My Story/Mixed Messages...

[2012sf]

Journaling--We left this morning to go to our prenatal appointment and the drive over was great. I was more relaxed after I actually saw him and he was pretty nice, just quiet. He started to talk about the kids and told me his having a hard time right now dealing with it all. I was careful at this point, because this kind of talk has deteriorated into relationship talk before, and now know I have to NOT let any of that happen, no matter how much he is wanting it when he starts out. I noticed every time we have a prenatal appt, it makes the baby more real to him and it is hard for him to deal with. He kept reaching over to rub my baby belly and talked about how he wants to be there for the kids and worries he isn't enough. Even teared up and cried a little as he was talking. I just listened, and was encouraging, told him he is a great Dad, talked about how this baby would love him and he would be close with it too. Lots of guilt coming out of him. I validated his feelings though, reached over and rubbed his neck a little while he was talking, it felt like it was a good moment. He really is a great Dad. I know I am very lucky, even in this situation with us, he is really there, and genuinely loves to spend time with the kids and hang out with them. It's just me he has the problem with. lol

We were almost to the appointment and my son's school called and he had fallen off the monkey bars and so we turned right around and went to his school. A couple of hours later after a docter's appt and xray, we found out he has a broken wrist. We were all together the whole time and I think we related really well. I didn't control the situation, I let my husband make the decisions and supported them, we talked a little and joked around. I think overall it was very positive. Or as positive as a trip to get one of your kids patched up can be.

One thing that kind of threw me for a second was that he is planning to get his tattoo he got about 10 years ago worked on and expanded tomorrow morning. He had mentioned a few weeks ago he was thinking about it, but I hadn't realized it was happening now. He had called and made the appointment already. I recovered well though, I didn't show anything except that I thought it was cool and asked about how he was going to get it done, how much, if I needed to transfer money, etc. Even took a picture of it for a before and after comparision. I'm hoping this is just a one time deal and not the beginning of MLC stuff. I have saw a few little signs, but then again he has always liked tattoos and things like that, maybe he just really was not showing all of that for fear of what I would do and now he is just trying to really be what he wants to be and see how I am. I think I was good, even with it being a bit of a surprise.

He is napping now for work tonight and we will get back together to go to family night and take the kids to eat afterwards before he heads into work. I plan on continueing the positive light atmosphere, because it seems like he isn't as angry and on guard with me now, so hopefully we are coming off of last weekends big relationship dissection and he is relaxing. He is definitely showing lots of guilt over the kids today, I'm not sure how to take that. I hope it is good, but I know guilt can also be bad if he attaches it to me as the cause.