Updates (or: Cupcakes Frosted in Mud)

Alright... where to start.  It only seems fair to update.  However, since I don't know where to start or really where I want to end, this is going to be long, rambling and mostly just emotional puke.  The gist?  I'm doing ok.  Things are really going alright.  There have been ups and downs, but life is ok.
(The rest you can just skip if you're not up to my emotionally pukey stream of consciousness.)
I feel bad only writing about the bad stuff and never writing about the joys and triumphs.  They're there, just lately in small ways and smattered with big globs of messy, which sort of ruins them for me. 
I have a hard time wiping the mud off the cupcakes and taking a bite.
So, let's start with the anniversary anxiety stuff.  Turns out that our habits of getting away have been good for us.  We've pretty much gone "somewhere" every single month since the month after Dday.  Not crazy far or expensive - not like big trips to the Bahamas or something (don't we all wish!!) but little trips a town or two over, or a couple of hours away.  Just.  Away.  And away has been good because we're very different people when we both get to let our hair down and just *be* together.
So here's one of those mud slathered cupcakes for ya...
The problem is, we can't seem to maintain that relaxed, comfortable, loving state at home.  Let's face it, anyone can get along in ideal circumstances.  Throw a crap-ton of money at a couple, put them in a nice hotel suite, let them eat out and have someone else do the laundry for a weekend, and they're bound to do just fine together.  Now, add in three kids ages 11 and up, bills, household chores, work, bad habits, and OH YES just for fun, let's throw that old "A" in there for good measure.
Not-so-easy.
So, anniversary weekend went well.  We adventured.  We drove around just gawking at stuff (one of our all time favorite things to do.)  We explored areas we probably weren't supposed to and even broke into a vacant house that was for sale to look around. (Maybe I shouldn't admit criminal activity here, but oh well.)  We hiked and had great sex and took bubble baths together and slept late and talked and talked til all hours and generally just enjoyed each other's company.
Sounds lovely, right?  And I should just leave it there rather than dropping it in the mud.
But yeeaaaah...
As soon as we got home, it started.  The picking at each other.  The griping.  The stress.  And his flipping ridiculous way that he will just go off and do whatever-the-hell he wants without even considering how I'll feel or what I want or God forbid actually talking to me first.
I'm not talking about spending an insignificant amount of money or rearranging the bathroom cabinet, I'm talking about our freaking future.  He decided on a whim after visiting the place we were that he just wanted to move there.  He fell in love with the house we "broke" into and decided he was going to get it at all costs no matter what.  He was looking into ways to walk out on the house and sending emails to his dad about how he needed his parents to pay off our home equity loan (that he ALSO took out without my agreement!!) so he could just "deed in lieu of foreclosure" on the house. 
Um.  Excuse me?
Now, here's the thing.  He gets all wrapped up in his excitement and whereas I start thoughtfully researching and compiling information and bringing up every possible thing that could go wrong so we can make yet another list on how to conquer those obstacles, he just starts jumping hurdles like a madman.  When a whim takes him, he goes for it. 
Like, you know, taking out a home equity loan for almost half of what the house is worth....*facepalm*
Or joining the military.
Or buying a car.
He just DOES it.  There's no research or consultation.  He just does whatever he wants and then throws the consequences and mess at me to deal with and clean up.  I have always hated this and always been resentful, but I've also always, I don't know... just done it.  Dealt with it.  It's part of what made us a good team, I thought.
My thinking has changed a great deal and frankly, there's no wiggle room, anymore.  I've made it clear that we're in this thing together for life or else I'm OUT with a capital O.  I am adamantly upholding the "Policy of Joint Agreement" or else, yeah, no, it's not happening.
"OK," he would argue, "But I didn't DO anything!  I just was researching like you do!" 
I'm sorry, asking your parents for a substantial amount of money is, in my book, doing something.  He insisted that he was just seeing if they would so we'd know it was an option.  Whatever.  Splitting hairs. 
I was hurt and felt excluded and that, dear DS friends, that was the heart of the matter. 
Just as I occasionally slip back into my own crappy behaviors when I'm angry, he slips back into his when he's overly enthusiastic.  And to be fair, in his depression, he hasn't been enthusiastic about much in years.  And I don't just mean making executive decisions without discussing them with me, I just mean... excited.  About anything. 
