Journaling: Interesting thing today. Not related to H, but to xh.
Many people here can't imagine their sitches ever changing. Or, they can't imagine ever having a friendly R with their x in the future, because the pain and anger are running through them. There are never any guarantees, but things CAN and DO change in strange ways.....sometimes.
The father of my children, is my xh.
For a long time, I hated xh. I mean....hate. Disgust. I saw him as a heartless monster.
I wondered how we would ever get through milestones, and how we could ever be in the same room, after what he had done. The kids would have a future of graduations, weddings, babies....I shuddered at the thought of having to see that monster of xh there. His smug, ugly face...taking credit for what I did raising them. Spoiling everything. Because that's what he does. That's how I thought.
After D, it took years, but I worked through that anger and fear. I had to stop focusing on him, his antics, his head games, his lies, everything that was not business. I only replied to emails, and I used a professional business tone. Always. I stopped playing. The game had to die.
He had to become irrelevant. That was the word I used..... frequently. Irrelevant. And so he was.
Xh lives out of state. He has not consistently exercised his visitation. Even for holidays. Needless to say, for a long time, my kids felt unwanted. Insecure, wondering "if" he would take them this year. They felt unworthy of his time. Unworthy of the expense of the trip. It was very sad.
He seemed to prefer traveling with friends for holidays over seeing his kids. How does one look her kids in the eye and tell them, "no, I'm sorry. Not this year." Not a fun job.
I was the one to deal with that mess he made.
The kids didn't always want to see him, but they still wanted him to want to see them.
I never bad mouthed xh to the kids. (I didn't have to....he did his own damage). I always told the kids, that their R was theirs. That at some point, they would need to come to a place of forgiveness. They would not be healthy adults unless they found some type of R with their father. What that R would look like would be up to them. It probably would not look the same as the R their friends had with their fathers. The good news, it doesn't have to. They could create whatever brings them peace.
Xh had work to do on himself. He has done a lot of it, as it seems. The R with my kids is a bit forced, but the effort is there. It is coming along....slowly.
About 2 years ago, I had a long conversation with xh. A lot of old anger came up, because the kids were hurt by some things he didn't acknowledge. But I learned something. ...... He really didn't get it. Not even a little.
And then it made sense.
We all expected him to act like someone he wasn't. We all expected him to know things he never learned.
Did he do bad things? Yep. The "not knowing how" was not a free pass to do what he did.
His consequences happened naturally. He had to lose us all. He never thought that would happen. But it did.
I wasn't around to see it. But, I believe he hit a rock bottom. He has been in counseling for many issues, for close to 8 years.
H came here for S18 graduation. My kids, my mom, xh, xhgf, and I....all sat at one table and had dinner.
If someone had told me, 8....5.....even 2 years ago, that this would ever happen? I would have put money that it wouldn't.
And I would be broke.
No one knows what tomorrow brings. Never rule things out. Stranger things have happened.
It just takes a looooonnnggggg.......loooonnngggggg.......tiiiimmmmeeeeee.
And he had to decide to do the work. Because in my 14 years with him, I could not fix him.
More to this story happened today....but I'm tired. G'night, y'all
