Miscellaneous musings

I have become quite the cyber-sleuth. I've managed to find quite a bit of information...some useless, some pretty handy, and some that just feeds this beast that is my curiosity. I have a few readers who I don't know who've come across my blog and left comments. I wonder if I have more readers who don't comment....then I wonder if I have readers I DO know who wouldn't dare comment? Though I would have to say that I imagine most people are not as tenacious as I am at digging up clues. What does that say about me?? :)

It's amazing how things have changed since February. I was a mess for a long time....literally a mess. It wouldn't have taken much to push me over the edge. When there wasn't a crisis going on, I was in constant vigilant mode....checking, snooping, questioning, worrying, hypothesizing, rationalizing. And if I waited around long enough, I could be sure another crisis would come up. DH never managed to disappoint when it came to that. I managed to convince myself that many things were true or not true, depending on what I wanted the answers to be. I have only threatened divorce once....in August. It had been discussed, but I had never threatened it before because I wasn't sure I'd do it. Now I'm sure I'd do it. I am no longer desperate. I am just hanging out until I make my decision. I wouldn't call DH desperate either but he knows I mean it, that I will leave him. I used to try hard to fill silences....to keep up the banter, act interested, keep him engaged. Now....if I have something to say, I'll say it, but I also spend a lot of time thinking, reading, just taking it all in, watching the world go by. I don't feel responsible for keeping things going.

Tomorrow DH and I will start a month-long separation. Not by choice....he'll be attending a school for work for 4 weeks. I drove out with him and am flying home tomorrow alone. I will spend a month without him, a month with myself, a month with my girls. As much as I shouldn't, I'm sure I'll miss him. But I'm also looking forward to the time by myself. In the earlier months of this ordeal, I'd have been telling him how much I'd miss him, I'd have been clinging, fretting, crying, worrying, professing my love for him....wondering what he'd do without me breathing down his neck. Back in February or March, I didn't even want him alone in the house....and I know that sounds crazy because he has plenty of time alone en route to & from work, during the day when he's supposed to be at work, etc. I guess in my head, I thought that stopping him from doing something was the next best thing to him not wanting to do it in the first place. Now, I don't worry about those things so much. He's a big boy with the capability of making good choices if he wants to. And if he doesn't want to then I won't want to be with him. I've become much more standoffish. I have never gone back on my threat of divorce. I am still here....but I have never said I changed my mind either. I have said I am willing to explore a little longer, a little deeper. After spending 4 days alone with DH, travelling and exploring a new city, I am seeing a man I'm not used to seeing.....I'm seeing long, sad looks when he thinks I don't see him; getting long, hard, almost clingy hugs; I am hearing how much I'll be missed, how good I feel, how none of this will be nearly as much fun without me, how much he loves me. I am expecting tears at the airport tomorrow...amazingly not from me. I'll be sad to leave him too.....but now I walk away not caring nearly as much what he does when out of my sight. I can't control it and I try not to waste my time worrying about it either.

With this new counselor, I almost feel like he reads my mind sometimes. Somehow, back in February I made a smart decision....how I was capable of that I don't know. I decided to make no rash decisions, to give myself time...I felt that I deserved that, my kids deserved that, and despite what DH had done to me, he deserved it too. I decided I'd give myself a year.....that when February rolled around again, if I felt unhappy most of the time or I felt that we had made little progress or that DH wasn't really sorry or didn't care or just wanted to me to shut up about it, or if I found myself still wondering if anything is going on all the time....that I'd be finished. That I'd feel I'd done all I can do and I'd move on. Last week he said his goal is to get us to January or February and hopefully we'll be able to find ourselves in a much better place. I wanted to speak up and say "that's good....because if we're not I'm outta here!".

So tomorrow I get started on my month alone. I am really wondering which of the two of us will have a harder time with it.