Life 2.0 Part 2

[NH115]

She's functional but still down. As Starsky predicted, she did have a pullback. I know in my head that it hasn't even been 7 days since she went NC, but damn, this is hard.

I'm going dark with my parents for a while. I had originally decided to not share with them what was going on. I reconsidered and decided to go ahead and tell them, emphasizing their toxic behavior and how it affected my marriage. I then canceled Christmas with them and told them I needed space and time to work on myself and my marriage. It'll take as long as it takes.

Believe it or not, I'm not sad. I hate that it's come to this, but I think I needed to remove their toxic presence from my life, even if it's just temporary. I feel a little liberated, actually. I don't hate them, but their presence is causing too much stress on us. I did it as much for me as for her, but I hope my W notices how committed I am to working on our marriage and removing toxic people from our life. It's hard to tell in her current state. I just wish she wasn't so hung up on the idea that setting boundaries isn't good enough; that I need to somehow proactively prevent them from ever approaching the boundaries, as if I can control another human being. She's working through a hell of a lot of resentment. I'm so sick of trying to read her at every turn. I may need to pull back myself, may have gotten too close to pursuing.

Had an out of the blue call from an old friend (well, friend with benefits) from high school who lives in Atlanta, ironically, just down the road from OM. (I did tell her that if she ever got the urge to slash tires or tamper with brake lines, I knew just the place LOL). I spent an hour unloading about my sitch. Turns out she had a similar issue with her husband's parents. At least mine are nice to my W's face; hers are just plain nasty. They have managed to survive, but they required quite a bit of counseling. I hadn't talked to her in years; it's amazing how many old friends have popped out of nowhere in the last three months.