[- To do at least 2 activities at weekend with S to give W a break.
Good. Can you help each evening with some task? A bath or clean up or something that gives her a daily break? God, I'd need that if I were her.]
Yes - I have been bathing and getting S ready for bed each night. I had been doing this for a few months now. I also spend time with S when I get in to give W a break. I think a good suggestion to W would be for me to run her a bath earlier whilst I spend time with S. She has been going out a lot in the evenings.
[^^^ these are good concrete measurable goals that ought to be done anyhow. But expect no thanks for awhile, and if you get some, be glad. Do not highlight the contributions you are making. IN her eyes, maybe, this is something you ought to have been doing for years...make sense?]
Makes perfect sense. I should have always done this. You are right, W has not acknowledged the clean bathroon or washing/ironging :)I have not mentioned it.
[Isn't she home with son most of the day by herself?]
No (except school holidays but I book time off when I can) - he attends a special school in the day. She drops him off from school and picks him up. However, we used to get ransport 12 months ago. This gave W more time in day - she had a routine, meeting with her dog walking buddies in the morning and having a long stroll. This was her time to relax properly. When we moved S school and lost transport this impacted a lot on W. She now can't go dog walking with her buddies because they all go early morning. This routine was a big thing for W. I do take S to school when I can and the last few weeks have worked from home a bit more to accommodate this.
GAL - yes i will work on this. I do need to be careful as I don't want to leave W with S too much. But yes I need to get out of my comfort zone.
Re Financial Issues - she did not mention this other than in her letter she refers to me not getting a new job quick enough when she was pregnant.
I do earn good money. But when W was in charge of household finance we ran up a lot of debt. I think this is an underlying issue. In particular of wanting a 'man not a buy'. Whilst she insisted on doing the finances I should have been stronger over this and had more involvement. I wondered if she thinks I should have taken charge earlier. Again, this was a communication issue. Whenever I asked to be involved W said she wanted to do it because she used to work in a bank. I have taken over the finances now and am working through options to reduce our debt and things should get better in a few weeks time. So in one respect, I earned good money (and W was proud of me)but financial security is a problem at the moment.
Basically a lot of things have happened in a short period of time - youngest S change school (there were allegations of abuse)and we lose transport (she loses her dogwalks), eldest S going to University, financial pressures growing, last year we had a small extension built for a downstairs toilet for S - there were some issues with builders I am still dealing with. We had complaints in S old school that were still being dealt with re allegations of abuse, I started new job (less hrs).
