[UrsaMajor]

Anyways, he says he will come remove the screws and putty….and I’m holding my breath. He has never been a finisher with honey do projects. I have multiple half done things that have been sitting in that state for years.

This kind of thing is NOT rocket science.... a screwdriver, a putty knife, and a small pail of hole-filler paste is all that is needed... Maybe something you wish to tackle yourself before he turns up again? "Oh that. It is already taken care of... "

[PhoenixRising75]

Hahahaha, Ursa. Yes, I am very aware I will be tackling this myself. I fix many things on my own, something H would complain about. I’d wait to see if he’d do it, usually sitting in very inconvenient situations while waiting, get sick of waiting, then just do it myself. His response would always be, “I told you I was going to do it. I just needed to find the time.” And……”well you obviously don’t need me. You need to control everything.”
Uh, dude, you son and I have used a broken shower head for months. Got tired of it, so I put a new one in. And, funny but true, the one I installed doesn’t leak when tilted to the side, unlike his install in our main bathroom. He used to much plumbers tape.
I am going to wait to fix the wall until he finishes moving his stuff out, which at the rate he is progressing is going to take months, but nobody is being inconvenienced by the wall, so I can afford to wait. Besides, I start coaching track next week, and I’m going back to school this summer to finish my credential. I have plenty of exciting experiences coming up, so ignoring the wall should be easy.

[PhoenixRising75]

H came by last night to pick up the old TV and a few other things. He helped himself to my champagne, which was fine. I’ve been cleaning up and reorganizing the past few days. That means I’ve been boxing some of his stuff and putting it in the closet. I wish he’d actually take all the stuff in his closet, so I can use it, but he isn’t there yet. It’s pushed to the side so I can hang my pants properly instead of folding them like I have been doing for a very long while to accommodate his mountain of stuff.
Anyways, my organizing chapped him a little bit. He said, “You’re already redecorating?”, and promptly checked his bedside sock drawer…..uh yeah, I moved the pile of junk from the top of the night stand and put it up on his shelf. I put my prettier, more feminine decorations there after wiping up all the dust bunnies he collected over there. I didn’t move his remaining hole filled  socks, or anything else from that drawer, though, it’s still intact, and he seemed relieved. Weird stuff their brain does. Left behind spouse should take care of left behind stuff. He isn’t going to make that space available for my stuff any time soon, I can see. Maybe those socks are guarding against another man’s socks moving in. The thought had crossed my mind. As if I’m in any kind of a headspace to want to deal with anyone’s socks but my own, atm? Too funny.
I did put him on notice that I will be decluttering the closets over Spring Break coming up. I told him I’ll let him pick through the removed stuff before I toss it. Maybe that’ll motivate him to get more stuff out, but I doubt it. His desire, and I guess it’s part of his replay, is to live in lack, the way he grew up. He has decorated his new place with retro 70’s style furniture according to my son, who went over there for awhile last night to help him set up the TV…..which wasn’t working because some dunderhead stored it upside down in my son’s room a year and a half ago. Ooops, dude, yeah you messed that up. Now he needs a different TV, and my son is supposed to help him take it off the game room wall on Tuesday. Oh, for the first time in a long time, he complimented my son, sorta.  “S figured it out in under 5 minutes….the Apple TV…..he is a God, he is me, but in 2023!”……. Our S has always been very tech, very advanced, and actually he far surpasses his Dad in that arena. He has for a very long time, his Dad just didn’t notice, or care to notice because it wasn’t athletic and soccer related. H is aware S has been runneing his own business since the pandemic with streaming, coding, maintaining servers, building computers from the ground up….yeah dude, your S does both hardware and software with next to no effort. It comes naturally, and his career choices will reflect that…..it just wasn’t what H was placing value on at the time…..and now I have a closet full of soccer shirts, coaching, reffing……all of that……and H doesn’t want to take it to his new house. He barely speaks to any of the soccer people we spent years with. I’m still speaking with them, and attending their important functions. I guess that’s why I get to house the LBSS……left behind soccer stuff…..
That’s temporary. He just doesn’t know it yet. As I gain more financial independence, his stuff will get boxed and/or tossed if he doesn’t do something with it. I enjoy purging. Always have. Closets and garage are on my radar for Spring Break in a few weeks….I won’t toss this go….just box and offer the boxes to him, but I want clean, I want organized, and I want space….I will not look like a hoarder of H’s past belongings….he has a garage, he Dan store the boxes unopened just fine. I told him I’d like to be able to put both cars in the garage…..it’s safer, and my S and I deserve to be safe…..so he should know it’s coming, although he probably already forgot I said that. He’s been forgetting a lot of things…..struggling to remember my phone number, on 2 occasions already….it’s been the same for years, and he never had trouble with it in the past. So weird what the tunnel does to their head.

