Still here. Still not detached...

[Chris73]

Thank you 25yearsmlc for all the advice! I actually did sign up for a Divorce Care session that starts Monday so we'll see how that goes.

I really think you're right about the idea of divorce being "contagious." I'm almost certain that if my neighbor hadn't been going through one before our troubles started we might be in a difference place now. Not that I'm trying to offload the responsibility for our sitch on to someone else, but the idea of cheating on your husband and breaking up the family is easier to justify if you can relate to someone else who's doing the exact same thing.

Today is the first day of school for my kids and my W is acting very strange. Yesterday she called me while I was on the train home from work. I let my VM pick up the call. Normally we really only speak on the phone about logistics (pickup, drop off, work schedules, etc.) But this time she left me a long message rambling about what she was up to and things she was trying to get done before the end of the day. None of the information had anything to do with me. I did not return the call.

Last night I was home with the kids for the last day of summer vacation. We went out for dinner and ice cream and watched our favorite "last day of summer vacation" tv show (Phineas and Ferb). Then I put the kids to bed, made their lunches, filled out a questionnaire for today's conference with D5's kindergarten teacher, and made a "first day of school" sign for them to hold up today when we took pictures.

W showed up this morning, before the kids woke up, to help with the first day preparations. I took a work from home day so that I could see them off. It was D5's first time on the bus and so, like we did 3 years ago for S8's first time on the bus, my plan was to follow the bus to school and take more pictures. Meanwhile W had booked an appointment for work and had to leave. So I went to the school by myself, took some pictures, and hung out at the first day back parent coffee event. After getting back home W txts me to say that she' won't be back in time to pick up D5, who has half days this week.

Throughout all of this I'm resisting the urge to be judgemental. But it's hard for me to not look at all of this as selfishness. As more and more time goes by my W's actions indicate that her job and her personal life are more important than her kids and (obviously) her husband. And I feel like she'd rather be working more than anything else.

This is so unlike the way that she's been for the past 10 years. She's a great mom, but she doesn't have a role model to relate to. My W's mother was married 3 times and had 5 kids with 3 different fathers. She always preferred work and relationships over her children. And now I see this happening with my W and it [censored]. I know there's nothing I can do about it. She's going to have to deal with the consequences of her actions eventually.

My biggest challenge is to figure out how to let go of the anger I'm harboring about all of this. It affects every aspect of my life and prevents me from truly moving on...