self care - a good question. I admit that i have made our boys my priority - and may need to ensure that the oxygen mask is more firmly placed on my own face before helping them with theirs.
Every day i walk our wee dog - just a small distance - he is small and there is not much free time in my days. It is good to get out and just be for a wee while - though sometimes this is the prefect chance for my brain to get busy too.
I read every day - escapism really trash/murders/mystery anything just not scifi.
If the boys are away i make sure to go out with friends - and actually i even go out and take them with me so we all have a sleep over occasionally. I do not say no to an invite.
My weekend mornings are my treat - i get up, do all the busy morning things, then sneak back to bed with a pot of coffee and my book and read until the pot is empty - knowing that the washing machine is doing its thing, the dishwasher is empty and the day is ready to begin. Bliss.
And geeky as this sounds, i live a good life. My life is very stress free as I am truly trying to be the best me i can be - honest, kind, true to me - which is an incredibly stress free way of living.
When the boys are at sports etc I try to go for a walk or chat with friends at their events.
I do have ideas of bigger GAL things i would like to get into - back into you could say - from pre marriage days; but cant quite find time for those - and think trying to make time would create stress. So for the timebeing, i content myself with thinking of things sort of like a bucket list but with positive overtones.
I have renewed my passport so one day i can travel again.
I had some counselling in the first year after BD - if i am honest, even that focus was primarily on the boys. I think i have done ok there but now need to work on me again perhaps? One thing that sticks loud and clear for me from the counselling was that this behaviour is not ok if i don't think it is. I don't think it is
ExH has not spoken to me of any failings - just stated on BD that he had not been happy for ages, years - and eventually ever, hoped in our car and drove away! Since then it has been life as normal for him (at least on the surface), living his new life without any of the constraints of the old one.
Maybe I have misapplied DB, but my biggest 180 has been to let him go. No ranting, no raving, no accusations, definitely no relationship talk, no me being right him being wrong, no judgement - all of which i did fairly often before BD.
I have made some educated guesses to the failings though try to spend more time thinking about me than him.
ExH enjoys spending money - lots of money. He has stated that he does not believe in saving and spent money in excess of what we earnt for the duration of our marriage. Hi parents, mother in particular, support and encourage this. His mother even told me once that she hoped he could always buy what he wanted.
This spending escalated to the point that during the year prior to BD, i issued an ultimatum stating that i would need to leave him if he spent big amounts without checking with me. That the boys and I would be better off without his (considerable) income than living with the continued spending.
At the time, without knowing the term 180, this was a complete 180 for me as usually i would rant and rave and berate him for spending - when i was very calm and matter of fact and i thought rather loving with my explanation that having no money but certainty of what was available would be better than a big income but the risk of there being no money available due to his spending.
Different attitudes to money would be a biggie i guess!
I discovered after BD that he had bought a very expensive car - yep that kind of large amount is what we had been living with being spent willy nillie (a kiwi expression - not meant to be offensive!) He had not told me and i can only assume that he really did not want to tell me to the extent it was easier to run away.
I also assume that i was enabling during our relationship and even fell into the spending more than we had lifestyle too.
While i have chosen to think this is an MLC, ours is my ExH's second marriage. He left his first following an affair too - in very similar circumstances. He always denied that he had had an affair, and his parents backed him up on this. They told a version of that marriage break up as a lack of trust and that his exW accused him of having an affair so he felt he had to leave. He never contacted her again after the day she told him she had found out about his affair, simply hoped in a car and drove away. There were no children from that relationship, but the pattern is exactly the same. I have only found out this version of events since our own BD. Maybe this is just who he is and MLC has helped me to feel better about my relationship choice.
I am a much better parent since BD, actively and consciously parenting. I am a much better me - a more authentic true to me version of me.
I want to encourage and support the boys to see their dad, but i want boundaries in place to keep me safe as well as them. I struggle with the contrary nature of this deep seated belief that the boys need to spend time with their dad, versus the fact that other than being their dad he is not a person i would ever want them to spend time with given his behaviour over the last 2 + years
suggestions to help manage this internal turmoil woud be a great help.