[UrsaMajor]

We don't call it "Swiss-Cheese-Brain Syndrome" for no reason....

They can easily forget what they said/did an hour ago, let alone a day, a week... and do NOT ask them what happened a month ago... You'll be transported to the Twilight Zone by their answer.... Some even go so far as to tell you things happened to them that were things you told them actually happened to you...

As far as the "Already redecorating?" comment goes... no reply needed.... Of course, a simple "Yep." speaks volumes...

With respect to his junk, there are a couple of LBS's here that ended up holding on to the junk a LOT longer than needed. Once things are done and dusted, you can give him a deadline by which either he gets his junk or it goes to the curb. Boundaries, you know... and consequences for his choices/actions.... There is nothing that stipulated that you have to be the storehouse of his junk....

[MadLuv]

Purging is great!! I know once I finally started to go through things my XH things started popping up. For me it wasn’t holding on to things, but almost impossible to find everything of 30 years in a short time. Who thinks in distress!! Let’s go through every box in the attic!!! Yay!! Hehe. It is freeing to know things are finally all separated FOR SURE. You even get rid of all that stuff you never really needed. I think it’s a great way to lighten your mental and physical mode !!!

[PhoenixRising75]

An update on my journey. Things have shifted slightly between H and I. I spent 3 weeks in another state to help care for my father, who is end stage Alzheimer's. It was very difficult, but very rewarding. There was even a mending of my relationship with my mother, at least as far as it can get back to. The thing that surprised me was how interested my H became in my experience there, and how I was coping. He texted often, and was doing his best to be supportive.
Since being back home, H has been over more often. Almost all time spent together, he has initiated, although I have asked him over a couple times. We are still intimate, several times a week, now.  I’m doing my best to keep it light, and to not allow too many expectations to dance around in my head for too long. I have good days, and bad days where I just feel overwhelmed by everything, and I’m working through a lot of emotions. I’m talking to my therapist again, and it helps to get all the things out of my head, and just out there.
Replay mode for H seems to be slowing. He’s more focused on work. He still goes out, but it doesn’t seem to hold the same level of interest it did for him before. He has stopped guarding his phone when he does come over. He leaves it face up, unattended sometimes even, which he hadn’t done in the past 18 months. On a recent outing, a female I don’t know texted him, and because his phone was synced to the car, I had no option but to see it. I didn’t say anything. He immediately told me she lives in New York, and I have nothing to worry about. I’m not sure why he felt a need to tell me that. He isn’t discussing feeling much, except to make general statements (that honestly I’m having trouble knowing what to do with) like “I’ve been very lonely”. So far I’ve stayed quiet when he gives me these little insights. He is a runner, so of course I’m nervous that I could say the wrong thing, and watch him tunnel dive. Right now he seems to be re-exploring hero phase. He spent 10 years (that’s the length he labels it as) in this phase previously, out “trying to be a better man” . It’s not an easy phase to be married to, but it’s better than replay. And things are much different this time because I don’t have the time or energy to “hold down the fort”. I have my own stuff to attend to, work on, etc. I have just registered for fall semester and I’m finishing my degree. My son is pursuing his college courses, and his online career. And of course, the call could come any day that my father has passed or will imminently, and flights will need to be arranged on the fly.
If anyone reading this is wondering how or why I identify this phase as hero phase, it’s because that’s literally the kinds of things he says. He talks a lot about how he is helping other people see this or understand that. And just 2 days ago said “I told so and so you never give up the opportunity to be the hero”.  I’ve decided I will show gratitude for the things he’s doing. I didn’t think it was necessary in the past because hey, we can all take out the trash, right? I manage that pesky trash thing for months without expectation of a thank you, so I didn’t understand he WAS expecting a thank you, or your my hero  for his efforts, but there you have it. It certainly doesn’t cost me anything to just say thank you, and he definitely responds very well to it. I don’t know if this is going anywhere. Only time will tell.

