Requesting support and direction

[Andy125]

Thank you Sandi and 25yearsmlc for the responses, it certainly gave me a lot to think about. A couple of things that I think that I should clarify, hopefully this won’t come off as sounding defensive. I can absolutely see what you guys are saying about boundaries. Certainly what I said and thought that I set as a boundary a week ago wasn’t. I think at the time I was taking the first step to saying something anything, that wasn’t just silence and being walked all over. But I can see how simply telling her that “she has the right to talk to whoever she wants, but that she needs to keep it down because I can, and more than likely the kids can hear her” is not a boundary it was more of a I know what you were/are doing. I also agree that that statement is more about control then anything… keep in mind that I made it before having that realization that trying to control everything is a problem.

As for last night’s conversation I’m not too sure what was going on. I certainly agree that I do not want my kids walking in on anything, or hearing anything that she might be doing. I believe that last night it was simply conversation… but I know that all of you will say “how do you know?” and honestly I don’t. How do I approach this problem? I have no idea… again still working on figuring out boundaries. The biggest problem is consequences, what is effective what is fair, what embodies change vs the same old bs. Again work in progress, and thank you for the input, it helps clarify things.

As for has she forgiven me? Well the night that she dropped the bomb on me she stated that “she truly has forgiven me for the things that I have done but that she can’t forgive herself for the things that she has said and done”. If I take that at face value then I would say that yes she has… but I’m not completely convinced. I also think that there might be an element to tit for tat going on here. I have seen that behavior before from both of us; I’ve chosen to not do it anymore.

I also agree with the stance on working with the opposite sex. I work in an ER where 95% of the people I work with are women. It makes for a delicate situation to navigate, and I completely agree with being very careful how that all plays out. I guess in the beginning that is what allowed me to have a little bit of understanding in her wanting to be there for a friend. Obviously that didn’t last long, and I probably needed to say in the beginning that it didn’t make me feel very comfortable. Again I handled that completely the wrong way, one of the many lessons that I have learned in the last year and a half.

Certainly I can appreciate the severity of how fractured my marriage is right now. I guess that is why in some of the earlier posts I have asked if this is even possible. I know that for now the most important things for me to do is work on myself, focus on detaching, and be the best dad I can be for my little girls. I really thank you for asking the hard questions as well as helping to steer me in the right direction. Your feedback really helps me reflect and also evaluate what I can be doing differently. I can only hope that as I grow and develop… and maybe one day move to fixing my marriage that I will be one of the old wise people here.