I stayed home with both my kids on Tuesday. We hung out and played all day. When it came close to the time my W was coming home to swap the kids my daughter started telling me she wanted to stay with me. She said, "I don't want to be with mommy. I want to stay with you daddy." I laughed and said, "You say that about me when you are with mommy. Once mommy comes and you play you'll have so much fun." She said, "Yeah, but if I'm not with you then I can't be thrown up in the air like you do."
In a way it made me happy because for the past few weeks she always asks to be with my W. Now she starting to do it the other way. I take it all with a grain of salt because she's only 4.
My S also told me the other day he wants to be with me. He also was telling me he wanted to stay with his mom and visit me over the past few weeks and now he's saying something different.
Kids flip flop like that, but the thing that concerns me is they shouldn't even have to be having these thoughts and feelings. It's part of the collateral damage that happens when there's a D.
So when I left Tue after she got there my D was clinging to me and wouldn't let go. She was crying and saying, "I want daddy." I left and went to work to make up some of my hours.
Yesterday (Wed) after work I stopped by the house to pick up my S. We split the kids every Wed - I get our S and she gets our D. When I got there my daughter wanted to play a little bit. She showed me the things she was building with legos and she wanted to finish the one she was building so she could show me.
When it was time for us to go I told me D, "Give me a big hug and a kiss." I get on my knees and she takes a running start and jumps into my arms and I roll back onto my back as if she knocked me down. She loves doing this. We did it a few times because she kept asking.
I got up to leave with my S and my D was clinging to me crying. She wouldn't let go. I had to pry her hands of my shirt and hand her to my W. She kept saying, "I want daddy.'
In the middle of this my W said something, and I didn't hear it. So I asked her what she said. She said, "We'll talk about it later. I just want to do something about this (indicating my daughter crying and clinging to me). She said, "I think if we just come in and grab stuff and leave right away this wont' happen." I said, "It happens then anyway. All the times we do that she does this. I think she just needs to get used to it."
This is the stuff my W doesn't want to deal with. I keep thinking to myself, WTF, didn't you know this was going to happen? Or is this part of the cr@p you conveniently leave out of your 'fantasy' world?
My S and I had fun last night. He just wanted to play a Star Wars game on the Xbox with me so we did that for quite some time. When I was putting him to bed he asked, "Are we going to be with you or mom on Christmas?" I told him, "Well you'll be with one of us on Christmas Eve and the other on Christmas Day." He said, "I just wanted to know where I needed to put my stocking. I want to be with mom Christmas Eve and you on Christmas Day. Why can't we all be together for Christmas?" I just told him I would talk to his mom about it all.
I dropped my S off this morning and went in and asked my W if she wanted me to make cereal for him. She said "No, I want to make this quick so D doesn't get upset."
As I was putting my S stuff down she told the kids, "We're going out today. I need to pick up a GPS." I said, "We already have one." She told me she couldn't find it and hasn't seen it since I went to Colorado with the kids. We walk into the dining room and there it is on top of the table with all the other junk piled up there.
Of course my mind goes to - she must be going on a trip. I wonder if she's going down to Washington DC to go visit her 'friend' K (the guy she went to HS with and has been in love with her the whole time - she's been spending a lot of time with him lately). Probably needs a GPS for that.
My stomach did a little flip and I thought about asking, "You going on a trip?" Of course I was a bit curious to KNOW, because after all, we love to know everything so we can somehow...what? control it...lol
I over-road my impulse to say anything and just left. When I got in the car I did my mantra - Ok, it may be that or it may not. It doesn't matter. Let her live her life and don't get mentally into it. It has nothing to do with you and it's her path to walk. I know it sticks you in the gut a little bit but it's ok. It's normal. If she's got a 'thing' with him it's what she needs to be doing. I wonder if there is a way to have the GPS keep a memory of where it's been? Oh that's stupid. Why would you want to do that? So I can know! What's the difference whether you know or not? Blah, blah, blah.
I keep pulling my mind away from her and back onto me and my life. It's a constant watching it drift to her, then I pull it back on me.
It only gets triggered now with events like this. The normal day to day stuff and I don't get tangled in the stinkin' thinkin'. But when something keys it off (like the GPS thing, or my kids telling me "Mommy's going to visit K for a few days by a lake) it starts to do it's stupid dance.
