irony here is that I have always felt H did so little other than earn - he used to boast that he could get loads of work done in six hours and be free by 2 pm every weekeday - that I was afraid that if I took on a job I would be stretched to the limit!!) This imbalance is what destroyed the marriage, according to him. (Not his going off with OW!??)
Says another thing is that we never got on in bed. Which was no one's fault. (When I told him what I liked, he once told me it was too much work!!)
And my rejection of the country we lived in - although he says that is the past. (He complains more about this country than I do these days!!)
He didn't help things by taking on and accepting ALL the responsibility - bringing me to this country, satisfying me in bed, therefor undertaking the full financial burden etc. (No mention of his bad investments and consequent loss of money, necessitating a mortgage).
He realises he might have been able to save our marriage if he had been harder on me. Insisted on me getting a job etc.
(Indeed, he has left it rather late, hasn't he?? Did I even know all this was going through his mind before the bomb? Just a year before the bomb he assured me the amount of mortgage he was taking on was easily "do-able". Right now if we were together we would be comfortable, if not well off on our combined income. So what's up???)
Wants to know how long this is going to go on. etc etc.
You get the picture.
If I suddenly got a great job and H had to pay me less, would that magically cure everything, I wonder?
Livnlearn
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates
Will have to mull over this missive to see what I can glean from it, if anything useful.
I have H's friend and his GF coming over to dinner on Wednesday evening, as well as perhaps a couple of other people too. Could be interesting if H plans to come down to the city too.
I really need some inspiration on all this. I had planned this week to be busy, with working on my own project towards the end and during the weekend. Really need to get a lot done.
Come on Livnlearn, fight the good fight and keep to your furrow...
Livnlearn
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates
Well, H was all over the place in his email, wasn't he?
Lots of this is a rehash of old complaints, and it seems like there's really no need to respond right now to it, unless he asks you to. Kind of interesting, though, that he's expending so much energy rehashing your R at this point, isn't it? Almost sounds like he's trying to convince himself
If you DO address any of these issues with him (and probably it's better to stick to writing than verbal communication) remember to validate and drop the rope. It's amazing what happens sometimes when you agree with them.
Quote: he is tired of being supportive of everyone, including his father (this is a new one on me!) OW 1 and OW 2, leaving him paying the price ( ????)
Hmmmm....did oW2 somehow stick him woith the bill from the landlady? Maybe that's why he was so mad about it - maybe he had lent her the deposit money, and now she's not paying it back???
Quote: If I suddenly got a great job and H had to pay me less, would that magically cure everything, I wonder?
No - BUT - if you KNEW it was over, forever and ever, with your H, would you be doing things differently financially?
Is what he currently pays what the courts would mandate in a divorce, or is it more? (I seem to remember it was more?) If so - you would have to earn more anyway if you divorced, right? So there may be an unwanted kernel of truth in what he says about you needing to get more work. (Also - it seems like he is really doubting his ability to continue bringing in a good income - he may be worrying about what will happen to you and dd if he falls apart or is no longer able to bring in the income he used to.His skin cancer scare may also be worrying him.)
So what kind of things could you say to him that would be validating and/or agreeing?
"I know the financial strain is hard on you. We really appreciate all that you do for us, trying to keep dd's life stable. I am looking at jobs at XXXX, but so far have not found anything that would pay be as much as my lessons pay. I promise I will keep looking, though, as I realize I must plan for a better future for myself and dd. "
" I know other people have taken advantage of you (OW -DUH ) and I don't want you to think that dd and I fall into that category".
"Yes, I suppose last summer I did miss some income opportunities, although with school out, it didn't seem like there was much to stay for. Frankly, I was having such a hard time emotionally dealing with the OW2 sitch, I just really needed that infusion of love and family support to get me back on my feet and moving forward with my life. Don't worry, though, I am fine now and feeling quite optimistic about my future."
"Yes, our sex life could certainly have been better. It's sad, really, the way a downward spiral gets going - I felt like you didn't care enough to do the things that please me, and in return, I probably subconsciously didn't try hard enough to please you. You probably felt the same way. In my future relationships I will understand how important it is to be proactive, not reactive, and how to let a man know how to satisfy me better and learn how to satisfy him better."
"We would love it if you were able to move back into town. DD would get so much more time with you, and I would be more free to work and to date. Taking care of dd 24/7 has made it really difficult for me to get on with my social life, as I feel badly spending too much on sitters."
Okay - and here's a question for you, LNL - is there someway you could buy H out of his share of the house? Do you have room to take in a boarder? Could you use the inheritance money (without letting him know about it?).
Start asking yourself - if H died tomorrow, how would you address your financial issues? I do think that if you began to Act As If you couldn't count on him financially, you might make some different choices. Right now your continued reliance on him makes it still seem like you haven't dropped the rope.
Well, there is a lot of resentment gunk to do with the work/money issue, going back twenty years and more.
