I have contemplated the ring for some time. I am keeping it on now, as a reminder. If/when I take it off, then for me it is over (the M).
I think that since my W has a habit of setting what I call "negative milestones" to counter the positive dates in our history together, I may follow suit. She was going to walk out on me the week after our anniversary (July). She told me the IDLYAM (I don't love you any more) the day before Father's Day. And she made the last time we ML on Mother's Day. So, I may take the ring off on Mother's Day -- 365 days since I became celibate (by force). That will be close enough to the date she will file -- on our anniversary, no doubt.
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W continues to be mean and hostile towards me, and attempting to harm my relationship with my S's in subtle ways. She lodged two petty complaints to me concerning how I take care of my S's when they're with me. Monday night I took the boys with me to my DivorceCare group meeting. The church provided child care for them and the other children while we held our meeting. S7 and S3 are already well acquainted with the children of the other parents in my group, so they had a good time with them.
Unfortunately the meeting runs until 8:30 PM, and that is past the time our S's are supposed to be in bed. So when W called she calmly chided me for keeping them out late on a "school night". I reminded W that she too had kept our S's out past bedtime -- she flatly denied it. I reminded her she was out shopping with them late one night recently. W responded that that was shopping for groceries. She belittled my example since shopping for food was something "important" -- as if what I was doing was not important. I calmly told her that "Man does not leave by bread alone."
Then later I let W talk to S7, and I could tell by the half of the conversation I could hear that W was asking leading questions of our S. I asked S7 to hand me the phone back so I could talk to his mother. I asked her what she was telling him. W said that I left S7 in the car at S3's preschool while I went inside to pick S3 up. W accused me of placing S7's life in danger, saying that some stranger could have broken into my locked car and stolen S7 away, even in the brief time I was away.
I was stunned at this accusation. I was even more incensed that W had been instilling fear into S7 that his father was endangering his life. W told me to never leave S7 alone again and to ask "any police officer" how dangerous my actions were , since I was not immediately agreeing with her. I responded to W with two things -- I told her I would take her advice into consideration, but I was now very upset with her for spreading her panic to my S before she had even voiced this fear (rational or justified or not) with me first. I told her to talk to me first from now on, and to quit trying to interfere and to poison my relationship with my S's with paranoid assertions.
I am deeply upset with W for her petty, shallow behavior. I am stunned that she would rather expressly and surely poison her S's relationship and trust with their father rather than have some wildly off-chance and relatively unlikely event possibly happen. W is becoming more and more paranoid and delusional.
I am now thinking it will be a blessing in disguise to no longer have her in my life on a daily basis.