The last time I heard him speak about anything with true enthusiasm and passion was during the A when he went on a tirade about how wonderful he was and how he could have anyone he wanted and a full laundry list of how great he was.  Turns out he was just sort of paraphrasing one of her gushy love letters back to me.  It's interesting now that I can see that for what it was.  He wasn't ever "in love" with her - never claimed to be, even refused to tell her that when she told him, telling her instead that he loved me (interesting way to show it) - but she gave him something important.  A love for himself.
OK, so let me deter from my original story about how things were going for my minor epiphany real quick:
We all want to love ourselves.  Some actually do, God bless 'em.  The love letters and love songs we immerse ourselves in the most don't go on about how the other person feels but about how great the receiver of the admiration is.  Tell me I'm smart and wonderful and charming and funny.  Tell me how great I am in bed.  Yes, it's lovely that you feel this or that or that you are happier, but, now, what was that part about the endless depths of my eyes again??
Yep.  Some part of us is selfish when it comes to love.  We want to love who we are when we're with someone.  It's why a lot of women end up hanging with guys who don't treat them so well because they like that they become the sane one, the reasonable one, the one who holds shit together.  Sad, but very often true.
At any rate...
This has been very key in me meeting H's needs.  I'm always very quick to point out the failings of those around me.  Honest to heaven, I think I'm helping at the time.  I mean, if I TELL you that you have toilet paper on your shoe, you can take it off, right?  You can FIX things.  If you don't know, how can you get better?  MMmnyeah, whether or not that actually works is highly debatable, but the point is - I forget praise. 
Oh sure, with the kids, I do great.  I admire their efforts rather than the outcome.  I don't say, "Sweetie, you put the spoon on the wrong side," I expound upon the time invested and the thoughtfulness of the effort and then make a mental note to at a later date show and explain the right placement of the silverware.  But with H?  Nope.  Because, well, duh, he's a grown up.  He should just know he's great and wonderful right?
So yeah, no.  That bad habit has come to a grinding halt.  Usually.  Still a bad habit I have to REALLY be mindful of, but I am throwing myself hard into the game on this one, because, you know, he really likes to be told how wonderful he is.  And so do I.  Oh, I don't mean we get caught up in gross, "No, you're the best cook," *twittering giggle* "NO, YOU ARE!" crap.  I mean, I will sincerely compliment him when I see he's made an effort.  znzsmom (*wave*) often talks about how she will praise her H when he makes an effort in the right direction and that, combined with the pensive "When was H last happy?" brain meandering lead me to realize that I seriously needed to shape up in that area.
OK... so.
Back to the mud part... where were we?  Oh yes.  Let's just throw out the house and ruin our credit and be homeless, why don't we?  And owe H's parents immense amount of money.
Right.  So, still bitter about all that.  And we fought.  Not argued.  Not "reasonably discussed it," but outright fought. 
It started like most of our fights do.  He saw I was upset and rather much ignored it.  He has gotten better about it - our MC tried coaching him at one point with, "If you see Allora's sad face, what do you do?  What could you do?"  He still sucks at it, frankly.  A lot of time it's an exasperated, "OK, what's wrong NOW?" Sometimes it's, "You're mad.  I can tell you're mad.  Why are you mad at me?"  (Even when I'm not mad, but maybe sad or frustrated or worried...)  Either doesn't work with me.  What I need him to say is, "Is everything OK?  I can tell something's wrong.  What can I do?"  Sometimes, the answer is, "Not much," but I can at least let him know what's wrong.
There was sort of an exasperation in his voice, but he compromised and did better than usual but not as well as I'd like with, "What's up?"  Leaving out the exaggerated "NOW" helps some, but really it still stung.  And... here's where I screwed up.
I had checked his emails and seen that he had already emailed his parents without consulting me and I was livid.  I was furious.  I, for once, was just plain mad.  I felt shut out and like he was just living his life freestyle without me again.  And I knew I was mad and in no condition to reasonably or pleasantly discuss things.  Just as he should have (in an ideal world) gently put his arms around me and said, "Baby girl, I can see you're struggling.  What can I do for you?"  when he saw I was upset, I should have told him, "I'm really angry right now and I do want to talk about this, but I need to calm down and get my emotions in check before we try to discuss this."  I had just read the emails and I needed my logical mind to settle in before I went off half cocked.
