Thanks for that. I need tough love myself I guess. I think I read and reread everything you guys write to me and I do take it all in, and I try to follow it all, but this is the only place for me to really vent so I just continue venting all these fears I have because I have no other outlet.
I do not want to get our families involved yet, and I have only confided in 1 friend about everything because I already know everyone else will have opinions and strong ones at that. When this all first happened I confided in a few close friends and some family members and H and I were so back and forth it got to the point where I just decided to keep it to myself and tell them all we will figure it out. So I come here with all my worries while taking the advice you guys are giving.
I am a very task oriented person, so its like I want to be told "do this, do that" and i know thats not how this necessarily works, but he makes it REALLY hard. Its like he wants responses from me just so he can feel okay and move on with his life. I dont know. But regardless, I am trying to detach. I just dont know how you detach yourself. Thats a feeling, inside you. How do I force my feelings to detach from his actions? I keep thinking to myself "Ok, if you were detached from this person, how would you respond to this".
What I am showing him and what I am typing here are 2 different things. I am showing him upbeat, happiness, okay me. Doing things, keeping busy. On here I am falling apart, in the car I am melting down, in the shower, at night alone I am yelling into a pillow. But to his face I am not doing that. He was crying yesterday and I paid it no mind. When he left I didnt reach out to ask why. He eventually contacted me about it. I am trying to fake it to him, detachment, as I am trying to really accomplish it somehow in real life and not sure how.
Thanks for that. I need tough love myself I guess. I think I read and reread everything you guys write to me and I do take it all in, and I try to follow it all, but this is the only place for me to really vent so I just continue venting all these fears I have because I have no other outlet.
This is fair! I've heard this from other posters and still need to be reminded of that occasionally. Please, by all means, view this as a safe place to journal. But also be open to the feedback of when you are focusing on him too much. If you want him back focus on you and D.
Detachment is hard. But trust me, when you get there you will know it. The night my W cried that she knew D was wrong and she wanted to want to stay.....and I had no reaction. Not just outward but inwardly too. I was like "Ok." She got clingy and wanted my reassurance. She got nothing. It felt so good. I didn't get happy. I didn't get sad. I just was.
She took a couple of steps back after that (in fact that week was when I found a full dating profile on dating site with a picture and everything, but even with that I was more worried about my daughter finding out about it then being mad or sad about her doing it). But the point was detachment started to become easier as I worked at it. It sounds like you are on the right road towards true detachment.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
The question of how do you detach and act all happy when inside you are falling apart is one of the difficult ones to master. It is one I struggle with every day. My H left 6 months ago and each day I want to send him a text saying "I miss you" or "I hate you for doing this to me" (it really depends on what has been going on in my mind). I think it is a matter of stopping yourself when the thoughts come, taking a breath or two, then getting on with whatever you were doing before the thoughts filtered in.
It is more difficult when you actually have to interact with your spouse, which in my case is often, because of the kids. I try and treat him like a casual work acquaintance. Friendly but not overly familiar, so non children/logistic related topics tend to be casual pleasantries, weather, daily commute etc. Nothing too personal. It is hard to do but with practice it can be done. When he leaves I go and sit in my room for five minutes, have a cry, wash my face and come back down to the children. Although frequent, these interactions are fairly short in duration, because he feels as awkward as me. 16 years together, and your reduced to talking about the weather. It is safe ground though. I hear you, putting on a fake smile is heartbreakingly difficult at first, but I am hopeful, that it eventually just becomes habit.
You can do this without lawyers. But first YOU have to understand the process. YOU have to fill out the forms. YOU have to submit them. Lawyers can explain your rights. They can explain your state laws. They can explain the process.
Or you can wait for H to do it. That option never works out well.
Lawyers can also be a crazy financial drain on your family. They nickel and dime you to death. They ask for a retainer. Then they use all that money and are not done with the process. Then they ask for more.
I think the biggest question right now: Are you in a fault or no fault state?
"What is best for my kids is best for me" Amor Fati Link to quotes: https://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2879712
Thank you, it really is so difficult. And at this point I truly am still doing all of this in hopes to get him back. "Let him go to get him back", and i know it doesnt work that way. But I am just being honest. I am still in hopes we can work, so I will fake it til I make it for sure because I do want a positive outcome.
