Oh Dilly. It's really really really hard. Easy enough to see things cooly from the outside and be able to offer dispassionate suggestions and make pithy observations. Harder to be the person dealing with heartbreak and feelings of uncertainty and abandonment and rejection. I have cried and begged and pleaded and behaved with an utter lack of dignity in front of H - I've rang him over and over again. And each time I press dial I've gone 'if he doesn't answer I will never ever ever call him again' and I've called him again. I am glad that seems to be behind me now, but there are other crazy things I am still doing and will do in the future. We don't have to be perfect. And being perfect may not get us the result we want anyway. It's just fumbling through as best as we can. You are doing your best in a set of circumstances you can't control in a body experiencing changes and emotions you aren't always in command of. You are allowed to be human.
Thank you, yes. I think as usual my expectations were too high, I’m not patient enough, and I need to detach more. Things to work on, together with controlling my emotions. This rollercoaster never seems to slow down does it? I have to do something to take back some control over myself. Thank you for your words, they mean a lot.
Do you think you have more clarity now about where your H is in terms of you and your marriage? It doesn't sound like he responded to you warmly or even at all - that he was still in avoidance mode, even if he was there on the holiday. When you had the R talk, was he forthcoming about anything? Are you at a point where his lack of communication becomes a type of communication in itself? Perhaps its too early to know any of these things yet.
I think you might feel in more control if you made some decisions for yourself, rather than waiting for your H to make them. Did you mean it when you said you were considering dating other men? I think wanting love and sex and affection and an intimate relationship means you are alive. And it doesn't seem like your H has been able or willing to give any of that to you for a long time. Have you had any sense of that changing? Or even that he wants that to change and is taking steps to get there?
Dilly , patience is my Achille’s heel too . I try to find something to distract me otherwise it drives me loco .
This may not be helpful to you but I believe it is something to consider : I believe jealousy is one of the strongest emotions in men . I see many posts where the wah sped back when he thought that the lbw may have been dating.
Why not go for a coffee with a platonic male friend and see what happens ? Be careful though , you are still hurting and a wonderful caring woman .
I hope you realise what a great woman you are and how much your wah is going to lose unless he bucks his ideas up soon .
Alison: that’s exactly what my IC says, that dh’s lack of communication is in itself communication. Mainly of him being confused I think. When I said how insecure I feel that he keeps saying he doesn’t know if he wants to be married or not he said that actually he’s only said it twice. That’s true. The rest of the time I fill in the blanks, but I know I’m over optimistic so I realise what he doesn’t say is important. He did say he was nervous about coming on holiday with us, though he did also say he enjoyed most of it. But also that I ‘spoilt’ it by getting upset. That’s very Him of him to say, he can’t handle my negative emotions. Which is hilarious given all his negative emotions I’ve had to handle over the years...I did suggest he couldn’t handle me being upset, he did acknowledge that. He also kept saying that I was like a stranger. Well does he want a different marriage or not? The changing thing: last year dh was paradoxically both much more attentive but also distanced. For the first 6 months anyway, I thought our marriage was finally improving. He was much more affectionate and we even went to dinner for the first anniversary ever. Our 24th. Really, it’s taken me a long time to see rejection signs hasn’t it? Our sex life has mostly been ok, physically he has not been affectionate enough but with kids you get that anyway. Emotional intimacy: I’ve been as guilty as him I’m realising. So difficult to bare my soul in front of someone who has already rejected me and I don’t know whether to keep doing it, to hold myself back or somewhere in between. I’m also not sure he’s capable of reciprocating. So much uncertainty.
Try hard: this man is competitive to the max. I don’t want to manipulate him though. And I don’t feel ready to see other men yet. I do really need affection and sex though, so I might yet reach that point. I have a few platonic male friends anyway but again I don’t want to be fake about this.
I have 2 more days of holiday with the kids, we will have fun. I feel bad about melting down in front of them. Ds1 was very nice then and this evening, he’s so sweet but I can’t expose him to my pain too much. Tomorrow I will be stronger for them.
Also: I was trying sooo hard to validate driving him to the airport. But at one point he said ‘stop saying you can see how blah blah blah’. It was like he felt suspicious. I said ‘well you told me when I said I understand that I couldn’t possibly understand so I’m not saying that even though I’d like to understand and empathise with you’. That was not as generous as it sounded because I was quite upset at the time and trying not to dump my feelings on him. I tried ‘that sounds frustrating’ and ‘I agree’ where I could but I was so unbalanced it was difficult to do, plus difficult to not get defensive. I definitely didn’t attack him though which I might have done in the past. I also said that in the past I had been too independent and too insensitive and that I was swinging too far in the other direction to compensate. Which is true I think. I also said that some of this isn’t to do with him, which might also be true. I’m thinking a lot about family interactions and how I need to change with or without dh.
