IB, I wanted to let you know that Im really glad that your children can honestly let your xh know their feelings about their father flaunting this harlett around town. Imho, he and OW are behaving like complete jackasses. It seems like they're desperately trying to prove something to everyone, but WTH are they trying to prove? That they look like blooming idiots? Well rest assured they're doing a good job of it.
I mean if his very own children have honestly and kindly let him know they're uncomfortable with this and he still continues to act this way, well that's just him being deliberatly defiant in my opinion. Obviously his wants are all that matters now, and he's not in any sort of rational frame of mind. Either is OW for just going along with it!
I know the gut wrenching mixed emotions this causes for you. That's how I felt when stbx took OW to Thanksgiving and my mother in laws over the Holidays. My mother in law resented it too! No one likes this OW, including my children. Unfortuneatly my children haven't been able to vocalize to their father what they feel about this. Nor has he even asked them, tried to talk to them about it, nothing. It was " hey this is all about me and what I want. Everyone can learn to live with it". Even the whole family is like "WTF?" That is so hard to explain to young kids. I've been left with all the clean up of destruction and damage he's caused with the kids, let alone trying to put myself back together. When you see you're kids hurting, that's the worst of it.
However, my stbx did have waves of extreme arrogance in the past, layered with the most sweet and generous person you ever met. What threw me for a loop is that these arrogant waves were very far between, enough to make me forget about it till next time a wave hit. I swear OW is making it worse and has been pumping his mind full of crap. I am not solely placing blame on her, but I also know how impressionable STBX is. Sounds like your XH's OW is doing the same thing.
I also know how confused he truly was when he left, and how confused he was that 30 days after he left too. Any truth to what he said, he didn't know what the hell he was doing! all he was trying to do was find a way to be happy and he thought leaving me but remaing close ties with me was the way to start.
You are being hard on yourself IB. I completely identify with what you say you're feeling. I think what happens to us LBS is we get into system overload. We're trying to hold too much up and we get tired. My IC told me that it takes time, and it takes as long as it takes. To not be too hard on myself, do what needs to be done in terms of daily things to keep life running, but other than that just don't stress over anythng else. That was hard for me to do, but I did it. And it's excatly what I needed. Im learning about my expectations about myself ( too high) and what my limitations are. I've been too damn hard on myself.
