Be the best friend you can be...that is all you can control. No use sweating over anything more (like trying to be more). It's not easy for you...i know. Hopefully it is not easy for him either.
NO, you cant be in the States in June.. I was hoping to come to Greece! What is this book everyone is talking about !? Glad that Dan keeps calling you, guess he is still working through his 'stuff'. What happened about the house? I cant remember.. was he doing it up?
Al x
Me:40! H:37 Together: 12yrs IDLY & left 11/07 ADs 03/08 OW 8/08 Reconciled 05/09 now married! my thread
The book that Kalni had mentioned ordering, that I bought and am reading, is "How to Improve Your Marriage without Talking About It". It is by Stosny/Stozny? and Love.
I am glad Dan has been calling, it seems whenever there is a crisis at work, or with the cows (like when a calf died last month), or family, etc etc, he calls ME to talk about it.
And he admitted in his text to me last month, "I don't know how to do this without you", meaning life.
So I am being the best friend I know how to be and letting it go for now. I sent him a text on Friday (it was our 17th anniversary of dating! And yes, he knows the date, we usually do dinner or something every year)-- anyway the text just said "17 years, I still love you and you love me, no rush to figure the rest out ) because I know I have been pressuring and I wanted him to know I am not anymore...
And then over the weekend he was fine with me and he called me Sunday so I know he wasn't bothered by the message...
Anyway the only thing that I wonder about is whether he can't imagine life without me because I am "the one" for him, or because I am comfortable like an old pair of shoes... Which you like to have around but you aren't exactly passionate about...
Oh well, nothing I can do about that. Just keep on being me and let the rest happen as it will!
And yes, he is doing up the house. He went to the home show with me a month or so ago and we looked at flooring, etc. He kept asking my opinion on it. And his cabinets have arrived for the kitchen but he has been in Canada last week and this week so nothing is installed yet. I don't know when he will actually live there. I imagine things will be more 'real' at such time as he actually has his own home and has the kids there with him part-time. He told me a while back that he hoped the work he was doing on this house would ultimately be for BOTH of us, so we shall see...
On an unrelated note we are expecting strong storms this afternoon. I LOVE a good thunderstorm!
OK, trying not to call Dan to figure this one out. Input desired!
Dan and I had talked about setting up counseling for Nathan. He was going to get a referral from his counselor that he (Dan) has been seeing.
Well, that never came to pass...trips to Canada, etc have interrupted his counseling and I guess he can't/won't call her for a referral or he doesn't trust her judgement, I don't know.
Anyway I sent a text 10 days ago when Dan was in Canada that I was going to look for a counselor for Nathan b/c he had been up crying in the night again.
He replied back that he hated being gone and felt 2" tall, etc etc
Then he said I was prob right about the counselor b/c we need to know what the issues are.
My response was "I told you Friday what the biggest issues are. He wants his parents together and he misses us being a family and you living with us. He still believes we will get back together but we haven't and so he is upset. And you know i am not saying that to make you feel bad it is just the reality of the situation."
His reply back was, "I know".
That was the crappy weekend when Nathan told me he cries in his bed at night sometimes b/c he misses his dad ad he wants us to live together.
So anyway I haven't set anything w/a counselor yet. I am not sure if this should just be child counseling or family counseling or both, or what. So when I look should i be looking up a child counselor or a family counselor or both?
Dan has said many times he 'hopes' or 'prays' we will get back together or he is 'trying to figure out how to make it work', etc etc
But bottom line is he has bought his own house, even though he says he hopes it will be for both of us, he bought it himself and he doesn't live with us, he lives with his mom. So I guess I just explain the situation to the counselor? The tricky part to me is that we haven't made a firm decision to reconcile or to divorce and so Nathan doesn't know what to expect.
And I have just told him that I too hope we can live together again one day. I would set him straight and say it will never happen if that was the decision, or tell him mom and dad are working on it if we were, which is what I had been telling him before his dad moved out again.
But the 'up-in-the-air' thing is making this harder than I thought.
So, thoughts? Do I just get a child counselor for Nathan and then if they want to talk to Dan and I for background or input they will? No clue how this works...
