formless utterings...

[Dom R]

well.. that was odd, sg. you're... doing some kind of wierd premature-post-n-edit dance there and the edit period has expired, and it still seems kinda incomplete?

(waitaminit.. you get a 30min edit window? I think us mere mortals only get 15 mins. revising...

over the fact that I planned some events recently with our children, and "invited her"... but didnt _plan_with_her_.

that was a relatively recent and isolated event. It was something with other people, so i got a little shy about doing a long back-and-forth between them, her, and myself separately.
we talked about it, and i'm going to make sure that I talk to her up front before anything else. i've told her that, and she understands that i think.

As far as my invites to her generally speaking: For the most part, i've tried just about everything:
open ended "let's do 'something' next weekend" invites... and more specific "lets go to ..." invites.
Doesnt seem like a a controlling, or impoliteness thing from my side... seems fairly clearly like "she chooses not to come with us" thing from her side. She always has an excuse why she "cant" go.
Some of them, I know she really "cant". Others, i'm pretty durn sure it was just an excuse, (fake example: "I'm getting my hair done then").
If she wanted to, she could rearrange her schedule to make it happen, on most weekends.
Seems like she "misses" our children.. but not enough to actually make more time with them a priority in her life.


For the second paragraph that you quoted from me..

me... a leader? bahahahah.. naw. i'm a terrible leader. and she does not want to be lead. she resents and resists anyone "leading" her; again, "control issues".

as far as me replying with "i have to think about that": the situations i'm talking about, are where she wants things done, and she wants it done HER WAY. Whether I reply then, or later, seems like no response is acceptible other than HER WAY.
last night was a perfect example of that.
(yet I'm the controlling one.. ahum.. irony, or something)

Let her lead the way a bit....planning the family trips, evenings whatever.

I'd LOVE to! except that it doesnt seem to happen. Usually, I have to "initiate" stuff.
FYI: I involved her heavily in the latest trip. I initiated it, but I made it all about where SHE wanted to go. She changed her mind twice. I went with it, without complaning. Just rolled with it, and tried to make the best out of whichever place she wanted.

I LIKE having her involved!

The one exception to the "i have to initate" stuff, was for about a month, in sept. Out of the blue, she initiated two little weekend outings. I happily went along.
The next weekend, I had to go on a business trip (which I virtually never do; first time in 7 years or something)... and i guess that killed the nice momentum or something. she never initiated again.

I've been racking my brains as to what made that time different. The only thing I can think of, is stuff out of my control. We were actually seeing more of each other because she was babysitting the boys one morning a week during august, and i was paying her for taking care of our boys instead of putting them in daycare.
Again.. I had initiated that. And I even had to pay her money for it. I dont think she would have come and done it, if I hadnt offered her money for it; she kept nagging at me for more money during that time.