Dazed and confused...

[dbmod]

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[Queen_of_Swords]

Dear lstincali22,

We have all been where are you are now. I was there last month, so I called up my coach.
Do you know what he said?
He said: "You need to figure out what fills you up. What things can you do for yourself that fill that gas tank?
Happiness is a reproducable experience. You need to pay attention to what precipitated the happy and contended feelings you have so you have a way to fill your empty tank."
He advised me to keep a journal to track and note when I am feeling good and strong and what happened before it.

I hope the suggestion he made to me is also one useful to you.

[lstincali22]

Dear lstincali22,

We have all been where are you are now. I was there last month, so I called up my coach.
Do you know what he said?
He said: "You need to figure out what fills you up. What things can you do for yourself that fill that gas tank?
Happiness is a reproducable experience. You need to pay attention to what precipitated the happy and contended feelings you have so you have a way to fill your empty tank."
He advised me to keep a journal to track and note when I am feeling good and strong and what happened before it.

I hope the suggestion he made to me is also one useful to you.

Very useful advice Scylla thank you. It gets difficult at times to stay motivated, I'm usually the one having to do the motivating for all the employees that work for me and it often gets draining. I'm going to take your advice and run with it. Thanks a bunch!
Now I'm off to catch a ball game with S9 and BIL, My son has been looking forward to this for a month. It should be fun!

[lstincali22]

Looks like my best bet is to continue to post, mostly journaling, it helps me get my thoughts in order or released so they can’t cause any damage or at least minimize it.

Baseball game with S9 was fun, he took one of his friends and they both had a great time. I need to continue to do things with them individually so they continue to feel that I am there for both of them no matter what the situation.

Although I have been knee deep in this roller coaster ride for over year now, and it’s not getting any easier.

It is such a difficult living situation, being physically close to the women I love, adore and want to be able to hold close to me and yet we are miles apart from each other. The worst part for me to accept is that it seems to be just the way she wants it.
I am trying my best to detach, but having her here under my nose makes it all the more difficult.
I would so like to just get to the “the from this day forward” but I have to be patient, she needs to decide what she wants and I need to give her time.

I need to continue working on me and keeping a great relationship with my boys.

My SS14 really has a lot of resentment toward W, I have decided that I cannot be the referee or get caught up in the middle of their relationship. She needs to work on having a better relationship with her S, with the way things seem be going around here I may not always be there to be the ref. so they need to figure out how to get along.

My SS14 knows what is going on and in more than one occasion he has asked if it would be possible for him to live with me if W and I split up. All I tell him is that we will have to work those things out if we get there and that he has no need to worry about those things. I tell him that he just needs to focus on his school work and the things he love, sports.

I worry because according to my research I have absolutely no legal rights to him as a step parent even though I have been “dad” since he was 3 years old. It would devastate both of us if we were not able to be in each other’s lives. I would hope that my W would never let things get to that point, but you never know.

[lstincali22]

I have to say that today has been a pretty good day. Spent the day relaxing at home it was a little odd because my W was here all day as well and it gets a little uncomfortable at time.

The low point of the day is when I got home from church my W was in the bedroom cleaning out her side of the closet, she hasn't gone to church with us for some time now and today she said she was going to the 11:30 am service.
Well, when I got home I told her that our pastor had a great sermon and that I highly recommend it she flew off the handle a bit telling me that I was so good at giving advice and that I should just keep it to myself, I said ok and I walked away.

I wasn't trying to give any type of advice just some small talk about the sermon I thought she was going to hear 20 minute later turns out she decided not to go.

Later in the day, I took the time to try and talk to her and she was open to it. I told her that this is a pretty uncomfortable situation that we are in; I said I would like to do what I could to make it a bit more comfortable for her. She told me she would appreciate it if I stopped telling her what to do, she say it really feels as if I’m judging her when I do.

I was a bit taken aside because I don't believe that I'm even coming close to telling her what to do, I asked for an example of what she meant and she brought up the Church conversation from earlier, she said she felt as if I was telling her that she needed to go to church. Man, I wish it was easier to understand what my W hears. I by no means was even thinking about telling her to go, I thought she was already going!
I told her that I understood and I will be much more conscience of how I communicated to her.

She then actually asked me what she could do to make it more comfortable for me; I let her know that I had no request at this time. She said," are you sure you don't want me to stop being a bi!!ch? That really caught me off guard. I told her that if she felt that that was how she was treating me than it may be a good idea to stop and let the conversation end there.

SS14 was away at a church retreat and when we picked him up S9,W and I sat there listening to the stories he had from the trip, Later in the day he had baseball practice and W decided to go along with us, I spent the time playing with S9 and she joined in a couple of times, so that was good. It's amazing that when people who have known us for years see us all together they find it so difficult to believe that we are having issues. I guess do a good job at hiding our issues.

Other than the one incident, it's been a pretty good day, I hope it's the start of a good week.

[lstincali22]

Had an interesting conversation with the W last night before bed, we started talking about our IC sessions and she mentioned that she doesn’t think that I have any major issues that I have to deal with . W thinks that the major problem I have in my life is her and that if she were out of my life I would be in a better place.
I’m not sure if she is just saying that to justify her decision but it seemed genuine. I know I’m not supposed to believe much of what she says and I should take it with a grain of salt.
I told her that she is by no means an “issue” for me to deal with, I told her that I do have some issues with allowing people in “too close” I have always seen myself as the black sheep of the family in a sense. I spent plenty of time and energy keeping my distance from most of my immediate family, I never really put much thought into why but going through IC has opened my eyes to some of the fears I’ve been living with, or better put ignoring.
I told her that I do understand that she has some stuff to work through and by no means do I see her as my problem to fix. I told her that I am focusing on taking care of the things that I I need to work on; I also told her that I have seen progress in her when it comes to her interactions with the kids.

