Yes, I am trying to cover all the bases where possible.
And I had another argument with W just this afternoon over her latest scheme. She left me a voicemail at work earlier and so I called her back (big mistake) thinking she wanted to ask me about picking up the kids. Instead she wanted to grill me about agreeing with her plans, saying she had to give notice to S4's current daycare provider by this Monday or else we'd be liable for the February fees. I let her have her say before I responded. I flat out told her I did not appreciate her only including me in her planning in the very 11th hour -- and, in response to why I did not like her plans themselves, told her that I do not approve of her mother as the caregiver to our S's.
W's response was some hogwash claiming she had been keeping me informed of her initial and progressing line of thinking on this since November, and that she had let me know that long ago that her mother was moving back to town. I didn't mince words when I told her that was bullsh*t. She also said that her mother loves our S's and is a good and loving person to be taking care of them. W said that their grandmother, a blood relative, was far preferable to some stranger. I argued against the notion that MIL was a proper grandmother, and was unfit for raising children.
W responded by saying how mean and hateful I supposedly am, simply because I won't agree with and give into her, and because I oppose her anti-family, anti-husband mother. I told her, no, I was concerned for the well-being of our children, and while I have come to dislike (not hate) MIL, my opposition to her was on the grounds of what I consider to be best for S8 and S4.
But W continued to go back to her old bag of now hackneyed arguments, using this disagreement as another example of why our marriage died. It got even uglier from that point. W devolved back to her same old spiel about how I killed her love for me and that I think that I am God because I cannot even consider that I might be wrong about something. (I countered by saying that she must think she is God since -- whenever she pronounces that I stopped loving her way back when -- she presumes to know me and my heart better than I do myself.)
That got me on a line of argument questioning her prior stance about Truth. I asked her did she believe that truth was subjective or was thre an absolute truth. In prior "conversations" W has parroted words similar to her mother, that Truth is relative and there can be many truths. Maybe she recognized the danger for her answer because she tried to change the subject. If she had upheld her prior notions about the supposed subjectivity of reality, I was prepared to lower the boom on her with regards to God and absolute truth, The Truth. If she were to deny that, I would have let her know how far astray from her own professed faith she had wandered. Moral relativism is the folly that got us where we are today in this sad, sad world.
But instead she set herself back on track by recounting how I failed her and our marriage. The same old accusations, the same old pretense at being a victim in all this. I interjected a rebuttal to say, "I made mistakes, yes, but none of that warranted your actions to betray me and to commit adultery." But she ignored me and continued her diatribe. Impatient with her, I began to say back to her, "blah, blah, blah, blah, blah..." as she continued her rant. And that was enough to anger her into hanging up on me.
Go ahead, bring on the 2x4's. I feel I am getting to the point where I just don't give a damn anymore. If the truth has to be butchered to save my marriage, then I no longer think it's worth it. No, complete candor is not always best, and prudence dictates otherwise. But If we can't be intellectually honest with each other, then we can never achieve the intimacy required for a healthy M anyway. And if the truth hurts, as it always tends to, enough that W wants the M ended, then I rather be alone in faith of the Truth, than miserable in a M of lies and deceit.
I can't help it. That's just how the cut of my jib is.