Ok, so you talked about control earlier Alison. I’m taking control. I’m pulling myself together again, and moving forward. First up: I’m going to give up wine for at least a few months. Wine doesn’t play well with my hormones, it destroys my already fragile sleep, and it makes me behave in ways I regret. Like yesterday. I considered giving up all alcohol but actually I don’t over drink when I have beer. 2 pints and that’s my limit, and it doesn’t make me maudlin. So that’s step 1. Step 2: focus on work, I’ve slipped a bit since my last big deadline but I have a lot to do. And it’ll take my mind off dh. Step 3: 5 minutes of daily yoga. I did this when dh first left and it was very useful. Step 4: make myself a list of steps to follow when I’m triggered, when I feel the need to contact dh, when I steer towards R talk. Step 5: more socialising. But not too much! I feel better already. I’ll start with yoga and a run after breakfast and I will get started on working. Dilly 2.0 is incoming, positive and in charge.
Ok ticked off everything except more yoga and the calming down steps today. Had a nice day with the teens and only contacted dh twice, mostly because he texted me 4 times and rang me once and was accusing me of ignoring him. Sigh. So many, many mixed messages, I find it so exhausting.
During my run I thought about yesterday and thought that actually my behaviour was too apologetic and pathetic. Whereas he didn’t take one jot of responsibility for his terrible behaviour in the past. And actually this weekend he was pretty grumpy, critical and short tempered. A lot like he has been for years. His ‘better man’ has not been much in evidence ironically since his busy time at work finished. How was he able to make an effort then but not now when the pressure is off? Or is it that being on holiday brings back old memories and habits? I don’t know but I’m not playing guessing games any more.
Anyway I was reflecting on Alison’s question a while back about why we’d be willing to put up with this terrible behaviour. And I’m not willing to any more. The man yesterday who was cranky and critical and kept rehashing his marital resentments is not someone I want to be married to. I’ve worked very hard to forgive him for his behaviour and to let go of my past resentments but if he can’t do the same then there’s not much worth saving.
So I guess I’m detaching again. I feel much better about this. I can’t be dragged into his negativity and an unhealthy dynamic. I’ve apologised enough, the rest is up to him to step up and be a better husband. He got a puncture on the way back from the airport and now he will have to sort out a new tyre which will be a massive hassle for him. If he’d been with me I would have done all of it and got no recognition because he’d be too busy accusing me of the one thing I hadn’t done instead of the millions of things I did do.
May half term: I now know he will be away on a cycling trip with colleagues and has expressed no interest in seeing the kids. Sounds like my cue to organise something for us 3 and leave him to drink himself stupid with a bunch of people who will enable him.
I think your last post shows really good progress. You are regaining control and your sense of self and individualism. You have worked incredibly hard to try to bow to his wants and emotions and take responsibility for any shortcomings on your part. To the exclusion of his shortcomings. Not everything that he does and says is because of something you've done or said wrong. Sometimes he's just being a di**.
You are a very insightful person but it was almost as if you put his shortcomings on the back burner and thought that if you just worked on yours then it would be fine. I suspect suppressing your own needs is historical?
It looks as if you have turned a little corner and are standing back and truly evaluating. You now feel that he has to do his bit of the fixing as well. I think that whilst you will still feel emotional, you will also feel very empowered.
I hope he steps up, because he's missing out on a great woman if he doesn't. But it is clear that you will be great whether he 'straps a pair on' and sorts his sh** out, or not.
Thanks for your thoughts Yorkie I think I haven't been focusing on his shortcomings really because a) I can't fix him, I have no control over him b) I can only look at my part in all this mess
I don't think I did believe that if I did my work it would all be ok, I just had hope that he would do his work (though gosh, wouldn't it be easier for him if he got HELP in doing that work...?) And I did see some positive signs from him, so maybe I got over hopeful. A constant theme for me. I feel like I can see this beautiful, intimate marriage between us and I so want it to happen I gloss over everything it will take to get there...
Suppressing my own needs: actually, I have historically been pretty good at looking after myself, at going out and GAL and being more than a wife and mother. That has been a marital battle between us, because dh has called me selfish for doing so. But yes, I probably have suppressed my own EMOTIONAL needs within our marriage, I have put up with too little intimacy and too much of him dominating the relationship. And part of that is me being a distancer and being independent and not wanting to let him get too close. Which I'm working hard to change, but again it's hard because I don't feel like I can trust dh yet.
What I need: to have some honest conversations with dh without either of us walking on eggshells. I walked on eggshells round him for years, and now he says that's how he feels. Ironic. I don't really know how to get the safety back in our relationship, but I can start by being vulnerable and honest but not over-emotional. Then it's up to him. We're going out to dinner as a family on Thursday night for ds1's birthday, then we are spending Good Friday to Easter Monday together. I don't know how that will play out. We both need some new ways of being with each other and to take down some of the walls. I hope he can step up and play his part. Anyway, I'm off to do my yoga and to work, and today we go back home. It's been a tiring holiday, I do wish in a way I hadn't asked dh along now. Maybe it's me that needs space as much as him...?
