I packed up my wife's remaining things and put them in boxes by the door at our home.
I moved her out in January.
We go back & forth between being almost friends and being enemies.
Throughout this time I haven't faltered at all in being a strong man. I don't grovel for her affection, in fact when she displays a poor attitude with me and we happen to be out together with the kids, I call her on it, I "bust" her on it. I tell her that I won't tolerate crap behavior from her ever, not in private and definitely not in public.
One of the days that I had the kids, she asked if she could tag along with us because she had nothing to do that day. She came along, we shopped, we had something to eat, etc. Something the kids did to annoy her and she made a statement to the effect that "the kids don't listen to me the way they listen to you", I started to tell her that it's possible she didn't pay enough attention to them when she has them (she doesn't, the kids tell me so, obviously they're little and don't know much but they do tell me what bothers them), well that attitude turned from crusty to worse and she made a really hurtful remark to me, turned her back and walked away. The old me would have just taken crap from her and slumped into a corner and in general just acted really submissive. Here's my 180 (yes a few of you aren't going to agree), she walked away from, I followed her, told her to turn around because I was talking and if she wanted me to listen to her & respect her when we're talking, she would damn well do the same with me and that I won't tolerate anyone ever turning their back on me ever again and included her at the top of the list. I then told the kids that we were leaving and that mom had something to do and we left. She was speechless, I let her say goodbye to the kids (they were with me on that day) and we left, I just turned my back and wouldn't hear more of it.
Sounds a bit tough, maybe hard but the old me wouldn't have done that. She sent several text msg's later that evening that were angry, hostile, infused with colorful language and i told her that she was wasting her time texting me.
A few days later she apologized for talking to me that way.
If I didn't know better, standing up for myself to someone who used to be controlling, mean & cruel with me is actually buying me some brownie points.
The apologies this year are something new, something that would have never happened before.