Don't get me wrong, it's not as pervasive or as persistent as it used to be but it's still a pain in the a$$.
Anyway, figured I'd put that 'internal workings of me' out there.
MySitch Me-47 STBXW-41 D-5 S-8 ILYBNILWY-01/08 Want a D- 01/09 Physical Sep-01/10 D filed-06/10 Got 50% custody=09/11 Ride that wave!
So I found this just now. Thought I'd post it here because it's relevant to what's on my mind right now. It's an excerpt from David Burns' Feeling Good Handbook. I have his book Feeling Good and read it a long time ago. It's based on Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) which is a great way to change your thinking and attitudes. If you're interested in CBT search out books by Dr. Albert Ellis. He's the pioneer and is excellent. He has some recordings which I have that are really good. Read Ellis' book "A Guide to Rational Living".
The Top 10 Types of “Stinkin’ Thinkin’” By David Burns
One of the most common types of skills learned in psychotherapy today focuses on our thinking. Unbeknownst to many of us, we often engage in internal conversations with ourselves throughout the day. Unless we’re trained to examine these conversations, however, many of us don’t even realize we’re having them! For instance, imagine looking in the mirror at yourself. What’s the first thing you think when you look at yourself? That thought is a part of our internal conversation.
Having these kinds of conversations with yourself is perfectly normal and in fact, everybody does it. Where we mess up in our lives is when we let these conversations take on a life of their own. If we answer ourselves in the above example with something like, “I’m fat and ugly and nobody loves me,” that’s an example of “stinkin’ thinkin’.” Our thoughts have taken on an unhealthy attitude, one that is working against us instead of for us. Psychologists would call these thoughts “irrational,” because they have little or no basis in reality. For instance, the reality is that most everyone is loved by someone (even if they’re no longer with us), and that a lot of our beauty springs from inside us — our personality.
It is exactly these kinds of thoughts that you can learn to identify as you go through your day. Often times it will be helpful to keep a little journal of the thoughts, writing down the day and time you had it, the thought itself, and the type of irrational thought — or stinkin’ thinkin’ — from the list below. As you learn to better identify them, you can then learn how to start answering them back with rational arguments. In this manner, you can work to turn your internal conversation back to being a positive in your life, instead of a running negative commentary.
1. All-or-nothing thinking – You see things in black-or-white categories. If a situation falls short of perfect, you see it as a total failure. When a young woman on a diet ate a spoonful of ice cream, she told herself, “I’ve blown my diet completely.” This thought upset her so much that she gobbled down an entire quart of ice cream.
2. Overgeneralization – You see a single negative event, such as a romantic rejection or a career reversal, as a never-ending pattern of defeat by using words such as “always” or “never” when you think about it. A depressed salesman became terribly upset when he noticed bird dung on the window of his car. He told himself, “Just my luck! Birds are always crapping on my car!”
3. Mental Filter – You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your vision of reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors a beaker of water. Example: You receive many positive comments about your presentation to a group of associates at work, but one of them says something mildly critical. You obsess about his reaction for days and ignore all the positive feedback.
4. Discounting the positive – You reject positive experiences by insisting that they “don’t count.” If you do a good job, you may tell yourself that it wasn’t good enough or that anyone could have done as well. Discounting the positives takes the joy out of life and makes you feel inadequate and unrewarded.
5. Jumping to conclusions – You interpret things negatively when there are no facts to support your conclusion.
Mind Reading : Without checking it out, you arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you.
Fortune-telling : You predict that things will turn out badly. Before a test you may tell yourself, “I’m really going to blow it. What if I flunk?” If you’re depressed you may tell yourself, “I’ll never get better.”
6. Magnification – You exaggerate the importance of your problems and shortcomings, or you minimize the importance of your desirable qualities. This is also called the “binocular trick.”
7. Emotional Reasoning – You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel terrified about going on airplanes. It must be very dangerous to fly.” Or, “I feel guilty. I must be a rotten person.” Or, “I feel angry. This proves that I’m being treated unfairly.” Or, “I feel so inferior. This means I’m a second rate person.” Or, “I feel hopeless. I must really be hopeless.”
8. “Should” statements – You tell yourself that things should be the way you hoped or expected them to be. After playing a difficult piece on the piano, a gifted pianist told herself, “I shouldn’t have made so many mistakes.” This made her feel so disgusted that she quit practicing for several days. “Musts,” “oughts” and “have tos” are similar offenders.
