Thanks CB. I have held my tounge with FIL for years due to the fact that every time I have responded to his vitriol in the past W has defended him, no matter what he says! The day I met the man before we were married he came to see us with his OW (now new wife)and at the time my W was going to college full time while I worked so she could finish and we get married. This was the first meeting and I wanted it to go well. I came home from work and they were there. From the start he was insulting to my W! At one point he said that she was only getting B's and since she wasn't working she should be getting all A's and what a disappointment that was!
I was ready to get up and punch him! I remember standing up walking up to him, looking him in the eye and telling him what a [censored] he was to say such a thing and how proud I was of her! He just sat there with this awful grin on his face. Needless to say, that about ended the evening and they left. To hear my W talk about now, he was "testing" me, making sure I was worthy of his daughter. Bull!Speaking to this man who congratulated my W when she opened a secret bank account, telling her how "empowering" that was and then telling her all the ways to keep it hidden from me wouldn't do anything positive. Of that I;m certain.
The attitude that you describe has been the one I have tried to maintain for months now. The time where my W went to a bachelorette party that her boss from work needed her to go to with a bunch of much younger, single women I was "sounds like fun", etc. When I got a text less than 3 hours later from her that she was too drunk to come home and she was spending the night but it was "all good" as she was with "all my new friends" (it was a drunken text that was hard to understand)all I said was OK, see you in the morning and the next day acted like I couldn't have cared less that when her kids asked where mom was I had to tell them in less that 2 hours out she had drank so much she wasn't able to drive home. My 18 year old laughed and said "can anyone say Mid-life-crisis"!Remember she has never been a drinker or partier. She's always going on with my 18 year old about "staying in control" and how dangerous drinking too much is for a woman.The next day she was showing the kids and me all her pictures and Facebooking about it! Again, nothing from me but "glad you had fun".
As for the kids and what they see...the hardest thing is that my youngest thinks she is going to go to the school her sister is grad. from and since her mom "needs" to leave us and be on her own, there is no way to afford this. I have tried to let her know that this is a possibility but I also hold on to hope that her mom will come out of this in time. Until their mom left the bedroom about 6 months post B-day, I didn't talk to them although they knew something was up. At that point I made the choice that I had to talk to them and told them that their mother was planning on leaving, that I have tried to work things out with her and still am. That she is going through a lot and dealing with it the best she can (a lie in my mind at the time but...)that there was still a chance that she would change her mind but I can't say if or when that would happen. At that point I had bought into the thought that if I just was a "better" husband, if we did things together as a family and I changed the things she was saying were the reasons she was unhappy with her marriage, we could work things out. I didn't realize it was a MLC or what that meant. We had gone on the first family trip just a few weeks before and all of us had a good time, even my W. But, as you know, once they get back to the day to day, they go right back to having to run!
Since then they have watched their mothers behavior, heard the things she says, watched her "forget" their school meetings, leave them alone for weeks, not be anything close to part of this family and know she isn't normal. At first my oldest used this to get away with things and working her mom against me and vise versa but since we have become closer than ever. My youngest tells my W all the time, when she complains about us being on her "bed" (couch in LR)that her bed is "in there" pointing to our bedroom. They hate that most of the interaction they have with her is when she gets angry and yells (she can't seem to just talk when they need to do something like clean their rooms, it's always yelling!). As for them being able to have an effect on whether she leaves or not, when this first started I made the mistake of telling them to give her space, don't get her angry, etc. but again, I didn't understand that she was in MLC but since I have tried to let them know it's not about them and there is nothing they can do to effect what she does or doesn't do. It does make them both angry but I've stopped trying to intervene.
The only time my wife has cried when we have talked about this sitch has been when the girls have come up. She at first said she loves her kids and doesn't want to hurt them but needs to be on her own. Since then (after going to visit her dad) she has said "We all hurt our kids, they'll get over it" and seems to care less and less how her choices will affect them. Again, there have been times when she seems to be coming out a bit, maybe coming out of replay but then she talks to or sees her dad and she goes right back to where this all started. May be that the thing she most wants to replay is her relationship with her dad.
I also think the sitch with her grandmother is having some effect on her. I have seen 3 different personalities come out in the last week to ten days. One is a brat that seems like a teenager who gets angry if you tell them something they may already know (like the name of an actor on a TV show!)almost like my 14 year old! One is like the old W, grateful for my help with her GM and tearing up when she thinks she may have helped her (like when she had to tell her her GF who has been dead for 30 years wasn't coming to get her and take her home). The last one is the hyper efficient, professional woman who talks about how much she helps her patients and how she is a better worker than the other people she works with and how they over-work her and expect too much. Have to be careful with this one as if you say anything like maybe they do overwork her, even if just agreeing with what she just said, she will defend the company she works for. All you can do is listen and nod.This part has been hard on the kids and when the teenager came out last night they retreated to their bedrooms, FAST!
While I have spoken with the kids, W has not and has tried to pretend nothing is happening, no matter that she has to know that's not the case. She said on B-day and since that she won't talk to them until she is ready to leave. Of course she has asked them about how they would like living in a different town or going to public school but never anything about it being living with just her but they aren't stupid and know what she is saying. I guess it's part of her MLC that she thinks she can do and say the things she does and they don't notice.
I have some time to decide what to do about her father's visit but I do need to decide how to handle it soon. Thanks for the input CB, I am grateful!
