I'm in, wife's out

[trc2009]

The mood swings of a W.A.S. can be discouraging yet entertaining all at the same time.

I was on my phone when I typed the last message yesterday so I'm going to elaborate. Good news, 17 days since last conversation devolved into an argument/fight.

I had a good weekend. Went to a b-ball game Friday night, worked out Saturday morning, and went out of town to see my brother and his family Saturday. It was a lot of fun (but started really missing the kids on Saturday...couldn't wait to see them on Sunday).

Hadn't seen W since Thursday evening. I left that night and thought things were okay as I mentioned in a previous post. It was her weekend w/ the kids. Her parents had everyone over to their house on Saturday for lunch. Something CLEARLY happened. I called Saturday night to say goodnight to the kids. She wouldn't even spend two seconds on the phone w/ me....which is incredibly odd. No biggie though.

I came back to the house on Sunday to spend some time with the kids, do laundry, and generally just hang out. Holy crap. She's ticked off about something. Fortunately, I hadn't seen her since Thursday so it probably wasn't something I did. She was making comments similar to what she was saying after we were first separated. For instance, our son was watching Star Wars. I made a comment about how cool it would be to be able to do a Jedi Mind Trick. You would have thought I just kicked a baby with that comment. "Why would you want to be able to do that? That's so shady." She went on and on for another 30 seconds about it. You....cannot....make....this....stuff....up.

Later this week, I'll be staying at the house with the kids for four days in a row. She said her mom "made it very clear that she does not like the fact that she's having to stay with them." (and she was starting to cry. She said she didn't want to talk about it so I let it go). Not that she isn't welcome, but I'm guessing her mom said something to the tune of "enough is enough, you need to go back to your home with your husband and work this out." That's just how her mom is. As much as I agree with her mom on this, they don't have the best relationship and that coming from her probably just made her mad. And of course, she's projecting that anger onto me.

Fortunately, I did very well through all of this yesterday. I gave her the option of staying at the house one of those four nights (being away four days in a row isn't easy). She said she appreciated it but those are my nights and she would figure it out. I even told her that she doesn't have to leave as soon as I get there. She hedged a bit at this. She said "she can't be around me for a long period of time because she still feels like she has to be careful what she says around me." Again, I haven't the slightest clue what that was supposed to mean.

I knew yesterday was probably the worst possible day to get into a deep discussion with her so I let it all go. It would have gotten bad. A month ago, there would have been no way I could have let all of that go because she was being completely out of line. Kudo's to DB/DR for this. I've learned a lot in the last month.

I kept on my happy face, told her that she can come/go/stay as she pleases. I told her that I'm not uncomfortable around her at all (strangely enough, I'm not that much anymore. Yesterday was a little strange but not uncomfortable) and it's just good for me to be in the house spending time with the kids. She really didn't have much of a response to that.

This is most definitely the biggest mood swing I've seen her have. I'm sure there's more to the story but I'm letting it go. It seems to me (based on the Star Wars comment and the way the rest of the visit went) that she's really trying to find reasons to be mad at me and/or hate me. My guess is that her mom (and maybe her sister) wanted a status update on what's going on. And they aren't shy about sharing their opinions. They probably called her out on some stuff. Which is probably a good/bad thing. A good thing for the long term, bad thing for the short term. She needs to be open & honest with them. I haven't had much, if any contact with her family but I do know they're supportive of me and they understand how stubborn she can be. They are pretty much aware of the fact that she's the one that's checked out. I haven't tried to contact them at all or sway them in any way. I've been letting them do that work for me because they won't let her hide her head in the sand and just walk away.