Transitional relationships distract and do change the focus from life being all about the former spouse's actions and insults to more than that. A transitional relationship can be a friendship, learning about someone new, even doing something new. Having something NEW to talk about. Having something different for the mind to focus on. And transitional relationships are by nature short but so very helpful.
It is not a lie if the boundaries are stated.
The PC and you both commented on your anger. Have you considered ways to resolve that?
Like most, I had a lot of anger toward my former spouse. A book pointed out that bitterness and anger are a mask for unresolved pain and hurt. My inner fire and brimstone weren't working, so I followed "Not Just Friend's" advice and sent blessings to my spouse when he made me angry. As counterintuitive as it sounds, it worked... slowly but surely.
Sending blessings (my first was a hypothetical herd of camels to their secret abode) relieved the anger and kept it from churning. I. Felt. Better. when I did that. When I remembered, I did it more. And it kept working.
Forgiving the sinner but not the sins is a dog chasing its tail. The sins are past. The sinner is the present. For example, I was molested my entire childhood by my father. I hated him. I was told to forgive him. I couldn't. I wanted him to suffer, to beg forgiveness from me, to show regret.
Never happened.
I went to therapy. I wanted to let it go. I didn't want to be one of those crazy people yelling at a tombstone full of unresolved anger. I kept going to therapy on and off through the years, slowly letting go of bits and pieces. But I was still had that buzz of injustice fomenting.
Oddly enough the spouse's departure and my dad's medical emergency happened at the same time. My first thought was that the two most significant male relationships in my life had betrayed me and were leaving. I'd already unwittingly spent a lifetime full of anger. I did not want that justified by the divorce.
I started sending blessings to the spouse... sometimes just the word 'blessings'. Several months later my dad and I had a conversation.. nothing big.. BUT he listened without commenting. Twenty minutes later, something poofed within. The wick was pulled from the candle. I'd been given the gift of forgiveness toward my father. And it was one of the best gifts that's ever been bestowed.
Being angry, feeling affronted, insulted is natural. Moving beyond it is difficult. Your former spouse will never validate your feelings. Change what isn't working.
A question I asked myself. Do I feel better after sharing, after writing or do I stay angry or get angrier? How do I feel later? If I felt better, more grounded, calmer, I'd try to keep doing what worked.
I know I made the wound of betrayal worse with my agonized jabbing.
IF the sins were past -- and not continually recurring over and over and over again -- I could more easily have put them behind me before now. Oh, well...
I'm beginning to think it is just my lot in life to have xW continually be a thorn in my side. If I am to have any sort of meaningful role in my S's lives, she will be there to always taint it.
Case in point: this Friday, S9 and I are slated for a cub scout camping activity at Myrtle Beach, a big reward to our pack for all the hard work in our fund-raisers. Well, xW is not only going to show up down there right after, she's going to take custody of the boys and immediately head over to an amusement park -- her, S9, S5 and OM. It's like she now insists on trying to overshadow my time with our S's and watering down our time together with one-upmanship shenanigans.
I'm letting it slide, but it goes to show how lowly she will sink now. For the same reason, she wants to know everything I have planned for myself and my S's during vacation times, throughout the remainder of the year. Ostensibly this would be so she can figure out what weeks they will need for daycare or not -- but it becomes more apparent she really just wants to continue to horn in on my time with my S's.
I talked to the PC about this too during our meeting last week, and he merely shrugged his shoulders. But then he's proven to be so clueless on so many basic moral tenets that I now take his lack of understanding regarding this one issue to be just more blindness on his part. (I can just about write him off now, as he not only lacks neutrality but he is a bit worse: lacking any real moral authority. For some time now I have given him the benefit of a doubt and heeded his advice, but then he went and put his foot squarely in his mouth. That's unfortunate.)
On a lighter note, I've had some time to reflect on all this. I think I am in a much better place now. Yes. I do have some anger, but that's okay. As long as I do not let it consume me as I work it out of my system, I should be okay. I will allow my anger to work it's way and pass through me -- and I will "sin no more", so-to-speak.
And since I have given up on any hope of making peace with xW, I feel a burden is lifted from me. It is not my responsibility, not anymore. Just like my M, I gave it my best shot. The WAS only wants to maintain hostilities, so as to justify her treacherous and selfish behaviors, whatever the real costs. If she hurts my S's that will be entirely on her head -- I have done all I can to either prevent or attenuate her actions on behalf of myself and our S's. I can see now I have been taking on more than was in my power to affect.
