RTL - I have to admit that your post brought tears to my eyes...just the generosity of your heart to come back and help really moved me...and, yes, Kalni is a very special person...and I'm grateful to have her checking in on me...
I guess I've been taking longer to figure out the whole 180 thing than I realized...I thought I had it down...get out, get fit, get happy...but there was/is so much more to it...and I wasn't even close until after my W moved out...
Quote:
It has been so good for me to realize that my relationship w/ my XW was holding me back from being me and doing what I want to do. Do I miss being married? Yes. Do I miss the kissing, touching, and togetherness? Yes. Do I miss having my family together? Yes. Do I miss being blamed for everything and having to walk on egg shells? HELL NO!
What you wrote there sums up exactly how I feel...I do miss all those things...but not enough to want my wife back home if she's unwilling to work on herself...and so far, it seems like she's completely unwilling to work on herself - and I just cannot have a person like that around my S11 and always around my S2. I know that she's better with our baby when I'm not around - as he is a very happy, playful baby - and I don't see any signs of him struggling or getting unusually frustrated with his life...that said, today he clung to me really tight after I brought him home from daycare - and he spent a lot of the evening sitting on my lap - and at one point just held me tighter than he's ever held me and didn't want to let go...when his mom got here, I tried to talk with him in an excited voice, saying, mommy is here, let's go see mommy! But he protested and clung to me - and even when we got outside he pulled at my T-shirt - not wanting to let go...and I saw my W glare at me...and when I reached out to touch my baby boy's head and say goodnight while he was in her arms...(just couldn't help the impulse)...I saw that same venomous look in her eyes again...but I just ignored the anger...and told my baby that I love him - and then wished her a good night and went inside...
Her mom is coming down to visit her this weekend...which just means that things will most likely get worse...as they do whenever she spends time with her mom...her mom once told her, "I wasted thirty years of my life being married to a jerk, you shouldn't." (which both my W and SIL eventually shared with me...)...and then my MIL tells me that she thinks I'm the best thing that ever happened to her daughter...and yet she believed my W when my W claimed, out of the blue, that I had somehow hidden $40K from her...and that I had strangled her when she was pregnant, and that I have been abusing her for years...and yet this same MIL will tell me, in the most matter-of-fact voice that my W behaved the same way she is now back when she was 13...only then she said all these terrible things about her father...I've mentioned this before...but it still boggles my mind...though I understand that it's consistent with an abusive home...MIL told me..."If I told her father the things she says about him it would just break his heart." That's the problem...and why she needs more affirmation than I offered...
I'm going to keep finding positive 180s...thinking of going to San Francisco to visit an old friend this weekend...