Basically, for many years H had an easy time of it moneywise, as from about the age of seventeen or eighteen, after his mother died, he had money in a trust from her estate and so had an income. He could choose to live on just that or work and earn more etc. Very nice. The amount he had coming in monthly way back then was much more than I was earning by working full time (this was even before we knew each other.) So he had many years of being able to just fool around, travel, work at stuff he wanted etc. I am not saying his life was a piece of cake in other ways as he had the rejection of is father to contend with, but as far as money, he was quite independently well off for about fifteen years. He then chose to sink this capital into a business venture here in this country and to buy our previous small flat (this was still before we married, but we knew each other.) When the business was rocky, he took out a partial mortgage against our old flat. By the way, I helped substantially in that business, on the practical side, making some of the stuff to sell and manning stalls at fairs etc. Anyway, he closed the business when D was born, as it was losing money, and started doing the freelance work that he is now doing in order to earn our bread and butter.
My history of work, pre marriage, is that I pursued my own vocation part time, interleaved with many many boring but paying part-time or short term jobs. I derived enormous satisfaction from being able to do my personal work, made a little money from it, in fact was doing best out of it just before I married and came to live in this country. So things were looking up for me, as I made most of my money doing what I liked and was good at, rather than with cleaning jobs, shop work and other menial jobs, in addition to TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language, which I quite enjoyed.) I would point out that H has only once in his life never had to do a halfway meial and badly paid job.
After coming to this country, as I say, I helped H in his business and did a little teaching work too. When D arrived I was a full time Mum, and housewife. For many years I managed without the support of any family nearby, without a car and we didn't have much money. I did a little of my own kind of work at home, as much as I was able, when baby was asleep etc.
Next we spent nearly eighteen months in my counrty of origin, I had undertaken a job dealing with family matters and we were sort of stuck there for many months. This was mostly paid for by my money, that I happened to have from a family inheritance. H did not support us those eighteen months. He himself became very interested in my line of work and started doing it while we were out there. You could say it was my money that got him started to some extent, and gave him the opportunity to pursue this line. I encouraged him!
When we returned back home to this country, it was back to the grindstone for H. But he managed to make many trips abroad to pursue his personal work. He has made seven trips to my country of origin and the country he met OW 2 in during the last three years. These were only to pursue his personal interest/work. Although others expressed concern that H was making these expensive trips, I was behind him, thinking he needed to find himself and get into work that interested him and made him happy.
On my front, after D started school, I told H I would start doing some work, but put it off while looking for our new house (it took two years of looking), moving, dealing with my mother who was getting frailer by the day in other country etc. At this time H started acting strange. Didn't want to be with me, but in between would be affectionate. This is what kept me unsuspecting. Didn't partake much at all in the house search or move, only what he had to.
I have to say I didn't want to get a 'proper' job at this time, one that would commit me to full time work and no flexibility to get away and pursue my own project, even at long intervals (a month or so a year). It looks to me like H wanted me to be the one to have the "proper" job, have a steady income, be there at all times for D, so he can work less and then go off to pursue HIS personal interests. It is what he would like now too. Remember he recently told me he wanted to go off for eight months for his work? He assumed it would be me who would be there to look after D for him.
My current thinking is this, frankly. Tell me what you think. Brickbats accepted.
My personal work is what I am really good at. I need to work at it to allow it to bear fruit for me financially. It would give me the most satisfaction. Right now I have gathered all the material for one project and more than half for another. It is a matter of having the time and opportunity and concentration (these constant angry missives from H don't help, and I have even told him so) to be able to put a presentation together to get some interest in it from third parties. So it is commercial proposition.
In addition, I continue to work part time at teaching. Actually, I am open to doing as much as comes my way, it is just difficult to get new students and keep the ones I have as people are rather unreliable in that department. I do not want to go to school and teach classes of unruly kids.
Money from my mother's estate will help, it will take a while to come through though.
And through all this I am a single Mum too.
I am not a mind reader, also I think H doth whine unfairly. He resents having to "look after" a family. It is not as if he also did every other thing around the place for us either! He is not handy around the home. Not that he can't, he isn't interested.
As for me never wanting to talk about money, more like he didn't! Didn't want to dicuss his 'investment' with me, didn't tell me anything before going ahead with it, although it was highly risky. I tried to bring up the subject of having a budget to stick to, but that was brushed aside. When H wanted to spend 'his' money, he did, no questions asked. And although he gave me the bank card to use, I never ever made personal big purchases without asking him first if it was OK.
This year, he has been to other country to visit OW 2, he has purhcased a new laptop, a new cell phone, an expensive new piece of equipment for himself.
Ellie (if you are still here with me this far!!), I guess H may well have bailed out either or both OW and is now feeling the pinch even more and using me as his scapegoat. Perhaps that is why he got annoyed when D asked where OW 2 got her rent deposit money from?? Who knows.
I have paid my dues, I feel, in the menial jobs department, over many years. I will now do at least halfway decent and well paid work. I saw taking time off from outside work for D as a really worthwhile thing to do. Never did H say at this time that it was a bad thing. Anyway, childcare costs would have swallowed up any money I made part time. And I personally wanted to be a full time Mum to my D.
