[mama4]

Thank you all for your thoughtful input and understanding.

Our family is moving along. MLC continues to come and go to his friend’s house without warning. He is more irritable than usual lately. He is also attempting to engage with each of our kids in different ways and with me.

He stared at me for several minutes the other night and then said,  “in a few days we will be married for 20 years, where did my life go?”

Tomorrow is the day. I made him a card but haven’t decided if I will give it to him.
Ironically, I am more ready to divorce than ever before. I accept the state of our reality and this took a long time for me.
He is angry and irritable or sleeping when he is home.
When he is gone, even the dog is calmer. Our children gravitate to me and we are joyful.

I am doing well for the most part, adjusting to our oldest moving out for college next month and his sister starting senior year of high school. They all grow up so fast! This next school year we will have one child in college, one in high school, one in middle school and one in elementary school.

They are all out of the house a lot this summer—-the older two in Europe for several weeks and the younger two at different camps.

I am cleaning and donating and really preparing for separating the household if necessary. I plan to mention moving forward with a divorce when we are alone at home.

As far as divorces go, it will be simple. We don’t own anything together and I am very willing to pay alimony if it comes to that. It’s excruciating to live with someone so unhappy, even only part time, who is also so unwilling to do anything about it. He continues to gain large amounts of weight and blames me even with healthy from scratch meals prepared daily in our home. Our children and I are all physically fit and many of us underweight.
The longer I allow him to shift blame to me, the more toxic our home becomes. I do want our kids to love and respect him. I don’t undermine their relationship.

My first goal for my planned time off this week is to purchase a bed for myself. He kicked me out of our bed I think 5 years ago but really have lost track. I sleep on a futon mattress on the floor of our younger boys’ room.
We have an extra bedroom that I have been working to clear out. This will be really good. Then I will move onto a frank conversation with him about our next steps. I really believe he will be relieved. It must be hard to juggle his family and his side piece.

Thank you again for helping me to get here. I thought I could fix something I couldn’t fix. Now I just don’t want the broken thing or any other for that matter. I’m super badass on my own and very happy with this decision.

[TheShore]

Thank you all for your thoughtful input and understanding.

Our family is moving along. MLC continues to come and go to his friend’s house without warning. He is more irritable than usual lately. He is also attempting to engage with each of our kids in different ways and with me.

He stared at me for several minutes the other night and then said,  “in a few days we will be married for 20 years, where did my life go?”

Tomorrow is the day. I made him a card but haven’t decided if I will give it to him.
Ironically, I am more ready to divorce than ever before. I accept the state of our reality and this took a long time for me.
He is angry and irritable or sleeping when he is home.
When he is gone, even the dog is calmer. Our children gravitate to me and we are joyful.

I am doing well for the most part, adjusting to our oldest moving out for college next month and his sister starting senior year of high school. They all grow up so fast! This next school year we will have one child in college, one in high school, one in middle school and one in elementary school.

They are all out of the house a lot this summer—-the older two in Europe for several weeks and the younger two at different camps.

I am cleaning and donating and really preparing for separating the household if necessary. I plan to mention moving forward with a divorce when we are alone at home.

As far as divorces go, it will be simple. We don’t own anything together and I am very willing to pay alimony if it comes to that. It’s excruciating to live with someone so unhappy, even only part time, who is also so unwilling to do anything about it. He continues to gain large amounts of weight and blames me even with healthy from scratch meals prepared daily in our home. Our children and I are all physically fit and many of us underweight.
The longer I allow him to shift blame to me, the more toxic our home becomes. I do want our kids to love and respect him. I don’t undermine their relationship.

My first goal for my planned time off this week is to purchase a bed for myself. He kicked me out of our bed I think 5 years ago but really have lost track. I sleep on a futon mattress on the floor of our younger boys’ room.
We have an extra bedroom that I have been working to clear out. This will be really good. Then I will move onto a frank conversation with him about our next steps. I really believe he will be relieved. It must be hard to juggle his family and his side piece.

Thank you again for helping me to get here. I thought I could fix something I couldn’t fix. Now I just don’t want the broken thing or any other for that matter. I’m super badass on my own and very happy with this decision.

