What a weekend...

[AlexEN]

Thinking more about Sara's post (and her concern that W would walkaway from the boys, too) and trying to complete the picture of the weekend, I got a glimpse into her that I knew on an intellectual level, but had never truly "felt" before...

When we finally had a few moments away from the kids, I brought up that we had agreed not to go down the “adult problems” and “trying” path, but rather to focus on the kids' needs. Her defense (as in defense-mechanism) was that she thought I didn’t want to hear the words as the words would trigger the concerns I had with the going down that path.

She felt that by writing the words that it would somehow “different”. It was incomprehensible to me that she could be drawing such a fine line. But, I could see it in her eyes, she truly believed what she was saying and could NOT step into my shoes to see how there would be no difference between uttering the words and committing them to paper. She cannot NOT have her way; it is too firmly engrained. It is not, IMO, intentional. She "really" sees herself as the only truly aggrieved party. It is a built-in defense mechanism.

*****

Fast forward a little…

As I am changing, I notice she has left a book with notes in it in my underwear drawer. The book is “Helping Children Cope with Divorce” [the same book D11 saw her buy?] and she marked the pages she wanted me to read…

“Please read this section. I don’t see how I deviated much from this example in the journals.”

“Researchers have found that having an explanation for the divorce they can understand helps children adjust, but most parents avoid these conversations… Many children and parents will later recall this as one of the most difficult experiences in their lives… children adjust better when parents give children explanations they can understand and repeated invitations to ask questions about what will happen and why.”

“I’m sorry if I used your trigger words. I’m begging you to help me not lose S14. If YOU go down the 'complete truth' path, I will likely lose S14 forever. If that happens, YOU might as well stab me for him because I will feel numb and worthless and forever depressed. If you’ve ever loved me, please don’t do this to me. Please try to feel where I am at right now. The pain of losing a child’s heart is very deep.”

@Sara, this is the most heartfelt language I have heard from her in years and years and why I believe she would never leave her boys.

She also highlighted the following section, which I think is her own self-fulfilling prophecy, because she keeps telling me I blame her, which I DO not. I only blame her for not having put an honest effort into seeing if the marriage could be saved – not knowing if it even could be saved:

“It is highly problematic for the child when one parent assigns blame for the divorce and communicates that the child should be angry with the parent who has left or should not respect, care about, or want to spend time with that person. Often this blame is assigned by inappropriately providing children with specific details of adult infidelities and sexual relationships…”

In her journals she had borrowed from the script this book suggests, even though it is not the one we had agreed upon… “Parents’ feelings about each other change as time goes by, and that is what happened to us…”

Perhaps to her credit (I say "perhaps" because of the apparent quid pro quo - she's sorry, but she's telling me it's up to me to save her R with S14). But, she's projected on me what she is hearing from S14 and, as a mother who loves S14, this outcome that she expected to come from me cannot really be coming from him, it HAS to be coming from me) she wrote in the margin, “I didn’t realize that what I wrote to them would upset you so much. My intentions were good.”

Yes, and I appreciate that, but her Actions and her Deed (this is for you @Smiley) were still inconsistent with what had been agreed upon.

@Puppy, this is when the Good Guy wanted to come to her rescue, but instead I told her it was not up to me to fight protect her relationship with S14... and that I don’t approve of his language toward her or his threats to his brother and sister and that I had talked to each one of them about that already... but he IS entitled to his own thoughts... and that I would no longer make any attempt to protect her from her own actions... and that she is responsible for the consequences of her own actions as am I for mine…

I told her I’d help her move to basement guest room and that I was not rushing her, but I need my space, too... that it won’t work for me if she’s moved to the guest room but has free access to come and go as she pleases from the master bedroom…

She still had to have the last word... saying "if I leave something in there it doesn’t mean I don’t want it when we go to divvy stuff up."

At that point I felt like Nick Nolte in the very last scene of North Dallas Forty and I let the ball drop.