14 Months Secret Separation: talking mediation

[adinva]

Well I'm back! I've been working hard on a work project and missed all the fun.

My situation is not quite so cut and dried. We've sat with our counselor and she seems to think I do a good job of discipline within a strong sense of each kid's individual needs and abilities, but am sometimes overly indulgent or think something naughty is cute, not as a general rule but sometimes. She also agreed with H on some of his discipline ideas while suggesting that he needed to tone down his approach and pay attention to what the kids actually need. So we don't fit the sitch where the wife ignored the husband and the husband gave up.

However, it was quite clear in counseling that my H wanted things a way that he wasn't communicating and then resented that they weren't that way. I didn't understand or read him correctly, and he didn't seem able to communicate, and he didn't understand why I didn't just see it exactly the same as he did.

There were a few times I asked him to get help because we weren't communicating with each other, but he refused to go to counseling or workshops or anything related to our church.

We were on a seesaw like is described in The Dance of Anger, where over time he got more and more overbearing, mean, even sometimes downright cruel to the kids, and I became more and more nurturing, protective, and nice to them to make up for it. When the bomb first hit I thought the kids should not be with him because I was afraid for them; he was calling my 11yo a jerk with regularity, he would take something of S13's and destroy it in front of him as an object lesson. He was a miserable person to be around, and I didn't support his ideas of discipline and he didn't invite my input. I knew the dynamic wasn't right but I didn't know how to fix it - if I acted mean to the kids would he then come back closer to nice? I was afraid to try that. I just did not know what to do. A lot changed since the bomb so I can barely remember now, but I recall it was pretty bad then.

H has told me he loves the kids, but he says it like "of course" and I don't think he's thought much about what it will be like living separate and dealing with the things described above. When H is acting like a complete a$$ the boys may not want to be around him when they're supposed to be; maybe they'll get busy with friends and try to steer clear of him. He'll get disillusioned and pull away from them too, and eventually they stop caring about each other. I worry about that, but I can't know that will happen and I can't manage it or control it anyway. On the other hand, maybe without the stress of daily living with the kids he won't feel like he has to be the hard guy all the time and can relax and have more fun with them.

I see a lot of our dynamics have changed as a result of my counseling. I see H acting a bit more controlled and rational. I talk to him and don't fly off the handle. Both of us use words instead of a sarcastic tone or a flip remark like we used to; not always but a lot more than before. So I think we're positioned to be much better at handling family stresses than we were at BD.

I won't fall on my sword and say that I disrespected him and diminished him or emasculated him. I did none of those things intentionally, and in most cases had no idea what it was that he didn't like about things because he wasn't saying. What I do believe is that we did not have the skills and tools necessary to navigate our conflicts and over time the unresolved conflicts snowballed into a constant tension and dissatisfaction that seemed impossible to overcome.

The kid H spends so much time with is not an OW's kid, it's his friend (male, divorced) whose son lives in another state and visits occasionally. When the son comes to visit, H seems to feel responsible for helping his friend entertain the son, so he spends a ton of time over there. My son is about the same age but sometimes just wants to be home or with his regular friends, so this summer it was mostly just H heading over there to hang out without the rest of us. It's weird. I have no idea if it's about respect. H's friend and his son are often at odds, with the boy failing classes and talking disrespectfully to his dad, and his dad threatening to stop talking to him in return. The mother apparently is completely psycho and had the police involved many times over child exchange disputes.

As much as I'm more comfortable hovering around the fringes of your discussion, I will absorb it and give it more thought over time. My ego's pretty resilient but it's not completely impervious so I catch myself protecting it sometimes.

(((hugs to all and thanks for your input on my thread)))