Wild ride and now trapped in the Bermuda Triangle

[dmoy]

No, things were not turning around. What you are seeing is the byproduct of your DB'ing and removing the pressure from her. She no longer felt like she had to have her guard up. That is exactly what you want, but you can't read anything into it because it's going to be months or even a year or more before she'll start to see things differently.

It doesn't mean anything. Like many of us did, you're trying to hard to read recon into every little thing.

No they didn't, things were the SAME. Your PERCEPTION is that things got worse because you started reading too much into the above.

I thought that was the whole point. Experiment, test the results. If they don't go the right way, reverse course and try harder. Hindsight is 20/20 and you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. It probably was lack of pressure and I tried to jumpstart things.

I think she is probably right. It too soon post-separation for you to be hanging out at her house (and vice versa). You've got to get settled into a routine of being SEPARATED first, and acclimate the kids to that. Later you can explore relaxing that a bit, but for now I agree with her that you should drop them off and go. Kids are very much "out of sight out of mind". If you drop them off and go then 5 minutes later they'll be happily doing their thing. But if you linger then it is harder on them.

This gets difficult because she wants to co-parent which means spending time together as a family.

I sense a lot of blame there. Be careful with that. If your W were here she would no doubt talk about all the things YOU did that caused the S. There's plenty of blame to go around.

Don't. That's R talk, and that's pressure. I also sense some blame assignment there (you blame W for S, so therefore you are passively blaming her for the kids experiencing problems).

Is it your opinion that 2 years is past the statute of limitations for harboring resentment? Because I doubt she sees it that way!

Lots of blaming here. You are harboring a lot of resentment towards your W, do you think she'll want to come back to an angry, resentful H? Whether you recon or not you have GOT to let it go. My brother divorced 7 or 8 years ago and STILL resents his W. You sound very much like him. He blames his ex for his financial woes, the issues his kids have, etc. etc. Everything is her fault, even now, 8 years later. He is sad, angry and bitter. And worst of all, he is STUCK. Don't do that to yourself.

Yeah. I've accepted blame openly for all I've done wrong. She acts like she's blameless in all of this. I think I'm really just jaded because I thought we had moved on, we renewed our vows, moved back in, went to counseling, made financial plans, etc. Then I go away for work only to come home to an empty house. I later found out she moved my kids out of state, an hour away. To realize the person you thought you loved had been smiling and lying to you face while living one foot out the door is devastating.

I'm not trying to be resentful, I'm trying to be practical. But I've learned, and often need to be reminded, that you can't talk facts with someone who is making emotion-based decisions. I think it's also the reality of trying to get on my feet multiple times and having life pull the rug out from under me.

In January I heard work was having payroll issues. I immediately called her, then she immediately called her uncle (who's recently divorced) for an hour (I was still snooping on phone records at the time). Apparently she used my lack of pay as an excuse to file for child support despite me consistently paying her what we had discussed and promised. Had it not been for my parents bailing me out here and there I'd be homeless and not even able to provide for my kids. That's a huge stress.

Maybe it's my own childhood where I got beat up in school and didn't defend myself because I didn't want detention for getting into a fight, only to get reprimanded by the principal anyway for not defending myself. The whole d@mned if you do d@mned if you don't thing got reinforced by W on multiple occasions. I think I just need to do stuff and embrace the imperfection.

Trying to be more positive overall. W can be very negative and I see that in my kids. She posts a lot on SM and gets positive feedback from "friends" so the cycle continues. Hopefully if I turn the kids behavior around it will reflect on me and maybe even get her to change her own attitude for the better. I recently just deleted all SM profiles and have been getting out more / ignoring the news.

So you are hoping your kids will be miserable and cranky and thus you will be punishing your wife by using your kids against her? I have a different approach for you. BE THE BEST FATHER EVER. Forget your W, how can you model the best, strongest, most dignified behavior to your kids? DO THAT INSTEAD. Get out, walk them to the door, give them each a big hug and kiss, tell them that you love them. Then go.

Thank you for the reminder. My response immediately above captured what you said before I even processed what you wrote.