Thank you all for the encouragment. It was great to come home and find this waiting for me. I needed it.

That said, I kicked @$$! I followed my plan to the letter. I even navigated some extra road bumps from my MIL before H showed up.

MIL is a bit of a narcasist and seems to be spinning her own romantic fantasies about H's affair, but that is an issue for annother post. Anyway, even though MIL knows older cousins have not been told about the situation, MIL kept asking my D questions like, "did you tell you mommy how many corn dogs you ate yesterday?" refering to my not being with D that day, and "Did (H) give you your b-day card yet?" right in front of them. Thought SIL was going to hit her at one point. FIL looked embarrassed. That was not how SIL wanted to talk to her kids about this, and not on a kid holiday either. SIL and FIL have been most helpful of my in-laws through this.

When H finally called to say he was on the way he commented that he was surprised that I had gone over early. I just said that "I wanted D to have some time to settle in and play with her cousins. Besides, your parents brought pizza for everyone." Ha ha ha! I have become mysterious!

When H got there, he gave D a great big hug, responded “hi” to my hello, and walked right on by me.

H did this 3 times.

It was the first time family had seen us together in months.

Everyone saw it. (except the kids)

I didn’t flinch.

I acted “as if” and I DBed on.

We started on down the street for trick-r-treating. I focused on having fun with the kids. 15 minutes later, H starts to loosen up and starts standing near me again.

SIL stumbled while introducing us to some neighbors. Said “this is my brother, and this is his…” Ended up just introducing me by name. Awkward moment, but I knew she just didn’t know what to say. I kept DBing. I went up next to her after a bit and told her I would still be her sister-in-law. SIL and I laughed and she said she just hadn’t known what to say. She was going to say “wife” but hadn’t known what to do. I told her not to worry, its ok. H was near enough to hear this and to hear us laugh.

Later I was telling someone about D’s first Halloween and how her daddy had decked the house out so good and dressed up so scary that no one would come to our door. I purposefully didn’t indicate H was involved in this story, but H jumped in to help me tell it. By the end of the night, H was relaxed and chatting back and forth with me.

It took everything I had, but I did it. I am a superhero.