Wow, I need to go back and read your entire story, but 5 years without a bed is rough!  I’ve been on the basement sectional pushed together for ~7 months and I’m definitely missing a bed!  Maybe I need to do something down here… I feel your pain and sacrifice.

I’m not sure if I’m experienced enough to give advice, but the only thing I can say is that if you are still questioning whether or not to keep trying, then the direction is clear (don’t give up).

[Treasur]

I read your post as being rather closer to the Acceptance stage, when a bit of space and time allows you to see how things are as opposed to endlessly wondering why they are that way or what you can do to fix them. You can see, for instance, that your h brings a certain ‘vibe’ with him regardless of what you do or don’t do, the chaos you describe or a level of underpinning anger or self-pity even. It genuinely does take most of us quite a while to see this - perhaps bc it isn’t very normal, perhaps bc the chaos acts as a distraction for a while - but once you see it, you can’t unsee it, can you?

I don’t know what path you will choose from here but you do sound as if you are ready to choose one that feels better for you than you have been on so far. I hope that you can also accept that you did your best based on what you knew at the time, and that is some comfort to you. And a better path definitely starts with your own comfy bed 😜

[mama4]

Thank you
I am approaching acceptance and it has been hard earned. I will continue to work.

Today is our 20th wedding anniversary.
He texted me Happy Anniversary. From work this morning.

I texted back the same.
 I left him the card I made him on the desk in his bedroom.

It showed a picture of us on our wedding day which was captioned “I loved you then”, a picture from our trip to New York a few months ago, captioned, “I love you still”

And the words

And I always will


He brought me a dozen red roses after work and gave me a kiss.


I’d filed for divorce in the next 30 seconds and still stand by my words in that card.

The fact that I love him doesn’t really mean much at this point, but it’s still ok to share it….

[Treasur]

Yes, you can still love him.
But you don’t have to share your life with him, or be married to what he has become, that’s true too.
It’s ok to love someone from much further back from their emotional rollercoaster.

It was brave of you but you’ve had such a hard last few years, my friend, and you deserve to live with some peace and grace.
Hugs from here.

A PS….do you need or have a safety plan of some sort? Bc it seems evident to me that, at best, your h has been emotionally abusive for a long time, likes control and that - despite his words - he has been content to come and go as he pleases for a long time too. And as far as I understand it, HE didn’t file, you did. That may make him rather angry. Please keep yourself safe.

[mama4]

Spot on as always, thank you.

His behavior has been incredibly difficult for many years.

Of our 26 years together, 20 married, we have fallen into a terrible cycle twice now.
The first trigger seemed to be the birth of our first child and the second trigger was this same child growing up and moving on.
Our oldest is living his father’s dream, playing baseball in college.

I don’t really care about the genesis of his crazy anymore. I just need to move on too.

[mama4]

I returned home yesterday after 9 hours of baseball games/driving in different cities for my 13 year old.
MLC was on the couch and asked me to sit with him and scratch his back. I did.

And he began to talk.
He never talks.

3.5 hours later, I had missed a fundraiser for our daughter’s drill team and failed to do a list of other tasks, but he was talking!

He was talking about work. Good and bad. The individuals and centered at all of this—a man in his office who is married to a man but does not identify as gay. He informed MLC he is Bi and that men are better marriage material because his husband is willing to share. He sleeps with any woman he wants to.
MLC noted that it would also be easier to be married to a man because then you are just hanging out with your buddy all of the time.

Then he attempted to have sex with me.
Then we went to bed.

But I couldn’t sleep.

Instead I read everything I could for hours about anger and toxic behavior and middle age understanding of sexuality and all of the possibilities and firmly concluded he must be trying to tell me something.

I also work with several members of the LGBTQIA+ community but never mention that in conversation about work. I accept their relationships and they accept mine and it isn’t a big topic at my work or in my thinking or focus.

He has been going to see his male friend for years now. Perhaps he isn’t lying.

I tried to speak with him this morning and he only yelled at me, you think I’m Gay? And started laughing.

I said no, I didn’t even think that but I think that is what you were telling me last night.
He walked away and hasn’t said anything.

I’m at baseball again with our younger two children.
All day.

I’m crying and walking during warm ups.

I guess I am relieved?

I had long thought I was the problem BUT
maybe we just aren’t able to have a romantic relationship.

What was I doing for the last 26 years?