(quick thoughts, leaving my office after 11 hours, yuk. Missing midweek at my church but the good news is I can catch a bible study a few blocks from here at my pastor's pastor's church so I am hustling out the door)
I started to jot these notes after reviewing your thread.
First:
(((((cat))))) He knows your pain, He cares!
You have the right to be angry but in accepting Grace, when you give up that right, everything starts to flow more positively from there.
Above all, protect the kids from picking up on the resentment until you are finally able to mostly release it ("mostly" because it will resurface but in time the resurfacing is spaced farther apart)
Kindly but firmly tell him you don't want to hear his stuff. His life is his life.
Detach- it still applies.
Focus on the Lord, then your kids and they will see the peace you attain.
Pray for X with and in front of the kids and do so from the heart. (Easy to say, hard to do.)
I am 2 years into this and I see the progress but it has taken time.
Michele was really right when she said forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. Being forgiven ourselves, we our taught that we must also forgive others and in that teaching it does not say that the other person must first ask us for our forgiveness.
By the way, in spite of all the crud, my life is so much more of what I have always known it should have been except I was so busy trying to Save my marriage and by keeping my eyes on the marriage and on my X, my eyes were not properly focused on the Lord.
It was a tough lesson to learn but I learned it and my eyes are focused on Him!
Praying for you now as I head off to church.
Committed2Him- "C2H" All Things (Back from Spain!)...18
