Nicole, I might not have been twiddling my thumbs, but I was hoping you would get back with some kind of something to say. With no contact from H, I'm just floating around in this void and it's nice to have people to float with.
Quote: Regarding the other though, I see it as a huge issue that if you stay married will either have to be:
1) resolved with some huge effort on his part--for some reason he's terrified of you having talents, dreams, goals, etc. that have nothing to do with him. Whether it makes him feel threatened, jealous, scared, or whatever. Those are his issues and he'd have to get to the bottom of why he feels the way he does and change his actions. Do you see him ever trying to address this issue?
I don't see him acknowleding these issues until he hits 50 maybe. Although, in the past year, while I was trying the whole complimenting, asking for advice, and showing that I was insecure about my goals, he did come forward a couple times to encourage me and compliment me about my writing. Something I thought I'd never hear from him. So, yes, I guess I have seen some progress on that in the past, but I don't know if it means much at this point.
Quote: or 2) You would downplay your intellect and talent and set aside your career goals little by little as to not upset him or rock the boat. In the process, over the years you'd lose more of what makes you "you" and that scares me Opti. You come across as a very intelligent woman who really wants to succeed in a meaningful career. I'd hate to have someone squelch that out of you because it obviously means a lot to you.
Well, my dreams and ambitions just seem to keep pushing to the top no matter what happens. For over a year after the first bomb I thought they were dead and best left that way. But they came back, and here I am wanting to build a career and write a book on the side. I could see myself deciding to try to keep them quiet, in order to save the M, but eventually I'd be so angry and unhappy I'd leave. And I guess he knows that. I guess that's how he felt for much of the time we lived together.
Quote: As far as what to do now? What do you want? I'm a list maker. I'd probably start a couple of lists. One being all his wonderful qualities and the reasons why you want to be with him and another of all the negatives and issues between you two. When that's done, I'd look as objectively as I could at them and go from there.
Funny you should mention those lists. I've already done that, at least for his good qualities. When we were living together I started to worry that all I could think of were his bad qualities so I started journaling his good qualities just to keep my perspective. As far as his bad qualities, I've listed and relisted those in my journals and on these boards. His bad outways his good at this point, if for no other reason than he refuses to be with us physically or emotionaly again.
What to do now...Well in regards to moving on with my life, I have decided that I'll be moving back to the pacific northwest to settle. But, I want to do it in the smartest way possible, when the time is right. I will search for jobs from here for now. If I don't find anything by next summer, when I'm supposed to be out there for a wedding and birthday party anyway, I will probably go stay with my dad in CA and start searching from there. Like WCW said, I can't make any moves rashly, just to spite H. He would just shrug his shoulders and it would only disrupt S4 and my life.
As far as what to do during H's visit, if he does show up...I was figuring I'd just be friendly and not look for any explanations about anything. But, everyday that passes that I don't hear from him the less I even see the point in that. I want to be civil for S4's sake, but why go to the trouble of Acting As If everything is going to be fine when it doesn't change anything. If Acting As If made him come back around to professing his love for me and telling me he wanted a future with me again, would it be smart to stop searching for jobs and making plans to move at this point? He's proven that he can flipflop at anytime regardles of what kind of contact we have going at the time.
I guess I should really be on a different board. Maybe the "I'm thinking of leaving" board. H is the WAS, but so far he hasn't been willing to "pull the trigger" and file. So I guess I'll have to be the other half of the WAS. But I don't plan to deal with all that until after I'm settled and starting my new life.
