One thing that concerns me is the potential for collateral damage to Themselves from the almost inevitable collapse that will ensue when the reality of what the soon-to-be-ex-Mrs.-SP has done hits her (though that begs the question, I suppose, as to whether or not it ever will hit her).
She has sent them 3 e-mails and 1 picture from her African getaway, being gone 11 days now. She will still be in Africa (or southern Europe, can't keep it all straight) through the weekend, missing D7's birthday. This is something that really bothers the Girl-Child -- she's brought it up repeatedly in the past few days. She even asked if I'd ever missed one of her brother's birthdays for a trip. Yet these e-mails she sends are full of effusive "how's my wonderful beautiful beloved daughter / awesome smart handsome great son" type B.S.
I never wanted to question her commitment to her motherhood, but it's getting harder and harder not to do that. Every time she's taken one of these trips -- at least ever since the Boy-Child was born these 11 years ago -- it's been "oh my God it was so great being free, I have to be free, my freedom is so precious, I could have stayed another month, blah-blah-blah," which as husband I'd always tried to ignore or put in some kind of positive frame. When I called her out once (3 or 4 years ago) for being gone 2 weeks without a single phone call, her "explanation" ran something like this: "How do you not understand this? When I'm on a trip I don't think about you. I don't think about the kids. I don't think about the house. I'm free! Don't you get that! I don't want any reminders!"
So okay, when you love your spouse you excuse a lot. But now? I'm not so sure that, in fact, she is all that committed to being a mother. My mother asked me the other day why I don't just move to Big Midwestern City? Well, because the kids have visitation with their mother. Mom's reply? Give it a year, she'll gladly let you take them away.
Once upon a time, I would have defended her against something like that.
Now I'm not so sure it isn't essentially correct. I think a lot of this "I love the children" stuff she spouts to her friends is a cover, because her Divorced Woman Friends are all also mothers -- who took the children with them. I don't believe they're going to get it that she can walkaway from Themselves quite so readily, and that one night she'll wake up alone in her house, with no one at the other end of the phone or the e-mail and her friends distancing themselves, and she's going to have a nervous breakdown.
From my POV, that's just swell, and I'm sure I'll take no small amount of not-so-secret delight in it. But I am already trying to prepare myself for the worst vis-a-vis the children -- they clearly feel abandoned by her, and I suspect it's going to get worse before it gets better.
Now @Gypsy always tells me that this kind of thing isn't my concern. I can't agree -- everything that impacts the children for whom I am largely responsible is my concern. The soon-to-be-ex-Mrs.-SP could have a nervous breakdown every day of the week and twice on Sunday, and I would give a rat's ass. But the spillover is problematic -- she's already talked some smack to the kids about me ("don't you know I have to pay your Dad a lot of money just to be free?").
That's going to be put an end to, but her behavior since D-Day has shown at least 4 times that she's not able to keep the children insulated from the Adult World (she said of a friend with whom she'd had a fallout, and whose children are close to ours, "that lady wants to get your Dad a girlfriend! What do you think about that?").
As it should be, my concern is the children; as it usually is, hers is....her.
