Moving Forward

[adinva]

I wondered, while reading, was he returning to his true self and hiding it from you all those years? I'm certainly no expert, but it seemed that way while reading your posts.

He was pretty consistent over the years. Initially he gave me just as much love and affection as i could tolerate, having been raised to be very uncomfortable with those things. His meanness grew over time always with an element that if i objected my judgment was wrong. He only escalated to destroying property in the few years before bd. i didnt see him for who he was because my concerns were regularly minimized and i was in denial. And he wasnt consistently mean, so i would doubt myself when i felt mistreated.

So now, i'm learning to navigate this life. I've got a sometimes nice sometimes mean ex. I've got a kid who stopped picking bleeding sores after his dad left and was no longer verbally abusing him. And another son who seemed to be using drugs to numb the rage he felt at being abandoned. He seems to be doing mostly better but still can't stand his dad.

I dont denigrate their dad to them, but i'm not going to blow sunshine up their skirts either. I'm not going to tell them mean is nice because it's not.

Avoids expressing emotion and seems to fear intimacy? Could that also be how he interacts with is kids? I would think so and I can easily see how that would come across as not caring. But they are not the same thing - expression and motivation are two very different things to me.

H was a great dad when the boys were small. He liked to be their ringleader and loved to say "say xyz" and they would, so he could laugh. Near the end it was sad because they would refuse to say whatever inane thing and he would get enraged and threaten them. He seemed to like them better when he could control them. He's missing their teen years. He went to bed and withdrew from us from the time they were about 10 and 12.

If you read my early threads, i think it's important to know that i was in complete denial and/or unaware that my h was abusive, until at least a year into ic. I minimized and justified it until i was brought to question whether his treatment of our kids bordered on abuse, and researching that opened my eyes. There was then a shift in my focus from saving my marriage to saving my kids and myself. Even now i argue with myself that i'm being too melodramatic. But I'm not.

I am trying to heal and protect myself and my boys, hopefully give them better skills than h and i grew up with, and tools for coping with their dad with their selfesteem intact, and allow whatever relationship h and the boys can create with one another, and not get in the way of that.

I do get mad sometimes that h doesn't convey the kind of love and acceptance that i think my boys need from their dad. That makes me really mad sometimes. Sometimes it may even blind me to whatever little bits of good do come from him. Being mad that h is the way he is is as pointless as being mad at a tornado. Instead i have to work harder at getting along with him and fulfilling my obligations as a coparent.