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

[SH_]

good morning ripe.

Thank you for your posts. I enjoy reading them immensely. You have a knack for deep insight and this is something that I connect with and need.
Your intellect and ongoing learning and seeking out information with deep spiritual implications is something that I admire.

I am reading through your story and about half way now, but I see so many similarities, that hurts. It hurts to know that there are more than just me suffering the injustices we are going through with our families. But your story gives me strength and additional knowledge that I need now.

I feel your pain of having to watch our child say good bye.....I feel your pain in the desire to forgive, but the struggle to truly feel it in our heart and soul, I feel your pain to reflect on those aspects of who we are that may have contributed to the breaking up of our families. I feel your pain, because it is my pain as well.

Check out the Ted Talk by Guy Winch about emotional first aid. It has really helped me these past few days since I discovered it. I share it with you in hopes to repay some of the help you have provided me in your posts of knowledge and wisdom.

Keep sharing your insights as I benefit, and I am sure others do as well.
Be well my friend.

[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.

[Ripe]

How can we stop our kids from suffering from their parents' separation?
My instincts as a father tell me I have to protect my kids from suffering and I am not able to do that.
I am going crazy from looking at my kids tears.
Also, can we ever learn to live without our kids?
Does it get any better?
Any day?

[coffee_]

Ripe, you never have to learn to live without your kids, you always have the memories. If my W moves I will just move where she moves,so I can be by my S.
We cant stop the suffering but we can learn to be better Dads we can be and that will help.
I feel your pain, my S is holding up good at face value. It was a shock to him, and says that he didn't see it coming. I am sad for him, his mother is just not being a good mom right now. She is trying but here head is in the fog and she is very distracted.
Your kids will always be yours, if you think of them in the future, will they say Dad I am glad you suffered and stayed with Mom all these years, or will they say, Dad I am so glad that you showed us how to be such happy people, even in the face of tragidy.

[Ripe]

Coffee, thanks for your words.
STBXW sent me yesterday an email because she wants to meet.
Besides other things, she writes that we have to show the kids that life will smile at them and that we are here to help them at that, although now walking a different path from the one initially foreseen and desirable.
The use of this last adjective is interesting.
It is the first time in a very long time that STBXW mentions that marriage would be more desirable for the kids. Her narrative has been that divorce and the kids having two families is just a different thing, neither better or worse.
It means nothing, but it was nice to read it.

[doodler]

How can we stop our kids from suffering from their parents' separation?
My instincts as a father tell me I have to protect my kids from suffering and I am not able to do that.
I am going crazy from looking at my kids tears.
Also, can we ever learn to live without our kids?
Does it get any better?
Any day?

Ripe,

I agree with you; the children are innocent victims and it feels like we should be protecting them. I feel your pain. I wish I had answers to your questions, but I don't right now.

[Ripe]

The suffering I am going through these days is almost unbearable.
Last Friday STBXW and I met to talk for the second time about our kids' future.
STBXW presented her proposal: she wants to keep the kids with her in this foreign country for the next year, since she intends to remain here.
On the other hand, I have applied to go back to my previous job back in my home country.
This is causing me so much pain: my kids will no longer have contact with both parents on a regular basis, much less living in the vicinity of each other.
The kids' school ends in two weeks. Every second I spend with them is like gold to me, but I am painfully aware of the upcoming day that marks the end of the second separation they will face in one year, being the first the separation of their parents.
I could take the decision to stay in this foreign land and job one more year. It would be so easy for everybody. However, I am losing seniority back home and feel that I need to go back, although I like very much what I am doing here (and earning).
The decision I must take is excruciating.
I no longer sleep.

[SH_]

My heart breaks for you and your situation. What a tremendous weight this is. I wish I had some advice or ideas, but this is a tough thing I can only imagine.

You and your family are in my prayers and I hope that a miracle of sorts can present itself.

Enjoy those moments of gold. I know how precious they are.

Hang in there my friend. I am here to support you.

[Ripe]

SH, thank you for including me in your prayers. You don't know what they mean to me.
Yesterday was a black day amongst black days.
STBXW and I met with the mediator in order to discuss the kids' custody.
Both of us want to have the kids, so we didn't reach any agreement. What was agreed is that the courts will have to decide for us.
I cannot believe this is happening to our kids.
I just want to close my eyes and wait twenty years before opening them again.
Both parents present good reasons for wanting to have the kids either in this foreign country either in our and theirs home country.
Although both of us swore that each opposing proposal was based on the kids' best interest as we say it and nothing else I know from the bottom of my heart that not wanting to live apart from my kids plays a huge role in this.
I don't see life without my kids. What did they do to deserve this, having their parents living 1000 Km from each other and now fighting an ugly fight for them?

[SH_]

“Where there is great love, there are always miracles.” ~Willa Cather

(((((Ripe)))))

Still here for you my friend.
Still praying for you my brother.