Yes. Get a child counselor. If she recommends family counseling you can still go that route too. Do NOT wait for Dan to do ANYTHING for any of the problems. You can tell him about them, you can give him a LIMITED amount to do what he says he'll do, and then you need to take care of things without him. He is having trouble just taking care of himself. Don't expect him to take care of anyone else.
i feel for your son...i agree with sara. do what you need to do. i would imagine that the counselor you chose has tackled such situations before. don't wait any longer, especially if your son is struggling. something tells me Dan will not make a decision any time soon.
I concur on getting Nathan to see a child counselor. He probably needs someone else that he can really open up to that is not part of his family. A counselor can observe without a biased view from the outside and maybe have some recommendations to help Nathan cope.
Thank you guys so much! I looked up several counselors for children and for families. Several of the family counselors offered special services for divorcing parents to help them sort out the details/impact on the kids in that event. However since we aren't at that point they wouldn't be a good fit for us.
I did find one that caters strictly to children. They have different counselors for different things, as specific as bedwetting and even fire-setting (!), but then there was one counselor at the group who works with kids in family/marriage/divorce type issues who might work.
I figure i will call that one tomorrow, and a couple of more general family counseling services vs. kid counselors. And just tell them the situation, what we are concerned about, etc.
I suppose the only thing I am really concerned about is I don't want some counselor going in and telling Nathan his parents are getting divorced and its okay cause everything will be just great! Maybe that is selfish but I feel like that just gives Dan the get out of jail free card....
I think what we need to figure out is what is going on in Nathan's head, if he is really spending time worrying about us, whether we will get back together or not, the impact of his home life being turned upside down,etc. With Dan in Canada again all week, and I have night class plus parent conferences which means that I am gone pretty much all of Tues.Wed.Thurs. this week, the kids are not in their comfy routine. Plus two nieces had birthdays two weekends in a row so the kids were at both sets of granparents over the two weekends which further messed up our 'home' time...
Anyway I will try to get it sorted out and get him into a counselor asap.
He did get in trouble at school again today. Long story but I am 50/50 whether he was just being a goofy kid or being disrespectful. As a teacher myself, I have to give his teacher the benefit of the doubt that she believed it was disrespect, regardless of nathan's explanation...
Also I am trying to go dark a little bit on Dan. That is part of my inner battle, trying to decide if my trying to be his 'best friend' is the right thing to do or just letting him cake-eat.
For example he is gone now for 2 weeks to Canada. I have a separate bank account now and he has the old joint account (I am still on it and can use it, but don't), plus he opened a new account at a different bank but left the debit card for it at our/my house, so he has not used that account.
Anyway I had sorted out his bills from my bills when they come in the mail. He said with being out of the country he hadn't had time to pay them... Friend/doormat/enabler(?) me offered to pay those bills while he was gone last week and he was very relieved and thanked me. So I am paying bills out of two different checking accounts. He is supposed to pay every other week of daycare so I pay one week on my own checks, the other on his/our old checks, etc.
Well today I open my electric bill and I have two bills in the envelope. One with my name at our current address, one with my name at his new house address as the location of the bill but our current home as the billing address. I noticed even his debit card and checks for his new bank account show our current (my) address. He is still having all of his mail sent to our original house, even for things he has set up since he bought the other house?? I know he isn't living there yet but the house does have a mailbox! And he could check the mail when he goes over to work on it...
Don't know if I should leave that alone or bring it up. The only one that concerns me is the electric bill. I don't particularly care if it comes to our address but it shouldn't be in my name. I imagine he gave them his name and our address and they saw the other account and just mailed them together. But his name should be on the account, not mine. It just happens that I was going to live there by myself when the kids and I moved in June so all of the utilities are in my name only.
Anyway I did not contact him yesterday. He called me Monday night after the kids should have been in bed (9:15) but they were up-like I said they are off-schedule plus we had severe storms that night to keep them up. Anyway he called that night but we got disconnected due to the weather and neither of us called the other back. Then last night I had conferences and didn't call him and he didn't call our house, even to wish the kids goodnight. Although I know he is working 18 hour days so he may have still been at the plant and lost track of time.
So point is I wasn't planning to contact him until he contacts me. But I would like to just let him know I am setting an appointment for Nathan and that his electric bill is in my name...i guess if he calls tonight I will mention it (just the facts, as John says!). If not, i may email or text it to him tomorrow.
Even things as silly/basic as, the kids and I going to Disney World. Dan said he wants to go with us, but he mentioned having an adjoining room. Well, I don't want to book that unless I know he will actually be in the country when we go...but yet I am a planner so I want to start planning now and setting the dates now...
