So, S15 just told me H will be moving out this Sunday. Just played ping pong with boys, and try to keep myself busy. Otherwise I will be breaking down.need a poker face for the next 48 hours
Sorry Kiwi. I was spared this phase as my H moved out first and then I found out. It must be awful having this looming deadline. I really hope he figures out the grass isn't greener but that will likely take awhile as the newness of having his own place will keep his mind occupied for awhile. I'm having a rough afternoon too. It tells me I still have a VERY long way to go with regard to detaching. All it took was a text from H asking if I could take the kids somewhere instead of him because he is "pinched for time" and "timing is tight" for whatever it is he needs to do. Of course, I have NO idea what that is. It could be a dozen different things including that I know today is the deadline for him to get his marks in (he is a teacher). But of course my mind goes to the worst possible scenario... that he has a date or something. It could just as easily be a drink with a friend... an exercise class... whatever. I didn't ask though. Just told him I couldn't so he said he would make it work. I am going to try really hard to assume it is work-related. Of course, I texted my sister about my nauseous stomach and she told me it was probably my intuition. Great. That was NOT helpful. Anyway...just wanted to pop by and give you some support, not whine about my own sitch. Sending you (((HUGS)))) and hoping you can feel them where you are. You are not alone in this even though I know you feel it. Thinking of you....
Thank you dejavus, this is just too much for me. So I kept myself busy this afternoon installing my new printer. ( I am not a tech person at all, that was H area, but it was fairly straight forward and is working now. H was out, presumably getting stuff for his place but came home to make dinner, since Friday is his dinner day. S12 is out for a sleep over, S15 quickly went back to his video games. Can you believe it H Andy I sat and talked about god and the world for 2 hours, politics, society, the kids, his job.... It feels we have not hada conversation this good in years. Then he tells me his parents will invite me over for Christmas. ( Me and the kids will be at my parents house for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. He will have the kids at his parents for Boxing Day, which is still Christmas in Germany.) This is so confusing. So I asked him if he wanted me there and he said he would be fine with it. Also he suggested we could do something together as a family? For the last year he as all but insisted on doing things with the boys without me. What is this? I know at the moment there is no OW but I cannot do friendship because it will break my heart all over again if there will be O W in the future. He even suggested I should come to the gym with him.... I just don’t know what to do. Should I go along the friends path or tell him I cannot do friendship at the moment (but that would be Rtalk) or just distance myself? I am definitely not detached one little bit, but maybe I did not show.....
Sorry you are having a rough afternoon. Just the thought of an O W in the picture makes me sick. That is my worst nightmare at the moment. But being a teacher myself, I would just assume he is busy with the grades. I hope you have some fun plans for the weekend. Thank you for „listening“ just writing this helped to calm down a little bit.
Hmmm... this is a really tough question to answer Kiwi. On one hand, it is encouraging that he wants you to do family things... on the other, it feels like cake eating. I think it is good for your kids if you can do the holidays together without expectations. But it might be too soon? It is really up to you. I say give it a month of DBing and GAL and see how you feel then. I am sure that his parents would understand if you decided not to come.
It is nice you are talking about Christmas so you can prepare yourself. I have not brought it up with my H and I don’t plan on it. I know I will be at home with our kids and his mom and my sister and her husband at some point. Not sure what to do there as my H will not come near our home if they are there and even if he did, I am sure he would feel so uncomfortable he would want to leave pretty darn quick. My BIL is the person who figured out what he was doing and “outed” him so it is a really awkward situation. It is also one of the reasons my H would be discouraged from coming back home...feels like it is too big of a hill to climb given how close I am to my sister and her H. He is like a brother to me and best friends with my brother who is lukewarm on my H at the moment. Personally, I’d rather just skip Christmas altogether. Sadly my parents are both deceased. My father passed away in 2005 of pancreatic cancer. He was 66. My mom died last year on May 10th. She was 76. My sister told me recently she was very suspicious of my H. I hate that she died worrying about me and my marriage. . Anyway... I digress.
I don’t know that you need to tell him that you can’t do friendship although some people on here might say different. When you have kids, I think you should try to be friendly but maybe pick and choose how. Take some space. Let him know you are not a solid plan B. That’s just my initial thought. I’m sure there are others on here who will have a different, more experienced, take on it. Bottom line is that it is your life and you get to choose. To me, it seems to me you can spend as much time with him as you want as long as you can do so with NO expectations. That is the hardest part. I’ve found that even when I don’t think I have expectations, my H does or says something that makes me realize I actually did.