[MadLuv]

Well, we were in a “trash” sync weren’t we? I also addressed this on Standing strongs page on how my XH needed those kudos for every little thing he did. I also used the trash as one. If he took it out and I said thanks he would need more than that. He would then say. Well I just wanted to help where I could. I would then say Thank you, I appreciate it. He then would fish for more acknowledgment. It was never ending. All the kudos in the world weren’t enough for taking out the trash. In my head I was screaming “ I took out the trash 5 times this week. Did you notice? i cooked, cleaned, wiped down the toilets, vacuumed, grocery shopped……hahahha….

[PhoenixRising75]

Reflecting on replay…….how long does it really last for a person that is so fundamentally traumatized by his childhood? If I’m honest, I think it has been 19 years for my H, and started with the birth of our son. Hindsight is definitely 20/20. Had I known that his insistence that he only drink the beer in a can (can, eww) that his abandoning father drank was the first slide into replay, maybe I would have seen the signs? He has long since abandoned the beer by so many years. He replaced it with other replays. Soccer was the last thing his father ever did with him before throwing him out at age 13. He didn’t get the same fancy gear his step brothers got, but he was allowed to play, and he was naturally good enough that the experience itself was remembered fondly. So replay the soccer experiences and take it to the extreme for 10 years. I suppose it makes sense. Now he is apathetic towards those 10 years, he says he wasted so much time. So partying and clubbing like his teen/early adult years, that’ll surely make him happy, right? Okay that’s not entirely working so let’s move out and recreate our childhood homes with retro furniture and themes from things his Dad enjoyed when my H was 5. Are we finally happy? Nope, lonely.
Now what? Need to feel better, need to feel better………bam, heroism, help others see the errors of their ways. Take the high road (his words) in everything done, and point out how great that is to everyone who will listen. I’m unsure yet how this will reveal that it, too, relates to his childhood traumas. I’m sure it will all be made clear in time.

[KayDee]

I'm more responding to what you wrote on Mimosa's thread - about your H being the soccer coach hero etc. If you haven't already worked it out, this is another form of projection -  he's perpetually rescuing his younger self. He cannot do it for himself, because he is 'not worthy'. This is his childhood trauma and why he says you don't love him etc. It's really more that he does not feel lovable. OK, so much for the psychology, but how does it help to know?  From what you write in your threads, it seems that you were a very supportive, loving, spouse. A rock and all the good things anyone would hope for in a relationship. But, until he finds a way to 'rescue' himself, do the fixing for himself, he will remain in this mode. I have no idea if this is a form of replay, it's probably more an MO for people who had neglect in their childhood. When it starts to morph into a way of escaping and/or avoiding, then I guess that is part of the MLC. Don't get people started on timelines though

[PhoenixRising75]

TY KayDee! Timelines are for sure out the window. 🤣 Each MLC’er will do their own unpredictable (but somewhat predictable) thing, for sure. In my particular case, I am pondering the possibility that this will be a life long state of being for my H. Midlife has really sharpened the focus/condensed his reactions to a chaotic level, but the more I look at it, replay for him is cyclical, long term, and if I’m honest with myself, something he will probably never heal. He really doesn’t have a need to. He is adamant he is going to die soon, so healing be damned.
Yes, part of my brain wants to look for signs that he is healing, or could in the future be open to healing. It is tempered with the other part of my brain that sees how comfortable he is, over the course of his life, replaying his traumas with no resolution. This part of my brain is questioning whether this is something I can handle, for how long, and do I even want to? 2 years, 3-5 years, 10 years, 30 years potentially of this to differing degrees and intensities , that’s a lot of my energy expended on this. Or not. I will need to choose at some point.