Journalling, but any advice or comments are welcome.
Last night was hard. I think it was more hard due to being triggered than it was due to the actual events.
Yesterday was my W's friend's birthday. W was planning to go to happy hour with her for her birthday, but in the morning she was packing an overnight bag. Before I go on, I should mention that her friend DOES live on the other side of town which is about an hour away (without traffic). It was, however, just a Tuesday night. We have 2 middle school aged kids and jobs to go to. I said "you are packing an overnight bag? Its Tuesday, you should come home after if you can". She said "I'll see what I can do, but it is soandso". I said "yeah, but she isn't a teenager anymore". Not sure if that was a good thing to say or not, but that was pretty much the end of the conversation. As per normal these days, we did not text, email, or call the rest of the day. In the evening I picked up the kids from school, got s some dinner, and went home. She did not show. I did not get a cal, text, or email letting me know that she would indeed not be coming home.
This morning when I got up, I was worried and I did some snooping to see if I could tell whether she was still alive/not in jail. I have snooped a little recently and it always proves nothing other than she has plenty of communication with everyone but me. She seems to be done with destructive replay, but still indulges in selfish/insensitive behavior, but even that seems to be dwindling a bit. Main issues now are that she still doesn't seem to want to be with me. Sorry, got off topic...so when I snooped this morning (the phone bill to see if there was any activity), I saw 3 calls last night around 11:30. The first was very close to my number, but a couple digits off. The next 2 calls were my old work number. I haven't had that number in almost 6 months, but I'm sure she still has it in her phone. Basically it looks like she made some kind of attempt to call me, but I guess was to drunk to get it right? Very weird, but...she did attempt a call.
Then, shortly after I got a text from her saying that she had stayed at her friends house and that she would see me this evening. Several minutes later I replied with "ok". She then sent me 2 more texts asking if I wanted to go to my sisters on Friday and that my sister had gotten a new video game. I did not reply to that one. She does not know that I know that she tried to call last night (not that it matters, her attempts did not lead to an actual call).
This interaction has me confused on how to respond (not to the text, just in general when I see her) for several reasons. First, in the past I would have no problem with her going to a friends to celebrate their birthday...even if it ended up being an overnighter if she drank too much in celebration. Of course she wouldn't have done that mid week anyways, but if she had I would have been ok with it. I feel like this kind of thing has become a trigger for me since it mimics the behavior of when she was acting a lot more wild. Although maybe in bad taste to go get drunk mid week and stay at a friends when you have a family at home, but in the grand scheme of things it wasn't that bad. I want to be able to not get so frantic when little things like this pop up. I am not condoning the behavior, just accepting that my internal reaction may not match the situation. I feel angry and disrespected.
Another issue I have is that I have been reading Amy's old posts and seeing that in order for W to eventually come out of MLC, she has to see me as a safe place and believe that I could forgive her. I know that replying to her in anger or being judgmental will not facilitate that. I know that she is not at a place right now where that matters completely, but I want to work on that being my perspective. To detach and let go while leaving the light on. To not care as much about her crazy antics while still maintaining the stability that will be needed if she is to eventually come out of it.
