Sorry I've not been here the past two weeks. We have been working to get the house ready to go on the market and every second of my day has been spent on that, work, or focused on D9. I feel so exhausted, but am in ok spirits.
So, the house just hit MLS an hour ago. A bunch of views already and I think it will sell fairly quick. W had the reigns of finding us a rental but she has not so far. She has sent me a few links but not responded to my comments on them. So this past weekend I asked her about it and she got very defensive. Said that I was the one who needed to decide what to do. So yesterday I told her I'd like to discuss when I got home via text:
Me: "Why don't we talk about rentals tomorrow. Also, you're welcome to join us for dinner friday evening, we could get someone to watch D" -- some friends from work whom I'm going out with
W: "Why would I want to do that? Seriously. I'm not going out to dinner with you. Why do you keep acting like everything is fine and we're just going to magically start doing stuff together? Do you have any idea how screwed up that is? We haven't done anything together in almost ten years. What is your rationale for ignoring that completely and asking me to go to a work function? I've never been to one before why would you ask me now? I'm asking a serious question because this makes zero sense. Is there anything in that closet that still needs to come out? We need it cleaned out for the showings"
Me: Not a work function, just dinner with some friends here at work. Thought you may like to get out for a bit. Am very aware everything is not fine. Closet stuff is take care of"
So I come home, eat dinner with W and D, hang out with D for a bit then take the last closet stuff to storage. When I get home, there's a friction in the air and D seems upset with me. We go through the meds and bedtime routine. When I go into Ds room she won't talk to me. I ask what's wrong, no answer. I ask if she wants to talk about anything, no answer. I ask if she'd like to talk later no answer. So I tuck her in, tell her we can talk whenever she's ready, and then go down to talk to W.
W gruffly asks what I want to talk about. I ask her what she's thinking on the rental. She asks what do I mean. I ask her how the search is coming. She tells me she has not been searching because she was waiting for me to come back to her with what I want to do. I tell her I'd thought she was looking for places. She says she wont look for places because I will just find something wrong with every place she picks and shoot it down. I then tell her that I'm on board with her making the decision on where we are going to live. I'm also willing to look at whatever she may want me to and give feedback on anything. (W has said that I ignored her input on every housing decision so I've taken the tact of letting her drive this. Add to that her desire to rent and mine to buy and it only seems like the bed t way to proceed).
W then asks why I'm acting as though everything is fine. She says that's the worst part of all this. I again tell her that I'm quite aware everything is not fine but we need a place to live. She asks why we are doing this. Why are we looking for a place together. That I'm mistaken if I think we will be living together 10yrs from now. That we will never be partners or be a team and we never have been either of those things.
W then says I've really F'ed up with D again. She starts to tell me what happened but then stops and says, no, I can't tell you without asking D if it's ok. I tell W, yes, D seemed upset with me and I'll discuss it with D tomorrow. W then says again how much I messed up and how it's more of the same. I tell W that, like any relationship, I'll discuss and work it out with D directly once she's ready to discuss. W then says that D will never tell me how she's really feeling or what's really wrong.
W then asks why we all need to be miserable living like this. That I should remember that one of the miserable people is my D. I say that I've said before I'm not ok with us living this way. I tell her that we have the house on the market and it will probably sell quickly. The most basic thing we need is a place to live. W says fine, we will just all be miserable until one of us dies.
Silence for a bit then I say, again, I recognize everything is not fine but we need a place to live. W huffs and says fine, I'll take care of it and I heard you the first 3 times. I say goodnight, get up, and go to bed.
So, we have had a cordial dialogue as we worked as a team (wow...) getting the house ready. We literally worked non stop for 3 weeks on stuff. Now it appears that my W seems to have thought getting the house on the mkt would somehow force me out of the picture. That my previous stance of she's free to go, but I won't relinquish more than 50% of my time with D would change. I'm frustrated bc this all makes no sense to me. We have removed an anchor (the house) from the equation but it still doesn't change my stance on things.
I almost feel like my W views me as her jailer. That I'm forcibly keeping her here against her will. She doesn't seem to recognize that dealing with her is horrible either, as she thinks I'm unphased by her constant crap. If she wants to go, I won't stop her. We've talked assets and everything is fair. I don't think 50/50 time with our D is unfair either, but that appears to be keeping W hanging around as she wants Ds time 95% of the time. I want to R this M but W seems adamant about not even attempting that. It's admirable, I guess, that W is staying for Ds sake (though I don't know why she thinks D would suffer with me as a single dad). But it's way off base.
That said, I do need to talk to D and see why she's upset. I'm supposed to go to dinner with friends tomorrow evening but maybe I'll bail and come home to talk to D. D was happy to see me when I got home, but somehow while I was packing the closet stuff and gone at the storage unit she became upset with me in those 40 minutes.
None of this makes sense but I'll work through it. Priority is D. W is secondary at the moment.
I did tell my IC, in reference to his question about using the move to S, that I AM ready to give up, but I am CHOOSING not to give up right now. All, I feel so tired and mired in this situation here. Still grinding, but it has become much more difficult to push this M forward by myself.
Again, I apologize for my absence. I'll follow up with everyone's situations tomorrow and respond to the comments while I was gone as well. Thank you all for your thoughts and support as always.
Me39 M11 : T13 D9 BD 5/31/16 In House S until 6/21/17 Divorced 10/5/18
