WW in EA, NC w/OM(?), W's BFF interfering, part 7

[hoosjim]

Well, that's up to you. Just beware b/c this thing is far from over. You think you'll know, but didn't she fool you in the past?

The things she is saying about MC doesn't sound good, and I wish it wasn't two weeks until the next session. However, she is feeling depressed and continue for a while yet.

Setback and depressed and conflicted (My W) indeed. And it's still showing.

We had a college visit scheduled for S17 this weekend. Then, Friday morning, I get a call from S18... from jail. Nothing too major, ya know, just an alcohol-related arrest (under-age). So we detoured down there Friday night because he sounded pretty down and desperate. (In case you dont recall, he has OCD and generalized anxiety disorder, and also a slight reading impediment). In a nutshell, things were kind of bearing down on him in school, he exercised some poor judgment, and ended up getting arrested. No threat to his school enrollment or anything, but it was almost the last straw for him stress-wise. We ended up not even really having to "beat him up" too much about it... he really did an overboard job of that himself. W was in tears when I spoke with her on phone-- she really really hurts on the kids' behalf when something bad happens in their lives. I went down ahead of her because she couldn't get out of work. Cops illegally detained him for long after he should have been released, so I talked with the magistrate's office by phone on the way down (Im a lawyer) and got him released but not before he'd missed a full day's classes, which didn't help his stress level (or his Mom's). Anyhoo, got him calmed down, had a stern but heartfelt father to son talk with him, got him to understand he'd messed up, it was going to cost him time and money and embarrassment, but that the world was not going to end and that all in all he was very lucky something worse didn't happen to him than being arrested in his state (he was extremely inebriated.)

Why is all this important? Two reasons: One, much added stress to already stressed and potentially at very delicate point in her "recovery" WW. Two, we were then away from home in two cars. On return trip from S17 college visit, we stopped back through S18's college town where I had left my car. W and I agreed at least one of us needed to go home to supervise S17 who had returned home from college visit with a friend who was also visiting the school and who was having friends stay over at our house. Okay, good idea, check. But, W ALSO wanted one of us to stay over a night in S18's town, have breakfast and go to church with him, and make sure he had everything squared away (he also had a bad eye infection from sleeping in his contacts at the jail) and wasn't about to go plunging back into panic mode. In fact, she was insistent. VERY insistent. So, I stayed, and she drove home solo.

Her demeanor, however, had gotten very cold, and I was getting a really weird vibe from her (which in the past such vibes have usually been right) and so I took an opportunity to affix the tracker i keep in my car's trunk to her car, unbenknownst to her. I already "track" her in the sense that she has turned on her phone's locator voluntarily and she knows at any time I can punch up where she is, within a reasonably close distance, but the car tracker is also a tracer and keeps a record of the car's route and time, etc., and is also pretty much pin point accurate whereas the phone locator is not always so.

Anyway, long story short, she made two near drive-by's of OM's hangouts... One on the way home Saturday night, and one on Sunday morning on her way in to work before I got home from visiting S18. Saturday night was actually, I thought, somewhat encouraging, in that she got off of the interstate two exits early, a not ENTIRELY indefensible detour depending on conditions, etc,... a route which necessarily takes her right by the strip mall containing OM's main hangout. Despite what would have been an easy detour/drive-by into the parking lot to see if he was there, she did not do so. (And mall is situated in such a way that without detouring into parking lot she would not be able to see any of the cars in the lot or the people sitting outdoors on the patio or even any other part of the establishment.) Okay, small sight of relief.

Then, this morning, she heads out of the house and heads in the completely opposite direction from her work. And doesn't call me to tell she's leaving to go in, which is a departure from her recent practices and pattern. She had mentioned earlier in the week that she might go in on Sunday, but had said nothing since then, and recently when she has done something unplanned she has always alerted me when she is doing so. So, she heads about three or four miles directly in the direction of OM's house and his two hangouts, makes no other stops, and turns back JUST shy of hangout #1, proceeding from that point to her office. Absolutely no reason for her to do so. When I called her from the road on my own way back, she was very quiet, sullen, and moody. Didn't want to talk at first. After we hung up, though, she immediately called me back and apologized: "Im sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me right now, I'm just... grouchy."

I MIGHT previously have suspected some sort of meet-up, but her office, as a medical offices where co-workers frequently show up unplanned and unannounced it would have been very risky even had there not been a couple of the other girls there with her already. And as best I could discern, she didn't leave her office at any point while she was out. Finally, she was not "all dolled up" as she always habitually got in the past when she was going to meet OM-- Jeans and T-shirt and ponytail today.

Later, she returned home shortly after I got back. She was a little on the quiet/sulky/moody side, spent some time with her sister on the phone and a little time facebooking/surfing later. She lightened up a BIT later and I told her I was going to go out and find a place to watch the football games (she's a big sports and football fan and her team happened to be playing this afternoon) and grab a bite to eat since we were pretty much out of food and S17 was with friends and, surprisingly, she said "wait for me I'll come too." So, she changed out of her T-shirt and fluffed her hair up some and came along, and we had a pretty nice time, talked, laughed, met a couple new people at the bar. Stopped at grocery on way back to pick up just a couple of things we needed for the coming week, and joked and laughed our way through the store...

But she got quieter towards the end, wanted to go out to the car to wait for me because it was cold in the store, and then was pretty quiet and a little sulky/moody it seemed once we got home.

We have counselling scheduled for this Friday, out of town (it's about a 2 hour drive to where our counselor is), for effectively four sessions, at least one of which (and more, i think, if MC has her way) will be IC with my W. W has seemed alternatingly committed to and hesitant about these upcoming sessions. We have already postponed them once because of her work demands, and nearly did a second time when it looked like S17 was going to be on Homecoming Court. W was really insistent that we were going to have to at least cut them short and possibly postpone them altogether to get back to see S17 in parade, etc., when in fact it would have been pretty easyh to have all four sessions and still make it back in time. Anyhoo, irrelevant now since he didn't make it but... W is still dropping little "If we DO end up going" statements here and there, and has said a few times "Do we REALLY need to go all the way down there when she is capable of doing skype" or "what are the 'difficult things' that you think still need working on...haven't we already talked about all of that?"

Considering offering to postpone the sessions if it is "too much right now with her work and everything with the kids"...but then wondering if this is a cop-out. Professional help IS one of things I had insisted on when I "took her back" so to speak, and she definitely needs help with the "getting over the affair" part and probably a couple of other things in IC, but... She's definitely in kind of a mixed up place right now.