I intend to live forever - so far, so good

[ClingingToHope]

Uggghhhh. Last night was my night with the girls. I pick them up from after-school care. D8 is having a meltdown. I had to carry her outside, then I let her run off steam on the playground.

I'm happy with that.

The day before D12 and D8 had counseling sessions. STBXW didn't tell me until 30 minutes before I was supposed to leave and get them. She texted me to say she'd pick them up and take them.

I didn't think anything of it for a while ... then my brain started to wander. Why counseling now? Divorce still isn't done. Is she trying to build a case to change visitation?

While D8 was on playground cooling off, I asked D12 about the counseling session and she said STBXW told her to bring up several of D8's blowups at my house.

That kind of confirmed my thoughts that this might not be an innocent appointment for the girls' sake.

More shake-your-head moments. In the car ride on the way home, D8 brings up the fact she wants a little brother. D12 chimes in saying that STBXW told them she wanted to try for a third child, but we never talked about it.

More revisionist history.

We talked about going for a boy, but her mom had three girls and we were struggling with two so she point blank said she didn't want another. So I went and had a vasectomy. I only did that because she didn't want to have to take birth control for another 15 years and we weren't going to try for a third.

Tack it on to the list of things I thought I was doing for her that it turns out later she didn't want after all.

I actually had to pull the car over and rub my temples after hearing that one.

Today, though, I feel better about it. A third kid would have just made things worse between us and there'd be three kids struggling with being a part of divorce.

Anyway, I was just going to let the counseling thing go until I remembered our latest church/divorce session was on conflict resolution and just letting things go is like clogging a toilet. Eventually, it overflows.

So I sent an email telling her I was going to ask for a report from Dr. Ward and asking why they had the counseling sessions. I told her in the email that when I heard they were going I thought she might be trying to build a record to change the visitation schedule, and I didn't want those feelings to fester.

We'll see how that turns out. Burying conflict buried the marriage so I might as well try something different.