“Should statements” that are directed against yourself lead to guilt and frustration. Should statements that are directed against other people or the world in general, lead to anger and frustration: “He shouldn’t be so stubborn and argumentative!”
Many people try to motivate themselves with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if they were delinquents who had to be punished before they could be expected to do anything. “I shouldn’t eat that doughnut.” This usually doesn’t work because all these shoulds and musts make you feel rebellious and you get the urge to do just the opposite. Dr. Albert Ellis has called this ” must erbation.” I call it the “shouldy” approach to life.
9. Labeling – Labeling is an extreme form of all-or-nothing thinking. Instead of saying “I made a mistake,” you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” You might also label yourself “a fool” or “a failure” or “a jerk.” Labeling is quite irrational because you are not the same as what you do. Human beings exist, but “fools,” “losers” and “jerks” do not. These labels are just useless abstractions that lead to anger, anxiety, frustration and low self-esteem.
You may also label others. When someone does something that rubs you the wrong way, you may tell yourself: “He’s an S.O.B.” Then you feel that the problem is with that person’s “character” or “essence” instead of with their thinking or behavior. You see them as totally bad. This makes you feel hostile and hopeless about improving things and leaves very little room for constructive communication.
10. Personalization and Blame - Personalization comes when you hold yourself personally responsible for an event that isn’t entirely under your control. When a woman received a note that her child was having difficulty in school, she told herself, “This shows what a bad mother I am,” instead of trying to pinpoint the cause of the problem so that she could be helpful to her child. When another woman’s husband beat her, she told herself, “If only I was better in bed, he wouldn’t beat me.” Personalization leads to guilt, shame and feelings of inadequacy.
Some people do the opposite. They blame other people or their circumstances for their problems, and they overlook ways they might be contributing to the problem: “The reason my marriage is so lousy is because my spouse is totally unreasonable.” Blame usually doesn’t work very well because other people will resent being scapegoated and they will just toss the blame right back in your lap. It’s like the game of hot potato–no one wants to get stuck with it.
When I went home to swap with my W my D was very upset. Kept saying and crying she wanted to stay with her mom. She even told me she hates me, I laughed and told her that's ok. She was fine after about 10 minutes or so.
Very well-handled, Steady. You'd be suprised at how many people give in to this, and then the kids ends up with no structure, wandering back and forth between the two marital homes like gypsies, with no set schedules. You used humor to diffuse the situation, and were strong and leading, and that's the kind of structure and love that your kids need from you thru this.
Well done.
Puppy
Thanks Puppy. I know kids say all kinds of things depending on what crosses their minds. This is part of the collateral damage that needs to be handled in a D with kids involved.
When I brought this up to my W a year and a half ago - talking about the repercussions our kids will feel - she did the standard script - 'kids are resilient'.
I didn't say this, but yeah, they're resilient. They bound back. But they still have inside them all the emotional and mental cr@p they have to deal with. They're 4 and 7 and they're having to go through emotions and thinking they wouldn't normally have to go through in a 'normal' family life.
In my last few posts I talk about the phase they're in now - where it is starting to affect them in a way they need to verbalize their stuff about having parents who don't live together with them together. They both have been making comments about it so it's starting to do it's damage.
When my kids tell my W they want to be with her and visit me she tells them, "Well, I'm working on that." When they tell me they want to be with me I tell them, "Well mommy and daddy have to share you guys. It wouldn't be fair if I got you guys most of the time and mom only got you for just a little bit of time. Besides, you always have fun with mommy."
She's encouraging them wanting to be 'away' from me while I am encouraging them to be with both of us. Just tells you where her head is at.
MySitch Me-47 STBXW-41 D-5 S-8 ILYBNILWY-01/08 Want a D- 01/09 Physical Sep-01/10 D filed-06/10 Got 50% custody=09/11 Ride that wave!
Steady, getting caught up here. You sound like me in some ways: I do great with the big picture stuff but I always question the little interactions/niceties of what I should be doing on a day to day basis. On one hand, it's nice when things are pleasant. On the other hand, you don't want to be too friendly and make the WS comfortable with their bad behavior. While knowing you're to be living life for yourself and kids, you always want to behave in ways to draw WS back. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here on a DBing forum! LOL
My sitch is different in that H and I are not separated, but it's still hard to discern at times what to do.
