Dday, I hear ya' on the rebellion thing, but just living my life is enough to run counter to xW's reality-distorting gravity well, for which she takes considerable offense. Just the fact that I am still taking in oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide is enough to make her cross and flag me as contrary to her sensibilities.
Just tonight I had to put the kibosh on a conversation I was having with S8. He was steering the conversation towards talking about the OM and that his mother has "loved" him for a very long time. He mentioned that because his mother and the OM had been such close friends back when my dog Angus was still alive, he concludes that they must have been "in love" even before he was born.
I can't tell you how painful that is to hear, but I think I kept my cool in front of my S. Of course the fact that I was trying to steer the conversation back onto safer ground was probably enough for him to see that I was not comfortable with the subject matter. Perhaps he is learning the wrong behaviors, i.e., how to manipulate his parents through emotionally charged subjects. I am now concerned he might be unknowingly playing one parent off the other. Certainly he will relay anything I might say about his mother back to her just to see her own reaction -- so I need to not feed this any more than I possible.
This all makes me wonder, these WAS really don't know what wheels they set in motion by their deceit and their selfishness. The fact this is having such an impact on our children, often in ways far more subtle than one can anticipate, breaks my heart all over again.
