AM,

I take exception to you saying you did not expect me to answer you. For one thing I'm trying to spend less time on the boards, and for another thing my reply to Cobra was meant as a reply to your comments too. You have clearly read that reply. I wrote out an answer to your questions but it just sounded defensive. Which obviously it was. So I didn't post that I posted my short answer which I felt showed that I had swallowed quite a lot of what you said.

I do accept responsibility. It is not his fault. The Aha moment in this for me is in seeing that behaviours which I had previously seen as negative personality traits are not that at all - they are a reaction. In fact as Lil points out it isn't anyone's fault as such we both have behaved in ways that have been unattractive to the other one and that has set up an R dynamic which has led us to the position we now find ourselves.

You ask a lot of tough questions. The nub of it is - Do I love him? Answer: I don't know. Did I ever love him? I think so - or at least it felt like it at the time. Why don't I divorce him - yes it is legal here and yes it is my choice if I stay - answer: because I have two children aged 7 and 5 so I believe it is my duty as a parent to stay around and be bashed about by people like you until I start to see what *I* can do to make my marriage work.

Yes I say negative things about my H, he says a lot of negative things about me. He is more often to be found saying them to my face in a drunken rage than writing them up on a BB (as far as I know). The fact of the matter AM, is that here I am on a board full of people who are unhappy in their marriages.

BTW the *nutter* comment about OW was what HE called her. I accepted him back because of the kids they were younger then than they are now and I was SAHM. It's a tough spot to be in, there are women who would ditch their H's for doing that to them, but I wasn't strong enough to. The divorce laws in the UK tend to give custody of the children to the W the man will see them something like every other weekend. So I would have had 24/7 care of my kids and had to move out of the house into somewhere smaller and live on whatever the judge decided was enough so that H could start over with someone else.

My H has in the past described me as the love of his life. The hard truth is that I have NEVER felt that way about him. I don't really know what it would mean - didn't feel that for ex-BF either. So what am I supposed to do about it aged 45 with two young kids? Yes I could be honest with myself and honest with him. I could say I don't love you. If I did that what would happen? I would wind up divorced with two young kids. OK maybe I would be being TRUER to myself but I'm not sure that is a luxury I can afford.

Yes he is a paycheck, yes he was a teddy bear. Is that a fulfilling position for a man? No - clearly not. Is it all my fault - probably - but I think he had something to do with it too. The sad fact is we are now stuck with the situation, we have dug ourselves in so deep there is no real way out. Divorce is a way out but neither of us want to do that, it's not the simple answer it could have been pre-kids. But then pre-kids we didn't hate each other.

Life's never easy and it's all very well to say - guilt is a tool blah blah blah. Life stinks. I married the wrong man, I married him for a series of complicated reasons to do with FOO, and a break-up and whatever else was swimming around in my head at the time. Yes I'm intelligent, but it doesn't really make a damn bit of difference when it comes to affairs of the heart. In those I'm as stupid as the next person.

I don't want to hate him anymore, I just want to get along. I've never really been a romantic, I don't believe in moonlight and roses, but I do believe that two reasonably sensible adults can form a close bond and can rub along together for mutual benefit and for the benefit of their kids.

He's a teddy-bear and a paycheck. Well that's OK. Now all I need to know is what he needs me to be. I have a feeling Mojo and Corri might know the answer to that.

Fran

if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs
Erica Jong