You are so right! It can’t ever be the same again. For one I know I will never ever trust him again. He lived a double life, a really decadent one when he was in the City. I only know this because when he had to disclose his finances I saw all these bar bills. He never took me out. He told me we had no money but was spending it all on himself not even on his children. If I truly peel myself away from who I am, float up and look down objectively and look at how he has treated me, I know it would be obvious to me that this man is not the person I loved and that his behaviour is so disgraceful and disrespectful that I should be walking away without a second look.
He said last week that we needed to spend more time together but that is because he doesn’t want me but doesn’t want anyone else to have me either. I am contemplating telling him that we cannot be “friends” that I don’t want anything to do with him and that I am going to start going on dates. This set up is too convenient for him. He’s having his cake and eating it. It’s hard as we have kids and we are stuck with contact for at least the next 7 years. I don’t think he thinks he has lost anything! Apart from his relationship with me, which clearly he doesn’t value anyway. I think I need to be a bit harsher with him, he hasn’t treated me well at all and I don’t want to be friends with this person, I wanted to be the soulmate of the one that died 7 years ago. I really am in love with a ghost.
At least your husband still cares about you and wants to change. Mine has been so unkind to me. I do sometimes wonder whether it is all the drugs or whether there was a mean streak in him all along. xx