The Unpleasantness

[qt4x11]

I had the kids for 5 days - Wed through Sun, just brought them back on Mon morning. It was very nice, but busy. I am a good dad. My kids love me - that means everything. Kids are just the greatest thing in my life and they really lift my mood. We had a very sweet father’s day together. We spent time with my side of the family, I took them to toys r us, we went out to dinner one night. Also their cousin had a birthday party so they really had a lot of fun. I think dropping them off Monday morning is the worst for me - I’m alone again and confronted with my sitch. All in all I’d have to say that I’m doing better. My attitude is a lot better than it was last week when I was in absolute despair. Now I just have my moments of absolute despair, I guess that’s an improvement.

It doesn’t help that absolutely none of my friends and family see any hope for me to reconcile with my wife. When they talk to me about my marriage, the overall feeling is that we are headed for D. My friends and family hate her at this point for what she’s doing to me and to our kids - they don’t particularly want us to stay together. That’s understandable, I know they mean well, they just want me to be happy and for this to be over for me.

I am detaching. I can feel it happening, although I’m not completely ‘there’. I’m starting to accept that this D is happening, and the only thing I can do is work on myself and keep a PMA, and keep up my DB efforts. The outcome of the situation is up to her. That’s not a good feeling, to have your life be decided by someone else (your kids lives too). So I’ve been detaching. Whatever happens, I will deal with it, and I will know that I’ve done all that I can, and I will be a stronger person when I come out the other side. It seems like it would be difficult to completely detach as long as you’re DB’ing? because a part of your is still putting forth effort into working on the marriage by working on yourself?

I am lifting weight, going to 12 step meetings, focusing on work, spending time with friends and family, journaling, meditating. In terms of my DB efforts, I have been doing very well - keeping interactions cheerful, respectful, cordial. I noticed interactions with my wife have improved. Her tone when interacting with me has improved, she is pleasant and upbeat around me vs. the look of hate and shooting daggers with her eyes previously. She called a few times over the weekend to talk to the kids, I got to talk to her a few minutes too. She is texting me more, she gave me the garage door opener to the house, she is asking me to do more stuff with the kids, and we are talking on the phone more. She also called me on Friday - I don’t know why she called when she could have texted but I’ll take that as a ‘small step’.

At times it still takes every ounce of self control I have to ‘stick with the plan’ (of DB). It’s hard for me to keep a PMA when the situation just seems so very bleak. She has built up so many walls in such a short amount of time (only a month and a half), it seems a very tall order for me to bring them down. She has already filed the D, she has already called the cops on me and kept me out of my house, she is surrounded by - friends, relatives, therapists - all of whom seem to be ‘supporting’ her by pushing for this D. She will be going to visit her family again next week - no doubt they will probably pump her up full of negativity against me.

I maintain my self control, it takes everything at times to keep myself from reaching out to her and saying what I really want to say. All of our problems are fixable. You are blowing me up into this villain in order to justify destroying our family. How can you just walk away from 10 years and 2 kids without even giving MC a try. Whatever negative image you have of me is completely distorted. I am working on myself every day and I have had many realizations about our relationship. Stop, let’s talk about this. But I can’t say these things. I know they will fall on deaf ears right now, and will only hurt my case. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.