Reaching out for support and advice 3

[25yearsmlc]

Blues,

You need to be loving, but also set some boundaries my dear friend. While you are new to this (and overall doing very well) you have to really accept the current situation as it is. Family nights are fun, but they do lead to confusion for you and way more important than that, they lead to confusion for the kids;

"What are we doing, just pretending everything is ok? Are we that family now?"....as a case in point.

One of the things I see a lot with the women on here is that they let the WAH swing by the house whenever he wants for these family nights. The husband gets his fill of family time, but it leaves the women and children confused. Is that fair for the kids?

I get what you are saying. After a year of h coming on alternating weekends, he then moved to Alaska. That was actually simpler. So I'm familiar with the issue. But, the 2 problems with this^^ approach, is 1) that it denies the children their father, that much more;

and 2) it comes across as punitive to the WAH & sometimes to the kids as well. They may pity him or resent him, but they love/need and miss him too.

Another thing I have noted....is that must of the men I know who returned to their marriage, did so because they missed seeing their kids.

Is this anecdotal only, or is there some data to support this? I think it's intriguing but I don't have data that supports it. I don't know how forthright WAHs are in any survey taken, and their "insight" may lack.

But I DO think marriages with children divorce less, in general.

That missing of the kids was the motivation to help them see their marriage in a different light and start working on the marriage again. Right now your husband has chosen to leave the marriage....his choice....and a consequence of that choice is not seeing the kids daily or whenever he wants.

This presumes he's not really facing consequences already, b/c the only time he misses them, that is "cured" by a quick fix family visit. But unless he lives a block away, he misses them a lot more often than that.

He misses them each night he would have read a story, high fived his son for something well done or funny, or tucked a child in. He misses them each morning or greeting time, when their feet are not heading his way to wrap arms around him, exclaiming real pleasure at his mere presence.

I doubt that her h is "fine" without them, as it is. Showing them the mask of happiness is his idea of what's comfortable for them. My h was downright goofy at times. But it's also a nervous behavior in my h's case. Yes the kids found it weird, but I didn't know that for several months.

When my h finally achieved his goal of gaining another credential and then going to the "Last Frontier" and the "Gold rush", he was only there a few weeks before he noticed he was quite lonely. And he was telling me how little he'd exercised or gone outside (he's an exerciser and an outdoors guy, absolutely) when he blurted out "I think I'm clinically depressed..."

True, he was farther away when he finally changed course. But he'd also been released to, and reached his "mission" by then. And by the time we recon, only 1 child remained at home. But my h had been a loving father prior to this.

Second, "showing him the consequences" is a lot like punishing our spouses. I felt that it was justified. But then my DB Coach told me that "it's not the spouse's job to "teach a lesson/show consequences" of their choices...LIFE does that for us.

I had to concede that my concepts of fairness & justice, looked a lot like a disguise I just placed over my anger.

Remember...You cannot miss the good times if they are readily available to you....Think about that.

If this^^ means you want her to deny him access, I'd disagree. I DO support boundaries, like times set up for the LBS to choose, but quantity ought Not be decreased. Denying the kids their father, punishes them more than they already feel. Their pain has to be a priority. Often their pain will convert into anger at the LBS, or even worse, pain aimed inwardly.

At first I really had a hard time finding the line between healthy boundaries, and a desire at some level, to hurt the WAS. That line can get blurry, and it can shift.

See if you can find a place in MWD's teachings that supports this^^^making the children less available to their parent. I'd be sincerely interested in hearing about that.