Got an apology from XH. Need advice now.

[AntoniaB]

Wow, Beatrice. That's really crazy. Going straight for smalltalk. Nuts.

Ok so, an update. I have thought about this and feel that while I do want to try to handle interactions with him without flying off the handle and whatnot, that ignoring him when I see him doing something that to me breaks a boundary is something I should not ignore. If I keep ignoring when he does so--i.e. bringing up the trip with OW, bringing up a weekend that had meaning for me that I'm no longer part of, then I'm kind of allowing him to make me a doormat, even if he doesn't INTEND to do so.

So to that end, I sent a short and sweet reply.

I just said, "So, would you like me to return the knife you just put into my back?"

Because really, that's what it felt like. I didn't think it was over the top, and I figured, if he gets combative, well THEN I can walk away, but I should address this in some way.

So here was his reply. As I suspected, he's pretty clueless he did anything wrong, but he apologizes:

"If you mean the music fest then sorry. I was just trying to think of some news so the email wouldn't be strictly business. I guess my point was that it wasn't much fun because of it only being Friend A and Friend B.

I guess I didn't think you cared because you had stopped going years ago due to the other festival you went with your sisters.

Sorry."

I'm not sure what to think of this other than that hearing that he didn't think I "cared" about this festival because I had stopped going is a bit of revisionist history. It is true that I missed a few of the festivals in the past several years before the marriage ended because there was an event I went to instead with my sisters in another state. I never saw my sisters and I never thought the rest of that group cared when I "chose" my family over them. Maybe they did? Maybe he did? I don't know. I know I didn't miss it the year before he left me the first time, but I had missed it in 2009 because we were broken up. I actually went to a beach 30 miles from where he was alone the same weekend he was going because I wanted a trip away but he wasn't comfortable with me going with him that year.

All I know is that when he took OW instead of me in 2010, that I was devastated by the "meaning" of that, and I almost think that he and the rest of them had already sort of "divorced" me from that trip long before. Not like that excuses their behavior, because I did tell them all that it hurt me that they continued a tradition with my replacement so quickly--but it says to me that I spent a whole lot of time being upset over something that meant little to others. I had all sorts of visions of them all just living it up while I was crying my eyes out, but maybe they were all oblivious.

Now you know my instinct is to: email back and tell him WHY it mattered to me, and WHY I cared, and how just because I chose to go with my sisters before never meant that I didn't care about him or the others, but I guess there really is no point to that at all.

I'm thinking this was all I needed to say: that I felt hurt, and he apologized, story over.