H lives in alternate parallel universe
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| Mon, 07-25-2005 - 7:20pm |
It gets even better....With each day, it seems like H is just deeper and deeper into a parallel fantasy world.....Last night, he came by to see the boys...He signed lease on apartment last week, but has yet to totally move in. Instead,he just takes a couple of things from the house when he comes to visit. I really want to say, look buddy, you wanted out so bad..why cant you get your stuff out asap! It is like, he wants to keep half of his stuff here, so that he is not really gone.....He even got a little irate that I cleaned out a couple of his dresser drawers to make room for my stuff.....To date, he has maybe taken one duffle bag to his new place....Which, is just 2 miles away from our home...He is here every night....Then he insists on at least calling me twice a day, but it is usually more than that...Just to check up on the kids, he says..I NEVER HEARD FROM HIM THIS MUCH WHEN WE WERE TOGETHER!!!..Then last night,I put our coincidentally shredded to pieces marriage certificate in his bag.....and he found it and looked all mad and said , You dont want to frame this?..Yes, please let me frame the reminder of 8 years of being treated like dog crap.......I can not wait until the divorce is final and I can say look buddy, you have to back off...Maybe even just call once a day please.....My kids have never seen him this much....I am thinking that he is just going thru the guilt stage....He actually says that he is going to keep kids for first time on Thurs this week...If he does, I have no idea of what I am going to do...I have never had a life before, this is going to be so weird and scary

Well, regardless of what he's feeling you seem to be in a good place emotionally (taking advantage of more drawer space for yourself is definitely a sign of that). And you are living in the 'correct' side of the parallel universe, that is always good.
Hopefully he does take the children, and hopefully his guilt or whatever does get him to be a better dad. The #1 impediment to you moving on with your life is your STBX disappearing from the children's lives and refusing to parent or do anything with them. For one, if you have them 100% of the time then you can't do much as an adult, and he gets all the free time in the world to do adult things. And for two, the children suffer for it. So if anything good is going to come from him it's going to be spending more time with the children and showing he cares about them.
Being divorced, being a mom and having a life is THE BEST.
He signed lease on apartment last week, but has yet to totally move in. Instead,he just takes a couple of things from the house when he comes to visit. I really want to say, look buddy, you wanted out so bad..why cant you get your stuff out asap! It is like, he wants to keep half of his stuff here, so that he is not really gone.....
I'm going to say this as gently as possible:
Hugs, Brenda
I understand exactly what you're going through right now, but you are never going to be able to heal and move on if your H has free access to you and your home. After my STBX and I separated, I let him continue to keep stuff at my house and even let him keep the keys. He would walk in and out of the house at all hours of the day and night - even when I wasn't home - and then leave to go live his single life. He called me all through the day as well, but I'm sure that it was because he was feeling guilty and having difficulty getting accustomed to being separated. After a while, though, I got tired of him trying to run my house without committing to moving back in. I took his keys, packed all of his stuff, and what he didn't take went to Goodwill or the basement. He still found excuses to stop by and pick things up, but that all stopped when I moved out. It feels so good to have my own home with NONE of his stuff in it. Now there are no more excuses for him to just drop by to pick something up, unless it is the kids, and I make him wait outside for them!
Don't let your H live in a fantasyland where he can have all of the benefits of a loving family at home, and freedom to come and go when he feels like it. Let him know that he is either all in, or all out. If I were you, I would give him a deadline to pack ALL of his things and move them. If he fails to meet the deadline, you can pack for him and have his bags waiting at the door (packing their things can be so theraputic!). And make sure that you take back your key. I mean, would you want an ex-boyfriend to walk in and out of your house whenever he wanted to? Well, same goes for ex-husbands, or STBXs. Your H has no reason to get mad at you. Your home is not a storage warehouse. He took a new apartment, so he has someplace to keep all of his things. In the meantime your life goes on, even without him. Be strong - things will get better!
Heck yeah! I agree with this wholeheartedly. Your allowing him to act like this.
I packed up
He was trying to keep two home bases. He had moved out from my place (technically was tossed out!) and was sleeping on his mother's couch, and tried to tell me that was why he couldn't take his stuff - I told him to use the money he was saving on rent to get a storage locker. Or he could attempt to buy it all back from the dump! LOL! He even called me one Friday night at eleven thirty, insisting that I had his high school diploma, that I hadn't given it back to him with his things (it was there, I remember packing it). He wanted to come over and "look for it". NO WAY. It was simply because he knew it was my first night out with some girlfriends and wanted to spoil the evening. He liked the image that I would be sitting at home, and at his beck and call, the way I was during the marriage. I was also a people pleaser, and it was hard at first to stand up to him, but once I did it the first time, it got easier.
My stbx also went through the "guilt calls" phase, and the "I am calling because I miss you as a friend" phase. He was calling constantly, and we don't have kids to talk about! I told him not to call me one day while I was at work, so instead, he took to calling my cell phone 6-7 times a day. AAAARGH! I had never heard from him that much! All of a sudden, he wanted to talk about every little thing he did all day, he was calling on every break at work, to and from work in the car, and before he went to bed! I said "I meant don't call me, not just at work"... Finally I had to stop taking his calls, I had to pay for call display. Then he started leaving voicemails... I cancelled my voicemail... He got mad that I wouldn't answer... And all this, after he cheated on me more than once, and then agreed that a divorce was what he wanted??? It was all about controlling me. That's all.