Heather, If you are ever in the NYC area you are welcome to stay here. I won't even subject my cooking on you...we can go out to dinner. Hugggggssss to u.
Hope you are ok Heather. I know it is hard enough staying strong for yourself but your kids still need you to be a good mom. No matter what happens, don't let your R with the kids suffer anymore than it has. Your guilt worries me. That could easily lead to depression and then you will be in no condition to take care of them. Please take care of yourself!
Nops, are you around? It appears that I have another chance to communicate to H and I was wondering if you had any thoughts. Below is an email from H that I received this morning.
What I want......
I want our children to be rocked to sleep by both of their parents every night.
I want to build a house that our children can grow up in.
I want our children to never have to ask "what would it have been like if our parents were together?"
I want a future with hope.
I want to be able look down the path of my life and not see shadows and uncertainty.
I want our children to never have to wonder what they could have done different.
I want our children to not come from a broken home.
Oddly enough, I think you concentrate too much on the "Phantom" incident. Our issues are way beyond that horrid chapter in our marriage. It seems that you are (or were) waiting for me to commit to this marriage. But the more clear the picture becomes, the more it is evident to me that you have lacked commitment to me for nearly as long as we have been together. From my perspective, you have had one foot out the door at least since you were "Rushing" and hoping that a sorority had a house so you could get away from me. This has become a consistent trend throughout our history. The drinking, the affair, the family alienation, the "stealing of your youth", the porn, the "undermining of parental authority". It seems to me that you have been setting me up to disappoint you throughout our history. Fortunately, throughout all of this (up until this point), I think you have been able to follow your heart, in spite of all the outside influences.
It just isn't possible for me to jump into this marriage with both feet when I know you have one foot out the door. I think you have been planning to leave me all along; you just haven't had the ammunition to overcome your heart. Now, apparently you do (with plenty of outside influence). I have been waiting for you to prove to me that you really are committed to me. So far the best I have been able to hang my hat on is that you have gone three months without threatening to leave me.
It seems I could go on and on with issues, but I don't want to turn this into a petty rant.
Apparently it is to late for us, but you wanted to know what I wanted.
In closing, all I can ask is that you follow your heart. Not what other influences think your heart should say.
If you read this, thank you for your time.
"Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
A few of my own thoughts, scattered and not thought through....
Elation that I have some response from him at all, regardless of what it says.
Reognition of truth about having one foot out the door for a very long time.
Disappointment that he conveyed nothing about his feelings for me....he seems confident that if I follow my heart, I will stay. What does his heart say?
Disappointment that he did not take responsiblity for anything.
Last edited by heatherg; 02/21/0702:56 PM.
"Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
I want to be able look down the path of my life and not see shadows and uncertainty.
yeah, that would be nice ...
Quote:
you just haven't had the ammunition to overcome your heart. Now, apparently you do (with plenty of outside influence).
What does he mean by this?
I did notice as you did that he focused a lot on the children and not on you. I don't think this necessarily means he doesn't have feelings for you, just that "the children" is the lifeline he is hanging onto right now.
I'm afraid Heather that if you want to make this work, you are going to have to focus on soothing his fears for awhile. I think he laid them out pretty clearly.
(1) he is worried about parenting (2) he feels that you and others are ganging up on him (3) he feels that you are not committed
All of the heart comments lead me to believe that he does think that you love him. And that is good.
JMHO of course
Chrome
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
He is convinced that my family and friends are telling me what to do, that they are encouraging me to leave him. He's right, they are. But I don't tell him that so I don't know how he knows. And my family would love nothing more than to see us work it out, they would forgive if I said he's willing to work with me on things and I'm happy.
I did notice as you did that he focused a lot on the children and not on you. I don't think this necessarily means he doesn't have feelings for you, just that "the children" is the lifeline he is hanging onto right now.
It's not that I don't understand that....it's just that it's not enough for me in a M. The kids have been his lifeline since they were born and I've been lost.
I'm afraid Heather that if you want to make this work, you are going to have to focus on soothing his fears for awhile.
I'm prepared to do that. I feel like that's what I need help with under the circumstances. I don't know how to come to terms with him that as much as I love him, I'm not willing to stay the way things are. We both have to recommit and stop waiting for the other to 'go first'.
"Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
When my H and I were in marriage counseling, we used to throw the D word around all the time between us. My shrink gave us both the 'what for' for doing this... because, in his opinion, there is nothing more damaging you can do to each other's psyche than threaten to leave one another. So he would tell us: "you are either committed or you are not. You can't fix this marriage with one foot out the door, for it doesn't give either one of you the assurance that you need to hang in there."
I think that is a correct summation for a multitude of reasons.
Having said all that... and not grinding the past... I think this letter from your H is... his last ditch effort to get you to stay.
I was watching a movie last night, and a young man said to the older man, "you seem to have such a great marriage. What's your secret?" And the older man said, "I found a woman I could be in the fox hole with. And when I'm out of the fox hole, I keep my dick in my pants."
At this point, I don't know that you are going to get deep declaration of his love for you... but he IS willing to stay in the fox hole with you.
I personally think that NOP is going to tell you that his email to you is EXACTLY the glimmer of hope you've been looking for, and I'm sure he is going to give you some very specific advice. I already agree with him.
I think what is most important for you to keep in mind right now is not whether he is 'right' in his assessment, or if you are 'right' in yours... you are BOTH right, actually. Look where that has taken you, eh?
In his own way, I think your H told you... "I'm committed." He's not going to declare his love for you, for in his mind, you are on your way out the door, and that would make him WAAAYYYY too vulnerable.
He is convinced that my family and friends are telling me what to do, that they are encouraging me to leave him. He's right, they are. But I don't tell him that so I don't know how he knows.
I'm sure it is easy to read in the faces of family and friends, in how they interact with him, and he is sensitive to it for sure.
Quote:
We both have to recommit and stop waiting for the other to 'go first'.
Unfortunately, someone usually does have to go first, and go first MANY times before the other one takes their turn. It is a hard, crappy way to go, but that's the way it is.
My SEC once gave me advice concerning my W's rejections of plans for QT, affection, intimacy, etc. He said that I should come up with many different possibilities for QT (for example), throw one of them out there, and if I get rejected just respond with "oh ... ok", go do something else, and then come back sometime later with then next idea. He said that given what he knows about her from my comments and from the time she came into a session with me, I need to be prepared to do this hundreds of times and get rejected hundreds of times before she starts to come out of her shell. He actually then sighed audibly just thinking about it.
The fact is, I feel that you want your M to work, and I now feel that your H wants your M to work. There is hard, and sometimes crappy, work that will need to be done. Are you willing to do what it takes?
Chrome ... who is also waiting for NOPkins to arrive and give more specific advice
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
