This has been a lower than usual week. I'm sure being sick and not sleeping well are big parts of it - and this is a busy time of the year for me at work as one of the programs I work on goes through its annual state audit. Maybe I'm just a little worn down. And I know the girls will probably catch what I have which makes me miserable.
The weekend itself wasn't bad. Despite the rain and my illness, had a good time with the girls. I macgyvered a massive roomwide fort in the living room for them to sleep in last night and today they helped me make my Grandma's chicken chicken soup, complete with homemade noodles. They were happy, although a little freaked out by my complete loss of voice.
Everything just seems a little too hard right now. I'm trying to get a handle on all the spring activities for D6 and its just so complicated without another parent helping out fulltime (although this kind of thing has always been a pain due to STBX's ever changing schedule). I guess I hate how little things, like going to the store for something I forgot, have turned into a major operation of getting the kids in the car and herding them through the supermarket, instead of just being to run out on my own. And truthfully, while I am not a spendthrift, I hate that I am back to a place in my life where I have to measure every dollar.
Then too, D6 has been dropping more details about what goes on at her Dad's place. Apparently Lisa has a lot of rules. I should say none of them sound unreasonable, in fact they are precisely the types of things I tried to institute in my own household that STBX would never cooperate with. Now apparently he's totally on board with things like "don't jump on the sofa" and "don't yell in the house". When I tried to enforce these types of guidelines he always made me feel like a fussy killjoy. I look at this, in conjunction with all the cowboy trappings, and it sure seems like he is trying to be someone new, probably to please OW. Was this all he did with me? Was he just trying to be the man he thought I wanted and he couldn't take it anymore?
How did I let this whole thing get so messed up? We did not have a difficult life compared to many. We have always had reasonable incomes, enjoy good health and come from pretty functional families. I look at my oldest sister's marriage- her husband is a high ranking army officer (STBX has a total man crush on him)and throughout their marriage as he climbed the ladder, he had assignments that took him away for lengthy periods of time, even when their kids were very young, and of course some of them were dangerous. Their relationship is still going strong (25+ years) and they managed to jointly raise two very high achieving well adjusted kids despite the stress, anxiety, many moves and long absences. We had nothing comparable. Yes, STBX has a job with weird hours that is emotionally distancing and apparently has lots of temptations - but still.......
I didn't get married until fairly late in life - and that was by design. I thought I chose carefully and well, and that we laid a solid foundation together, precisely to avoid the very situation I find myself in now. I'm having a moment where I feel like I flunked a big chunk of my life.
Wow - this is a downer of a post. Time to take some Nyquil and wake up ready to turn this all around.
