Hoozh, after trying to help you think positively and give you hope during your own holiday solitude, I allowed my own PMA to get torpedoed in an instant by this unexpected encounter. The sad thing is that as weaseling and wormy as the OM has been, I also have the prior correspondence from xW to OM that documents her own pathetic, co-dependent pursuit of him like some lost school girl. They're equally disgusting in that regard.
Saffie, I really, really appreciate your kind words. I think my reaction was not quite so heroic as you seem to make it out to be -- I just plodded along with my plan to gather my S's and take them with me, while trying my hardest to ignore the scene to which xW set up and had failed to tell me. She had emailed me earlier that day to inquire about the time of my arrival and had then told me where she and the boys would be by that time, even mentioning she and the MIL would be baking Christmas cookies at MIL's apartment, but at no time had she warned me that her (other) partner in crime would also be present. Needless to say, I did not appreciate the surprise.
And I agree, the only positive thing left from my M are my children.
Karen, in trying to save my M a year ago, I have allowed my now ex to set the precedence for how the kids are to be picked up and dropped off. That has been to my increasing chagrin. Had I a chance to do it all over again, things would be a lot different. As such, the evil MIL's apartment is now what XW considers "neutral ground" (Ha!) for picking up and dropping off the kids. Not only has MIL never been "neutral" (far from it) she had met and become quite chummy with the OM long before the bomb, within my own home even.
And it's not like I haven't seen OM at xW's place before this. I have shown up at the ex's place only to slowly discover that the OM was keeping back somewhere out of sight in her apartment. I tend to not enter any further than the foyer, especially since the divorce, so I can't tell you how many times I might have stopped by and OM might have been skulking in the shadows somewhere out of sight.
But this was the first time I encountered the fraktard over at MIL's place, and right in the midst of a major holiday activity for xW and MIL. The two women would undoubtedly have been pretty involved with their "operation", so it's not like it was going to offer him any real quality time with xW. And vice versa. I am certain xW had him there for the express purpose of thumbing her nose at me -- she knew exactly what she was doing.
Part of me wanted to smile at the obviously petty drama she was stooping to. The other part of me got angry and disgusted. I think she saw the look on my face as I immediately put on my "all-business" face, cut off the opportunity for chitchat, and speeded my sons out the door. That's when she made that half-hearted attempt to assuage the situation and tried to play the fumbling diplomat by offering that weak introduction to her accomplice.
What this little stunt also tells me is that xW has decided to become more and more brazen in flaunting her "boyfriend" before everyone, even me. She's effectively saying she's going to start including him in all of her events and activities. Whatever the consequences.
The cookie thing is water off my back. I got over her pettiness in that and have long ago come to expect no quarter from her on any account. Last December she sent the boys over for one of my weeks having packed each of them a small snack bag with some of her precious Christmas cookies, each labeled with their names on them -- the message was perfectly clear: the cookies she sent my way were for the boys alone and not for me. That was and is okay -- I want nothing from her anymore beyond what is my due.
She took her love away, she can take her eff'ing cookies away -- they're both just as meaningless to me now. What she cannot take from me are my S's.
