A WW? (8)

[lt0402]

Well, I've been horrible about keeping up to date in my thread here this month. A couple weeks ago D and I went on our weeklong trip out West. Just the two of us. Rented a Jeep and drove over a thousand miles to see a bunch of dinosaur related stuff.

I've honestly never had such a fun, liberating, and overall awesome experience! Getting away from my W and just being with D for 7 straight days was liberating and relaxing. We did what we wanted, when we wanted, and how we wanted and, shockingly, we survived! D was soooooo happy. We both didn't want to leave.

I didn't know what to expect when I came back honestly. I'd been convinced W would go see OM, but as far as I can tell she did not. Unsure what she did all week. When we got back though, it was like instantly reinserting ourselves into the maelstrom though. W was on us about if we are anything healthy, the clutter we were leaving that night as we unpacked, etc. almost like we'd never left. Surreal.

That was 1.5 weeks ago. The situation since has been the same. W consistently a downer on the household mood. D bending to placate W a bit. Me not being able to do anything right.

Ws car died yesterday. I offered to get the tow setup for it from work. Caught flack from her for getting home somewhat earlier than usual as she "doesn't need my help". This morning I offered to take her to pickup her car if it was ready early. I got a snarky response back about her not needing my help. So i took D to the bus stop in the rain (bc W didn't have a car) and then sent a txt to W saying:

Me: "I'm going to stop offering to help you with things. I can see it upsets you and, honestly, I'm growing tired of being treated like a POS when I do offer."

Me: "If you need help I'll gladly help if you ask me politely. If it's something around D then I'll just take care of it as I see it."

To which my W responded 30 minutes later:

W: "Try, just for one second, to see it from my perspective. For years and years I begged you to help me with things and you wouldn't and now that it's too late you want to be Mr. Helpful and expect me not to be resentful. For years we didn't speak, at home or by text, and now you start sending me a million texts with jokes and smileys like everything is fine and we're friends. It's infuriating. It feels from my side like such a fake act. Like you're trying to pretend to be nice to me so you can say "See, none of this is my fault". That's how it feels and that's why the more you do it the more it makes me angry. You can't continue to act like everything is fine and expect me not to feel angry. This morning I thought you were asking if you needed to pick D up from the bus stop this afternoon. I misunderstood and I should have apologized but it's hard for me to be around you let alone speak. I told you more than once this IS me trying to be nice. I can't do more than that and I refuse to pretend. If you don't want to help get my car picked up I don't blame you. That's fine. I get it. But stop offering to help me with ridiculous little things you know I don't need help with and then expect me not to get aggravated. You have known me long enough to know how that makes me feel. Please to stop expecting us to treat you better than you treat us, I'm begging you. Not because of how it makes me feel because I'm literally too dead inside to even feel anything besides anger anymore, but you do it to her too and it's not fair. It's no longer okay. I'm genuinely sorry I was rude this morning. I can't act like everything is fine anymore. I'm done pretending."

W: "I know this will sound mean but it's not meant that way - you say it makes you feel like a POS but how do you think I felt all those years? Just because you decided to change things doesn't erase the other ten years where you ignored us. Think about that please."

So, as you can see we are where we have been the whole time. I Loved my week with my D. She's an amazing and awesome kid and I'm very lucky to be her dad! But with W nothing has changed. Still grinding.