The weekend: Wonderful weekend. Continuing to read the story that my kids are enjoying, they are hanging on every word. A good walk on Saturday. We watched a fun movie. Played some chess. Just relaxed. Sunday I took them to a festival that was in town and we had a good time. I've never ridden an elephant before! Then, Sunday night things started to go a bit wrong.
The fumble: My d4 made a mess out of her school clothes so I started the wash...then the power went out. I found a flash light, got some back up clothes, read to them by flash light, and put them to bed. Monday morning I had a hard time getting going and was running slow. My son's school starts way earlier than it used to, and we have to get across town a bit. Then right as we were running late D8 overflowed the toilet so I had to take care of that. Then I couldn't find my car keys. Then we hit some unexpected traffic. Finally, as I look at what D4 is wearing (the clothes we found in the dark) I see her shorts are WAY too big, like falling off, 4 inches too big. I looked in my front seat as if I expected a safety pin to appear...and then I saw my key chain! I consolidated some keys and took one ring off the key chain, pried it open with a key, folded the extra inches from D4's shorts and used the key chain as a clip to tighten them up. It worked! Hit the road, got them there almost exactly on time.
But not quite. I got the text from STBX about how she got a call from the office wondering what happened. I gave her the short version and explained we'd had a few bumps but I thought we'd made the bell. I was really mad at myself because it was my first Monday morning handoff, and I blew it. I felt worse than being late to a job interview. I was REALLY upset with myself.
The aftermath: I heard through the kids that STBX didn't approve. She didn't think D4 should've been dropped off with shorts too big (D4 told me they stayed up just fine though). She didn't think the book I was reading them was age appropriate (they love it though). And so on. And she continues to give me 30 second mini-lectures when I pick up the kids about how to parent them, although she's clearly making an effort to only say what she feels is critical and let me 'learn from my own mistakes' as she says sometimes.
My thoughts: I have learned a few things from all of this. One is that I have no room for anyone in my life that wants to be critical of me. I mean, I can handle feedback, obviously I make mistakes. So if the tone is "Hey, you're awesome, but this part here isn't working", etc, that's fine. But when someone adapts the premise that I'm just a bumbling fool good for nothing that messes up everything I do and is a necessary evil to be dealt with...well, I'm 100% out. That person is a cancer and needs to be out of my life.
Work was brutally tough Monday morning. So was getting the kids to school while also packing up a weekend's worth of stuff and fighting the power outage and bathroom. Meanwhile I'm in a sales role that would crush most people's soul it's so brutal, I have been having a horrible month and CONTINUE to grind it out, and you know what, despite all of that, despite feeling like crap I kept going, and guess what, closed 2 deals yesterday and a big account today, and will be getting a paycheck this Friday that is gargantuan. I picked the kids back up and had a great night with them. My point of this is that I am EXTREMELY capable, very good at what I do, and my kids are lighting up when I'm around. So anyone that wants to take shots at me or roll their eyes can take their shot, as they say where I come from the betting window is open, they can bet what they want if they think they can do better. STBX obviously bet against me in the sense that she thought I was a problem that needed to be removed from her life. People that bet against me don't win. She wins the loss of an amazing guy. Totally fine. I know what I'm going to do in my life. And I know what I'll bring to anyone that wants to be on my team. But I also know what I expect others to bring, and appreciation instead of criticism is the price of admission.
I also am very appreciative. I realized in the midst of all of the issues Monday that 1 1/2 years ago I wouldn't have had those issues because I wasn't that involved, I wasn't bringing the kids to school, or fighting through these challenges. So I'm appreciative that my relationship with them is so much better that I get to have a bad morning with them...
Me:38 XW:38 T:11 years M:8 years Kids: S14, D11, D7 BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
All moms know that when dealing with kids, a smooth day is a rare day and you have to give some slack. Really, The only thing that matters is that they are well supervised and safe. (Although I prefer they eat healthy too) A month ago my son got both his legs stuck in the elevated tic tac toe portion of the playground equipment. While he was screaming I had to hold up his torso so he wouldn't be hanging upside down, and keep my other son by my side. An entire camp group surrounded us while the counselors were trying to help me get his legs out! And yeah we missed swim lessons because of it.
I don't want to project my own issues on your situation, because I'm not a mind reader and I don't agree with your wife's actions or criticism but just to offer a different view point... perhaps she does not want parenting to be easy for you. Maybe she wants that acknowledgement that taking care of the kids is tough and stressful and maybe she wants to be appreciated as well, for being capable at the most important job in the world?
Me: 42 H: 43 Twins age 5 Physically Separated 7/2015
Zeus- tough Monday indeed! You handled the situation like any parent would have. I don't want to critique your STBX but if she were Db'ing I believe that would be a big 180 for her. She most likely wants you to fail so that she can justify her actions for leaving but you aren't doing that. Keep up the great work at being an awesome Dad. Obviously your kids have a different perspective than WW so focus on them.
