Just an update...

[wishing, hoping]

Hello strangers

It's odd to long in after all this time and really see no familiar names on the postings. People come and go. And I hope the posters on this thread find peace. It's hard to find that peace but the secret is it comes from within and most of us are so busy fighting and scrambling to find peace they don't see it when it comes. It takes a while but once it's there it makes a world of difference.

Months have passed. In fact it's upon the two year anniversary of when I moved out of the marital home. So much has changed for me, but yet I am the same person I always have been. I look at that house now sometimes when I pick up the kids and marvel at how cold the house is. No warmth...no love. It seems haunted. My son told me the other day that part of me still lives in that house and will never leave and as long as he and D are living there I will always be there. Such a wise boy. And I realized he was correct. For a moment it made me pity OW. But only for a moment.

I can only see things from my point of view, but everything the veterans say on this forum is true. It takes time to see it. Lots of time. And you wont believe it when you do see it. It comes when you aren't looking for it.

I am doing well. Things are shaky at my place of employment. Lots of layoffs but I have survived so far, but I know that no one is irreplaceable so I have started looking and brushed up my resume just in case. Things are really really good with NG and very very serious. My kids just love him and D calls him dad (or stepdaddy). He treats them just like they are his own and loves them dearly. He is teaching S and his own son how to rebuild a motor in a snowmobile since he bought two sleds for the boys so they can work on them. S's own father would never ever do anything like that.

S is a remarkable young man. He is on the honor roll, plays HS and Club soccer, is involved in Band and Choir, is trying out for Honor Choir and is very active in the HS theatre. He has so much going on and he loves it. I am beyond proud of him. D is a little character who has recently discovered a love of reading and Pokemon. LOL. She loves to sing and is now an acolyte in the church we attend. She tends to have a low self-confidence, but I'm working on that. Her stepmother is not helping.

As far as X, I am not sure what to say. He still tries to get me mixed in with his daily life with and without the kids. For example, he is still having issues with the dog having accidents in the house and of course it is my fault. He claims I don't let the dog go to the bathroom before I drop it off on the days he has the kids. I assured him that wasn't the case. He texted me and told me he couldn't have the dog in his house unsupervised if the dog kept having accidents. I told him he needed to lock up the dog then or find doggie daycare. He said or else I could just not drop him off on Wednesday mornings. I told him if that was the case, he would need to come to my place on Wednesday afternoons and pick up the dog as I was not accepting full responsibility for the dog. I have heard nothing about it since.

X is withered and tired. He still puts on the act. But he looks nothing like the man I met and married. He is a mere shadow of that person. And OW, the perfect woman whom the kids love as much as a mother, has become someone who has no motherly instincts whatsoever, even to her own children. S and D don't care to be around her. They tell me she is mean, snippy and rude and the kids are too be quiet as mice when she is sleeping. D tells me she makes her cry a lot while S just stays away from her. The latest is that X has started taking S back to counseling sessions to discuss "family communications" and of course he sent me an email stating it was my fault. How is having family discussions with a counselor on communications WITHOUT my presence supposed to improve things if I am not present? Interesting.

Long story short, X is stuck and is going nowhere. I am moving forward and I don't think he likes it and therefore is trying to keep me involved so I can stay stuck. NG was worried for a long time that X was gonna wake up one day and want me back and I told him even if that did happen, it's too little, too late and I can't go back to living like that.

I still hate only having the kids part-time. That's the only thing I can't get used to. But X owes it to them and to me to be responsible for them. And I can't be the one to keep them from their father. Then that would turn around and affect me.

WH