Can Long-Term affairs be over come?

[spitfire23]

Hi Sally,
Glad to hear from you. Thanksgiving was ok. I think these holidays are going to be tougher than I thought as I have been in kind of a funk since last Wed. I had my whole family over as was usual. I usually love Thanksgiving and have enough space here to have a crowd, so Mom and I put on a big spread for the rest of the crew. No H or ILs this year! My nephew is in the Army and currently in Baghdad and we all got to talk to him on T. so that was nice.

I'm not feeling so positive right now. Just kind of down in the dumps. I do worry a lot about my boys and how they are coping. S17 is now in counseling. He just started so we'll have to see if it helps. I know what you mean about getting upset with the Hs in how they treat the kids. They have no idea of the damage they are doing. And what really pisses me off is that sure as s*** I'll be blamed for "turning them against their dad". Never mind the fact that he has made little to no effort to connect with them. I had my c this am and she said something very interesting. We have talked in the past about my H's emotional underdevelopment. I gave him credit for being about 12 years old. She told me that actually he is really only about 2 as far as emotional development. Great! That explains a lot. H stopped by this morning to visit the ailing dog. I told him that he could drop by in the evenings or on the weekends if he'd like to also see the kids. He seemed fairly receptive??? I don't expect much. It's easy to visit the dog. He can't talk back and tell you what he thinks of you. Human,breathing, feeling, offspring are a whole different story. It's so sad to me that H is afraid to face his own children. It's so sad to me that I now see my H as a coward. I look at him and see a little boy in an aging man's body. (Wow, I think I'm detaching!)


I don't know what to say about what my H is thinking right now. I don't think he has any intention of coming back at this point. And as far as I'm concerned, he has a lot of work to do on his "issues" before we can even begin to tackle our issues. And I would NEVER agree to go back to the way things were before. THAT M is over. Most days I feel like that is the last thing on earth that will ever happen. I just don't think my H has the personal fortitude to face his demons. Some people never do, you know. They go through their whole entire life just avoiding and compensating and whatevering so they don't have to face it. And that's ok for them. As for me, I'm glad I went to c. I'm glad I have learned as much as I have about myself. My focus is to continue to work on myself, and to GAL.

I don't know what will happen at Christmas. Don't want to go there yet.

It would be great if there was a place for the kids to connect with each other. Unfortunately, they have lots of friends who are either in the midst of the same mess or have parents who are recently D. So, they do have some people to talk to..don't know how much of it they do though.

Well, gotta run. If you haven't checked out Strong and Sassy's Thread about what I've learned so far go take a peek. It's a pick me up.

Hang in there.

Spitfire23