Newby here . . . (Thread 7)

[JRuss]

FG and lt -- hey guys. Long time no cyber talk. I hope you're both doing well (or at least better). Not a whole lot to report on my situation. Still slowly ticking down the days until she closes on her house (May 19th) and moves out (probably the following week). We'll be formally divorced sometime in early June. We are pretty cordial. Things seem to go best for all parties when I act as though I don't give a $hit, which is even sometimes really the case, so that's what I try to do.

Looking out ahead, I think when she moves out will be very sad. I've known a long time this wasn't going to end any other way, but it still makes my heart hurt thinking about it. I think I'm going to tell her I need to know the day(s) the moving truck will be here, so I can arrange to be elsewhere.

Yesterday, out of the blue, she e-mailed me and said S10, who is struggling at times with the D, would really benefit from a dog, and wouldn't it make a lot of sense if we got one for him, and the dog would just go back and forth with the kids when we do handoffs? I was noncommittal. I think the dog would struggle with that arrangement, wouldn't it? I'm also not sure I am looking for more ways to stay connected to her (recognizing we'll always have the children connecting us). I do think he'd benefit from some sort of animal friend (we lost two adult cats this fall/winter he'd known and loved his whole life), so I'm struggling a bit with where my duty to do what's best for the kids and what's best for me starts/ends.

We'll do Easter this weekend as a family. It will probably be the last holiday the four of us do together. Bittersweet to say the least.

GAL continues to go well. Benched 15 lbs. more than my body weight this week and have kept off all of the weight I lost after BD. Looking and feeling good (most of the time).

I hope you both have a great weekend.