[Treasur]

Are you minded to say yes about the dog? Any benefit to you or the dog in that eg your being free to visit a friend? If not, not sure why one would say yes….he left the dog too after all.

It IS hard and harder perhaps at this time of year because of all the family traditions and memories of other times that go with that. I lost my father just before BD, my mother to dementia at the same time and of course my then h, and I am an only child without a close extended family. I always find Christmas a bit difficult and each year I give myself permission to step gingerly towards it and see what works for me. And that’s ok. Christmas is difficult for a lot of people, isn’t it?

Will your kids be with you for Christmas? Do you have close friends or family nearby that might allow you to celebrate differently? With or without the dog!

[Pivoine]

G seems to be showing signs of reconnection. He contacted my parents to wish them a happy new year and told them he often thinks about them, especially on Christmas Eve and the days leading up to it (while he was with his whole family for the Christmas weekend, our children were also present and healing). We also had a conversation where I asked him to stop contacting me, which of course he disagreed with. He brought up my anger and the fact that I had said I wanted to leave. I explained to him that it was a cry for help, that I needed support (I didn’t tell him it was the words of someone going through an existential crisis). He says he knows I’m suffering, that our children are suffering, and that he is also suffering and it’s difficult; he says, ‘I miss the dog, you see, I have tears in my eyes.’ Healing from flaws is complicated, ‘you’ll see the day you live with someone else, it’s not easy... I have my flaws too.’ I told him that his flaws never bothered me, and he admitted it was true. He thinks about the trees he has to trim (a year ago, it was about the freedom to leave everything behind). He also talks about the fact that I have the chance to still see our friends (which is false, I’m not invited), and he doesn’t understand why because I’m an interesting and engaged person, I talk about everything, and I know how to debate, people enjoy talking to me. I reminded him of things he had said to me, and clearly, he seemed surprised, he didn’t remember. For example, when he left, he said, ‘You are flawless, but I need to know with her,’ or, ‘You’ve wanted to leave me for 15 years, and now I should switch in one year.’ He also starts saying, ‘People mind their own business,’ yet in April 2023, he needed approval from others, especially from his family. However, he contacted real estate agencies and a lawyer but didn’t follow through, he didn’t call them (I have his call log). He’s moving forward, but it’s slow.

[UrsaMajor]

He is still confused, still has his head stuffed so far up his .... fog ... that he is looking out of his belly-button to see where he is going....

Like the saying goes, "Talk is cheap. Watch his consistent actions."

Two years is a blink of an eye in this marathon....

[KayDee]

My H did all these things Pivoine - almost word for word what you said. And he seemed to miss everything except me. (I used to joke that if we had an ant farm he would have said 'gosh, I miss those ants').  A lot of outpouring from him, after which, unfathomable to my even-keeled mind, he would do something so completely contrary, and hurtful, it would upend me again. No more of that for me.

So, Guard Your Heart - there is such emotional lability in this type of crisis. You can't hold on to any of it.

[Pivoine]

I still want him to come back.... still in love with him.

[FaithWalker]

Completely understandable.  We built a life with them, and can't just fall out of love with them like that *snaps fingers*.  Keep posting and journaling here, it's very therapeutic.

[Pivoine]

Hello everyone
I don't post here for a long time.
Many things happened.
He went to a lawyer on January 20th and called me right afterward. His voice was trembling. For him, he feels like he has no choice. If I have another solution... He doesn't want to risk putting me in a difficult position in case of over-indebtedness, since we are jointly responsible. He trusts me in that regard.
He also had the house appraised, but the agent doesn’t seem in a hurry to provide the estimate. Nothing is moving forward—he hasn’t followed up with the lawyer or the real estate agent. Contradictions everywhere.

He reached out to my parents, telling them he’s thinking of them and that he thought about them a lot in the days leading up to Christmas while he was with family—and with the other woman as well. My children had to endure her presence for three days.

He’s been texting with my college friend lately. She feels that he’s not doing well. He goes to the movies alone and is reading a book that belongs to me, one I recommended to him two years ago—ironic, right? He doesn’t do much with his weekends anymore. He still asks me for many favors: lending him sheets for his ski trip, board games, and so on. He’s always polite... even though he told me, “With or without her, I don’t want to live with you.” Another irony—we haven’t been living together for some time now.

He’s starting to worry about our younger son’s (19, in engineering school) drinking habits—he drinks more than he should at parties. He said to me, “I know you criticized me for that...” I cut him off; I had warned him that it was concerning. Now he’s worried about it, too. He seems more connected to what’s going on, but I’m still not part of the picture.

