Milestones of Moving On (?)

[Yail]

Yes, that stupid element of hope. I'm with you on that one. I'm on it too. It's helpful some days. I feel exactly as you do - I'll use it until it doesn't help me move along anymore.

My W dropped communication with all friends in our area (she moved states for a new job). That's the point that makes me really realized this isn't all about me and our R.This is about her and something she needs to tackle. BUT I still do see some very poor behaviors on my part that I'm not okay with as I do some self-reflecting. Those behaviors (mostly avoidance) need some serious work on my part so that IF we have any chance of R in the future I am ready to meet her as my very best self.

She also did the same pet thing - I guess I get the rabbit out of guilt? Good, because I adore the little hopper

[TJT]

As I was reading more of the MLC resources, my absolute greatest fear, aside from H actually not ever "waking up", is that he WILL "wake up" and then be one of those people who has too much guilt and pride to come back! How extra tragic would that be?!!

I saw some others from years back asking how to let the person know you are there for them WITHOUT telling them, so that if that time comes they may be more open to coming back. This is where I feel like spontaneously combusting out of fear. I have even already thought of things that I would tell my H to make him feel better in terms of his shame and guilt - things to validate as well as things like "we can sell the house and move to the country with no neighbors and nobody we know and we can start all over!"

I wish I could tell him these things now but I know they won't help now and that's why I'm so scared, because I know I can't. It's like I have a life raft that I can't throw out to someone!

I have to say that at least I did agree with my H on the dog... even if he said it for different reasons, he wasn't wrong, and without my furball I think I would be much worse off. She has given me a purpose, someone (yes she's a person too!) to talk to, to greet me when I come home, etc. Sometimes I feel bad when I'm too drained and depressed to be as active as I want to be for her, since now I don't have help, but then that also pushes me to snap out of it and get motivated. GO to the store, GO outside for a walk. So, yeah.

My H works with animals (that's how we met) so the biggest downside is that I no longer get easy access to resources for pet care. Now if I ever need something, I will have to go to where OW works (yes there are other places I could go, but knowing the different options local to me and "behind the scenes" of how different places operate, I don't want to go anywhere else). In the past he could either take her with him or bring stuff home; now I have to be "normal" and make appointments and pay full price, ugh.

And thinking of that just makes me even more frustrated because even though I make more money, here he is staying at a friend's house and here I am getting stuck paying for the house AND a furchild all by myself. I can guarantee you he is stashing away way more money than me at this point because of the situation. Granted, his living conditions are not the same, but still.. I don't really have a choice TO live cheaper if I wanted since I can't yet sell the house without it costing. Really crazy how things work out sometimes.

I'm also sorry that when I write in my threads, my thoughts jump from one thing to the next and snowball into something different than originally intended most of the time! There's just so much complexity and so many things I think about once it starts flowing. I really wish I had a third party who was watching our entire relationship and still following me around today (and others here, too!) who could make a film or a book or something about this whole thing. I can't imagine trying to recount it much later in my life in a way that will do it justice.

Separately, there's gotta be a program we can start where married couples can agree to be part of a study where they are subject to research if things like this happen in their M, haha. Like Body Worlds where people donate their bodies once dead. Wait, maybe a bad example, or not? lol.

[TJT]

One more thing, I also want to say that my H, while he has exhibited a TON of other MLC behaviors, has never done the whole "confusion" thing. Well, I won't say "never". He acted confused before I found out all the details of A, and then there was definitely some inability of him to make any decisions, but ever since I told him that if he is not willing to work on M I did not want him coming back and forth to the house when it was convenient for him, it has pretty much been NC.

I also read this is a long-haul thing with MLCs, so maybe the timeline just hasn't progressed enough in my sitch yet. It's been three months or so since H moved out, and about 7 months since BD. I am now very interested to see if the confusion principle kicks in the longer we are apart. I am definitely not expecting it based on how things seem to be now.

Another thing I am thinking based off the MLC resources is that I need to back off trying to contact his family now, too. I have not been crazy about it or anything, but I think they may take it as having an ulterior motive (like using them just to try to get info. on H). Even though that's not what I'm doing, I think I need to somehow allow them to figure things out in terms of what's going on with H too. I will admit that I have not reached out to my H's family independently very much in the past, like I've been doing occasionally now. I feel bad that that's the case but that is one of those things I've honestly realized I need to do better in the future... when H and I were together I guess I felt like it was just more appropriate to be initiated by him but I realize now I could have done more as a DIL. It's unfortunate that now it could be seen as something manipulative so I'm even stuck there too, it seems. I'll have to try to strike a better balance between reaching out to them and falling back. Really maddening to feel like I can't do anything right and will just have to lose everything!

