No more denial, time to get to work

[MRay]

Just a bit of an update and some journaling. I turned 33 last week, and a couple days after my birthday I had STBXW and the kids over for a family dinner night. She and the kids got me a couple picture frames with pictures of me and the kids. She had asked for those pictures about a month ago saying she wanted to put them up in the kids rooms at her place. She admitted to lying about why she wanted the pictures, but said she wanted to get me something nice for my birthday. I thanked her and she said, "I really did put thought into that even though it appears like I didn't. I've not put thought into you for a long time. I wanted to this year." Just a strange thing to say while getting divorced.

I still think she and OM did not work out based on many things she has said and done recently. Her relationship with her family has become pretty strained, but they still text me all the time. Her aunt and uncle, whom I grew up with and am very close to as well, asked me what happened. I told them, and they said I shouldn't blame myself. That she has issues from before I was ever around. It just confirmed things that I already knew, but it's nice to have confirmation. When it comes to us, we are very friendly. We don't talk all that much, but when we do it's like we're best friends. She was very excited to come over to see me after my birthday, and things went very well. She's been very critical of her role in our marriage lately. Things along the lines of her quote above are common. I don't see reconciliation happening any time soon, and at this point she'd have to do a whole lot to convince me to give it a shot anyways, but you never know what the future holds. The kids are still doing very well. Not much to report there.

My GAL is still going great. I'm inching towards my goals in terms of being in the best shape of my life. It's hard to beat 16 year old me, but maybe in a few months I'll be there. I have a lot of plans for 2019, and crossing things off my bucket list.

I am now officially building a new house. It should be done in 5-6 months, so just after the divorce is final. I'm very excited for this, and look forward to making it my own! I'm afraid of taking on so much debt all alone, but I've done all the calculations and what if's in my head and it just makes too much sense not to do it now.

I've been in contact with Anna quite a bit. Most of it just friendly banter, but some more serious conversation happened last week along with some information that one of her friends passed along to me. I'm more convinced than ever that she is interested in pursuing something in the future. I've had a few women try to pursue me lately, and I just have to tell them I'm not interested. I had to ask myself if everything worked out with one of them, would I regret not finding out if there was something between Anna and I? The answer was yes. Then I asked if I let these women walk without pursuing anything, and nothing ever happened with Anna, would I regret that? The answer was no. So that made my actions pretty easy.

To sum up, life is going great!