What a good year this has been.....

[forever21]

Hi Care. Great to hear from you. Thanks so much! You're right, H will try to pull me down. This is not fun, that's for sure. Yes, I must not play into his drama. I did okay, even great at times, but I would've liked to have done better.... especially since it's been so long since I talked with him. Oh well. Probably the worst of it is that I still have feelings for him and feel some rejection. That's icky. Thanks again. I will try to stay strong. Hope you and yours are doing great.


Hi Kman. Thanks. I think the waters are probably receding for my Dad, but when my Mom spoke with him this morning it was too dark for him to see yet. I need to go out and see if I can get myself a new phone today so I can call him.

Well. that's one way to make sure you don't accidentally answer any more phone calls from him.

lol. Yeah, my Mom said something like that too. She also said (referring to me throwing my phone) "well, I bet it felt REALLY good for a split second at least." It did, but only for a split second. That's right, you know about those phone errors. I think it was meant to be, it's just more stress for the time being. I'm pretty exhausted but at least I slept way better last night than I had all week (because I was so tired). My Mom has been commenting that I've taken such great care of her, and so she treated me to take out last night after I picked her up. We had really good salads and an awesome pizza. We also finally finished watching a movie that we'd started 2 nights before.

Funny how that happens now that you've drawn a line in the sand and made it clear that you're not going to be a pushover to whatever he asks/attempts to force your way...

Again - because he hasn't been made to do this in the past.

As much as I'd like to believe I'm responsible for this change, I don't know if I am. It's true I am not caving though. And although this is not a new insight, this still hurts some... knowing I was failing my M this way for so long. Until recently, I really thought I was doing better at this than I was... especially over this last year. I know I did stand up for myself in many ways, many times, but I was still a pushover too. I'm glad you mention it though. This is one thing that's been giving me pause with this D. You wouldn't think I would but I still have feelings for this man who is my H... even though he's been a royal @$$. I am trying to keep the faith I'm making the right decisions for myself. I'm getting tired and overwhelmed, and I need to turn that around again.

Even though the whole situation is tough overall, your actions are directly affecting it going in a direction that is better for YOU and that you are entitled to. He tried it the usual (his) way, gave it the full court press (like with the quit claim) and got nowhere. Now he has to try something he's not used to - namely, not calling all the shots himself.

Thanks. I am looking out for myself and I don't much care if he thinks I'm selfish for doing that. As I mentioned, I'm not sure I can take much credit for him trying something new. He was still trying to call all the shots when we spoke yesterday. I've stood my ground like I did yesterday plenty of times before and he normally just gets mad and runs off. He usually has some way he can try to hurt me or make me pay for not doing as he wants. He seemed to want to do exactly that yesterday, but for some reason he wanted to continue the convo. There's nothing more he can do to hurt me that isn't going to hurt him (financially). There was a moment or two I thought his change could be partially due to personal reasons, but I think its only for financial reasons.

He threatened just letting the house be foreclosed on, saying he doesn't care, but I also got the impression he wants to protect this asset. When he said he wasn't going to pay our mortgage I just said okay. That surprised him, he thought he was going to scare me I guess. He wanted me to agree that I would be left with half of the debt. I told him I understand the laws. He wants me to think it's "50/50". Well, we are a no-fault community property state, and that means everything will be divided "equitably". He told me I can't go to school, that I have to just get a job. I told him I planned to do both and that I need a car. He also told me there are single mothers out there who work without cars. He said a lot of things like that to me. Some of it I ignored, other times I spoke up.

We both agreed we needed to work from where we are now, but he couldn't stop bringing up the past... especially his recent "plan" that he claims I screwed up, and that I'm now "F'ing us" because of that. I refused to take responsibility for that. He said I was minimizing his feelings. He kept claiming I didn't appreciate what he had done for me over this last year. He says he was helping me out. That was all so frustrating. I told him I've done my best, and that I believe he has too.

There were things I'm glad were said. It was just difficult to truly discuss anything because of his attitude. He finally decided he'd take a 10 minute time out and call back. I ended up needing more time than that for myself because I was crying. When we spoke after that, he was more respectful. I told him I'd be hanging up if/when he wasn't, and I did that more than once. I answered his calls a couple more times. I was consistent with that and it seemed to work alright. I obviously have a lot of room for improvement though since I was so angry and frustrated inside. Need to work on those boundaries more.

Good for you. Sometimes it'll be easy and sometimes it'll be tough, unfortunately that's the way it goes sometimes - but you are doing great - keep it up and hope you get to feeling more positive soon - you are one of the most positive people around here, and that's going to be the other huge advantage you'll have as you go through this. Hang in there-

Thank you, Kev!

That's enough for now. I'm going to move over to Surviving the Big D. If this isn't locked, I'll post a link after I do that later.