This thought helped me keep my focus. My DB coach told it to me.
"You want to contrast the life your WAS is creating, wherever, with the life you are creating."
Thank you for this. It is inspiring. Here are a few examples of contrasts.
Home cooked meals. With the kids, I cook every day. It's not always elaborate but the kids love my food and compliment me on it. I involve them in the cooking and they love it. D6 reported that with their mom, they eat pizza "every day".
Kids activities. Every week-end, we do something special, like go see my parents out of town or we find fun stuff to do in town, like the planetarium and such. D6 reported that with their mom, they spend entire weekends in the apartment. I've only heard of one swim session and one walk to the park in 4 months.
Visitors. We often host visitors with the kids, some with children their age. They love it and in fact beg me for more visitors. We also visit at least one friend regularly. I'm not aware that they do anything like that with WAW because they don't go out and she doesn't have many friends of her own. Also, I know she misses some of those friends that we visit.
Music and dance. We put music every night and I pull my stroboscope once a week at least and we have a fun dance session, often with guests. The kids love it and mention it regularly. WAW does put music at her apartment, but she doesn't have a strobe!
Workout. The kids are very attached to the 7-minute workout and insist for doing it almost every day. They babble about it because their mom questioned me about it. My shape has improved. I'm not aware WAW has any such fun routine with them and my she told me she doesn't exercise at the moment.
Fulfilling work. My W knows I love my job (I created it 1.5 years ago). I never complain about it and I act content about work. My WAW reported being increasingly frustrated with her job.
Social media interactions. On Facebook, my W can see that I interact with a lot of people. Also, I started posting daily on Instagram to show the fun stuff I do and see. My account is public and WAW can have a look when she gets curious. I stopped seeing her post, so I can't really compare but she usually got support/feedback from the same 7-8 people who are not even in this country.
Social life. I'm in my country where I grew up so I have tens of friends and family, whom I visit regularly. I also seized a few opportunities to hang out with new people. My WAW is an immigrant here and doesn't have much of a social network beyond her colleagues. I know, because she told me, that she misses my friends and family.
And I have a secret weapon to convey those contrasts: our family blog. Seven years ago, I set up this private blog where I report several times a week about the kids. It was a way for a picture-obsessed father to keep family and friends informed (we lived abroad at the time). I made it my mission to continue posting through the sitch, so that it looks like life goes on. I'm 99% sure that WAW continues to check it, so she sees all the marvelous things we do.
Anyway, I'm glad your coach gave you this quote because I do work hard to create a fulfilling life for me and the kids. After four months, I can say that these are all habits I do for myself, not for her. Most of it are just a continuation of the family life we had. It would be nice to see it pay off in my sitch nevertheless.
(Of course, when it comes to romance and sex, I don't really compare with her current situation! Trying not to think about it...)
M39 D6 D3 (at S) S 2014-09 D 2016-09
"You can't start a fire sitting around, crying over a broken heart" - Bruce Springsteen.
