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I’ve been having a rough week. Had a bad kidney infection and just not good mentally at all. My mom thinks I may need to be committed and my WH thinks we need a break to refocus. Like me spend a week at my moms house and be stays home with our girls. He thinks it would be good for both us. But it feels like a rejection. I don’t know what to do. Advice?

Have you discussed a therapeutic separation with your IC? Sometimes, getting away from our abuser can help calm down the flight/fight or freeze response and your mental health/emotions have a chance to improve.

My IC actually said it could be damaging to do this…. But this morning I started packing my shit to go to moms while he just watched. And then he started back pedaling…. Like I don’t think we need to be this, we just need to be able to be apart more (I’m teacher so I’ve been home all summer and he works from home). Well I go back to work tomorrow so how’s that for time apart??? He agreed that was probably enough.
Ugh… I swear he makes me insane sometimes. I love him so much but sometimes I want to smash his face in.

My interpretations:

1. The IC knows the odds of you 2 remaining M'd lessen as the distance increases. (But is that a bad thing? Only you can say.)

2. The WH knows he's f'd up and is using time-worn tactics like my WXH did with me the day I pulled out my suitcase and was heading back home to my family, after discovering he'd been unfaithful while I was on a trip. Sadly, that day, I allowed myself to be talked down from what my gut told me was the most therapeutic thing to do: RUN from the kind of guy who could do that to his supportive wife.

I have always wished that I'd listened to my gut that day, finished packing, and headed out the door of our old trailer, because I'd just returned from a trip around the USA, where I'd driven my 16 year old Volvo with no issues. I knew the car and I were up for driving right back the 900 miles to my home state! I was 23 years old, had very little money and no job in the city we were trying to survive in so that he could attend college. What I failed to realize was that I had the rest of my life still in front of me. Leaving him could have been a badly-needed fresh start. Instead, the effects of being rejected through his cold-blooded infidelity caused me to start feeling those "I'm too old to start over" blues. It wasn't about me, at all. But at the time I took so much responsibility for his choices.

Five years later when I finalized the Divorce after designing and building us a beautiful brick home on acreage, only to lose it to foreclosure, I was over 30 and had a lot more reasons to feel "old!"

I am sorry you're feeling the stress of another school year starting along with this, but there may be some light at the end of the tunnel if you can get some distance from his drama. I'm likely just projecting a course of action that I should have taken and you have to make your own call on this. But to me, your packing up and getting some distance from him doesn't sound extreme, at all.

PS The kidney infection needs immediate attention and while at the doctors, I hope you ask for a complete STD workup. I had a kidney infection as a newlywed and it was due to having sex without even an STD (that I ever knew of). I was told by my doctor the woman must always get back up out of bed and go to the bathroom...how unromantic! But I did what he said and never had another one.

Please care for yourself ASAP!

Thanks for your thoughts. I have seen a doctor about the kidney infection… I’ve had problems with kidney stones for years now so this isn’t abnormal. And I got a totally std testing done recently as well.
Part of me wants to leave and see how he does on his own but more of me doesn’t want to disrupt my kids lives. They have no idea what’s going on…. They have seen us getting along better all summer so this might really unbalance them.
I hate that all choices suck!

Well of course I didn't have children to consider. (Sorry.)
Glad you did the STD thing. Stones are a B&&&ch and can cause many issues. My WH has a tendency to make them and the nurses last time he was hospitalized told him on discharge to drink a little lemon squeezed into water every day. But here's what we discovered worked 10 times better, from our Chiropractor, a little bottle of some chemical (Phosphate something or other) that you just put 2 drops of it in a few ounces of water, drink it quick, and it dissolves them! Last time, his pain went away in 1 day; impressive.

Omg if you remember the name of that I would love to know! Kidney stones are the worst.

Well the name is PhosFood, it is sold as a dietary supplement and the label said suggested use is 10 drops in water (amount of water was not stated) and to drink 3 times a day. If I recall, my H didn't do anything like that, more like 3 drops in a few ounces of water, twice a day. This stuff is a super potent mixture of water and phosphoric acid, so you don't want to let it linger on your tongue, because I read online that it can erode tooth enamel. Also, it depends on the kind of stones. Please talk to your provider about this product, which we bought at our chiropractor's office.