Day Two: This is real...

I cried all night and I pretty much cry all day, and therefore hide from H and the boys.

H's trying to be nice, which is confusing to me. He even suggests we go food shopping together which is weird - I wander around the supermarket isles, following him whilst he shops (anything I pick or suggest he says no... so I quickly stop and just pick the odd thing for myself) Then we're back home and the day slows down to unbearable pace. I try and do work, still crying and listen to H downstairs: His dad just died. He s decided to split up. He s pottering in his kitchen, whistling a tune to the radio, and laughing out loud at texts he's receiving. I also overhear happy sounding chats on the phone. How can he not feel anything? does he not realise what he s just done?

With a heavy heart I email my family: Sorry but I have to cancel our NY celebrations: H wants a divorce, I need to deal with it. Oh the shame I feel at the shock I m about to cause them, at the ultimate admission of failure. I couldn't bring myself to ring them (I m crying too much anyhow) but somehow writing the email and pressing SEND suddenly makes it very REAL. OMG this is actually happening!

In the evening it all breaks loose: we try and have a chat. He still sounds very composed and civil, and tells me he wished I could be a bit more pleasant/ less upset/ less angry. You just dropped a bomb on my world last night and expecting me to be civil??!! How long exactly -I ask- am I supposed to take to 'get over it' then as he calls it... and then we both say hurtful things. really hurtful things. Problem is, I think we both mean them...

He says:- I should put the children first. He s been looking after them for years... I should acknowledge I m not as capable to look after the boys as he is, therefore I should leave them with him for their own good I don't I realise what he s done is so very courageous -done out of despair cos there is no other way and it is best for everyone He s worked it all out -including finances:- he will stay where here with the children. I will take a 2 bed flat somewhere down in South London (near work) and move out. The boys will come and visit very other week end I shouldn't t fight it:- 1. I am ultimately to blame/it is my own doing 2. We need to be grown up and civil about it; it is not desirable for anyone to bring the lawyers in/go to court 3. Should I wat to do this (go to court) I would probably lose custody of the boys. I should spare us the pain and expense of such a process -and take responsibility for having ultimtely got us here (?!!)

I say:- what he s doing is not courageous. he s taken what he sees as the easy option: kick me out, no disruption to him, the children will come round eventually He of all people should acknowledge that the boys are unlikely 'to be OK' with it The decent thing to do -should he care as he claims- is to at least give it a change:- talk it through/ go to counselling/ explore options It is cruel and callus to act and speak like this (his timing less than a week before Xmas could not be any worse) and shows he doesn't care. He s selfish (and has always been). I have worked my socks off to look after (and provide for) him and the children for the past 20 years. I have done everything he wanted/ provided for every whim/decision and financed along the way, all of his -failed- ventures. Now that we are all set up (having just spent a small fortune extending and re-decorating our new home, he now decides he's quite happy thank you very much and I am not needed any longer (other than to keep on financing his lifestyle), bla bla bla argue argue argue... And then this weird thing happens to me:- whilst in full flight of arguing and exchanging insults... I suddenly -metaphorically- step out of the situation and see it as a third party in the room. And what I see and hear makes me sad and angry for sure, but moreover it embarrasses me:- I am overtaken by an incredible sense of shame:- how can we/ how can I, after over 20 years of marriage, come to this. How can I possibly have let it get to this stage. How can I have got this so wrong... And at that point I realise I am unlikely to be able to fix this. At that point I know we have just crossed a line we are unlikely to be able to ever come back from. This is real, This is happening. and whilst I have no idea where we are going with this exactly, an overwhelming sense of dread -accompanied with this uncomfortable knot right there at the top of my stomach- takes over. I run out in floods of tears, make it to the loo just in time to sick up the little food and lots of wine I have just consumed and go to bed, still crying and trying to ignore the knot that is not only still there, but slowly growing in me and firmly taking hold.