I’m trying not to read too much into this, but, it’s difficult. I know that a lot of the comments I made and the actions I took while I was so devastated about the A have helped lead her to this conclusion. I just hope and pray that the actions that I am taking now will show her that that is not the case, I truly see her as a blessing in my life not a problem, my immature, emotional outburst did so much damage. I hope and pray that it could eventually be repaired.

[lstincali22]

I have to say that today is just one of those days; I am feeling quite broken down to say the least.

I am not sure how to get through these feelings sometimes. As much as I try to keep my head up and stay positive; it is very difficult at times. I have so much trouble comprehending how someone who showed me so much love and affection just over a year and a half ago can now be so cold and distant now. It’s surreal!

How did I allow things to get to this point? I know that I am not 100% responsible for where we our relationship is today, but I still feel like I could have prevented so much of this.

It is so difficult to detach when part of my introspect allowed me to truly see how much love, affection and devotion I have for my W. The fact that I can visualize such a bright future us does not make this any easier.

I know that I need to focus on the bright future I see for myself and my boys, but sometimes I tend to regress. You would think that after a year I would be past this…

Sometimes I guess I’m not as strong as I think I am.

[lstincali22]

Feelin' alot better today! I need to remember that no matter what I need to take it one day at a time.

I had a long day at work today and didn't feel up to cooking I asked S9 if he wanted to go out for pizza and he thought it was a good idea.S14 was at friends house so we thought we were on our own.
W showed up right before we left and she decided to join us.

Dinner was nice, a lot of small talk about the kids and work nothing serious, which was nice. While we were there S14's HS baseball coach showed up with his family and they came over to say hello. The coaches wife made a ninteresting comment about how much her younger daughter likes us and how great a family they think we are. If they only knew..
Great dinner overall, and pretty good day. I could use a few more of these.

[lstincali22]

I guess I screwed up; I don’t guess I know I did. Yesterday I decided to go to spend the day with SS14. I took him to pick up some baseball gear that he needed got lunch with him and overall we had a great time together. As we were out and about I received a text from W about the 4th asking if I could cook certain food that one of our friends requested, I said sure , she responded with how much they loved what I was going to make and thanked me. So here is a little background before I get into what actually happened

I have been feeling used lately, and these feelings have been lingering and creeping up every so often. I can’t understand how W can say she doesn’t want a relationship with me but yet say she needs to stay here because she has nowhere convenient to go where she can still spend time with the kids. She needed new glasses and contacts and I have FSA that covers that medical stuff for our family that she used to pay for everything,
any how I feel like she just using me for financial stability at this point and it really feels as if she has no respect for me as a person.

Back to the story, I ended up taking my SS14 to his ball game after picking up S9 from day camp. Everything went well then W showed up w one of her GF and didn’t come over to say hi to S9 or I, she just sat next to her friend and chatted for the entire game. W came over to us and I asked what are you doing here? She responded with F had to get her daughter. I left it at that. As the game ended I asked if there were any plans for dinner, W said no but I am hungry. I suggested we hit a local place to eat and she agreed.

Fast forwarding to dinner it was quite uncomfortable sitting there, SS14 had a bad game so he wasn’t very talkative and W just doesn’t talk to me that is.

W finally brought up the subject of her watching our 2 month old nephew over this weekend. I was a upset about it and asked why she didn’t bother having a conversation with us about this, I have no problem with her watching him but it would be nice if she would at least talk to us about it as a family. A 2 month old can have an effect on all of us.

That’s all it took, It was taken by her as me having to control everything, she said, that she knows it’s my place and that now she realizes that she has to make sure she runs everything by me to make sure she has my permission. That was by no means what I was trying to get across I wanted her to just talk to us about a decision that may affect us all.
Needless to say dinner ended badly we both drove home and it continued when we got home.

I was angry at this point, I couldn’t believe I was going down this road but I continued. We went back and forth for a while arguing we finally calmed down and just talked and that’s when she told me that she feels Abandoned and doesn’t believe that I love her. She thinks that I am trying to work things out just for the sake of the kids not for us.
She said that any time I get upset that it validates exactly how she feels and that I prove to her that I don’t love her, she said that she feels like she is sitting in muck and that all I do is push right back into it.

I told her that I completely understood how she felt and that by no means did I want her to feel that I way. I told her that I feel that I am sitting in that muck as well and that it would be great if we could help each other out of it. She said that she doesn’t see any type of future for us and that it would be better if we went our separate ways. I then asked, “Do believe you will be better, off without me?
She said that she didn’t know that she would be better off without me but she knows she will be better off without the muck and she doesn’t see us being able to get out of it together. She told me that she doesn’t even feel that she wants to get closer to me.

I can’t believe that I allowed this conversation to occur. All I do is seem to validate why she needs to go. She feels like she should get her own place at this point. It ended with me asking her not to make any irrational decisions in this state of mind, I told her that I wouldn’t talk to her for the next 30 days about anything but the boys, to give her a break from me. Boy did I screw up. Where do I go from here?

[lstincali22]

I could really use some advice if anyone has any.