out of clever titles

[hoosiermama]

This was a very difficult weekend, following a very difficult month.

Sunday, of course, was Max's loss.

Saturday was trying in its own way. H and I had been bumping heads because he consistently refuses to communicate directly with me. He sees D at his convenience, often with little notice, and it's very difficult to plan when I don't know when he's picking her up or dropping her off. He calls her and has her talk with me, but I find this very irritating--as well as putting D in a very bad position. Saturday had been sort of "up in the air" and she had spent quite a bit of time with him last week. She phoned him in the morning and asked if they could spend the day together. Typically he doesn't want her on weekends--and this time he told her that he was at the OW's house and had plans with her. D became very quiet and said goodbye, then burst into tears. Sadness and frustration came rushing out--she's very articulate about her feelings for a 12-year-old. She feels very definitely like a distant second priority to H (which is quite accurate). He spends a lot of time on the phone with OW while D is visiting (I have insisted, in our legal agreement, that D and OW not meet at least for the rest of the school year). And there's a lot of "I love you's" and terms of endearment going on in those conversations, which makes D very uncomfortable. Sometimes he leaves the room, sometimes not. When she has talked with him about her feelings about this, he becomes defensive and talks about OW being very special to him. D doesn't press the issue with him. She is afraid if she confronts him that he'll stop loving her like he stopped loving me. And she doesn't want to talk to me about it because she knows my heart is broken and she doesn't want to hurt me. She feels like she has to keep secrets--from me, from her grandparents (he has told her they don't yet know about OW and it's not yet time to tell them). She sobbed and sobbed--and so did I. We talked about me being a grownup and being able to handle hearing her feelings, how it's no good to stuff them, that her parents are supposed to protect her, not vice versa, how Dad will never stop loving her because that's an entirely different thing (that was hard to choke out)--all that stuff. It ended up being a good talk, but as a parent it is so hard to see your child hurt like that, and I know that her relationship with her father is such a factor in her future romantic relationships and he's being such an idiot about it.

Later that afternoon he called me to basically yell at me, and I let him have it (not in front of her). I talked about D's feelings and fears, told him it was just inappropriate to carry on with OW while D is visiting, how he needs to make her feel she is his priority. But it didn't go well from there--he went into his "litany of faults." He's entitled to move on with his life. I was at fault for the end of the marriage, and it makes him sick that I am acting like "an innocent lamb." What I read in his email was just my interpretation of the relationship (!) I had alienated his family and ended my relationships with them, not the other way around. I'm nuts, I'm sick, I'm a mess. My first marriage ended because I'm nuts. I made him miserable for 15 years. We should never have gotten married. He slept on the couch for 3 years because I didn't want him in our bed. He has not committed adultery because the marriage has been over for a long time. I spent money over the summer on "god knows what" and that's why there were late fees and payments didn't get made. And on and on. Everything is my fault, he has no responsibility for anything. Unfortunately I yelled back--altho I didn't swear and I didn't call him names (which he did). I got some things out, but it was so hard to hear his feelings about me yet again. Same old same old as it was over the summer, same old fantasies, same old blame, same old re-write of history.

No wonder his family has written me off--they think it's my fault, they know nothing about OW (who they didn't care for 22 years ago). However, I think it's time they find out the whole story. Whether or not they choose to believe it is up to them.

I was already scraping bottom--this has not been helpful.