Great posts, ladies. Thank you. I truly appreciate you keeping an eye on me.
I know something has to change. I know that this pattern repeating itself is killing me slowly.
My codependance is screaming at me to sweep this all under the rug and to fix things. I'm fairly confident that I could convince W to stay but I won't do it. I don't want to start a new bomb drop thread in a year or so.
^^^this is new for me. I've never done this (let her go without trying to keep her here) before and it's scary to let her go and to watch her drive off in a U-Haul. It makes me really sad just thinking about it.
25 - regarding D's. My daughter is currently living with her mom. I speak to her regurlarly (When she's not mad at me for not agreeing with her teenage rebellion). She currently has a boyfriend and he takes up most of her time. I do ask her to do things but she will rarely accept unless she has nothing else going on.
W's D is still living with us until she leaves with her mom in 2 weeks. I check in with her everyday and play with her when I get home from work. About a week ago, I took her to get frozen yogurt and spent some time telling her none of this was her fault and that I consider myself her dad (she's met her real father once). I told her I would always be there for her and she could call or text anytime. She knows she is going to live with her grandma for awhile with her mom.
Regarding W, she is still approaching me with R talks. She still intends to move but is really emphasizing getting back together one day after we both work through our issues individually. She appears to be really struggling with all of this.
I'm not sure how I feel about that to be honest. Part of me thinks she is setting me up to be Plan B. When she asks me about it, I do not respond one way or the other. I just listen.
On the other hand, when she tells me this stuff, she is always crying. Seeing her cry is my achille's heel. It's my weakness. It's my codependance screaming at me to fix things for her, to relieve her pain. What I'm learning is that when I do give in and relieve her pain, I'm abandoning myself in a sense. I'm taking her pain on and absorbing it myself.
I always thought that this ^^^ was me being a loving person.
Here's where it gets tricky though. When I do give in and fix her issue, I expect her to do the same for me when I'm faced with a trial. How warped is that???
Something else I've thought about is how I can change myself into someone that others will approve of. For instance, when I first met W's mom, I wanted her to like me. So I ended up helping her move all by myself with no help from W or W's family. I wanted to be Superman so W's mom would approve of me. This went on for years as I kept trying to impress this woman. Ironically, W's mom always bad mouthed me behind my back because I had "stolen" her daughter from her.
I don't want to swing too far in the other direction and become a jerk who wont lift a finger to help anyone because I don't want to be codependant. I'm a nice person by nature, I always have been and I makes me feel good to help people or encourage them. But there's a fine line between being supportive and fixing things for people.
I've always ran from pain because I've never been good at coping with it. It all stems from my childhood and my abandonment issues. This time, my plan is to lean into the pain. To accept reality instead of coming up with a fantasy that will keep me distracted from the pain.
