Bustorama- Thread #2

[bustorama]

Looks like I stole a bit of john's drama. Got the cops in the action....

Sunday AM, D5 woke me up walking into bedroom and said she was sad that she had 2 houses. That mommy needed to pack up the toys from the apartment and bring them home. That she only wanted 1 house. That she wanted to spend the holidays together. That she didn't appreciate mom starting a second house. I was sort of floored that she said all this and told her I was glad she told me how she felt. I told her I was sorry that things were they way they were, but that's how things were right now. I told her that mommy and I both loved her very much and she would always be loved by each of us where ever we were and where ever she was. I asked her to come into bed and cuddle with me so I could scratch her back, and we cuddled about 30 min which is a record for her (she is a super active kid).

Fast forward to Sunday lunch (with Ds, and W has joined us). D5 all of a sudden repeats what she said to me this AM to W. I am sort of stunned she said this to W. W looks at me and I shrug not knowing what to say. W starts tearing up and getting all sad. I pass her some napkins to dab her eyes and say I'm sorry she is hurting. She blames me that she looks like the bad guy and I look like the good guy. I tell her I am sorry she feels that way. I don't see good guys or bad guys. She is SUPER sad, and I drop her off at her apartment after lunch.

Fast forward to ~10 pm Sunday night. My doorbell starts ringing like crazy, banging on my door, someone trying to open my front door and then my garage side door. I go downstairs and yell WHO IS THAT. Turns out it's the police. They received a call from someone out of state concerned about the welfare of my W based on a facebook post. Ask if I have the kids with me. I say yeah they are asleep here. I tell them W and I are estranged and tell them where she is living, her phone #'s. I speculate to them it had to do with what D5 said to W. They ask me not to contact her and wait 30 min for them to investigate, and I ask them to call me ASAP when they know what's up.

LONG ass 30 minutes waiting when police call and say W is fine. She was prepping for work and it had been "much ado" about nothing. A dramatic post to FB that someone had "overreacted" to. I debate calling W and decide not to for several reasons (I know she is safe from the cops, I know I am partly the reason for her anger/grief, I know if she wanted to talk to me, she could call me). I decide my calling her would be to satisfy ME and be about MY feelings and not her feelings.

About 1 am, my W calls me sounding distraught. Says she can't believe I didn't call her, was I heartless. I tell her I am sorry she is feeling the way she is and was feeling that I didn't care. I tell her the police had called to reassure me she was safe and that I had decided to give her space, that if she wanted to talk to me she would reach out to me. After a brief hang up and callback (for intervening call from her BFF), we talk and W starts talking about how she wants to come back but is so scared. I tell her I understand she is scared shitless, can she tell me what scares her and how can I help her feel safer. She talks about some of her fears of the way our R used to be (things unrelated to EA). I validate tons, acknowledge past mistakes, explain some of the reasons I had behaved that way having to do with the way we interacted, and some of the things I had learned in therapy. W listens. W apologizes for not being better W (I think first time she has done that in our sitch?). W says she is trusting me more and more, but still wants to keep working on trust and self-esteem in IC. We talked about LOTS of stuff and I believe it was a productive R talk. I told her I should let her go because she had some work she needed to do for this AM.

She tried calling me this AM, and I let it go to voicemail (gotta keep DBing....). She then texted me about our D2 and how cute she was at lunch. Then said how tired she was and asked me a Q. I responded and validated, and we exchanged a few texts.