Thank you for the good wishes. I am feeling better than I did earlier today. This is truly a rollercoaster ride. I used to like rollercoasters.
. So I kept myself busy this afternoon installing my new printer. ( I am not a tech person at all, that was H area, but it was fairly straight forward and is working now.
Well done, the more you do for yourself, the more he will see that you are coping without him, but more importantly, the more self respect you will gain.
Originally Posted by kiwi
Should I go along the friends path or tell him I cannot do friendship at the moment (but that would be Rtalk) or just distance myself?
What you are essentially saying is that you want to give him an ultimatum. Ultimatums are just an extreme way of saying boundaries. And you can't have boundaries without stating consequences. If you truly believe friendship (pretend or not) is not possible, then you should tell him that. But be prepared for the consequences of 'well that's all I can offer for now'. Don't set boundaries/ultimatums unless you're willing to live with the consequences. If you can't live with the consequences he will lose respect for you. There is no true reconciliation without respect.
Like DjV, I would recommend just distancing yourself. Your H can't give you what you want right now. The friendly thing is [censored] but you will get through it. You are stronger than you think.
Originally Posted by kiwi
I know at the moment there is no OW but I cannot do friendship because it will break my heart all over again if there will be O W in the future.
Whether OW is a deal broker for you today, may be very different to whether it will be a deal breaker for you in the future. Even if there is not one now (and I believe you when you say there isn't one), there will be an OW at some point as your H tries his new life on for size. I thought it would be a deal breaker for me, but it hasn't been. I understand why he did (does?) it. And TBH, I think the shock of my finding out has had a worse effect on him than it has had on me. He looked like [censored] in the weeks following and it was after I found out that he started making a concerted effort to be nicer and around more.
Don't think about him being with another woman. It will drive you insane.
Thank you for your support FS and Djv. You helped me get back on track. Friday night was just such a lovely evening,Sounds cheesy, but if I had spend an evening like this with another guy, I would assume there is hope for more, but well it is probably because of all these years together. And you are right, he can not give me more then friendship at the moment, that is already so much more then we had over the last year. And I don’t think I want to loose that again, so no talks an consequences. I will see how the next weeks will go before I decide the Christmas question.
So I made it through day one of moving weekend. S15 and H were at his place all day. S15 went straight to his room afterwards and ito his video games. Must have been a strange feeling for him. I ran some errands, went running took a nice long bath and after S12 returned from play date watched a movie with him. Tomorrow morning I too will go on a hike with a meetup group. Looking forward to fresh air and exercise and maybe some nice conversations. I am dreading the afternoon/ evening though, when he will eventually leave. He will come back the next couple of days for more stuff, but he will leave for the night. How do you say good bye. Or do you not? I hope the kids won’t start crying, because then I will not be able to keep my face. I did a pretty good job with that today. Talking with him about how everything went at his place and the stuff he bought, like He was just a neighbor moving. One time I was getting a little sentimental, when I was talking about a silly shopping bag that I had almost lost, that was a present from a former class. As if loosing a shopping bag compares to loosing your husband of 18 years. But for a tiny moment I also had the feeling that he was getting teary. He was turning around and blowing his nose and had very tired eyes. I wish there were a medicine or drug that could suppress tears or better even feelings. I would just use it this one time.....
I also offered him to come for dinner Monday night, since he said he did not even have any groceries at his place yet and he will still have to get stuff from here anyway.Maybe I should not have done that. Well it is a learning curve.
So that was it. H is gone. A weekend I don’t want to repeat. When I came home from my hike they were all at his place. I walked into the closet and his half was completely empty, that’s when I allowed myself to break down for a while. Just at that moment a friend texted me to see how I was doing. God send. I then started reorganizing the closet, cleaning the house and felt a little better. In between H showed up a few times to get more things. The worst part was when he brought the boys home and they all were teary eyed. He stayed for a while, played with them and S12 totally broke down. We finally managed to bring him to bed and H practically stormed out of the house after saying good night to him. S15 told me H said he might move back 5 times over the last 3 days. I told him we will be fine anyway. Maybe we find out we are happier together or we find out we are happier apart. Life will be good. On the other hand S14 also told me H is applying for a job in CA.... which shows again. Don’t believe anything they say. Tomorrow is another day. Life will be good!
