Ups and Downs (III)

[Zues126]

Sorry to hear about this meltdown J. Not much fun.

We all care for you and are here with you now.

Don't be hard on yourself at this moment. It won't change anything for the better. You have work to do, so do all of us. Beating yourself up isn't doing the work. It is actually making things worse. So breathe, find a sense of humor, and laugh at how difficult this stuff is.

As for advice, I would say drop the score keeping from the R.

One time I was at a pool tournament and my friend told me "I would've won that match, but I made four mental mistakes". I replied "Unless you want to include 'counting mental mistakes you're making' as a mental mistake, in which you made five mental mistakes"...I've always been a punk.

Point is, score keeping is a mistake. If you go back in time to the absolute bottom of your marriage, I mean seriously, the worst moment, miscarriage, bad marriage, etc, and want to use that as a measuring stick of the relationship or of who's right or wrong, well, I don't know who was right or wrong back then, but I'd say you're wrong to do so at this moment. Whether you're working on R or working on D, either way, it doesn't help you, him, or your family. Start to work on letting that stuff go and forgiving him for being flawed. And forgive yourself for being flawed!

As for scheduling, drop your expectations of your H. It can be done. You have certain ideas of what a good father or a good husband or a good ex husband would do, and when he doesn't live up to them you get angry. Look, he gets to do what he wants. You don't have to like it, but you don't get to control his behavior. You only get to control your reaction to it. Instead of focusing on his behavior, focus on your reactions and expectations. That's what you can control.

As to the motivation behind his behavior, I can speculate. Remember what my DB coach taught me. That in intimate relationships where someone is doing something aimed at you, you can tell their motivation by how you feel.

If you feel irritated, they want attention.
If you feel angry/hurt, they want revenge.
If you feel powerless, they are feeling powerless.
If you feel insufficient, they feel insufficient.

My guess is that you felt angry and powerless. He probably has felt powerless for a long time, and so in turn he is using the power he has autonomously to restate his boundaries, independence, and show that it isn't all about you, he has a voice too. And he's doing it even when it's a bit of a jerk thing to do, simply to prove a point, and maybe even as a little bit of pay back and revenge. It's not hard to understand why he might feel powerless. He's been basically saying this all along by talking about how hurt he was when the courts were involved. Right or wrong we're talking core stuff, and I think to him court=loss of power, he equated it to you using the legal system to unanimously take control of the situation and he felt violated and powerless. Right or wrong, that's how he felt. To me this is his reaction to those feelings, trying to reinstate his personal power and not be bullied or diminished. And I think he could perceive you as using the kids to continue to try to control him or his life, and he's resisting.

I'm not saying it's right, only that if you wonder what's going through his mind to generate such unreasonable behavior, there it is. And while I don't condemn you for protecting yourself legally, the real reason the court thing hurt so much is that he clearly felt diminished and powerless for a long time, and now he's bruised and broken there. You don't have to care, you don't have to tip toe around him, do your thing, just know that he isn't crazy, he's wounded. He's telling you he's felt violated for a long time so be sensitive to actions that could come across as controlling or don't be surprised when he reacts.

So once again, go back to the beginning. Detach. No expectations. Focus on yourself. And cut yourself some slack. When I say all of this stuff I'm not scoffing at you for making mistakes, I'm actually trying to acknowledge how easy it is to be in this spot. Forgive yourself, take care of yourself. I've pasted it before but I'll end with the quote that carried me through a period when I felt like a failure. You're awesome, we all think so, and you're going to be ok J. Zues promise.

When you expect it least,
the ego,
declared dead,
will surge into your mind,
and in an instant
you will seem so far removed from Tao
as heaven from earth.

Has it ever happened to you?
Don't despair.
Let it go.
Do what comes next.

Accepting failure
is a humbling experience
akin to enlightenment.
In an instant you will discover
that heaven and earth are one and
that you have never been separated from Tao.

The Taoist sage
lives in harmony with failure
and never fails.