New to this community seeking advice 2

[JR09]

Today was a milestone for me.

In my religious tradition, fathers can baptize their sons when the son turns 8. My W insisited on me performing the baptism. Which I did in her hometown, her chapel. Today, I saw her dad and mom again in over 2 years. Her brother was there as well. In any case, this is the first time I saw the In-Laws again since my W left me. They were very offstandish, which is what I expected. I guess they were just very protective of their daughter.

I did the baptism and recognized several church people I knew. I was very friendly to all, shook hands all around, even shook MIL's hand to her great surprise. And my W's brother in law even came over to me to shake my hand as I was saying my goodbies to the boys. It really sounds insignificant but my BIL and I never really got along. So for him to fo out of his way to say Hi really surprised me.

Well, Overall, the baptism went really well. This lady came up and asked if she could take a family picture of my W, our Boys and I. To my surprise, my W had no problem with it and asked me to join along. I was the one feeling awkward. I wasn't sure anymore what to do, what was the right thing, wrong thing, etc.

In any case, today was a milestone, with all of my W's family watching me closely. The Boys sat by me which was very comforting. Our goodbyes were still tough, but this time, I hope to see them in a week, or a couple of weeks. Definitely in less than month. Which is much much better than 3-4 months at a time when I lived in CO.

I'm OK now.

Joel