I guess I am finally figuring out that the Serenity Prayer also applies here as well. If one tries to make peace and still your enemy insists on conflict, then you're no longer under any obligations to keep beating that dead horse, even if you know it would be best for everyone concerned, including your children. It takes two to tango, as they say.
I'm not sure why I am being so dense that it takes this long for it to sink in. My best guess is that I have allowed my emotions to get the better of me.
In any event, I had a great time with my S's this weekend. Beautiful weather! Perfect for bike riding.
A camping weekend! Cool! I love to camp. But those weekends take it out of me! I'm sure your son is going to be somewhat worn out (even if it's one night) and thus may not enjoy the amusement park as much as he may! I would have planned the amusement park for another time.
But your main point is letting go of the useless emotions. I know that is hard. I see it with my sister, who had a horrible D. Her X is still "out to get" her. I think I've told her a million times to let it go... He's not worth it.
You can't control your X -- only yourself. Sounds a bit like the Serenity Prayer!
I guess I am finally figuring out that the Serenity Prayer also applies here as well. If one tries to make peace and still your enemy insists on conflict, then you're no longer under any obligations to keep beating that dead horse, even if you know it would be best for everyone concerned, including your children. It takes two to tango, as they say.
Me, too. I struggled for a long time, and just recently am I giving up, deleting the nasty emails, and going totally nc. You can't co-parent with some people; it's just a reality. I'm not angry over that, more accepting than anything really. It sounds like you're working towards that also. Time for 180s.
NC thanks for stopping by and offering a much needed hug. The boys even did a group huddle with me last night. I even timidly asked if they thought I was a good Mom. S14 with a twinkle in his eye said no, I think you are great.
kat
Me-53(and learning!) S24, S21, D18, D17 Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming. Dory
Kat, you ARE a good mom. Don't let anyone rob that from you, and I know it's easier said than done given how bad this can make you feel, but don't sell your own self short either.
...
I wanted to mention this latest incident as it has me a bit disgusted. It is my week with my S's this week, and as usual I dropped them off to be loaded on the bus/carpooled to their schools. xW was there at xMIL's (xMIl is their would-be after-school care provider [not my decision].)
I found out later in the day when I was at work that xW called in sick to her work -- and then proceeded to do something I find very unethical (albeit par for her course). She took our S's from the xMIL's that afternoon -- and then she and OM took my S's fishing. So not only did she horn in again on my time with my S's during my week of custody, she inhibited S9 from doing any of his home work -- as a result he had all that more catching up to do to complete his assignments before bedtime. As a result, that robbed me of any extra time I would have had with my S's last evening for leisure time.
Mind you, if I had ever done such a thing, xW would be screaming and hiring a team of underworld hitmen to take me out. I recall one time in particular when I had a Friday off during one of her weeks of custody and had asked her about spending the day with S5 since he too had no school (she was going to drop him off at her mother's place while xW went to work herself.) xW had angrily declined my offer saying that I was trying to get extra time in on our S's during her custody.
I at least asked first and then honored her wishes. She obviously can't be bothered.
I have said absolutley nothing about this. Nor have I responded to her various emails about her wanting to change up the childcare arrangements again. (Actually, yet again she wants to unilaterally dictate the terms for how childcare is to be paid for and calculated, without clearance from our L's first, let alone myself.)
I am amazingly calm about all this. She's proven to bear so much animosity and contempt for me, and she disrespects me at any opportunity she can. But I am taking my time now and am refusing to respond to her before I am ready to. She will most certainly take my carefully measured response as her opportunity to call me unresponsive or too slow to act, but whether fast or slow, she acts without regard to common sense anyway. I'm starting to not give a d*mn what she thinks or says to anyone else.
So I can see this is how we got into the situation where I would be "uncommunicative" with her during our M, as she likes to complain -- only difference now is that I am consciously embracing it. Passive-Aggressive? So What?
I wanted to elaborate on the item I broached in my last post.
xW is now proposing that instead of me paying her CS, we should just split all of the childcare costs down the middle. She would even go so far as each of us taking one of the two boys (me S9 and she S5) and covering just their expenses, separately. She would take out dependent care coverage on one dependent the next time her enrollment opens with her employer.
