KenF! So nice to hear from you. Yes, I think the incendiary books and friends certainly contribute to the destruction - though right now, from where I sit and look at my life today - and how I see B today - I understand more about how inevitable this situation was. What she found in the books she read was just what she needed to convince herself that she was right - she wanted proof that I was an abusive husband - and she found it - she wanted proof that our marriage was just a phase - and she found that in another book...now, when she wants support for her insistence that S2 would be adversely affected by spending a night at my place - she finds it in another book (though I think that proof is mostly the product of some faulty reading/interpretation on her part).
Still, for all the books she read and the extent to which she went to vilify me as a way of justifying her decision - I don't fault her for it - rather, I see that I too was playing into a role that I didn't want to play. I was allowing myself to be defined by a negative relationship - and I was still looking for a way to make sense of why people I love would treat me badly by trying to stay with someone that has, throughout our relationship, treated our relationship like an afterthought. It's who and how she is - and for whatever reason, I sought out her way of being as a way of understanding something that I would have done better to look into myself to understand...
While it's still hard to move forward with so many dramatic changes - I am finding ways to look forward to it as well. Decorating a new place with my S11 will be fun - so too will getting to know the new neighborhood.
Purple - if you're reading this - the apartment we're hoping to get is just a block from an enormous park - with tennis courts, soccer fields, an endless playground, and a farmer's market on Saturdays...should make for a lot of time spent outside.