Maybe in the meantime I will actually become detached and eventually feel better off without him. But for now, I sure do want him to feel some remorse and regret and try to get his life back. Maybe one day
Actually - forgot to say what the benefit of 'pretending' is. For me, it is a positive outcome from the interaction. However mundane, neither of us is coming out of the interaction angry (him) or trying to dissect every word, every nuance, every look (me). Each positive outcome, I believe, will eventually create a positive picture. Maybe not enough to bring us back together, but one that at the very least, we can use as the basis to co-parent our children.
Also, we all started out as casual acquaintances with our spouses and built from there. It may not erase all the negative memories they've cherry picked during their MLC, but it might just diminish them.
Just saw his truck at the bar on my way home. I have a question about this. Is it better for me to avoid this and go a different way or is it better for me to see it and get angry? He MUST be seeing someone who works there, he must. Which makes me want to vomit and tell him to leave me alone for the rest of my life. He KNOWS I have to drive by there. I cannot believe the nerve he has!! It blows my mind.
I am being tested in so many ways here. I know he is going to be at my house later and I really want nothing to do with him. But if I leave and show my anger that’s probably not smart right? So I will fake pleasant and leave. I’m so annoyed. I HAVE to leave my home because of his poor choices and because he changed his mind and doesn’t want a family. It’s absurd. He can’t keep coming here as he pleases. I don’t care if a schedule makes him upset, we have to do it. I can’t do this every night with him and then him take weekends off, please.
I hope any other relationship he is starting up crashes and burns in his face and he loses me in the process. I’m too good for this bull****. He married up with me, why don’t I see that and MOVE ON. I love him so much and he’s just crushing me DAILY. Daily.
Fly solo, You’re right. I do feel better when we leave pleasant. And I would hope it would start to paint a positive picture instead of the negative one he painted by cherry picking. You nailed it. Is it possibly my husband has had some sort of MLC, I’ve always wondered it but he is 29, which I would assume is too young.
But he’s definitely confused and I can tell. But one day I will be done caring about his confusion. He needs to get his act together! He has become so irresponsible, and he doesn’t think it’s a bad thing. He thinks he should lead whatever life makes him happy even if it means not paying certain bills (his own), all of a sudden owning a home means nothing to him, a marriage means nothing to him. And he looks at it like everyone else is crazy for living and working for the man. It’s like he wants to be free from responsibility and live this free life all of a sudden. But when I say go do it, he goes as far as the bar and then complains it’s everyone else’s fault he can’t travel or do all these things. No one is stopping him!
He just came to the house, I was pleasant. He did the work on the drilled holes I had messed up and offered to redrill them for me and I said that’s ok but thank you. I was pleasant. I wasn’t cold like I’m feeling. I said I was going to the gym and he said ok and then told me how he dropped something on his foot at work and showed me his hurt toe.
I think I said oh that’s not good! And then I left For the gym. I am feeling totally helpless at this point. I feel like he is really just living the life outside our home and I’m making this effort to leave the house when he comes in hopes he will miss me over time. I know I have to be patient but I’m so scared he enjoys his life too much outside our marriage to even think about missing me.
I’m venting. I’m angry. I’m angry he is probably seeing someone else and I can’t get him to change his perception of me. This was a man who wanted nothing more than to be with me and just settle down and have a family and now it’s like he doesn’t even remember wanting any of that. I feel so far from him.
I know I did the right thing by being pleasant and leaving the house. I will continue doing this, continue GAL, continue attempting to detach, but certain things really trigger strong feelings.
I handled the evening fine. I said it was time to put the baby to bed and for me to go to sleep. He said he had to change the ac filter for me before he left, I never asked him to. When he left he didn’t mention coming by tomorrow which is weird for him.
After he left he sent a text saying he’d like to do something with the baby this weekend. I am livid. He NEVER spent any time with us on the weekends for the last 6 months, and recently he “had to work every weekend”. he never has taken her anywhere on his own. He has never tried to! And now all of a sudden after kicking him out he wants to do something with her this weekend. I am SO UPSET. Everything he does is self serving. All this time he could have spent time with us and always pretended to be busy and all of a sudden he is free and wants to take her.
I know I have to let him but I am just so upset by this. When will he get his karma for all of this? I have to lose time with her because of HIS choices?! I want to tell him he better not dare have her around some other woman. I know I need to breathe but he knows this is going to kill me more than any of this.
And why is he trying to do all these things around the house, like he’s taking care of us in some way! I don’t need him to take care of us! It’s all to feed his own ego. I’m certain he has OW. I’m certain she is telling him things to do and say. And I’m certain he is testing me every chance he gets. I hate this man right now
