Apartment hunting: the aftermath

My daughter (10yrs old) came upstairs as I said I had been looking for apartments and heard. Mrs_C said "Well you've accomplished your goal in hurting me. Why tell me that? Why tell me while we're getting ready to go out [ETA 2 hours later]? Why tell me that when we have people coming over for your birthday tomorrow? Why couldn't it wait until Monday? Why couldn't you have lied?"

(FYI: Ironically, I had previously been told that lying about any subject would be cause for divorce)

Our daughter was quiet as her mother walked out the door into the backyard.

I waited for a minute and followed.

As i went outside my Dad arrived with my son. Dad's timing has always been impeccable...

I had to send him away quickly.

I sent my son into the house.

I went to the backyard to talk to Mrs_C.

She refused to talk about it and said we would just get ready to go out and deal with it later.

Fine

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We went to her sister's place for an immediate family only event. While we are both good actors, the folks there could tell there was some tension between us (you could see it in the way they looked back and forth between us trying to get a read on the situation.

After about a half hour Mrs_C, her sister, and her mother decided to go for a walk before supper (the men were cooking [BBQ]). Mrs_C said to the ladies "Let's go and I'll tell you all my troubles".

When they arrived back they all looked daggers at me. However, decorum was maintained. We generally socialised separately that evening.

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Mrs_C has always had an issue surrounding alcohol. When we first started dated she always got sloshed and got really weepy (Even her Mom said once "oh, yeah, she's drunk and weeping again...")

I haven't the same desire to have a drink that she does (no, I've raised the roof a fair bit in my day - I'm no tee-totaller - but i have control), so I weaned alcohol out of our lives for the most part. Mrs_C followed my relatively abstemious lead (and silent disapproval when she got hammered) and didn't drink much throughout the last 15 or so years (having kids to be concerned about also reduced her propensity toward alcohol).

Did I mention that I can't stand the drunken Mrs_C? She isn't a fun drunk. Her emotions wheel out of control, she becomes maudlin, and then starts inevitably crying.

I can't stand it. I can't stand it. I can't stand it. I can't stand it.

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Mrs_C got maudlin and drunk. Didn't say a public word at her sister's about the situation, though.

At the end of the evening I got her and the kids home. Got the kids to bed and went to face her where she was sitting in the family room.

We talked.

I explained that what I really wanted was someone who wanted me.

She told me that there was lots of guys who would have her, and that I was looking for someone I should just go.

I said I believed she thought I was a bother and a pain to have around. I said that I couldn't live that way anymore, thinking that she was only tolerating me. I tried to explain that I had used the word "someone" because I was already under the impression that she had no interest in me, and had therefore not used to word "you", already having discarded an appeal to her as pointless.

Mrs_C said she had no idea that I thought she didn't want me, and said it was a foolish and unbased impression.

I listed about 2 dozen examples of when she had told me to "et out". Yes, those words: "Get out", "Either its you or it's me, but one of us is moving out" - the examples go on. They were all pretty much to the point - no mistaking intent...

I pointed out that we had had sex very few times in the 8 months previous, and that she had gone to the point of telling me not to even touch her.

I listed a substantive number fo times that she had directly told me she would be better off without me, and the times she said that except for the children, she would have been better off if she had never met me.

She first said that if she had made me live that way, and that if she had put me through that kind of stress, that she understood why I would want to leave, why I have the stress related condition I have, and that "as a friend, as someone who still cares about you - if you are in a marriage that makes you feel that way, you should get out."

She then said that given the number of examples I cited, she understood where I got the impression she didn't want me around. Then she said she didn't really mean it and only said it in anger. Well, she meant it at the time, but it went away with her anger each time. She said she would have never said it if she thought I took it seriously.

She started to cry.

She let out a wail of complete anguish that slipped deep into my soul. She said "I don't want to grow old alone."

She then told me she really did want me to stay with her. I agreed to stay and to try to work through things.