Thanks for stopping by christa, puddle, and sunny!
christa,
I'll try to check out your myspace page here in the near future and get a peek at those pics (hope there are some lip-walking pics to laugh at!). How's your sitch moving along, btw? Hope all is well with you!
puddle,
Quote:
I am in awe of your interaction with OM,
I have no doubt that your behavior was not lost on W: whether she's moving back toward you or not, you must've risen loads in her estimation.
Thanks -- I don't think it was lost on W either (more below)!
sunny,
Quote:
Having followed you from the beginning, I can only be amazed at the real & lasting changes you've made.
Thanks sunny -- your support has always meant a lot to me!
Journaling,
I called W the day after the encounter with her BF to tell her I was having a hard time separating the phone bill into two separate accounts. She was in the middle of getting our kids and her BF's kid(s) sat down for dinner, and I could tell she was struggling with it. She was very short with me, and I just calmly and nicely said that I'd keep trying to handle the phone sitch, and maybe call her back sometime when she wasn't as busy. Duck's back, baby -- duck's back.
So, later that evening (Friday night) I finally got the phone company to separate the bills, then I paid my first month and her current bill (just because I could and I know she's pretty broke -- as usual).
Fast forward to this morning (Sunday), and she calls. Starts talking strategy on splitting the phone bill and I tell her that it's cool, and that I finally got it taken care of. She sounds surprised, and asks if all she has to do now is call and pay for her separate bill. I said no, I took care of it when I paid for mine. Again, surprised and sincerely thanks me. I nonchalantly say no problem, and then she starts talking about various things with the kids.
The first thing is that S5 is mad because she has placed a bunch of toy guns on the back porch to be thrown away, and continues to tell me how she doesn't like them and that S5 and BF's son have so many of them. Now, this is significant to me because allowing S5 to play w/ toy guns was always an issue for me when W and I were together -- I didn't want him playing with them, but she didn't really have a problem with it. I've known for a while that S5 has played with them at W's place, but haven't made a big stink about it. Now she seems to be kind of telling me that she is making a parenting choice that I would respect and appreciate. Maybe it wasn't a conscious effort on her part, maybe it was -- it was just interesting and something I took note of.
Of course, since her mentioning this was light-hearted and friendly, I just listened, laughed, and validated (i.e. "I'm sorry" for the situation).
She then got S5 on the phone to talk with me, then got back on and started talking about something else that wasn't real important, then I brought up something important, then she put D3 on the phone to talk with me. Having the kids talk to me was new, because she usually doesn't do that. I was very appreciative of this, though I didn't tell her that (didn't think it necessary, really, but maybe should've).
She then got back on the phone and we had some more light chat about nothing important, both laughed some, etc. Then another important thing discussed, followed by me thanking her for calling and us saying goodbye.
Okay (getting back to something I mentioned above in regard to puddle's thought), based on W's friendly, comfortable chat w/ me today I think W must feel much less threatened by me now since I had my friendly chat initiation with her BF at their house on Thursday. I think she finally sees my kindness, friendliness, etc, as sincere and genuine. She sees that I'm accepting where we are now, and that I am no longer pursuing her. This has freed her up to be more open, comfortable, and friendly with me now. I'm very pleased with this, because if anything I want us to be comfortable around each other. I want us to be friends, and though I know I have more detaching to go before that can truly happen, I know we're on the right path. I think I've gotten to that comfortable place that Nomo and his W are at. It feels like quite a relief.
I also tried to hint at us getting off the phone during the convo, but each time she just kept talking. It seemed like she was lingering more with me than she has in a long time, and that was refreshing. Just monitoring and taking stock, and will just leave the observation as that -- an observation. We're going to Parent/Teacher conferences together Thursday night, and I think things will go well. I'm excited to talk about how S5 is doing with his kindergarten teacher!
Hope everyone had a great weekend -- I just saw Superbad today, and laughed my arse off the whole time! McLovin' rules!
