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Here's a plan...stop thinking! Personally, I have a habit of thinking over the same things endlessly...over and over. Somehow I think I'm gonna solve the problem, some miracle answer will drop from the heavens and all will be well. Has it ever actually happened? No! So sometimes the best thing we can do is stop thinking, that's often when solutions really do pop into our heads. We don't keep slamming our heads against a brick wall hoping that sooner or later it will collapse, we stop because it hurts and then, and only then, do we happen to notice the door!

I am a thinker too! It does take a while to feel better but I think it can also depend on how long you had to deal with stuff before the divorce. Next week it will be 4 years since the bomb and next month 2 years since the divorce. You won't start feeling better over night but you will.

Just think of what you want for you in your life and go for it. other people may come and co but YOU are the one constant.

kat

Yeah the thinking is a problem.

She called tonight, frustrated about the parenting thing, she was close to tears. Guess it was a hard day, she's worried about various things about the boys, and putting a lot of pressure on herself to get it right for them. Said she's missing the role I played in telling her that things are OK. Anyway, I let her talk.

Yes I know, don't rescue her, but she's still my boys' mother.

Not going to think about it tonight, just going to clear my head.

Ummmm, don't you have an answering machine??? She feels (probably) that you are always available to her. Don't be. Let her "feel" what missing you is. Keep yourself busy doing things you have always wanted to do.

Again, right now you want to lean on each other but for what purpose? So that you will always be her support while she goes out and dates other men?? I don't think that is what you want. If I am wrong, keep doing what you are doing.

kat

It's a very thin line, I know. When she calls and wants to discuss parenting issues you feel you should listen. You are right, she is still your boys mother! When mine talks about her frustrations re the kids, I listen. You think about your kids and the fact that they have to spend their time with her too. If she's in bad shape, then your kids suffer. I'm completely empathetic with you on that point. But, if she is using you as her sole emotional support through this, that is unfair and not healthy for you. It puts you in a difficult position and makes it harder for you to deal with the issues you need to deal with. It might be wise to say "Hey, it sounds like you're having a lot of feelings about that issue, why don't you call your friend e.g. Satan and talk it over, she's always been helpful.". Help her by directing her elsewhere. At some point though, you could also draw the boundaries, "I'm more than OK in discussing parenting issues but I think it might be better if you called others about this kind of thing (whatever the non-parentin issue might be)" It is tough, in a way because you are both dealing with the same life changes and struggles in learning to be a single parent so you get drawn towards each other. Yet, you need to protect yourself Geronimo!

Well - I had sent a text eariler asking if something had happened earlier in the day because my son was upset. But - yeah, I tend to pick up when she calls. Yes, I'm too available to her.

Wii - well, funny thing - some of the issues yesterday stemmed from she having one of her friend over, and the friend's daughter is difficult to deal with - so she actually was complaining about her friend and was asking how to handle it. And, again funny, started complaining about TM - she says that she doesn't "fit in" with her friends, etc. So. She tells ME about it.

Anyway, that's just all detail, doesn't matter. The point is, if I want to change this dynamic it's going to have to be a decided effort on my part. It's easy to believe there's nothing wrong with it, that the reasons to distance are just because I'm supposed to. I am finding it difficult to internalize that this is setting myself up for problems. To emotionally digest that. Like I said, I need a plan, or something to stick to. These habits, the divit that I just roll back to - any maybe the feeling that things are normal - I don't know. Need some sort of forcing function.

This must be what it's like to quit smoking. Except it's completely different.

So, anyway, didn't call this morning. It's stupid. I'm going to look at this as an exercise in discipline I guess.

I feel for you. Based on what you've said in the past it sounds to me like she just wants to be friends or more or less like how things used to be without the commitment of being married to you. My wife has said similar things...like one time when I said that we got along fine she said 'yeah but not like husband and wife'. So she's hinting we could be friends but no f'n way. I can't be friends with her. There's just too much baggage there and besides friends don't do this crap to friends. You need to get a bit of your anger back...she broke your family up, made you pay $$$ to her every month and now she wants you to be her crying shoulder? there's something wrong with this picture.

Good job on not calling her...now set your goal to 1 full week and as the week approaches and you feel weak set the goal to 2 weeks. Start filling your time and mind with other things whenever you feel the urge to pick up the phone. If she calls just text her back asking if there's anything important? if she answers yes then her if she says no then don't.

haaaaaa well she fed me dinner tonight.
Wants to help the boys make breakfast for me on father's day.
Crazy woman.

Anyway had band practice tonight.

Man up with a big one. May as well get fed.

You can do it. I have not called my ex at all in 2 weeks now. In the last 16 months I have only called her maybe 10 times.