Thanks so much for your responses. I've been out-of-town so I'll respond to each of your responses as soon as possible. In the meantime I just want to say it's been an odd couple of days. Several months ago I signed up for a retreat this past weekend. I'm sure I mentioned it to my husband but two days before the retreat he called to say he just bought a ticket and he's flying up for the weekend to see our daughter. I told him we already have plans and we'll be out-of-town. He was upset but decided to come anyway. On Friday before we left he had to take his father to a place down-the-street from us while our daughter was in school. It takes an hour to get here from their place. He brought his father here, took his father back home, turned around and drove here to see our daughter for a short time, and then turned around and went back home. The next day he drove three hours to the location of our retreat to see our daughter for two hours and turned around and drove three hours back. He acted really annoyed with me that I made these plans and inconvenienced him. I didn't apologize or feel bad of course. He could have coordinated with me but he always makes last minute decisions like this. I just don't understand how or why he'd make all that effort to fly and drive and yet he's largely absent from our daughter's life aside from these short visits and two minute phone calls each day.
I also want to share a big coincidence. I've written about the guy I met through work who is based in the UK. His company is small and specialized in a certain area. This weekend I was in the middle-of-nowhere on a retreat and a woman in my group mentioned she does international work similar to what I do. I later asked her where she works and her response? The same company where this guy works. She's American and it's just so unlikely that she works at that company. She'll be at the office in London next week and she'll meet this guy in person (she's new there). I wrote last week I also met his colleague who passed through my city. And now a member of my team will move to London next week and meet him as well. Just so strange because my company has never worked with that company before and our first venture together was the one that I led. I'm still talking to this guy often. It sounds like we'll meet because our companies seem to have won the business that he and I pursued together. I'm trying to grasp how someone can enter your life unexpectedly and suddenly you have so many connections with that person and so much instant synergy. I don't expect we'll ever end up in a relationship but something big happened the moment we made contact and now we're in each other's lives for better or worse.
The retreat I attended was religious in nature and for those who are religious on this forum, I drew the conclusion that ultimately what led to our situations in most cases was our spouse alone, or both we and our spouse, fell away from God and lost their way. Or maybe they never believed in anything greater and they're wandering through life lost. Maybe we've been lost as well. One thing religion does is give you a clear path to follow. I've had confusion in this area but I'm trying to address it. Whatever religion one follows I do believe strengthening our faith is a critical element of getting through this turbulence in our lives.
