Looking for Advice

[gutwrenching]

Sandi - you didn't misunderstand, its just complicated like everything. In the past, it was every night on the computer, locked away, and supposedly doing work. I have no reason to believe it wasn't work--there was that much for her to do. Then W's job calmed down and since then, it has only been the 2 nights this past weekend. And could it have been the dog, yes. Could it have been OM, yes.

W's an emotional wreck tonight and I'm just off and in bad mood because of today. So I don't know if anything I say is reasonable or not and I'm trying to tell myself to ignore anything from W for same reasons, but its hard. Today I have experienced periods where the wall was up and fortified, I have experienced times where there were a couple of bricks down, and once for about 2-3 minutes, the wall was at least half way down if not all the way down and she opened up about how she felt about the dog. Now she is crying and wants to be alone and deal with it in her own way. I have no idea if I should believe her or not. She took the camera to download pictures to the computer in the basement. She asked me when I wanted to go to bed, I said does it really matter, normally when you go down there you stay there till late and when you feel like it anyways. That response caught her off guard--she didn't know what to say. The answer didn't sit well with her, but I think it needed to be said, probably not tonight, but it came out. Just kind of tense right now.

In the past I have feared W's reactions and it took all this for me to see that you are right, it has and was controlling me. I don't fear the reactions any more. I might not want to potentially ruin a weekend for my kids but I don't fear them any more. If anything, I've learned how effective me standing up for myself is.

What I do think is without some evidence of contact with OM, that setting the boundary will not be very effective. I don't have anything other than suspicions and right now with the raging emotions of the last few days...who knows.

Please don't get me wrong. I appreciate your help, your thoughts, I need those. I rely on those right now.

She has run the ship for a long time in a way. In others, especially financially and maybe career decisions, she would tell you that I have been controlling...and that is probably accurate. In fact, I've thought about the financial aspect lately. Am I allowing cake eating by continuing to handle all the finances? I have always done it, I am good at it, W is scared of it, but we are still living under the same roof and supporting the same kids so would it make any sense at all to start splitting things into separate accounts and such? Just kind of rambling now. I should probably stop typing. Going to look up some packet sniffer stuff.