[Yail]

As I was reading more of the MLC resources, my absolute greatest fear, aside from H actually not ever "waking up", is that he WILL "wake up" and then be one of those people who has too much guilt and pride to come back! How extra tragic would that be?!!

Me too. I think the best we can do is any time there is ANY communication around logistics (house, D, pet) just to be as calm and non-judgmental as possible. I guess this is where "lovingly detach" comes in. If we can try to not ADD to the guilt, perhaps that's enough. But from some of the reading, if the MLC does come out of the fog they will be having some memories of the R during good times. Maybe they'll remember that we were good listeners at that time?

One more thing, I also want to say that my H, while he has exhibited a TON of other MLC behaviors, has never done the whole "confusion" thing. Well, I won't say "never". He acted confused before I found out all the details of A, and then there was definitely some inability of him to make any decisions, but ever since I told him that if he is not willing to work on M I did not want him coming back and forth to the house when it was convenient for him, it has pretty much been NC.

I also read this is a long-haul thing with MLCs, so maybe the timeline just hasn't progressed enough in my sitch yet. It's been three months or so since H moved out, and about 7 months since BD. I am now very interested to see if the confusion principle kicks in the longer we are apart. I am definitely not expecting it based on how things seem to be now.

I'm on a similar timeline as you and a similar spouse. My W didn't really do the confusion thing. We're NC. And for me (and it seems for you as well if I've read correctly?) she's not really monstering. No outrageous anger at me, though there was certainly more frustration than warranted. But no screaming, no gambling, no alcoholism, no lipo, no exercise/weight loss. Just withdrawl which wasn't noticed at first, then BD, then greater and greater withdrawl. Then discovery of OW, then moving, then "I want a divorce" then.....here we are. Her decisions have always been firm along each stage.

I re-read your very first post and our spouses are the same person. Yours is the first person I've found that is quite this similar to my sitch. I'm so, so sorry.

Sending support to you. But you seem to be doing awesome considering the circumstances.

[TJT]

Thank you Yail. I read your reply this morning and it did make me feel good to have someone who could empathize!

Same thing with my H in terms of no monstering. He did slightly increase his "night caps" but it wasn't at all along the lines of alcoholism.

There were a few times before all this happened, a little over a year ago (which now lines up with when I think he started seeing OW) where he intermittently started working out again. And what makes me really sick about it all is I DO remember him doing the super cliche thing and buying new underwear... and this man doesn't hardly buy anything for himself. I joked at the time about whether he must have a girlfriend... I will admit there was a sliver of me that was worried but of course I didn't dig any further and just trusted him. But it's totally true...if your spouse suddenly buys new underwear, dead giveaway apparently!!

I now wonder at what point they started getting intimate, how many times he had been intimate with her and then again with me, even if they were just kissing on the regular and then him coming home to kiss me. It turns me completely upside down, but I would be willing to accept all of it if he could just snap out of it and genuinely express some remorse.

I really struggle imagining how I am going to deal with this long term if that doesn't happen. It's sad that I have more hope for my H coming back than I do in thinking I could find someone new. I try to "practice" looking for a new mate all the time (basically literally just looking and going into evaluation mode), to get myself in the habit and go through the motions I guess, even though I'm nowhere near ready, and even during my "practices" I end up feeling disappointed. I don't feel like I'll ever be able to date in a healthy way because of this whole situation, and that the odds of finding someone "organically" while I'm NOT looking are pretty slim. Or that it will be 10, 20 years from now which I also don't want to accept because I want someone who has spent a significant portion of life with me and experienced the growth I'll have in my career and as a person, not half a life with me where all they have to go off of to try to learn about me is stories.

It's a big deal to me because I feel like nobody is going to know you like someone who knew you when you were in such normative years in your life. That's the part I'm most mad at my H for. I gave him something that was so valuable to me - my time and experiences of key moments in my life (not to mention sacrificing to be with someone who had a young child and ex already, and getting over trust issues I had with him before we got serious) - and he is just walking away from that like a transaction.

I am realizing today that while I am a little more "stable" in my feelings, without huge swings as of late, I am definitely feeling more depth of hurt. I feel like there's a hole so deep inside of my being that I can't even locate it, like there's a sword lodged in there somewhere that's stuck and not being pulled out. It's making me cry just writing it.

I empathize with all the people who are dealing with this after decades of marriage who don't really even have another shot at starting over and rebuilding a significant length of time with someone. I do not think I could go on in a situation like that, full stop. It would ruin me.

Sorry, I think I got extra sad because I went out to get groceries tonight and then I also stopped by to eat dinner by myself before I came home, at a spot that me and H would always go to that he introduced me to. Like I said before, just very very much missing him right now.

