Turning myself around

[WCW]

H doing a better job of "act as if." He always has. I'm just plain old bad at it.

I think there is a difference. H is acting as if he is married and you are acting as if you don't expect to be. If that is what you are feeling, then your next part makes a lot of sense.

I got the very distinct impression during our last phone conversation that H was trying to get me to move on without him. And finally I'm at the place where I'm ready to accept that I can't fix his problems and if he doesn't think I should be with him, maybe I shouldn't.

It's not just you, sounds like it is any R he's been in. You know his insecurities, you know he needs WOA. It can be a real drain to be the base on solid ground to hold H up. You can't fix him, but you can support him.

He's made all these comments about big improvements to the house.

Nail him down while he's there. Get the commitment now before he's gone again and you return to your semi dark relationship with hardly any communication. Take full of advantage of this 24/day right now.

He knows I want a better job so he's asking me about applying for things around here

and then

when he leaves I will be in a quandry about how to tell H about my ideas of moving out west

Don't wait. If I would put your H's shoes on, I'd feel almost betrayed if you sprung this on me after I was thousands of miles away again after we had a nice visit on my leave with you.

Reading back over this I can see how much I'm trying to protect myself from him by listing more negatives than positives.

Yup, I do the same thing. If I only think positives, I get plumb scared of letting myself get caught up that everything is fine and it will all work out. We are protecting ourselves from more pain. Someday I hope I can just open the gate and let all the positives flow and forget the negatives, maybe then I will be on the real path to reconstruction with H. What do you want to do?

I got us horribly lost

No kidding? you took a wrong turn? (private joke)

You know, overall it sounds like once this visit got underway it's been real good. Focus on that. How long will H be there yet? This is against the DB rules, but you're so close to throwing in the marriage towel I think you should get your courage up and get out your list of 'issues' and get it all out now with H while he is there. If you don't do it now, you'll go back to a very frustrated Opti that thinks there is no choice but to move on and away from M to the west coast. JMO, which can easily be tied to an anchor and tossed overboard.