My lizard and her tunnel ...

[AJM]

"There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who get binary and those who don't"

I've always thought that should read "There are 01 types of.." but that's just me

May I ask how you would define the "she'll have to club me like a baby seal" approach?

My approach was to take the high road. To not reciprocate her efforts to fight. I'm a former active duty US Marine. I am perfectly fine fighting and sometimes even enjoy it if the truth were known. But for me there has to be a reason when it comes to something important to me.

I used to joke after a hard day that at least I go home to a wife that loves me. Hehe. Didn't see that coming. Why? Because it was either very sudden (melt-down) or very well hidden. Or I just didn't want to see it. Maybe even a combination of those.

Anyway, my ex tried incredibly hard to pick fights and "attack" me. My character. My parenting. My family of origin. My skin color, hair.. you get the idea. She was desperate to find fault even if she needed to make it up. Not uncommon in these situations, I later learned. And it makes sense to me that somebody who wants or needs to get away from somebody they loved, needs to view that person as "evil or bad" or whatever undesirable moniker you can impose. It helps to ease the guilt and pain. No two ways about it from what I've seen with people.

My ex left the first time on Mother's day saying I was a horrible parent. She left me with two small kids with a big smile on her face. I let her come back six months later, but that wasn't such a great idea in hind-sight.

She tried to get me to hit her, to get her love interests to pick a fight with me, to make me angry and move out of my house, to impose guilt on me, etc.

My approach started with day three after BD. I decided I would put the kids first, her second and me third (God always gets slot 0 in my life; it's how I roll ) With that in mind, I figured my biggest risk was losing my kids, followed by losing my house and losing my wife. She took about 2 years to develop the story of what a horrible and violent parent I was. She had many stories prior to that, even making them up in front of the therapist the few times she went. She couldn't keep a story straight and all of them were aimed at making me the "bad" guy. I don't particularly care about the house, but she would have happily used me fighting back to say, "see! I told you he was violent. I should have the kids and house and his money etc!" Truth is, I think at the time she only wanted the house and money though.
But I wasn't willing to let her have the kids as sole parent. She had told me along the way, she wanted to date people two at a time and bring them into the house etc. I was not happy with that, but told her she could not bring them into my house and if that's the life she wanted to go. But you can't take the kids. Why? I wouldn't subject a 10 and 13 year old to that if I could help it.

So long story longer, I decided that the best way to fight fire was to snuff it out. Twice I didn't do very well with that approach and was goaded into some fights. Twice over 2.5 years. Once via text (uggh).

Took the high road the entire time. I let her take what she wanted from the house when she left (except the dining room table - that room would be empty without it and make the house hard to sell.) At one point I even agreed to sell the house and split it with her. That was during the downturn and luckily it didn't sell. After a year, I put a stop to it and made an offer she took. I didn't fight the sep agreement except to add clarity and take a few items off her lawyer put in that would be detrimental to the kids or would extend beyond their reaching adulthood. When she wouldn't give my son or daughter a ride to drop them at my house for visitation days (50/50 custody; she moved in three blocks away but sometimes it rains) I went and picked up the kids. When her husband tries to accuse me of who knows what, I pretty much let him. Except once - I really wanted to punch him in the throat for his comments about my kids, but figured it would end with him in jail/hospital and me in jail with the kids going to the ex. I didn't think that would be good for the kids.

Very Jerry Springer like if step back. And I often stepped back. Very often. To the point that my blood pressure was rising and my sleep and job were impacted. Did I mention the son's healthcare? He was taking very expensive meds that the insurance company didn't want to cover during all of this.

I took up running and it helped immensely. I got more involved in my church and helping other people. I worked on me and the items I didn't like about me. The ideas and accusations she threw at me - some of them stung a little. So I worked on them. They didn't take too long to change the things I didn't like about me. It also didn't take long to realize that people are people - take 'em or leave 'em. Nor did it take long for my ex to say "I never said that" or "I hope you end up alone" or.. <shrug> there are others, but who really cares, right? I'm the only one (and email) that will remember at this point

That help?

AJ