Hi All, one more day of journaling without a lot to tell. Yesterday after work I did the school pickups, had basketball practice for my team, made dinner, did laundry and house stuff, regular day. H was out for dinner again, and then did a fantasy football draft, rolled in about 11pm. I had already gone to bed and although I heard him come in did not get up and strike up a conversation. This morning interaction was brief as he's still asleep when I get up and only got up as we were on our way out the door. In some ways this is typical of life before BD, we were just on different schedules, and it probably contributed to the demise of the M. But I can't make him come home earlier or get up earlier, and I have very little choice in my schedule, the kids have to get to school, and I have to get some sleep in order to wake up at 5:30am every day.
H and I used to meet for lunch occasionally, sometimes for actual food, sometimes at home. But before BD he had turned me down the last several "lunch" invitations I issued, but I didn't know why, just thought he was actually busy. At this point, I don't think there's much way to coordinate weekday schedules better, but it's something I'd want to address in any future relationship with H or someone else.
So...journaling about my limbo life again. Yesterday after work I picked up D16 from school, took her to the doctor, went grocery shopping, dropped her and groceries at home, went to pick up D11, took her shoe shopping, stopped by the pharmacy, went home and got dinner started, exercised at home. H shows up ay 7:30, which was fairly early for him and we all had dinner together. That's my life on rinse and repeat. The evening was spent cleaning up the kitchen, helping D11 with her evening routine, etc. Absolutely nothing special, no great interaction with H, but nothing bad, either.
I used to be happy with my vanilla pudding life. And maybe I still am, it's comfortable and pretty easy. But what if I could snuggle on the couch with someone? What if we talked about our 5 year plans? What if we were looking at travel brochures for our upcoming 25th anniversary? Wouldn't that be nice?
And just to be clear, I'm never going to get any of that wish list with H. We didn't do that before. There's very little reason to suspect he would ever do it going forward.
I don't know if I would say you're never going to get those things going forward....If you never state that those are important things to you, then you won't get them. Clearly now is not the right time to have that conversation...
I don't know. I guess I believe that right now things are all about the WAS. We have to detach and hang on for the ride. But AT SOME POINT they need to be accountable for what broke and WE need to be accountable for our needs. Otherwise - what's the point?
I think that if we're standing then things like snuggling on the couch can't be a goal, but the trip could be. What if you went on one by yourself or with a friend? Not to be mean to H, but to show him that it's something that you want to do? Sometimes there's a moment of, "I never knew you wanted that!"
My H took me on an awesome trip to Europe for our 10th anniversary. For our 15th he wanted to go back, and I said sheepishly, "I'd really rather go...." It was VERY unlike me to steer the ship in another direction, but we did go to this other place. He liked it so much we've gone every year since.
So - remember. Some of this is about our own growth. You don't need H to go on a trip.
Can you plan a weekend away with some girlfriends?
labug, I have considered this, because I was definitely "blindsided". And it's not that I thought the M was perfect, I was aware that it could have been better. BUT I very sincerely thought that vows would never be broken. I really did. I assumed that if H were unhappy, he'd have actually said something to me instead of turning to an A. The timeframe that he now says he was "unhappy" seemed and played out an awful lot like the rest of the years that he was "happy". Yes, I was blindsided.
Originally Posted By: labug
So what do you do with that information now?
What is the reality?
labug, I love this question, and I have moved it over to my own thread because I think the answer might be long and rambly.
So what do I do with the fact that I was blindsided?
Truth is, I wasn't happy either, I had just chosen not to do anything about it. And apparently an unhappy W makes an unhappy H, at least contributes to it. That would be lesson one. That if I'm not happy, chances are good that he isn't either and I need to do something about that.
Another lesson I have learned here is that I need to be more open in a relationship, express my own needs more, ask for what I want. I have always been closed off, it's my nature, it's how I was raised. Pair that with the fact that H is closed off too and it's a disaster in the making. He rarely shared his needs with me, and didn't respond well when I tried to express mine.
I clearly remember one night in a restaurant where I was trying to express a desire to change careers to something I thought would be more family-friendly. H totally wouldn't listen to me, shut me down completely. I teared up, he got angry at my tears. I never brought the topic up again and have the same job today as I did then. Now, the reason I say that is not to incriminate H, but to show how easily I shut down. I can give dozens more examples that show how poorly I have expressed myself over the years. I need to break out of my comfort zone on this, and I actually have been making an effort to express myself more with H. It may not make a difference to him at this point, but it's a skill I need to develop.
I don't know what else, labug. Do you think there's something I'm missing here?
At some point, you and your H made each other happy. Do you remember what that was like?
MLP, I'm going to say something really horrible here. My R with H ALWAYS fell into the "good enough" range. So why marry him? Because I was looking long-term, I thought we would be great friends and companions when we were older. We share a lot of values, have the same outlook on raising kids, money management, we see eye to eye on a lot of things. We are great partners. I did love him a great deal, and I still do, but to say that I was madly in love when we married might not be true.
I had more intimacy and better s*x with previous boyfriends. I let that slide because H always brought up our s*x life as one of the real positives in our R, even at MC the same day he complained about my closet. He was happy with it, and I was willing to put up with "good enough" to the detriment of "great" because I thought there was a long-term reason to do so.
