She left me, abandoned me. She threw me out like yesterdays garbage. At least, that is how I feel.
We've been over this so many times in your threads. Early on you acknowledged your contributions to the marriage failing, but somewhere along the way you quit owning your part in it and assigned 100% blame to your W. Blame leads to resentment and anger, but it is misplaced because you carry fault as well. Now you're going to say yeah, but she was the one that left. Yes she was, and she needs to own her part in this. But that doesn't make you blameless, she left because she felt she had no other options. Stay and be miserable, or leave the M and maybe save herself.
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Is this normal? Is it necessarily a bad thing?
I would say in the non-DB world it's normal, people who don't DB do tend to blame their spouse for all their problems (the WAS blames the LBS and vice versa), even many years later. But it's pretty unusual in the DB world, you rarely see such sentiments expressed in threads here by LBS's. I think it's because most people that are DB'ing do own their part in the sitch and work hard to make themselves a better person. They forgive, they release blame, they move on and make the most of their life. I'm not saying you haven't done DB'ing, you have. But the blame thing has been a huge issue for you for a long, long time.
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Here is another question. W sent me a text message tonight saying that she would like to pick daughter up from school on her B-day and spend time with her until 6pm. It is my day to have daughter, and I planned on having a B-day party for her, and I would need to get her and myself ready. I don't want to keep W from sharing time with her, but is that really a request I should honor, or should I simply tell her no?
You're coparenting now, these types of things will come up all the time. If you set a bad precedence now, there will come a time when you need reciprocation and your W may do the same to you. The two of you can easily fall into the trap of punishing each other by using your D as a weapon. I would allow it as long as it doesn't heavily impact your plans, and if it does then explain why to her and try and negotiate something else. Perhaps it makes more sense for her to pick her up earlier or later.