Anyone care to offer their thoughts?
Livnlearn
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates
I need to start asking H about Christmas arrangements, not to pressure him but so as to start making my own plans. I thought of emailing him to say that I would respond to his other emails separately, but then to ask about Christmas, fill him in on some D present concerns and other light stuff.
His email stirs up a lot of mud and I do't want to react too quickly to it. It may just settle down completely without my doing anything at all...
Livnlearn
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates
LNL - first - know that I totally agree with your defense of yourself BUT defending yourself to H won't get you where you want to go. I am serious about this validating and agreeing stuff. It works.
Also remember that your H has a different view of things - and right now that view is also being colored by his anxiety about making a living. I'm sure he feels like a failure, having lost his inheritance in a bad business investment, and now not getting the assignments he had hoped for. That was probably part of the lure of the OW - they probably saw him as more exciting and successful than he really is (kind of like the failing middle manager who dates an 18 year old because she will look up to him).
It's not surprising that your H is lacking in basic financial skills - sounds like his inheritance may have been more of a curse than a blessing. (Speaking of inheritance, have you figured out what you need to do to keep yours separate from the marital assets? In the US, you need to keep it separate from all marital stuff - if you put it into a joint bank account, for instance, it is considered marital property.)
As for wanting to pursue your projects versus getting a "menial" job - that's great, but it doesn't seem like you've actually gotten that much done in that direction this year. How realistic is this? How long would it take to see fruits of your labors? If H died tomorrow, would you be able to wait for this project to come through, or would you have to get a job to provide immediate income? It may be that you have to continue to pursue this on the side, while getting a "day" job for now.
I have a really good friend who is a musician. She never made much money, just scraped by. Eventually she married a writer that she thought of as more financially stable, in part because he was older and had an interesting history - but the truth is, he only made minimally more than she did, and his income has been failing for years (in part because of progressive damage from a brain-injury accident he sustained), while their expenses have been rising with the birth of their child. Still, she persisted in the illusion that he was her financial safety net - because she just really didn't want to face that she needed to bring in more income.
As for your dinner question - sure, if others are coming, and he's going to be in town, extend the invitation. Don't sweat answering his emails unless he asks for a response again. He may just be venting. Practice your validating responses, though, okay???
I emailed H about telling me what his Christmas plans were. Just light and friendly. He rang me during a lesson (good he does that, I have had to tell him I am busy with a lesson two days in a row, so he knows I am not doing nothing!) I rang him back just now.
We talked about D's Christmas present. H says he is absolutely broke this month as he has lots of tax to pay. Says there may be people up at his place (nearby houses) over New Year so he could have D then, over Christmas it will be grim and he wouldn't want to 'subject' D to that.
Says he has neck pain due to the cold at his place. He is coming down tomorrow really just to get away from his place, for a break. I asked him if he was coming for the day or overnight. He said, overnight, staying at OW 1's place. Said hastily they are 'not together'.
I knew this, he has been staying overnight in the city and I knew where. I know one is not to assume, but so far I have been right about what H is up to EVERY TIME. I can read him like a book. Of course ealier this summer he said that OW 2 and he were not together, so I 'should leave her out of it', then promptly got together with her. I can't believe that H spends more time being friendly with that creep . But there you go. I guess she is not a 'financial drain' on him!
Anyhow, when he said that, I didn't react at all, just said, well, I am having friends over for dinner tomorrow, you can join us if you like. He said really, who? Seemed very interested. Said he would get back to me about that.
Then about taking D out, he makes out he is down here for that, but I think there is more to it than that. He said, what do I want to do about lunch??? I said well, he could come here, as I didn't want to go out spending money on meals out. He was happy to accept. Offered to cook. I made a joke about one of the few dishes he can cook, which D says he is good at as he makes it all the time. He said, yes, I am sick of it, I have it all the time! So I said, I'll make something then. He laughed.
That was it. I managed to keep it light the whole time and listened to or validated everything he said.
Of course I am hardly happy that he is in touch with OW 1 again. I could never accept her into my life again, ever, of that I am sure. I have had a fear the last few weeks when I suspected that OW 1 was in the picture again in some way, that H would end up spending Christmas or New Year with her along with D on her visitation. Makes me sick to the pit of my stomach. I would have to be alone (at least without family) while D is with H and OW???
As usual H doesn't know what he wants to do about the holiday season yet, it will be left to the last minute, then I will be bawled at for 'pressuring' him....
Also, I don't know how I would feel if H was cake-eating by, say, spending Christmas with me and D and then up with D and OW around, but not me. That would not be funny.
I can't escape H's nature, that I know, any more than he can.
I guess I have to have a very nice, mysterious backup plan, right??
Back to the slog of all this, what an emotional drain.
Livnlearn
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates
. But there you go. I guess she is not a 'financial drain' on him!