Afternoon all, a big bowl of Readybrek and a couple of chapters of Russell Brand's Booky Wook seem to have helped the headache.
Thank you SO MUCH everyone for your support - especially you, Baffy, as you're going through a much, much more critical experience. I had tears in my eyes reading about your lovely little boy thinking he'd done something wrong. I feel so, so angry that in all the situations we're going through, our darling children are having to cope with stuff that has no business being in their young lives. I myself worry about how disillusioned DD is with men and she's only 16. Mind you, it's good that she says she wouldn't jump into a relationship with just anyone.
DP's just gone off for a fantastic Lidl Experience in sunny Edmonton. He seems fine about the Relate aapt & promised to be home by 6 (I insist on continuing to refer to our house as 'home' when speaking to him). Our old lodger is coming to London tonight & will spend the night here - which may or may not be a good thing. Though as the football will be on as soon as we get home, we're unlikely to be having any discussion of our appt immediately . I cleared it with work to not go in till Friday, so if we have another 4am session, that will be ok. I still feel bad about 'bunking off', and DP for some stupid reason makes semi-humorous digs about me skiving off (I assume he thinks he's being funny) when I'm not technically ill . I told him that the world could turn without me very well for a few days.
I don't plan to sell - I gave taken the lesson from Baffy well to heart. I honestly don't think there is an OW in the equation, but I do think he's finding this responsibility too much - it's the pattern of his life. 20 years ago, if I refused to sell, he'd probably have gone off and found another woman - he's a bit older now and OW are thinner on the ground - though I expect his old Spanish girlfriend would have him back like a shot - or Norfolk Lady (though he said last night she means nothing to him).
One of the things he resents, he said, was that he doesn't feel he can just go off and visit his friends abroad. I told him roundly that I would never stop him - travel is cheap, and I have NEVER told him not to go. I reminded him that when the mother of his Spanish friend was dying a couple of years ago, I suggested he should visit her, as she'd known him for years and had been very fond of him. It was her daughter, who'd resented him getting back together with me, who told him not to go. Not me. I'm not letting him lay that at my door, or anything about me trying to curb his freedom.
It's realising that there's stuff like that going on in his head, that isn't an accurate picture but has been festering for a couple of years, that makes me so happy that he's agreed to try to talk it through with a 3rd party. I think we need an arbitrator!