Me:33 H:36 T:13 years M:10 years S4 Separated 05/15 H Filed 06/15
I don't want to project my own issues on your situation, because I'm not a mind reader and I don't agree with your wife's actions or criticism but just to offer a different view point... perhaps she does not want parenting to be easy for you. Maybe she wants that acknowledgement that taking care of the kids is tough and stressful and maybe she wants to be appreciated as well, for being capable at the most important job in the world?
Thank you both for the replies. Julie, this is a really interesting point.
DB coach once told me something really incredible about how to tell what was motivating people when they acted poorly. I can hunt down my write up another time, but the idea was that when they act in a way that makes you feel insufficient, it is because THEY feel insufficient. I can see how me handling the situation just fine could make her feel like she's not as important as she once was, or that she can never live up to me because I can do it all, or whatever. I also know that she derives a lot of her self worth from her role as super-mom. So this is quite possible.
I don't really show my appreciation for her, any more than she shows her appreciation for what I do. There really is no emotional exchange between us and hasn't been for a year. We basically don't speak and I'm emotionally deadpan if we need to. I'm not willing to be emotionally close to this person. Whatever our contributions or issues she has crossed hard boundaries with me. It's too bad, I do appreciate what she does and feel very lucky she is their mom.
For some reason the comment about the 'most important job in the world' bugs me. It feels extremely diminishing. I don't think what I do is more important by any stretch...but I do think it's necessary. Like in caveman days, if I'm fighting off a saber tooth tiger and my partner is nursing the baby...yeah, I get it, the baby is more important than a tiger...but if it weren't for me the tiger would have the baby for breakfast! STBX wanted to be a SAHM and I worked my tail off hard, harder than most people that think they work hard, so she could have that time with the children. I feel that is extremely diminished, and in fact judged, like 'you have your priorities backwards, work isn't as important as young children', etc. But meanwhile I did it so that SHE could have the time that she wanted. And had I not done that she would've been working and would've have had the opportunity to spend that time with the children. So yes, her nurturing the kids is the most important job in the world, but I feel what I did was equally important to allow that opportunity.
Anyway, I have some things to think about. I agree that I didn't make her feel the appreciation I felt during the M. I also can see a potential pattern of me justifying it because of how hurt I felt (the card game deescalation of behavior I posted about back in april, again, I'm too tired to link at the moment). So maybe I need to challenge myself...is it really for my protection that I am emotionally distant from STBX? Or is it resentment/punishing behavior? I mean, it is consistent with the M (we didn't speak for months at a time). And while I don't really think about R and I do feel pretty at peace with her being out of my life forever, it's not really about her, it's about me, and about my behavior and what it brings me in the future. It's weird, it feels to me that at some point I don't really care about the 'whys' behind the behavior, if someone is beating you it doesn't matter why, you have to protect yourself! And when STBX drips disdain for me I have to just extract her from my heart and make her a movie extra that no longer gets a say in how I feel about myself. That's how I feel. But maybe I'm just justifying my own bad behavior of walling her off? This stuff is so confusing to me.
I dunno. Right now I am very disinterested in being emotionally close to anyone. It's all I can do to take care of myself. I can't imagine trying to navigate through an R again. But this is stuff I have to sort through little by little.
Me:38 XW:38 T:11 years M:8 years Kids: S14, D11, D7 BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
LMS..up at the top, go to the Newcomers main page. Right above where the menu says Subject/Poster, on the very left there is a bar for New Topic. Click on that, and start telling us your story.
I don't want to project my own issues on your situation, because I'm not a mind reader and I don't agree with your wife's actions or criticism but just to offer a different view point... perhaps she does not want parenting to be easy for you. Maybe she wants that acknowledgement that taking care of the kids is tough and stressful and maybe she wants to be appreciated as well, for being capable at the most important job in the world?
I can kind of see this too, especially if you weren't very involved with kids prior BD. She probably has some built up resentment about taking care of the kids all of the time in the past and maybe never felt appreciated, so now she is saying to herself it's not so easy is it Z. Just a thought.
You guys may be right. It's something I don't give much thought to these days. I'm not trying to be unappreciative of your thoughts on the matter, I just don't give her too much space in my mind these days. If we were M and she hadn't betrayed me, asked for D, etc, then we could talk about it. As is it's history. Her emotions and perspectives are all her journey and has nothing to do with me anymore.
My journey has been one of working through the hurt this caused me so I DON'T seep with resentment for those wrongs, and I become more and more free to enjoy my own life. I'm getting there.
My posts above were more just recognizing how hurtful criticism is to me and being careful who I allow emotionally close to me. I feel better and better about who I am, what I am doing, and where I am going. I've got some good friends and family that are very supportive while still challenging me in a positive way when appropriate. You guys are part of that family. Anyone that's not a Zues fan, well, they can live it up and I hope they make the most of their experience, but it won't have a Zues in it.
Me:38 XW:38 T:11 years M:8 years Kids: S14, D11, D7 BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
As far as being careful about who I let in emotionally, I've made a real effort not to close myself off, knowing that leaves more of a possibility of my being hurt. Today I had a new friendship crash and burn in a huge way. I don't know that I would have done it any differently, though, I did learn something from it. So I'm grateful for what that person taught me, and I move on...