Burned, if you read this, I did get dog food as well as a 6-pack of beer and strategically placed them side by side in a very visible area of the cart in the hopes it might scream "single woman" and attract a nice dude who also has a dog like you said could happen, haha. All I ended up seeing was another couple getting into an argument. Which also makes me more sad because rather than thinking "thank goodness that's not me", I actually used to love going to stores with my H and just holding hands and farting around looking at stuff, and he would always make me scratch his back while we were browsing but then I'd threaten to stop when he started getting too comfortable and walking too slow in the aisle. It just made me wish he was there, even if it was to have an argument!

On that same note, not sure if this happens to anyone else but I am in full relationship-saving mode with everyone I see. I mean I don't actually say or do anything, but any time I see a couple getting fussy with each other I totally feel like going up to them and saying something to put in perspective how lucky they are to be together. Or even the ones that are walking around holding hands or being sweet to each other, I feel like going up to those ones and telling them not to ever lose sight of that. I am obsessed (not intentionally) with noticing whether people in public are married or not and then wondering what their story is, if they will stay together forever, etc. And I get really really envious of them too, and almost embarrassed, just hoping that one day I will have an H again and happily stroll through life doing mundane things with my person instead of by myself, or with my mom, or with my friends who are either also married or in long-term relationships.

I hate how everything about this feels except when I'm working or really need to get something done where I've always been super focused. Aside from that I'm not really enjoying any extra element of the "freedom" I have. It seems kind of overrated at this point!

OH, I did hear from his mom today after all. She messaged me AND asked if I could come out to their place for lunch sometime this week. Didn't expect that at all. I did agree to come out (that's okay, right?) I assume his dad may be working during the day and it will just be her and his grandparents, but I'm not sure. I would love to see them both but my FIL is more passive and I don't know if he would consider it weird to have me over. I am not planning on talking about H at all, in terms of asking questions about whether they've heard from him, etc. If they talk about him or ask me things, I will talk, but I am not going to instigate it as that is not the reason for me coming over.

I also plan to apologize to them for not being as engaged and in touch with them over the years because I know I should have been and it is embarrassing that it took all of this for me to show them how much I do care. Not that I never did anything nice or something, but I wouldn't really ever message or call them out of the blue or independently from H just to see how they were doing. They would always communicate through H and we'd plan things that way.To my credit, it's the in-laws and it often seems there's kind of an invisible line of engagement in relationships like that.

I just hope they don't see it as fake, like my H accused me of being as I was trying to make changes before he moved out. Yes, it's definitely different than I used to act and yes, much of it has been spurred by him leaving. Shoot me, I'm human... and I don't have a big family unit myself, and definitely not a strong one, so that kind of stuff and getting personal with people I didn't grow up with is hard. But when you feel like you're going to lose it, you definitely don't just let it go if it meant something to you, and I would absolutely CONTINUE to b a better daughter-in-law in the future even if he were to come back. It's not just for show and this is what I wish my H could see. I am trying and willing to grow SO hard.

Dropped my stepson's birthday card in the mail today too. I hope his teenage self doesn't just rejoice in the $20 and throw it away and that he can feel I really do miss him. There's so many things I've been wondering about with his extracurricular activities, school, the girlfriend my H said he went on his first date with right before he moved out, all the things. Like I've said before, I really felt he was just getting to an age where I would be able to grow a lot more into my role as a step parent, given I was pretty bad at it when he was younger (given I was younger and me and H were, and still had been, growing into each other as parent figures).

Grr, another update that was intended to be short that's now super long.

[Yail]

I really struggle imagining how I am going to deal with this long term if that doesn't happen.

Forecasting into the future is scary, so stop doing it for now. I know, it's not that easy. Can you forecast/imagine a future that only includes non-relationship details? Right now I'm a bit obsessed with the idea of moving to Italy for a year long stint. I'm considering how I might do this (no plans), what my everyday life would look like. Walking to la farmacia! Buying little goodies for people back home! Going out for apertivo with coworkers!

Why don't you make a 2019 vision board but NO relationship stuff? I might do that.

It's sad that I have more hope for my H coming back than I do in thinking I could find someone new. I try to "practice" looking for a new mate all the time (basically literally just looking and going into evaluation mode), to get myself in the habit and go through the motions I guess, even though I'm nowhere near ready, and even during my "practices" I end up feeling disappointed. I don't feel like I'll ever be able to date in a healthy way because of this whole situation, and that the odds of finding someone "organically" while I'm NOT looking are pretty slim.

I'm not looking either but that didn't stop me from being completely distracted by a coworker at my holiday party. I was caught off guard (but took it!). It was unexpected, so I'm sure you'll be just as surprised some random day by someone that catches your eye. I get the "practice" thing. That's how I work as well. It never works. It will happen organically and naturally for you, I promise.