So sorry Kiwi. Your H stormed out because he was feeling the weight of his decision. Let him feel it. You take are of you and those beautiful boys of you. This is just one step closer to a better more fulfilling life - either with your H or without him. We cannot go back...only forward. My H still has a lot of stuff in our closet. I have moved it over and taken some more space. I have thought about packing it up for him but honestly, I want him to do it. All the other things he has moved, he has done covertly and over a long period of time. He needs to do it with all of us watching.
Love to you and your family. Tomorrow will be a brighter day. (((HUGS)))
What a long day. Obviously I did not sleep well to begin with. Then in the morning S12 was crying again and did not want to go to school. While I was still trying to get him ready, H showed up, since I have to leave for work earlier and he will continue to bring the boys to school on some days. Day at work stretched and had a hard time focusing. When I came home H was there again with boys but left almost immediately, which is good, because I am not even able to look at him at the moment. I was glad though he had spent some time with the boys. I think it is important for them too know, that he is still part of their life. I almost wanted to txt him and thank him for that, but now I don’t really feel like it anymore. I have a little bit of a hard time with the boys telling me what H did and said. For them I know it is good to be open and I want to make sure, that I only say things to them, that I would be comfortable with them repeating to H, but I have to learn to stay neutral and calm when I get their reports. For example S15 told me he and H would be installing an old Soundsystem in the living room tomorrow when H would take his speakers to his place. And since I was tired and emotionally drained I snapped at S15 that it was my decision, which speakers would be installed at MY home and that was not H’ s decision anymore and he would have to ask first. I feel so bad now. I don’t want him to be in the position that he has to think what to say to whom before he talks. He should be comfortable to say anything on his mind. He then defended H, that he only meant it well, which I know is true. I will get better at it. This was only day one.
Don’t be too hard on yourself Kiwi. You are grieving...the last few days have been tough. It will get easier. The distance will help and I suspect it will help your H too but maybe not in the way he thinks. I slip up too sometimes. Today I was out with my kids walking our dog and our dog took a giant #2 on someone’s lawn. It was gross. So I got out my poo bag and my daughter said “you can just leave it mom...no one saw.” I said, “no it doesn’t work that way. That is something your dad would do but not me.” Without hesitation she says, “you know him so well.” To which I reply, “unfortunately, yes.” Ugh. She probably didn’t need to hear me being that negative about her dad. Anyway...it is a work in progress.
Yours is another sitch that I have more hope for than mine. I think your H will figure out that the grass is definitely not greener on the other side. I would not approach him about Thanksgiving or Christmas either. Let him be the one to approach you. I suspect that once the newness and novelty of it all has worn off, his apartment is going to start to feel pretty empty and lonely. He needs to feel that. Keep up with your GAL and DBing. I decided today that I am going to learn how to play the guitar. My H plays and I have always wanted to learn how but when I was younger, my parents bought a piano instead. My H is going to help me find one and then I will sign up for some lessons. Super excited about it.
Sorry Kiwi. I was spared this phase as my H moved out first and then I found out. It must be awful having this looming deadline. I really hope he figures out the grass isn't greener but that will likely take awhile as the newness of having his own place will keep his mind occupied for awhile. I'm having a rough afternoon too. It tells me I still have a VERY long way to go with regard to detaching. All it took was a text from H asking if I could take the kids somewhere instead of him because he is "pinched for time" and "timing is tight" for whatever it is he needs to do. Of course, I have NO idea what that is. It could be a dozen different things including that I know today is the deadline for him to get his marks in (he is a teacher). But of course my mind goes to the worst possible scenario... that he has a date or something. It could just as easily be a drink with a friend... an exercise class... whatever. I didn't ask though. Just told him I couldn't so he said he would make it work. I am going to try really hard to assume it is work-related. Of course, I texted my sister about my nauseous stomach and she told me it was probably my intuition. Great. That was NOT helpful. Anyway...just wanted to pop by and give you some support, not whine about my own sitch. Sending you (((HUGS)))) and hoping you can feel them where you are. You are not alone in this even though I know you feel it. Thinking of you....
