I'm not too good with a 2x4 but have some thoughts about family time.
When this happened to me, I found my passion.. and that is my family. I would get riled when H (who is so determined to end this) would suggest a homemade dinner when he was leaving on a trip. Puhleeze, why should I a)listen to you and b) have you tell me what to do?
A very good friend hit me with a 2x4 and reminded me that every opportunity to be involved as a family was precious and necessary for the long haul, regardless of where our marriage went. The first dinner after telling the kids was difficult, the second dinner was much easier with laughter and joking. If H and I are serious about being a team for our kids then we have to be willing to live it rather than talk it.
I'm discovering the DB technique and find it to be somewhat like "My Fair Lady". The professor keeps working on Eliza Doolittle's enuciation with the sentence: The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains. She repeats and repeats with her broad accent. Slowly an awares kicks in how to speak clearly with a cultured voice. Her transformation is almost complete.
I keep working on Dbing and LRT thinking I'm understanding it. As my H continues detaching from me, the more I understand the basic principles. For me, it's about unconditional love. What didn't make sense before does. Where I thought I was being a bastion of truth, I was pushing him away by my self righteousness.
In the end I can't teach him anything nor is it my place. I can minimize being a negative influence so that he has time to look in the mirror and feel what is going on.. not just his justification for leaving but the lasting ramifications. Time to be alone and unencumbered with what his reality is.
Right now he's called the kids and is talking to them. It breaks my heart that I'm separate from their involvement. However, it is what it is at this moment in time.
