More and more, and less and less...

[Zues126]

Nothing earth shattering to report, but I feel like posting and sharing one funny story. When I watch shows with the kids on Netflix we turn off all the lights in the room, so it's pitch black in the evening (it gets dark at like 4PM in MN). When Netflix is loading the screen is black for like 10 seconds, then all of a sudden it goes to absolute white screen with NETFLIX in big red letters, and it's blinding on my big screen. My kids always cry in surprise because it's so obnoxious and jarring. I joked once and said "It's like 'I'm in a cave, I'm in a cave, I'm in a cave, I'm STARING AT THE SUN.'" They thought it was absolutely hilarious, and I guess I do too. So now, every night when we fire up the show, they start chanting 'I'm in a cave, I'm in a cave...'. No matter what's going on in my day it makes me so happy. Absolutely priceless.

So that was my weekend. Took the kids to the science museum Saturday. I'm reading them Lord of the Rings which is just awesome. At one point I had almost resigned myself to the idea of them growing up without knowing the pleasure of reading, but I am doing battle on that and little by little we are working through some cool stories, and funny how now they see 'Gollum' references everywhere, just tonight we saw a cartoon that was a spoof on the Fellowship of the Ring and they were super excited they knew what it was referring to. Today I had a friend and his woman and new baby come over and we all hung out for a bit, my daughters loved playing with his baby. And just chilled a bit with the family.

They are talking more and more about this new man who's at mom's place a lot. I don't know I can call him OM anymore as he wasn't the first (or second or third or fourth lol) guy after BD, and as we are now divorced and she is introducing him to our children I guess he's just mom's boyfriend. Anyway, kids talk about him a lot. I don't really know what to do beyond mostly just shrugging and changing the subject (I know I talked to them about their feelings once before on this, but I don't know it is always coming from a place of pain, nor do I want to make a mountain out of a molehill or get them sad about something they can't change). But my guess it's just them sharing their life, and he's a part of it now. And the cool part is it doesn't bother me. I don't feel threatened by this man in any way. I'm not not threatened because I feel better than him, or that I think he's scum...I just don't feel I'm in competition in any way, shape or form. It has nothing to do with me.

I feel the same about XW. You all know me well enough to know I don't believe in divorce, but I'll tell you, I get why she left the marriage we had, and it's nice to not be fighting anymore, and it's nice to be able to live my life and feel good about who I am and enjoy my time. This isn't what I chose, but I won't deny appreciating the benefits that come from being single, even if I'm prepared to give them up again down the road (not to say I won't do a better job maintaining my own happiness next time).

I guess the one sort of deep thought I have had is that I am less and less judgmental of XW. For a while I really saw her as a terrible person, the 'murderer of my wife' as I used to say. I still think this is the case to some extent, but the heat behind those thoughts is cooling off. It doesn't serve me to carry anger in my heart, not to co-parent, not for myself, not for my children. And I can see that really she's just a good woman that doesn't have the same conviction towards marriage that I do, and within that lens she hasn't done anything that wrong. No, I don't agree, I don't want part of it, I want nothing to do with other people that can go along with that...but she's not a terrible person, just someone with different beliefs that I have that's impacted my family. It's been nice to see this dim down as time has passed.

And it's more the person I want to be. I don't want to be the angry/judgmental guy. And I can tell you, looking at the women on this forum, those that don't bash their H's seem so attractive. Make no mistake, I cut a lot of slack to those that do, because this stuff is so hard. But if you can come out the other side of this and know you didn't betray your spouse or bad mouth them or bus drive them even when they betrayed you and bus drove you...that is something really special. I wasn't able to do that the way I would have liked, but I am doing my best to do so now. She's not a horrible person, she's a good mom, and I'm glad my kids are safe with her and she loves them and will continue to be a great parent.

As for me, I'm playing pool tournaments the next 5 weekends I don't have my children, and playing this pool league that started last wednesday (every other wed). I'm not playing well, but I'm not far off from playing well, and I love the game. It will be fun. And I can't wait until my lease is up in summer and I can move into a bigger place and get my pool table set up again!

Dropping the kids off in the AM then working a little bit, then back at it hard Tuesday. Gotta pay for this all. Work's been a struggle but I'm facing it one day at a time. It can't stay hard forever.

Wishing you all great things this week. Take care!