[TimR]

Gotta say Broke, I agree with everyone else. Take the tickets and no invite to H. You may want to explain it is Mother's Day which is a special day between you and Ss, you do not want him there you just want time with your boys. I am sure there is better wording than that.

How did divorce care go last night?

[Thornton]

I agree with everyone else. Make it a special day for you and your kids.

I would tell H "You know, I think I would prefer it if I could just spend some alone time with the boys and make it a special day for them. I don't want to muddy the waters if we can avoid doing so."

[broke]

Thanks to everyone for weighing in. What would you guys think of me encouraging H to take S12 and his friends to a different game? I'm hesitant to take H's tickets for a couple reasons:

- I feel like it's him still controlling my life
- he will think I'm unreasonable for not inviting him on S12's bday and we will fight about it
- if I feel backed into a corner and H comes, that sends wrong message to S12 - he desperately wants us to reconcile (probably more than I do)


Divorce care was good last night. One of the best classes I think because it was about forgiveness and why it is so important for the LBS. Probably will have to go back when I'm ready to forgive :-).

I realized during class last night that was why being with H was so hard yesterday. It's brought up some old wounds:

- he's so much further ahead of me in wanting this D
- he never gave us a chance to fix what was wrong

It's hard to forgive when you feel like your best friend moved on without giving you the chance to fix anything. It's actually harder for me to forgive that than the cheating.....

Anyway, S12 has day off school because of conferences so I'm going to take him out to beat me at golf :-). I hope everyone has a good day and that the roller coaster doesn't dip for us DB'ers!

[Thornton]

Have fun golfing, Broke!

[daybyday]

I like your idea Broke and your reasoning sounds great. H wants to cake eat as he is "throwing you a bone". Very well thought through.

[broke]

Thanks, daybyday. Unfortunately, H already talked to S12 about it, so he is counting on going to that game (so much for letting me think about it). So, I guess that means I take the tickets and tell H that I prefer he not attend with us?

On another note, when I picked up S12 from H's house this morning before golf, he brought out stuff to put in my car. We chatted for a few minutes about kids' activities. It was fine. Then, he tells me that he is going to Florida for the next three days. That is news to me and the kids - he was supposed to be in town for a conference. So, of course, my mind goes to "he must be getting away with the OW". Ugh - wish he wouldn't have said anything. Going to try not to focus on it but he was very cagey about giving any details to the kids or me.

I know I am not supposed to mind read, so I am going to focus on the fact that I had a great day golfing with S12. I played much better than I did last week, too.

Hope everyone else is enjoying beautiful weather today!

[Rednail]

Broke- I think finding out, thinking that he is, or knowing about trips with the OW are the worst. I know how much it [censored]. Try not thinking about it. Fl isn't that great,I live here. It is so hot and sticky outside today. Yuck.

I am really glad you had a great day with S12 golfing. That is good mother son bonding. I took S3 out to breakfast with my girlfriend and her 2 kids while D5 was in prek. It was nice to be out with another adult.

Lots of hugs and love- Hopefully the rest of today looks bright and cheerful for you!

[daybyday]

Yes. I would still suggest that H can take your boys to another game, but for the reasons of spending time with your boys on your day and not muddying the waters at this time, that you would like to bond with just them.

[Vanilla]

Go have some fun time with the kids.

V

[broke]

Been up since 4am. First time in about a month that has happened. I had an epiphany and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I realized that my relationship with H right now doesn’t really look that different than my M with H a year ago. I still arrange my life around the kids and he still arranges his kids around his life. (Both of us do this to the extreme – both of us have work to do to change this). He still travels weekly for his career and that takes precedence over a lot, including time with his family. The only two things that are missing are intimacy and physically living in the same house.

What does this mean? H was right – our emotional connection was missing (he said it was never there – I disagree). We had grown apart. Our priorities no longer lined up. We were living more like roommates or partners than a M couple in love.

Why does it matter so much? Maybe I shouldn’t be fighting so hard for this M. Maybe our priorities won’t ever match up again – maybe we have just grown too far apart.

Now, I am not saying that you should just bail when things get tough and not try to fix it. But, because of the PA, our M is irretrievably broken and it will take an unbelievable amount of work to create a new M better than the old one.

As I thought about what our marital relationship became, I am not sure it will be worth the work. Ok, I should restate that – I think that I may be capable of moving mountains to regain my family and restore my M. But, I just don’t think my H will ever be committed to do that. I know that you will all say that is mind reading and fortune telling. But, I have known that man for 25 years. I know him better than anyone and he doesn’t really put in the work to create deep emotional ties with people. I was closer to his family than he was. And, I asked him to go to MC for years because I wanted to have a better M and he refused.

When I told my sister that he said we were divorcing because we didn’t have an emotional connection, my sister’s response was “I have know him for over 20 years and don’t have an emotional connection with him. If he doesn’t have one with you, who does he have one with?” So, I don’t think it is just me that thinks he really struggles with opening up emotionally to people. How in the world is he ever going to be able to commit to fixing our M when he can’t do that? And, fundamentally, I think we are no longer in sync because I believe that relationships with people should matter more than anything else. My H my believe this, too, but I just don’t see it with his actions.

Maybe my H was right when he said “I don’t need this M enough to settle”. But, maybe I need to consider whether hanging on to this marriage is really me settling. Not because my H is “less than what I deserve” but maybe because I deserve someone different than H and he deserves someone different than me.

Why am I sharing this very long passage with all of you? I am wondering if maybe this is the first sign of truly detaching. Has anyone else had the realization that maybe that when the bomb dropped that was part of the plan all along? Is this my first step toward acceptance that maybe my M may not be fixable.? Maybe God does have a different plan for me and it doesn’t include H in it. … I am just not sure either of us is capable of giving the other what we need now...

For those of you that read the whole post, thanks. I am exhausted and needed to get all my thoughts out there, but not sure they are as coherent as they could be if I got more sleep.