CC and Master both keep referring to the place we are in now as limbo. Master has been in a hurry to run home and start moving out since all of this happened. CC hasn’t said much, but she did tell me yesterday that she thinks it’s pointless for him to finish his trip now that they have decided because she can’t move forward until we make the relevant changes.
All I’ve wanted is for everyone to slow down. I know, I could be in denial, but I really feel like neither of them took the time needed to process and separate with this trip. I feel like they did all the same things (interaction wise) they were doing at home, with predictable results. I think they need to actually take time alone to think and feel and not talk to each other. They need an opportunity to miss each other or not. I hate to see them move forward with hard to reverse choices before that happens. Don’t get me wrong, they may still need to split homes at the end of that, but I just feel like noone gave this trip an opportunity to do what it was supposed to.
I also think that separating homes may well achieve the same thing. I don’t necessarily feel that if we do this and they figure out what they need that they can’t come back together. I just hate to see the toll on the family.
Anyway, in light of that I find my current feelings ironic. Right at this moment I’m feeling extremely frustrated and just want out. CC and I are starting to conflict in small ways, and I’m struggling to feel that it’s worth resolving anything. I’m also feeling ignored and blown off, and maybe a little used. I think a lot of her choices have been really inconsiderate toward me. Then again,the fact that my opinion on where we should go as a family hasn’t really been considered is probably contributing to that.
I’m not really sure how much of it is reality and how much of it is emotion based. I know we need to talk about this stuff. Hopefully we can this week before things get worse.
Anyway, the result of all of these feelings is that I just want to get going with moving out and moving on. I’m feeling in the way, like I’m preventing CC from implementing all the things she really wants. I don’t want to feel “merely” tolerated because there is nowhere else for me to be when really all everyone wants is to get moving with changes. It seems like right now all I am in this home is an inconvenience.
I was hoping never to feel that way again.
I’ve been reading you for some time and I just want to say how amazed I am that you’ve been as calm and collected as you have been. It sounds like it is a really difficult situation and that you’re being ignored as important decisions are made. Hang in there and (although I don’t think you are) don’t question your own worth – you’re important and valuable!
Comment by meridith — October 12, 2008 @ 6:26 PM
I also think you have been doing remarkably well-just remember it is not selfish to want to know where you stand in their lives.
Comment by swfloridabrat — October 12, 2008 @ 9:27 PM
I haven’t been commenting because the situation is too complicated and there’s so much to say. But on one specific point, if CC thinks having another woman in the house to help take care of the kids and the chores is an “inconvenience,” she’s an idiot, and she’ll probably realize it about 10 minutes after you’ve left.
It seems to me that CC has reached the point where your Owner and everything related to him annoy her, like fingernails on a chalkboard. (That is very far from indifference, so you’re right that they still have feelings for each other — but right now they are all the wrong feelings.) She probably wishes she could dump all his possessions out on the front lawn and be rid of them. And since you’re one of his possessions, you’re on the list of annoying things — things that remind her of him — that she wishes not to have around.
But that’s got nothing to do with you as a person, and nothing to do with your functional value in the household. It’s just ’cause you remind her of him, and she doesn’t want to be reminded. At least that’s how it seems to me.
I agree with everything else you said — that they messed up the whole point of the trip, that they are like two scorpions in a bottle who CAN’T leave each other alone, they have to engage even if their stated intent is to take some time to themselves — and that it’s ironic that you, who originally wanted them to take some time to cool down, be apart, and see how they felt after a while, have now concluded that since they seem incapable of DOING that, the sooner they split, the better (because, since the trip didn’t work — a trial separation or whatever it was supposed to be — only an actual split has a chance of accomplishing what the trip was supposed to — let them be alone long enough to see if they miss each other).
Comment by Michael — October 12, 2008 @ 11:09 PM
I don’t think she feels that I’m of no value in the household. I just think the same ways in which I am valuable right now I will probably still be valuable when I’m living separate, she just won’t have the stress of having to actually share a house with an extra person. Everyone just wants to move forward, and I think it’s my dragging my heels that is causing the issue now.
Comment by youngbridget — October 12, 2008 @ 11:17 PM