I will only badger you once about this and never more. This is going to sound harsh.
Everyone is different.
To some degree or another.
The fathers here have come to realize how important their children are.
The mothers…
The LBS mothers, always have.
No one (currently) posting to you Bradley is going to say your job, your career, your calling is more important than being there for your boys.
Not one of them is going to be swayed by how important your job is to you, or others.
Come a day when you desperately wish you had been closer to your boys. And that feeling is the worst feeling in the world; that realization.
Might never come a day you do.
No one here badgers you, because they vicariously want to live your life. They do it because they would spare you some of the pain they went through.
No one here can convince you how important you are in your boys life.
No one but you.
Is it important to have a good job? One that gives you a sense of satisfaction?
I believe so.
But not at cost to the job that matters most. Save one or a million lives…awesome, but not at the cost of two that should matter (from my point of view) more to you than a stranger.
You’re pissed that the OM is around your boys. Buying Lego’s, paying time and attention to them; in some aspects he is a scumbag.
In others…
He isn’t. Sometimes the means justify the ends.
Are his motives pure? Likely not. Does he realize that being a good dad to his kids and nice to your boys scores points with your wife? A smart man knows that.
IF, let’s say, my wife, had an amazing job, great money but wasn’t around much and we were having marriage problems. Meanwhile, I was hanging out with a woman who had two great kids, was a wonderful mother, a good companion and treated my kids with what I thought they had been missing from a mother…and my wife forbade me from having my boys around her…because she was jealous but doing jackshit about it other than issuing edicts… I’d tell her to pound sand or step up to the motherhood plate. To do something instead of bittch.
You live 4 hours away. Your choice.
She isn’t coming back to you solely on your terms. She might be MLC, but some of her complaints ARE valid, and it is up to you to determine which ones. Some of us here think we know which ones are valid to her. Being an involved father to her boys, and your boys.
Father up.
That is the last time I badger you on that subject Bradley. I will however, respond in kind if you make points of the subject. Right now I’d rather have what we wrote sink in.
The quitting early part.
People do, many do not post here once they do.
Some do, a very small group.
And you can tell. You can tell they are bitter. They did not improve themselves, they complain about everything, as if Life owed them something. I actually identify with their MLC or Walk-away-spouses more than them. I can understand why some of them did leave.
If you work on yourself, you come to a place of peace, it ain’t easy, but it is better.
Stop listening to that crappy sappy music that is making you depressed. Find a few Fukc the world songs. Get a new theme song that makes you want to stand up at take on the world. “Move Along” by All American Rejects worked for me.
Stop looking at your old pictures of you guys together.
Stop giving lip service here. Do or do not.
Man up.
Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn. - C.S. Lewis
Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B. - Jack3Beans
Listen without defending; Speak without offending - FaithinAK
I'd love to forward what you said to my wife...she'd appreciate you taking up for her for sure!
No one is taking sides or taking up for anyone. However, sometimes outsiders can see the other options more clearly than you might. Try to give you perspective. Right now, yes maybe to you she seems like a monster in many ways. But she too has her side, her story, her feelings and she is trying to find her solution just like you are trying to find yours.
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I'd love to be there when she shoves the computer up your colon for talking about her to complete strangers on the internet.
Me too.....
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For the record...do not tell her.
It is a bad idea.
If you listen to nothing else anyone has told you, listen to this.
Oh and get on FB. Under your name, under a fake name, just do it. You will get a lot out of it. No more excuses.
"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it."--Michael J. Fox
No one is taking sides or taking up for anyone. However, sometimes outsiders can see the other options more clearly than you might. Try to give you perspective. Right now, yes maybe to you she seems like a monster in many ways. But she too has her side, her story, her feelings and she is trying to find her solution just like you are trying to find yours
Cat-- I do not think she is a monster. In fact I see exactly how we got to where we are. I feel like I see at least partially how responsible I am for it. I am sympathetic to what she is going through. what is hard is I don't really know what she is going through.. I can only speculate.
ok so I'm going to go and hit some golf balls.
thank you all for your posts. I will think about everything you have said. all very very good points. and perhaps much better advice than "friends and family" are giving me...
will think about everything you have said. all very very good points. and perhaps much better advice than "friends and family" are giving me...
One thing that I learned quickly is the advice here is better than friends and family. We are not afraid to hit you with 2x4's. We have been where you are and it is not an easy place to be.
I think the advice here is better than what I get from professional IC's who have PHD"S etc, and I think don't know what they are doing.
