Thanks, Upwards, Claire, and Bunches. I really appreciate your thoughts. I am working on myself, but have not detached nearly enough and seem to jump readily on to H's roller coaster. So, I have lots more work to do. In general, I'm a pretty self-confident person, but this sitch has rattled my confidence quite a bit. I know confidence is attractive, so I really need to get that back. I'll be reading the article on detachment tonight.
As I was leaving work today, I got a call from H. Since he's back in town, he should have picked D7 up from school today. However, he was calling to ask me to do it. I leave work earlier on days when I pick up D7 so that she doesn't have to stay at her after-school program for as long. I'm frustrated that H waited until the time I normally would have been picking her up to call me because that meant she got picked up later than usual. On top of that, when I got to the school, I heard the teacher call for her. I heard D7 respond, "Yay! Is my dad here?" I know that she isn't disappointed to see me and that it is really a reflection on not spending as much time with my H, but it still hurts to hear that.
While on the phone with H, I told him that I would pick D7 up, but wouldn't meet him at the house with her. We've done that before and it is hard for D7. When the weather is nice, all the kids in the neighborhood play outside after school. D7 has had to leave in the middle of that to go to H's apartment previously and it made her very upset. I asked if we were going to meet for dinner because he suggested it last night. He told me he didn't have money for that. I didn't ask questions. He went on to share that he had to call his dad to ask to borrow money because things were really tight this month. It almost seemed like he was going to see if I would offer him the money. I did not. Isn't this one of the cases where he needs to feel the consequences of his decisions?