If you're like me, a person walking down the street won't do anything for you. I'm more apt to pause to admire a woman's shoes or haircut than her physique. BUT if I see someone in their element - when they are completely confident and doing a great job at whatever their *thing* is, that's when I will take notice. Confidence is super sexy.

I am not planning on talking about H at all, in terms of asking questions about whether they've heard from him, etc. If they talk about him or ask me things, I will talk, but I am not going to instigate it as that is not the reason for me coming over.

I also plan to apologize to them for not being as engaged and in touch with them over the years because I know I should have been and it is embarrassing that it took all of this for me to show them how much I do care.

Regarding your In Laws: I might suggest you plan several non-H related topics. I'd maybe avoid speaking of him except in generalities. You never know how things may be interpreted, and things could get skewed in the re-telling. If you can realistically say to him "honestly, we didn't speak of you at all. We just had a nice visit" that should be your goal. Now is not the time to build a bridge with them. But if you genuinely like them as people, find topics to speak with them about as people.

Your MIL has her own perspective, and may not relay any conversations you have with her accurately. Not that it would be out of malice, but I'm sure you H will hear what he wants to hear when your MIL talks to him. So please tread very, very carefully. I'd be vague in any answers you give related to H. Or simply say, "I'm sure you can understand that this isn't easy. I'd love to talk about _______ instead? Tell me about _____!"

Don't apologize to them. Too close to being interpreted as a round-about R-talk or pursuit. It puts them in the role of MIL/FIL and not "nice people I had tea with".

[TJT]

Why don't you make a 2019 vision board but NO relationship stuff? I might do that.

That's a good idea. I thought about doing something similar but it was actually more along the lines of the different possibilities of futures I could have - e.g. what a dating future could look like, a future where I meet someone new for a long-term relationship, a future without anyone, etc. That way I can at least mentally be aware of all the scenarios that might manifest. But focusing on just the last one makes sense since that's obviously where I'm at right now.

Don't apologize to them. Too close to being interpreted as a round-about R-talk or pursuit. It puts them in the role of MIL/FIL and not "nice people I had tea with".

This is a good point now that you say it that way. I guess it's the same thing with them - show them through my actions if I care. I don't need to make it a "thing". Thanks.

[TJT]

So I actually have a straightforward question for once, hah.

Last month H did transfer me his portion of what I pay for our combined insurance. He did it without me prompting - we texted about it briefly before and then the following month, he did it.

This month I have not gotten it yet. Perhaps he's just working around a different timeline this month (I failed in that we never did set a specific date for the transfers to occur, I just said once a month) but my question is what to do IF he doesn't transfer the money this month?

Do I initiate contact and ask if he can send it? Or not if, but when? Or let it go because I don't want to look needy and/or put pressure on him? Kinda goes back to questions I had really early on about if his "thing" is that he needs to feel valued and needed, but it's bad for me to appear needy, how I reconcile those two things in the actions I choose.

I guess ultimately me asking him for money for something that he is responsible for anyway and that I'm just continuing to pay for because of our legal status is not me being needy... it's holding him accountable. But still puts me in the same situation, because holding him accountable seems like more of the same and I kind of see me NOT saying anything to him as a 180, in the sense that he knows what his responsibility is and I really don't want to be that enabler that's always chasing things down or sorting it out. And aside from him knowing I want/need it, there's not really any other consequence to him if he doesn't pay. I can't force him. I can't charge him a late fee. And me expressing frustration about not having received it doesn't seem like a consequence that would be beneficial to the sitch, right? It just seems like the "best" things to do in this case to achieve various things contradict each other... so need advice!

[DejaVu6]

I don’t see anything wrong with reminding him. It’s something he has committed to. Something like... Hey. Just a reminder that our insurance is due soon and I still need your portion so I can pay it. No need to express frustration... just a straightforward text with a neutral tone. I don’t think it has to be a bigger deal than it is. You can hold him accountable without turning it into a confrontation. He may have just forgotten.

[TJT]

Thanks DejaVu. I think what I am getting at is that even if I don't make it a confrontation, he is good at making things like that seem ... not like a confrontation, but you know, an annoyance... on his back, not giving him a chance, like he can't do anything right. It's one of those things I know isn't true and shouldn't be that way, but if that's how he is perceiving it, what am I supposed to do!

Also, I am likely going to post a barrage of updates in the next few hours. I just got back from the in laws' house and I don't know whyyyyyy I thought that was a good idea. I mean I'm glad I did it but I just got more info and now I'm more upset and confused and slightly scared also. I will explain why in my next post but just wanted to respond to Deja here first before I start letting it all out.