NikkiB #18

[NikB]

Thanks so much for posting.

Indy
Funny (and yes NOT funny, of course) that you had that happen too. Same thing happened with us except we don't have kids - but yeah, her and her H and kids over swimming and to BBQ. Actually H backed way off from her last spring/early summer and I saw how upset it made him so I (stupidly!) said "Well maybe I could try to be friends with her again.." he was thrilled, of course, and suddenly she was around ALL the time. And well, we all know where that went.

I'm not actually dumb enough to make that mistake again, but crazy that it even crossed my mind huh?

Donna
Oh I know... I remember giving you the same advice when the car show thing came up.

I have a really, really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach lately about this whole thing, but I still hope I'm wrong.

ST
As always right on - thanks for the advice and perspective.

I was just looking back at the calendar, my posts, and my mindset and I realized something, I'm mentally just about where I was last summer at this time. Angry, confused, hurt, pissed off at H and confronting him (rather than calmly discussing) way too often. I have backslid sooo much both in regards to H and especially in regards to taking care of myself, and need to snap out of it.

I completely agree - right now, if I were to start clean with someone new, I KNOW I would make all the same mistakes. I haven't learned HOW to be in an open, honest, direct, authentic R/M yet, and I still completely don't get the boundaries thing. Doesn't mean I know how to fix it yet, but I know that those are huge issues for me. So, back to focusing on fixing me, instead of focusing on being angry or hurt or scared or whatever else.

Thanks for the good wishes for my Dad, I'll definitely pass them on. Hopefully it'll be fun. I thought it was really touching that my stepmom offered to cook for him, hope he can just enjoy it.

A good positive too, H actually wants to go. I remember a number of times last year he was making all these off the wall excuses to skip out on family events. I got really mad about it a few times and basically "demanded" that he go to my dad's BD last year. This time I told him it was coming up, said he was invited if he'd like to come, but said (and meant it) that it was fine if he didn't want to go too. He's brought it up several times that he wanted to go, confirming the time, etc. So I'm happy for that.

I just heard from the MC and she had to push our appt back to Thursday. Uuugh. I was already really anxious about it being tomorrow and now have to wait 2 more days. Hopefully I can get my head back into a good place by then though. The anxiety is really overwhelming again today.

Also - any thoughts on if it makes sense to just let H go by himself? I ask again because we talked about it over the weekend - a very direct, clear conversation for a change, and we had agreed to both go to the first session. I called H just now to make sure Thurs would work for him and he said again "I'm just going by myself, right?" Since he seems to be SO insistent on going by himself I'm leaning towards agreeing to that. Any major reasons NOT to do this that anyone can think of? I would like us to go together at some point, but I'm ok with him talking through some things on his own first if that's what he wants to do. Thoughts??

Thanks again all.