The begining of the rest of my new life? (3)

[Ripe]

Thank you, SadHub, for being here with me.
Your TED Talk is really great and goes together with everything I have been learning lately. It will help me, I am sure.
I now realize the importance of taking good care of my emotions.
Meditation became part of my emotional first aid kit and tomorrow morning I am doing my first ever half-day retreat as the completion of an on-line course.


For the last five years I have been working with this international organization.
I had an unpaid leave from my work as public employee until 2014, then the renewal of this leave was denied and I requested a prolonged absence leave which was granted because it could not be denied. Basically I quit my job with the possibility of being able to return at any time, although losing seniority.
Wife and two kids joined me in 2012. Wife asked for unpaid leave, situation that remains until today.
Wife always hated this country and resented not having a job. Always wanted to go back.
Now my organization is downsizing.
I don't know if I will have a place or not.
I would like to continue working abroad, but having lost already two years of seniority kind of forces me to go back. Also, the timing of the downsizing is awful.
Only during the next couples of months I will know if my intentional job remains or not, but I need to apply for a position back home until next Tuesday if I want to be able to choose a region to work in my home country.
Wife now wants to stay in this foreign country. She has found a temporary part-time job and now recognizes the advantages on living abroad. The kids are in an international school.
Since the beginning of the year I have been feeling this intense pain, a pain I have never experienced.
Although I accept now the inevitability of divorce, the knowing that my kids will be living far from either their mother or father causes in me an excruciating, almost physical pain.
So, I am now in a position of envying my fellow DBusters that get divorced but at least keep living in the same town as their kids and XW or XH.
STBXW and I already had two mediated meetings in order to decide with which parent the kids will stay. STBXW says she still hasn't decided if she stays abroad or not.
Today we had a meeting with the kids and told them about all the possibilities, although they have been aware for some time that something like this might happen.
S10 is attached to me and S7 to his mom.
S10 wants to go back with me and S7 wants to stay with his mom and at his present school. I understand S7, since when he came to this country he was 3 years old.
We already told them there is no change of us separating the brothers.
During the meeting S10 behaved very rudely towards his mother and S7 behaved like a baby.
We had the meeting at a coffee shop 10 meters away from my house.
Since this weekend the kids stay with their mom I told them I would take them until the corner. S10 didn't want to leave my hand. He kept being rude and saying silly things until I asked him: "Tell me, what you would really want was for mom and I to stay together and in the same place, right?" He immediately said yes. STBXW said that that was impossible.
Since both kids would not let me go I told them I would walk with them until their mom's place.
Once there, S10 started crying and saying he didn't want to leave me. I promised I would call and told him he could call at any time.
It was very difficult to walk away.
So, when I said two posts ago that divorce is a crime against humanity, especially when it hurts your kids, I was not joking.
And when I said one post ago that I intend to forgive STBXW I mean it. Otherwise my hatred towards STBXW and all divorced people that walked away from their families will consume and devour me.