LA - I work off of the 202 and can see it clearly from my office right next to Tempe Town Lake. I'll just assume the wave is waiting for me when I get to work tomorrow.
Taking some "me" time today in a relatively rainy city. Trying to exercise some patience and stay out of my head today. Have to write my w another big honkin' check today. Always hard to do. Not hard to help her, but hard to accept the fact that it is being mandated by the court. Makes me feel like I'm an assumed "dead beat" - and I just don't like that feeling.
I know I am going off on a tangent here, but I'm actually more venting than anything else. Posting helps me get things off of my chest. That said......
W's father is so pro-marriage, pro "family values" I struggle with the notion that he had been so strong in her ear to just be done with me. She said during our long talk the other day that he didn't think I did (or had done, or am doing) enough to support w during this time. Especially in the beginning when she was living on her own and weighing under 100 pounds (she confessed that she was close to being hospitalized). When she left, she took more than half of our total savings - walking away with thousands of dollars. She said she needed the money to "help get started". I did not fight her on it at all. She never told me how much or even IF she gave money to her L. As far as I knew she had plenty of money to get started and be OK. Come to find out she gave nearly ALL of it to her L and had very little to get started, find a place to live, housing items and so on. She never asked me for anything more. Hell, she never really talked to me about money, her living situation, her health, nothing. Even when I bought her a bed (remember that?) she said "I'm not asking you for the help but if you are offering I will take it". I did it because I was worried about her and her health.
How does her father get the picture that I was withholding help from her? That I was leaving her to suffer and die? I gave her all I could while I was struggling to keep in "survival mode" myself. I was a total mess and barely able to take good care of myself and my son. How was I supposed to care for a WAW, too?
Her father feeling that way towards me makes me feel as if I literally abandoned her. Like I kicked her and my son penniless out of the house to fend for themselves. I just don't think that was the case. If you remember. Early on everyone said the right thing to do was to keep my distance and let her be. That's what I did and I stand by it. I fully own my part I what caused the breakdown in our marriage, but I won't own leaving her to die. Not a day passed when I didn't care about her and how she was doing.
I realize that this is about me and my FIL and not me and my W. She has been supportive and understanding during this process and told me to to take on any bad feelings about myself relating to her dad's view of me.
Again, I am just venting and I know this is something that someday I will have to just work through.
