WHG: Looking for the shrinking cake

[workinghardguy]

I just wanted to post some reflections as well as simply updates...

I find myself wondering how things would ever work if my W and I recon. I feel guilty at times for feeling this way, but in all honesty I've come to enjoy my days where I am my own person. My weekends where it's just me. My Monday and Tuesday nights where I'm only responsible for me. I can do what I want, eat what I want, get done what I want.

Don't get me wrong... I miss my kids terribly. While I love my quiet house Tuesday I still miss seeing my son first thing on Wednesday morning. And Wednesday afternoons are the best day of the week because I get to pick my son up from school. This summer I'll get to have all the kids at my house all day while I work from home and they are off from school.

But when W and I were together I was the ultimate caretaker. I took care of everything and all the time. I almost never had a moment alone. Even when I had something where kids couldn't be (like a board meeting) I was scrambling to find child care to keep my W happy. Don't ask me why I was that way... that's a whole other question.

But I LIKE this new found freedom. I LIKE not constantly being broke. I LIKE not having the sharp/aggressive/mean version of W on me for whatever aspect of her life isn't right and I am owning (this isn't that my W directed it at me... just that she would be angry at life and I would own that as my problem).

And all this makes me feel guilty at times. I realize this is what other adults have had, even with their families intact, because they act as partners. I lament what I've missed and lament what I'm missing. At the same time I don't know how we'd glue things back if it ever gets there.