I'm not sure what I'm asking exactly, but I'd just like some guidance and a kind word, as I'm feeling really really low 😪
Its been a rough week, our daughter developed appendicitis on Tuesday evening, and had an emergency appendectomy on the Wednesday evening. So she is still very sore, needs a lot of help mobilising etc.
WH has been wracked with guilt, as he didn't feel an ambulance was needed (our car was also in for repairs) and that it was merely a tummy bug and he essentially implied I was overreacting. He has since apologised profusely and realised he'd let me/her down, of which I of course accepted and I empathised with him.
The following day whilst I was still in hospital with our daughter and he had had to go home, we discussed his brothers wedding that was due to take place in the following two days. Basically, to cut a very long story short, he now agrees he again let me down and ignored my opinion. I felt he should not go as our daughter would have only had surgery 2 days earlier, there are risks of complications, and if he went and there were complications, I be left without a car to get her to hospital - and as I'd experienced the few days before when I phoned for an ambulance (and by this point WH had left for work so I was on my own), they refused to send one as there weren't any and they told me to simply take her to the GP (It was a really traumatic experience, I was petrified, and had no support and was worried she might die 😭 I never want to experience that again). WH on the other hand, after I made my opinion clear, he told me that if the shoe were on the other foot, he would be telling me to go!!
So again, he now realises that he didn't listen to my opinion and he let me down. Its tough to be forgiving at this point. Anyway, the wedding was yesterday and our daughter seemed OK (as ok as can be following abdominal surgery) and so I told him to go, and take our other daughter, who wanted to go.
However, stepping back to a few days earlier... obviously after that phone call regarding the wedding, whilst I was in hospital with our daughter, I was really upset and angry, and I hung up. I told him to not worry about it, go and have fun (yes, sarcasm). Throughout the rest of the day, before he collected us in the evening after she had been discharged, he was messaging asking how she was, am I OK etc - I was still very upset, so kept my replies brief and rather curt. I was exhausted, emotional, and still rather traumatised from the fact the ambulance refused to come when my daughter clearly needed urgent medical attention!
When WH collected us in the evening, I did very much give him the cold shoulder. He did just want to be kind and supportive and cook us a nice meal, but I was just so upset and angry about that phone call. I felt again incredibly let down, and again that he was prioritising others before us (something he said he would never do again). So I blanked him a lot, and didn't speak much. I was also practically falling asleep in the car, as I had barely slept in 2 days.
The following morning he said he wasn't happy about how I was treating him. I said angrily well I wasn't happy that again I felt let down and that again, he was prioritising everyone else before us! He says now, that all he did was apologise - but no, he really didn't. He employed his usual traits of defensiveness, argumentativeness and anger - yes there were some apologies peppered between this - however, its always a "I'm sorry, BUT...". He's never JUST sorry.
The whole day was a complete shit show. He was slamming stuff round, threatening to pack up the shoes I had bought for the wedding and send them back. This is behaviour that he PROMISED would not happen again. I snapped, and angrily said I want a divorce and that I no longer love him. Because how can I love a man who treats me like this!!!
His behaviour and the arguing continued pretty much the whole day!!! It escalated to the point whereby he physically prevented me leaving the room at one phone, he told me to "get out of his house then, if I want a divorce" (the house is ours, we own it jointly), he man handled my phone off me, he pushed me in the back of the head. He said some real shitty things to me. Believe me, I'm not perfect and I said some real shitty things too. At one point I felt I nearly whacked him as I said "fine, why don't you go out and fuck yet more people", he replied "maybe I will". I just felt myself nearly lose it!!
So now today, after he went to the wedding last night with our other daughter, he said he doesn't know how to act around me. He said he's so sorry for his behaviour and that he's ashamed.
This is the bit where I'm just flabbergasted - he says yes, he recognises that he needs to look at his own behaviour, but that I also need to do look at my behaviour. The day when we had that whole long argument, these are some of the comments:
Me: Yet again, you're getting angry when you promised you wouldn't!
Him: And I wonder WHY I get angry.
Me: You're being a complete asshole!
Him: I'm not the asshole, you are!
He reminds me of the shitty things I said "I want a divorce, I hate you, I don't love you anymore". Yet seemingly not recognising that I have only said, and only feel these things, BECAUSE of HIS behaviour. I don't just happen to come out with these things!
He says he's hurt that when I came home from the hospital that I gave him the cold shoulder. That all he was trying to do was look after me, and I just chose to ignore him. That I should have had more compassion, given how awful he felt about letting our daughter down when she became unwell. That when he apologised in the morning regarding the conversation about the wedding, that I shouldn't keep pushing (yet again ignoring the fact that he didn't JUST apologise. "I'm sorry, but....excuse, excuse, excuse" is not an apology, nor a recognition).
I do feel this has made me look at my behaviour. I can now accept that there is no point in arguing, trying to get him to see anything, having a glimmer of hope when he makes his lists of promises to change. He can't change. I believe he genuinely wants to, but he can't. He is who he is - I either accept the status quo, or leave him. There is absolutely no point in raising anything that bothers me, or trying to "get him to see/understand". He either sees it and changes on his own, or he doesn't. His work, is his work.
The last 2 years, since DD, my life has been unbearable. MY work is to respond to him accordingly and restore peace in my life and my daughters' lives.