The funny thing is two years ago I offered this as a solution (well, maybe not divvying it up by each child, per se) during our (so-called) "voluntary" mediation at that time. xW first shot it down and the (biased) mediator supported that objection. I threw this suggestion out again back when our lawyers were trying to hammer out an agreement almost a year later (it gained even less traction.) Now, all of a sudden -- most likely having something to do with the fact that S5 will be entering public school this Fall -- xW is singing a new tune. It can only mean she is rejiggering the deal yet again only because it somehow now offers her some advantage.
The gist of it would mean that I would be making payments for daycare and/or after-school care during my weeks and she would cover her own weeks. Seems reasonable.
However, the problem I see with her changing this up now is manyfold. First, her original reasons against still stand. By paying for both children together and their weeks together, we each save money. For track-out care at the YMCA, it requires at least one of us to maintain a membership -- xW's rationale back then was to question why should it be necessary to force both parents to maintain a monthly Y membership and the associated costs. With splitting it up, I would be required to take on a Y membership myself. Furthermore, since the various weeks would thus have to be paid ad hoc instead of as a quarterly disbursement we would lose the weekly discount for paying in bulk. The cost savings to both of us were her original rationalizations against splitting these tabs in the first place.
It is apparent she now wants to make sure I am further hurt financially, however much or however little that might end up being, regardless if she hurts herself in the process. She just wants to be petty.
Likewise she is intimating that I have all along been failing to pay my fair share anyway -- saying what I pay hardly counts to offset what she has been paying to providers. And she further suggests that my having to pay these childcare expenses will force me to face my lack of contribution, as she sees it, to my S's upkeep.
I don't think she has an earthly clue to what she's saying. I've run the numbers and I've tried to explain to her that a significant part of my child support -- to which she doesn't quite appreciate -- is not represented in the monthly check I write her but by the premiums for medical and dental coverage I provide for both of our S's. She still gets a net paycheck each month that is far more than her due, as I have as many expenses raising our S's during my weeks as she does during hers.
Also, should she take one of the boys under her for dependent benefits coverage, she will be paying more for that first dependent of hers than I have been paying for a second dependent up to that point.
Added all up I can see she's being exceedingly less thrifty with money than she usually is. But I guess if she thinks she can get me to waste more than herself, she'll accept that loss.
Another thing she hasn't considered -- which you can be sure I am, a very hard look-see -- is that if she wants to place the onus on me for paying these childcare expenses directly instead of putting that into her hands as she had been insisting, since forever, I will take her anti and raise her double. She is efectively, raising the bar to me taking full reigns of my daycare provisions for my S's. I fully intend to and am in the very process of shopping for my daycare providers during my own weeks entirely. xW don't know it yet, but she's now opened the whole can of worms about daycare in general -- not just the question of what mechanism we employ -- and thus the floodgates will be open: I can now provision my own daycare for my S's during my weeks, and give now heed to what plans xW has always been wanting to foist on all of us. I can carve my own path and thumb my nose at xW and her megalomania. I can tell her evil mother, the treacherous xMIL, to take a hike -- I DO NOT have to pay xMIL half of what she's getting now, as xW is trying to assume.
See, my ex has for a long time taken advantage of my willingness to compromise and succumb to her plans. I bent over backwards for her and went the extra mile, out of some elusive hope (at first) that perhaps our M could have been saved and (later) that we could have reached some form of cordiality and peace between us, as co-parents. This has been her means of leverage against me.
But now, I am embracing the fact that she has most certainly and willingly made herself to be my enemy ... and as such I owe her nothing, absolutely nothing ... and I no longer have to play her games anymore. I am free now -- I no longer feel the need to relinquish whatever control she demands to smooth the road between us. No longer need I walk on egg shells.
I am giddy now just thinking that she is finally cutting the ties that have held me down so long. I'm not relishing the added expenses this will require of me, naturally, but the prospect of freeing myself from her control (and the nasty xMIL's oversight), even in just this one key area, leads me to think she doesn't know what she is proposing.
The one rub to all this is that this new proposed arrangement is not exactly in line with the wording of our consent order. I hate it, but I'm probably going to have to contact the L again to get a verdict.
good luck NC! sometimes we have to pay up a bit for some freedom..like when i refinanced the house reluctantly but now I thank heavens the home is allll mine and there are no ties to bankrupt ex... priceless!!
Be not afraid...I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten Joel2
30something 2kids survivor of S, MLC, A, D I have peace in my heart, at last.
