The journey begins

[ClingingToHope]

Made it through the weekend unscathed. Lots of laying around time. Funny thing this morning. I got a text at 7:30 a.m. that D11 was just getting up. Her ear was hurting all night.

I texted back asking whether she wanted me to take her to school.

She said yes because she was meeting with D7's principal to find out why he hasn't talked to a girl that D7 is supposedly scared of.

I see D7 every day after school and she keeps talking about this girl but she never said she was scared. They just don't like each other. But, hey, STBXW loves to make mountains out of molehills and I just let it slide.

I go to pick up D11 and I find out what happened. The three of them were at the MIL's campground, which has a beach and a pool, but STBXW forgot earplugs for D11 and was too lazy to drive 20 minutes back into town to buy some.

So she let D11 swim without them for two days and now she has swimmer's ear. D11 has ear, nose and throat issues like I did as a kid. I never go swimming without ear plugs and I never let D11 swim without them either.

I had to laugh because if it were me that took her swimming without ear plugs and she developed ear troubles there would be hell to pay.

FIBs and Awest, I know I need to somehow forgive. I feel I've made tremendous strides in just about everything except forgiveness.

Here's the issue. I'm sure in STBXW's mind she's thinking I should be thankful because she's not fighting for every bit of child support and over time and access.

But in my mind I can't be thankful because this D makes no sense and it reduces me to a 45 percent father and she's going to get about $90,000 from me over the course of the next 10 years.

That's a real struggle for me.

FIBS, I'm glad you had a good weekend. I actually enjoy my weekends with the girls more now because I'm not constantly worrying about STBXW's mood and what she thinks we should be doing. She always complained I packed too much into the weekends for the girls. She wanted to just sit around and let them find their own fun.

There is a point to that -- but my feelings were the spend most of their time in school and weekends and summers are the time to get out and enjoy life. Pretty soon they aren't going to want to spend time with us.