embracing change

[flowmom]

It's D's fourth birthday today and yesterday I asked H if he'd be willing to have a family picnic for lunch to celebrate it. H agreed. Other than bedtimes (where we basically split up the kids, no togetherness), it was the first plan for time together as a family since the separation (over 4 months).

It's been a very difficult day so far. I want D's birthday to be special, and peaceful of course. The day started off well with the children playing happily. The plan was for H to spend a few hours with the children in the morning, then have a family picnic, then I'd take the kids for the rest of the day.

Once H came here it became obvious that he was in a foul mood. He was clashing with S6 (who was feeling fragile due to being jealous of the D's birthday) and they were getting into conflicts. At some point H said to me angrily: "on days like this I HATE having a special needs child" (out of earshot of the children I hope). Then he told me "I'm going to take D out...I can't handle S6, I'm going to strangle him". I agreed, and later on H and S6 managed to calm down enough to manage a short family picnic. H has gone now...thank goodness.

I didn't intend for a temperature check, but boy did I get one. Apparently the prospect of having a short family picnic together put him in a totally foul mood (though I've noticed that his moods around the children have been backsliding in general). During the picnic H wasn't able to make a single "small talk" utterance to me. I acted calm, "normal" and celebratory. It was weird because I realized that he was the one with the discomfort. And I'm thinking "why???? haven't you gotten what you wanted, dude? Is spending one hour as a family in the span of four months THAT bad?". I didn't bully him into doing the picnic, it was his choice to come.

Today I realized that, right now at least, I've made more strides in detachment than H has. I think that someone who is detached would be able to participate in a short family event and be able to engage in brief pleasant conversation.

Anyway it was a good experiment. I think it WAS meaningful for D to have both of us there, but overall I think in other situations the down sides of arranging family time would probably outweigh the benefits for my children. H has a long way to go before there would be a net benefit.

I feel mild sympathy for H's apparent suffering, but I'm sure I'll get over that once I get the inevitable bomb of being confronted with the details of his love life one of these days. "V" is obviously on the horizon somehow, but it still feels theoretical to me.