melissag VIII - but I'm afraid to have no fear!

[keep_going]

Melissa,

Glad to hear about your vacation. Great advice from everyone here.

I want to share my experience re. these issues.

I waited too long to set healthy boundaries with my H. Yes, I did the ML thing and felt used, I let him come and go to our house w/o a schedule, I took on all the responsibility for the kids, I wanted to fix his R with them too... All of that eventually backfired - because I grew resentful and angry about all of it.

Like you, I was so afraid of his reaction, or him pulling father away... The reality was that regardless of what I did, if he was going to pull farther away, he would (and he did). It was completely out of my control and my inaction just proved to was be my attempt to manipulate the situation in my favor.

When I finally faced my fear and stood up for myself to set healthy boundaries because I accepted that the situation was not good for ME, he protested for sure. He was not happy about set visitation times and not having access to the house whenever he wanted. He didn't like that he now had to plan his partying around his custody time with the kids.

But it was then and there that I saw his protests as those of a petulant 2-year old that was throwing a tantrum because he was not getting his way...

Yes, at this point, your H is not in a place to get it, so expect a bad reaction. Yet in the end, I am so glad I set boundaries. I started healing AND my kids started to have a more normalized reality, with set times where they were with mommy AND daddy. They began to have a routine and knew what to expect which made a world of difference for their emotional well-being in such a difficult time.

I started to have a breathing room and focus on MY life and MY growth and was able to start detaching my H started re-connecting to his kids.

So after all of my fears and H's protests, it ended up being better for everyone, considering the circumstances of our reality AT THIS TIME. Not what I wanted, but what was better given where our lives are.

Have a safe trip back.