The chicken sounded fine to me!
I'm right there with you Sunny. Some days I don't want to 'draw her back in' and other days I feel like I do. It's a tug of war sometimes. I question my motives when each one of them comes up.
Do I want a woman who can't look at herself and take responsibility for her part in all of this? A woman who only blames me? Someone who can lie and fabricate things in court papers? Someone who came after me twice trying to get an Order of Protection to take me away from my kids and my home?
But I also remember a time when we were close and in love. A time when we had a lot of fun, enjoyed each others company, actually showed our insides to each other. That time isn't now and is just a memory. That becomes the conundrum. The way the WS is now and the way they were and the vision of the way the things could be. The irony of it is we get into a position where we have the opportunity to actually build a healthy relationship which could surpass anything we ever dreamed of. But again, both people have to show up to the field.
I had my Psychiatrist tell me the other day - "I know you did everything you could possibly do to save your marriage and keep your family together. You should know that too. You're a great example of someone who takes responsibility and goes out and makes the changes that need to be made." I know this is true.
She would have to jump through so many hoops to win me back I just could never see it happening.
In the meantime I keep pushing forward, improving myself, my life and my ability to parent my kids.
MySitch Me-47 STBXW-41 D-5 S-8 ILYBNILWY-01/08 Want a D- 01/09 Physical Sep-01/10 D filed-06/10 Got 50% custody=09/11 Ride that wave!
I am enjoying reading your posts today, Steady. Lots to think about and lots to admire. You seem to have conquered acting on that gut feeling and recognizing when it is occurring.
Just wondering if you ever considered swapping the Wednesday nights to alternate so every other Wed. you have just your daughter and W has your son? Does your D get any one on one time with her daddy? I'm 32 and still call my dad to talk about my own life a few times a week so I do think a father/daughter bond is very important.
Me 32 H 32 Ds 3.5 and 1.5 M 5 years, T 14 years EA/Bomb: 7/1/10 PA revealed: 9/14/10 Legally separated: 10/01/10
CD these posts are coming up because I'm looping through it all again. For quite time I've been traveling along without those thoughts and feeling popping so far up into my consciousness.
I just got the court transcript yesterday of what was said when my W went to court in June to try and secure the Protection Order.(just her and the judge) Of course there were lies, fabrications and manipulations in there. She's telling the judge I'm not 'stable'...lol. But that kicks off all the stuff she's said and done in the past 2 1/2 years. So the loop starts up again and I have to work my way out of it.
They don't come as often, they don't last as long, and they don't wield the same intensity they used to.
It gets easier as time passes and I get stronger and the sitch gets weaker.
If you look closely, those posts are me working my way out of the loop, but also putting it out there for others who are in the same position.
I could have just as easily wrote every one of those posts to myself. But what fun would it be if you didn't get to play the ATC once in a while...sitting alone in that plane gets very lonely.
MySitch Me-47 STBXW-41 D-5 S-8 ILYBNILWY-01/08 Want a D- 01/09 Physical Sep-01/10 D filed-06/10 Got 50% custody=09/11 Ride that wave!
Just wondering if you ever considered swapping the Wednesday nights to alternate so every other Wed. you have just your daughter and W has your son? Does your D get any one on one time with her daddy? I'm 32 and still call my dad to talk about my own life a few times a week so I do think a father/daughter bond is very important.
We've tried that a few times but each time they protest. I know one on one time with each of them is very important for their growth with my W and I. They are still getting used to this change - I'll address it again in the future.
Once again, the damage gets done by a family that splits apart. I don't care what anyone says about the resiliency of kids. For every study with one conclusion, you'll find another study with the opposite.
- Two kids one parent at a time. They lose the one on one which is very important for their growth - Two kids doing homework/projects after school; one parent to help both of them while cooking, cleaning up, making lunches, prepping for the next day and finishing the responsibilities of this day - Two kids one parent. One kid wants to do this, but the other one wants to do that.
I dare anyone to face me and tell me they don't lose out on things that can't be made up with 'resiliency'.
MySitch Me-47 STBXW-41 D-5 S-8 ILYBNILWY-01/08 Want a D- 01/09 Physical Sep-01/10 D filed-06/10 Got 50% custody=09/11 Ride that wave!
