25yearsmlc 10 yrs later I File D (part 4)

[25yearsmlc]

I posted this to someone else and decided it could use repeating (if only for me).

"Conflict avoided is really Conflict delayed...and delayed conflicts rarely go away. They tend to fester & metastasize."

This ^^ is such an important lesson for me, (and of course for h, but he's not here.)

Now that I find the GDC (Gross Div Crap) almost paralyzing b/c every bank account or bill feels like a slap in my face

or triggers another review of the past -- I realize I'm really just avoiding the difficult work. Which is partly how I got here... It's the part of this I might be able to change.


I want the focus to be on MY choices, but I'll digress for a minute to mention how much of an epiphany this was for me.

About 3 years ago, h's dad (my FIL) chewed H out for a financial mistake & he did it while my kids and I were there, and which was really none of FIL's business, to be honest. But h was silently furious.

Obviously it was inappropriate for FIL to comment - 1) at all and or 2) in front of our children

but what fascinated me is that h was visibly angry and so...he went for a run right then. Yes, he literally RAN AWAY, for maybe a 5-6 hour run.

Later after he returned, nothing was said to or by his dad.

But h muttered to me that his dad was "not one to talk about financial obligations. He screwed my mother so badly in their divorce!"


Point being, my kids saw their dad in a very uncomfortable position with his own dad. H could have told his father to table the discussion or could have gone into a different room with him or just said he disagreed. Or hashed it out, I guess.

But instead, h ran...and to my knowledge h has never told his own father how deeply he resents him for being so unfair to h's mother, in their divorce of decades ago.

There are remarkable parallels now, in h's behavior and his own father's.

So much for conflict avoidance.