Job and Bea- thanks, this gives me much to work on. I felt I was very good at TED when my kids were younger.

Something changed in me though. I need to not just "work on" responding vs. reacting but I need to "change" my ways here. This whole process has made me see the "fixer" I am. I feel the anxiety rise and then I feel this panic to tell my kids exactly how to do something. I am sure I did this with H, too. I hate it about myself. I am practicing on my kids and I see my H noticing. I feel so much better physically/emotionally when I respond vs. react. But it is hard because all this anxiety/panic rises up in me like a tsunami.

Regarding the "shark eyes," a few weeks back we were at a school event and had a picture taken of the 4 of us. I was shocked to see H had, not shark eyes, but 'dead eyes' in the photo. I went back and scanned old photos. Best I can tell, the last photo where I see that glint in his eye is early summer 2014! And all the smiles seems to be pasted on his face.

There is one photo XMAS 2014 where my husband seems completely zoned out/expressionless and is staring at his mother. It is a scary one.

Maybe even scarier is that I never noticed any of this ...

Me 41, H 47, M 15 yrs, S11, S13
BD 1: 11/4/14 we work on it; really I pretzel myself
BD 2: 3/31/15 H goes down to "dorm room"
8/15: H back to MBR
10/15: H back in dorm room
1/18: H files, now divorced