My frustration is mounting, but if I'm to be something other than what my W is expecting then I need to keep it under wraps. It's surreal to be reading books and forum threads and to see/know what my W will do next. The problem is that it still stings.
Her reality is setting in - sort of. She needs several hundred dollars for the utility company. She doesn't have it and without it I know my kids will suffer. So I'm back to maxing out my last credit card......again. And now my car wants to start having trouble. Funny how things work out.
I'm a bit bent out of shape over the fact that she's going out of town this weekend. There's no such thing as a free trip, you still have to buy something, maybe even pay for gas to get from point a to point b. I'm getting a spit at when she tells me she's had to borrow money from friends in order to move out and and that she's not trying to take me to the cleaners. I feel like she thinks I'm sitting on a huge pile of money.
I don't raise my voice or yell or even argue. I'm not going to be what I once was and I want no regrets about my actions. She expects a certain reaction from me and I will not give it to her. She snaps at me when things aren't going according to her plan of an awesome future. Last weekend, on the way home she called me about picking up S12 and I told her I needed to go to the cell phone store. She jumped all over me, told me that we'll schedule a sit down w/ the lawyer and iron out the bills this week and we'd be done with it and that she was just trying to do me a favor by not doing this or that. I simply told her it was the end of the month and that I was wanting to look into removing my name from the cell phone plan before the next billing cycle.
Needless to say, I've lost all interest in doing anything anymore. I'm in no hurry to get lawyers involved since I'll have to gouge out my retirement savings to get the process going. As it stands, I'm having to make a withdraw just to get my car fixed.
She's fudging insane. If it's not going easy or according to her plan, I get lashed out at. She's trying to keep as much away from the kids so that there's not as much stress on them. Problem with that is that she's driving a wedge between them. S6 is easy going and very attached to his mom and S12 is a hot/cold personality and is attached to me. I'm seeing my W talk to him and I could swear that she's talking to me, as if she's projecting onto S12 what it is she's always wanted to say to me. I'm so angry about what she's doing to the kids. Not having money [censored] and not being able to pay for my kids to do the things that give them an outlet hurts, but watching our lives from the back row is torture.
S12 isn't old enough for me to explain MLC so I don't even talk about it. He rants about how he doesn't care what she does anymore and that there's no way he's staying with her. I only sit and listen. Occasionally I'll reinforce that his mother loves him and only wants the best for him, but I keep quiet and listen. I'm always trying to watch what I say because I know S12 will follow my lead and I don't want him to feel anything but love for his mother.
Anywho.... I got back into town the other day after being gone all weekend. I knew my W was packing and moving while i was gone, but wow, for someone who said she wasn't trying to take me to the cleaners, she took pretty much everything. S12 and I were together when we walked into the house for the first time. He was pissed, but all I did was laugh as I walked through each room - what was left of them. She hated our bed and told me she didn't want it when I offered it to her, but it seems she took it anyway. S12 was beside himself, but I insisted that she did me a favor since I didn't want it anyway. I don't like that I had to finance a new bed, but I hope I can get it paid off before I'm incapable of making payments elsewhere.
I still smile when I come home each day. The kids and I have been sitting on the floor since there's not much else, but I can see they're noticing my change in attitude. I can see that they notice the little things now more than they ever had since they were always just used to their surroundings. I took tomorrow off from work and we're heading out of town for a 1 day road trip together to go get my bedroom furniture and a dining room table w/ chairs. It's exciting for me.
With all that said, I know I need to keep the eye on the prize -> me. More than ever, I need to be doing all these things for me and not my W. Doing it for her will keep me frustrated, but doing them for me will set me free. I hope that some of that can be absorbed by my kids in a positive light, because I really do want to be different than the person I was. I don't want to go back to being frustrated with myself for not living up to my own expectations - something my W knows me all to well for.
I also know that i must be very careful with everything I do or say around my kids. I do not want to project a feeling of "good riddance" towards their mother. She does love them, even if she's lost her way. Seems like she's in ME mode, but trying to make the kids happy and herself at the same time is too much. So the question now is, if I'm the bad guy in all this, who's the lucky fella she's going to fall head over heels for because he takes pressure off of her?
I assure you it will not be the EA guy. The tension between S12 and his friends dad is mounting and S12 isn't keeping it a secret from his mother. She's jumping from one lake of stress into another with every step. Somewhere along the lines she's going to need to stop and deal with it all. Question is, where will I be when she finally grows up?
