I recall being pregnant. For the last month or so everyone asked when the baby was due. Those who didn't see me on a daily basis would call and ask if I'd had the baby yet (yes, I had it last week but forgot to mention it). I hated that time. I hated giving those constant updates. I had preeclampsia and was on bed rest lying on one side and just wanted to be done.

I can see myself telling people that I am separated and moving to divorce (which you'd think I could say since he filed right?) but then remembering my lawyer's admonition that this would likely drag on for years, if it ever concluded, based on what he has done so far (and that was before he stalled out the case before it ever began by not paying an insubstantial fee). I think I will say we are moving toward divorce when everything is signed off on and we are just awaiting the judge's signature.

So yes, I do like estranged, but read earlier in my thread on the discussion about that word. I don't see us ever getting back together. If I start thinking about it as a possibility I feel sick. I've come to like a peaceful life where I'm not told every day that everything I am and everything I do is just not good enough.

I suppose the stuff with the kids is guilt/shame. Sometimes hard to draw the line there. He has most definitely committed actions and inactions which no doubt induce guilt. But, I think the chance is also good that at some remote level he does recognize that he is not a good person. I think a lot of it is fear of rejection, since everything is still about him. It must be awful to come to the realization too that you simply cannot be bothered in making the drive to see your children and then having to see the pain on their face, or hear something that makes you feel bad, or realize they are two feet taller than the last time you saw them and bear little resemblance to the child you recall.

It always makes me question the competence of his lawyer. Either this guy is a total boob, or the MLCer really does not take his advice. If you were in a divorce proceeding for which there was likely to be a dispute over visitation, wouldn't you want to look like a committed dad who actually cared to see his child? Even if you didn't really want to see the kid, would you want to look like a bad dad suddenly cutting off all contact and never making any attempt to see them? I assume he knows there is going to be some determination on the custody/visitation issue, even if it is just that the child wants none. Narcissists generally love legal action and promoting themselves as a great dad. Where is the narc in him when you need it? And if the money and the visitation don't matter to him, why doesn't he just finalize it and run off to schmoopieland?

Still, I can't help looking at the global scoresheet every once in a while. He's paying, I have health insurance I don't have to pay for, I haven't had to move again, he leaves me alone, he leaves them alone, he lives a bit away and our lives do not intersect at any level. It's kind of like I have a job I don't particularly like but it is too convenient to bother looking for another.

So, for today (and tomorrow is another day), I am living separately from my husband from whom I am estranged with no view to reconciliation in what will, ultimately, be a divorce.