Before I knew H would be here for Christmas, I had talked with R about spending Christmas with her and her S16 at her place or mine. We (our families) have shared Christmas whenever I have been here and not away in other country with my family.
So I rang her this morning and invited her over to join us at my place for Christmas lunch. I didn't want her to feel excluded, but suspected she might not find this OK. Indeed, she told me she wouldn't come, and told me her reasons.
Said that she was very angry with H for the way he had treated me, her friend. That she couldn't forgive him. That my trying to reconcile with him makes her lose respect for me.
I pointed out that all relationships can go through very trying times - relationships with our spouses, parents, children, siblings, friends etc. She herself had a VERY hard time with her mother, and one of her brothers is completely estranged from her and never wants to meet her. This is very hurtful for her. But do we not all yearn to make things right with them even after bad things have happened?
I think I might have given the impression that I want H back only for D's sake. I had said it would be nice for D to have both her parents together over Christmas.
I tried to explain that I was holding out for reconciliation, not merely 'taking him back' as if nothing had happened. I'm not THAT desperate. I am looking for a HEALING of our marriage.
Even my sister, who is a church going and practising Christian, feels the same way as my friend. I have tried to use the word HEALING with her too, as she attends a Christain Science church which has an emphasis on healing. Sister says, sometimes we should just learn to let go and not insist on what WE want. I am just wondering how she knows what God wants for me...
When I told sister in other country over the phone that H was coming over for Christmas, she said, I KNEW it, only the other day someone was telling me that I bet Livnlearn takes food over for her H.
Anyway, I told R I respected her reason, but what would happen were H and I to reconcile? She said she would only see me without H present. That maybe five years down the line she would feel differently. She said that she was friends with ME, but that she had lost all respect for H.
If H ever does come back, he is going to have to do an awful lot of bridge building. I don't honestly know if he could face that and do it. His MO so far has been large doses of arrogance. Even his email last week was full of self justification, telling me that he didn't feel me to be his equal becasue I wasn't. That he should have been HARDER on me.
I pinpointed one reason I was so blue last weekend, it was the thought that only three years ago, I felt like piggy in the middle between the demands of my aged mother and my H. I tried to juggle my duty to both of them, with my D's needs also to think about. Here I am now, with no mother and a H who doesn't want to live with me. I have seen this pattern with so many on this board, women who have to deal with sick, frail or dying parents, or difficult children, who then turn around later to find their spouse gone too. So much for support and being there for better or worse.
Livnlearn
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates
