“Bluntly Madge, it appears you cannot count on your husband and in my opinion your best choice is to take care of yourself and your children”
this has rung thru my head this week – until now when I have a chance to post –
I truly appreciate your truthfulness with me – you are right – sadly, you are right. I know I can’t count on my CG – it hurts so much but I know it to be true. And also sadly, my kids know it to be true.
But amongst the darkness that is my life, i wanted to report a glimmer of hope.
Today after all this mess from previous posts, my CG took kids to school and was supposed to return (i thought) for us to go to teacher/parent conferences together. He (of course) expressed no interest in going at all until I asked him to come (you think a man would be interested in the progress of his own children, wouldn’t you??). BUT, instead of returning home, he never showed up. I started to worry, where he was, what he was doing, etc – but I stopped – consciously I MADE MYSELF STOP. I reflected back on your words, Jenny’s words, and everyone else on the forum’s words and decided – DECIDED- to not focus on his mess but instead have breakfast with my youngest who goes to school last. We had a lovely little breakfast and I was happy to be with him.
My CG eventually called me 10 minutes before the conference time with the usual excuses “Oh, I thought I was just going to meet you at school, etc”. It turns out he had been doing errands, but who really knows with him. The point is that at least for that moment I was able to put aside my worry about my CG, tell myslef I couldn’t do anything about his crazy behavior and just be with my son…
That felt good.
Point #2: “his mind is still actively fully addicted. Abstinence on its own is not enough.”
Never thought of that – again Velvet, you are right. He has been gamble/sex free for 6 months but his actions and mind are still where they have always been – with himself and his own needs – I never thought that with abstinence you could still be addicted…now I see you can…WOW – that was mind blowing –
I can see how hard it is for my CG to think of others – what a struggle it is – so sad – so sad for me and my kids. But I need to focus on me and my kids. I told my CG I do love him but that it is dangerous for me to love him – that I always get hurt and I need to keep him emotionally at a distance. I don’t like being that way but it doesn’t seem like I have much choice til he gets better. I don’t know if he can/will get any better.
In the meantime my daughter and I are scheduled to go away for her competition next thursday. She is excited and nervous as I am too. But I am nervous about leaving my other 2 kids with my CG – he is forgetful and I only hope he will remember to feed them and that they will be safe. They are 16 and 8 yrs old so I know they can get cereal etc and won’t starve, but I am hoping Dad rises to the occasion and really takes care of them. And the cat too and all his meds. I don’t want to cancel our trip bc it is important to my daughter but worry that their Dad isn’t a great caretaker – it is so hard to be the only parent in a house of 2 adults…. ;(
I will continue to strive to take care of me and my kids and not worry about him and his problems. It is hard because the person I love it still there and I see how messed up he is and how hard he is trying from his side. I know he is trying. But his success is only limited. Maybe for now that needs to be enough..
More later – and will reply to Jenny later too – off to pu kids –
XO
M