Meanwhile, the other woman isn’t doing well. She posted a troubling message on Facebook, saying, “Her wildest dreams have become her worst nightmare. She’s teetering, suffocating, everything is piling up. Her makeup and fake smile are there to say, ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ but it’s not true. When everything falls apart...”

He went skiing for a week with our eldest son and one of our younger son’s friends. She didn’t go.

It’s hard to stay strong through all this. I don’t know how to keep working on myself. I see a therapist, I’ve reflected on our relationship, and I still want him back in my life. I still love him. But this is so long and drawn out.

[Baxter1]

Sounds like you are staying strong which is great. I’m at about the two year mark and I feel the same way. I constantly reflect on the relationship and realize that although it wasn’t perfect ( I don’t think any relationship is ‘perfect’), I don’t think it was so bad to come to this. I would love to have her back in my life and I still love my W. I think this process is for both them and us. We are both taking a step back I and figuring out our own lives.

My W filed for divorce almost a year ago and it’s moving slowly. I get the feeling she is regretting the decision and I’m hoping it gets delayed as much as possible. Good luck on this journey

[LC]

My heart goes out to you, Pivoine.
I’m in a similar situation to yours.
H want a divorce see he can by a house.
I can only play the waiting game and get on with my life.
I found better emotional stability and peace of mind when I stopped doing things for him and making decisions based on “us”. 
Your H is truly on a journey, now.
Find what makes you happy, beyond any relationship.
You are doing well and you are going to be just fine.😊

[Treasur]

If he filed on 20th January, do you have your own lawyer? Bc there are likely to be practical things you need advice on about your rights and obligations. A divorce isn’t just about what he wants and needs, after all. We know it’s hard to even think about these things probably, but finding a way to do so will make a difference to your longer term wellbeing and financial security. And that matters, whatever happens.

It sounds as if you have quite a few links to his new life….phone calls to your friend and FB announcements from ow, plus his ‘requests’ for x or y from you? I would encourage you to try to shut those down as much as you can - tell other people you don’t want to hear, stop following ow on FB, limit how much or how quickly you respond to his ‘requests’ or give him a date by which he should remove any personal items from what is now YOUR home. Why? Bc it makes no practical difference to be exposed to this info and it keeps you hooked on a kind of endless speculation which is bad for your mental health. Don’t get me wrong - we’ve all done it for a while, it’s a kind of trauma response to look for ‘signs’ - but we have all had to teach ourselves to stop.

And filing for divorce is a very concrete action which imho changes the situation you are dealing with. So one needs to change to fit that reality.

Again jmo, but right now ypur goal is probably more about acceptance. Accepting that this is all real and happening and that it is life altering for you. You can still love him, you can still wish it were different, you can even still hope that some time in the future it might be different. But right now, as you said he said, “With or without her, I don’t want to live with you“. THAT is the hard thing to accept but I would encourage you to start living as if you believe him. Bc right now, that is how it is.

And you get to decide if that means you are still in the business of lending board games or sheets, or knowing what he reads, or talking to him about anything much at all. Bc after all, regardless of your responses to his requests so far, or books, or sadz thoughts he shared with your parents, the reality is that he left and he’s not there, is he? Imho everything else is secondary to that tough real factual truth. He left, he’s not there and he has told you he has filed for divorce. That is the current reality that you need to find a way to accept as current reality bc how you feel about it or what he may feel or what ow is feeling doesn’t change that current reality, does it? If the situation changes again, you can adapt accordingly but right now, I would encourage you to start thinking of yourself as a stbxw and him as a stbxh.

What does being an ex-wife mean for you? What do you think you should stop, start or do differently with someone who - no matter how painful it is to be rejected - does not want to live with you and has filed for divorce? What does it all mean for you about how you go about your life as a person and a parent?

But as others have said, I’m so sorry. It’s a hard thing to accept and it takes a bit of time to begin to deal with how things are as opposed to how we wish they were.

It is many years for me since BD and all the insanity that followed it and several years since I had any contact with my xh who also filed and remarried shortly thereafter. No kids, so I have literally no idea if he is even alive let alone what books he reads. I found accepting reality hard and tbh I suffered financially and emotionally bc of that. So I am not saying this to judge, more in the hope that others will not make the mistakes I made. Today, years on, it still feels like a strange tsunami in my life that changed everything for me and I find it pretty much as inexplicable now as I did then. Sometimes it is almost as if I imagined the person I was with for 20 years and that’s a strange feeling. But….the sun is shining here, the birds are singing, I have a good cup of coffee at my side before starting work, I have friends and people who care about me and I am ok. My life is different but I am ok. I am no more and no less a person than I was before the tsunami. Acceptance was hard and slow, a series of experiments really, but I found my own way to it and you will find yours too when you are ready.