Instead I went off half cocked.
And it was scathing.
And mostly directed at his nosy parents, who, to be fair, had done nothing but receive an email from their overly enthusiastic son.
It's so tragic the way that old habits just bubble right back to the surface so easily.  Not only did I mess up, but then he fell right back into his old habits of grabbing his crap and getting ready to leave the house.  Which lead me back to MY old habits (the abandonment issue is a *huge* issue with me) where I told him that if he set one foot out the door he could just leave forever and plan on not coming back without a Sheriff to collect the rest of his things.
Yeah.  How charming, right?
But dammit.  It's so hard to stay cool when he does that.  And he ONLY does it to hurt me.  I get the whole, "This is not productive.  You/I/We are too upset to do this right now, so let's take a break and revisit it later," but just outright grabbing your crap and LEAVING?  Nono.  That's him hurting me because I hurt him.
Things just broke worse from there.  Yelling.  Him breaking things.  God.  It was bad.  And it reminded me so clearly of why we can't be that way on top of everything else and me still stay.  That is no way to live.  I get that people disagree and argue, but the fighting is just not right.  Not in any world.
So.  That's my long drawn out mud frosting. 
Scrape it off with things calming down and us having a really long discussion in which I (this time calmly) told him that I felt shut out and excluded and in which he (reasonably) explained that he was just excited and hadn't planned on actually initiating anything without first getting my approval.  Then a lot of apologies and "I shouldn't have said/done that," and an afternoon spent together trying to reclaim a taste of the calm and joy we had experienced over the weekend, and, well, there was still a cupcake underneath.
The mud flavor still wasn't really gone, though.  *shrug*
I have seen serious change over the last four months.  (And more... but especially the last four months.)  I have noticed the efforts he's made and tried so hard to be mindful, so it makes me sad that it came down to resorting to our old dirty tricks again. 
Today he has a practice interview for his upcoming "for real" one in regards to his promotion.  Here's another mud cupcake for us.  If he promotes, there IS a chance we could move (sort of) which would get us away from OW completely, and put a stop to my, "Oh no, I'm never going to THAT store/restaurant," issues.  I would be happier.  Part of our weekend getaways is knowing that wherever we go - there's almost no chance she will be there and there's absolutely no chance that she was there with H.
And yet?  We've worked so hard to get this house, to add on to it, update it, upgrade it, make it OURS.  Our kids have roots here - they've all spent most of their lives here.  My daughter J doesn't even remember living anywhere else and my son S only barely remembers "the old house" that we rented before we moved here.  Yeah, I know.  It's just a house.  But the financial distress it will cause to leave...yes, bitter me talking again... a lot due to H's impulsive money decisions made without my consent... well, heck, even if he hadn't taken out the equity loan on equity that didn't really exist, the housing market has tanked and it'll take years for our house to be worth selling again.
OK... I just wrote about twelve more paragraphs going on about this issue, but the gist is this:
If he gets his promotion, we will likely have to move.  Which means change.  And change is really hard for me.  And.  We will have to lose my home which I thought I would have foreverty ever.  And.  We'll likely be in a lot of financial trouble.  However, we have the backing of H's parents who are well off enough that helping us out will be an inconvenience, not a true burden.  The extra money he will make with this promotion is a perk, too.  And we'll be away from skank and all the negative energy and memories surrounding this area. Foreverty ever.
So.  I'm not sure what to hope for. 
Stay or go?  He's enthusiastic about moving.  I think "fresh start" harkens to him more than to me because he's from a military family.  We've lived here longer than he lived anywhere else.  We've lived here more than half our married lives.  It's weighing on him and he's itching for change.  For him, change is the cupcake.
For me, it's the mud.
I know it's all pointless to worry overly much about.  Practice interview today.  Real deal next month.  He will get it or he won't.  We have to cross each bridge as they come and getting overly excited (him) or anxious (me) isn't going to make anything happen anyway.  I know in my heart that all of this is really good practice for us trying on our new skills and mindfulness, but *whine* it's hard! *childish foot stamping*
So onward we go.  And really, I just like tonguing the gooey cream out of the middle of the cupcake, anyway.  Who cares about the cupcake or the mud frosting?