Upside Down

[workinghardguy]

Gar... my W is doing the same thing on the kid front. She's been pushing to tell them soon after the new year. I could not figure out why, if we're not splitting until June timeframe, we would tell them months ahead of time. Why would we make them walk through the same fog I've been in?

But I've finally realized it's her anxiety. She admitted as much last night as we were eating dinner together that the anxiety of telling the kids is eating her up. I think she's sees telling the kids as ripping off a band-aid.

Thankfully last week she went to see an IC through my employer's Employee Assistance Program. While the appointment was largely a trainwreck for my M, the one thing of value is that the C was aghast at the idea of telling the kids months before any split. She wondered why a mom would want to torture her kids and put them in the middle of that sadness for so long. She advocated only telling them a few weeks to a month ahead of time. I had been advocating that we don't tell them until W knows where she will be living since that will be the very first question we get, and "I don't know but mom will figure it out" isn't a very good answer.

As far as being willing to do this without help... she made it through and survived right? Sure this who debacle is going on, but that's only because she married YOU, not because there are any fundamental issues on her part. She's fine and turned out ok, she just made a bad decision marrying you and you've been a bad egg.

And please realize the entire above paragraph is tongue-in-cheek, BUT it is to some degree how I think the WAW sees things. Only after months of this, probably seven deep talks, and seeing a C is my W finally owning her piece to a degree. Identifying that she has fundamental abandonment and personality issues that she needs to address to be mentally healthy.

It won't be enough to spare our M, but at least she's seeing she needs help.