WAW New life with OM

[25yearsmlc]

You'll have to hold your tongue about her time with the kids. Last night my h complained that d19 does not write to him directly (she is studying abroad & internet access is spotty so she emails me and I forward messages to him). He feels "marginalized". In our sitch, he chose to live away from home for 2 years/her jr and sr years of high school so um, YES she does not feel so close to him.

I have defended her b/c she is still deeply wounded and frankly, I'm shocked that h does not get this. He wants her forgiveness, although come to think of it I doubt he has actually asked her for it. And trust me when I say I BITE MY TONGUE so much. Don't know what the moral thing to do is, except to encourage them to repair their R. But I know how you feel; it is H's responsibility to re-build this and I have said that; he is the parent/adult and by the way, he is the one who left no matter what his rationalizations are.

Seems he feels he pays for most of everything, therefore....whatever...AND your w (I predict) will say she has "sacrificed for them for years" and they should be more grateful and basically she'll have her own version of what my h said last night.

What can I tell you? It has been awhile for us in piecing and in some ways it is painfully slow going...I think we are making lots of progress one week and then a backslide.

But as for the kid's anger and wounds, that is by far the hardest part for me and it greatly affects how I feel about "us" and h. . And I suspect it will be for you too.

I don't know the answer except that we are supposed to encourage their R's with each other, NO jealousies or thoughts of "h/w doesn't deserve kids being close to them after what they did, etc." and so far, I have not done that. Of course, part of that is cuz they are NOT close so I have not faced it. But your sons are hurting and when she finally awakens, and she will, she'll have to cope with a lot of guilt. I did tell h last night that it seems his guilt converts into anger and that I don't accept that, it's his to deal with; not mine. ALso said he has a second chance with her (and a good chance with d11) to show them that he learned something from all this. This is partly why I tell others to forget about trying to induce guilt in a WAS b/c even if it seems to "work", it will backfire big time. Guilt just doesn't help our situations.

The WAS has to awaken and feel that although bad choices were made, they can recover something of value. None of the "too late now pal" will help us. Even if you move on and don't want to reconcile someday, you'll want the boys to have a rapprochement with her anyhow. But if it's too hard for the WAS, they may ask themselves, what's the point? I worry that h wonders sometimes if it'd be easier for him to just start over with a "new family" so he won't have to make amends to the kids. I don't know. I'm guessing in the dark here, as his whole paradigm was so foreign to me. At times last night I wanted to hang up, but didn't. And the talk did improve as I reminded him that I am NOT holding onto the past; but dealing only with the "now" and right now, he and d19 are having problems and in my opinion, she has the right to still feel hurt and may not feel close to him for a long time.

But I sure had to stay sooo calm and you will too. Watch your tone big time. They're so defensive that the smallest inflection looks like an attack to them. The WAS faces tremendous guilt when they return and for my h, that OFTEN turns into anger towards others. They'll blame others/us/kids etc b/c the guilt gets to be too much. So all I can say is that I try to help him like a friend would, saying stuff about insights and change and how we can improve and work on things going forward...and when I stay on message, it usually helps. But not always.

I would hate to be my h or your w. In this regard, you and I are in much better positions "life wise". Make sense? Take care,

(( j ))