Out of interest Frank, when your girls tell you things about your W do you actually agree with them or just listen?
Generally I just listen. I never 'agree' with D17 if she says negative things about her mom. Often I'll counter with something positive about her mom. For example when she said something about her mom not doing things with her I told her that mom was working extra hard to help with the financials.
I will never sit there and say 'yeah, mom doesn't seem to care about anyone but herself'. Never.
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Anyway, I'm ok right now. I feel much more empowered because my daughters once again see me as 'grounded' and they see W as somewhat selfish. I would be so much happier if W and I were both grounded at the same time. It's interesting that when the girls and I do things and exclude her she seems unhappy about it.
That paragraph just jumped out at me. I can see why it made you feel good but your D's should also not be able to get inbetween you and your W or be put in the position where they could become pawns in a power struggle. I am not saying that IS what you are doing but I could see that it could head that way. When my H had his A, much though I often felt like telling the kids how awful he was and a bad person for what he had done, ( and I do think they would have followed my lead; at least in the beginning), I bit my tongue because which ever way things fell; eventually, H and I were going to have to be nice to one another and back each other up with the children. Whichever way it turned out we would still have to parent together.
Totally agree. I will NOT do that to my kids. They always see me be kind in my words about their mom.
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I can understand totally why your W is unhappy when you and the girls do something that excludes her - you seem to her to be 'winning' the girls over when that happens and I expect and it makes her feel like the bad guy. I expect she is thinking that they just don't understand how she feels etc. and it makes her feel very lonely.
Probably true. I want to add that I felt uncomfortable during all this because I don't like it when she feels excluded, but that's between her and the girls. I didn't say or do anything, she could have chosen to 'get involved' as nobody was telling her not to.
I'm very careful not to ever put W down or express anger about her to my daughters. I don't want them to hate her and I don't want her to ever HEAR them say 'Dad said...' in a negative way either.
I didn't do that 2 years ago during her affair and I won't do it now.
