Detached too far?

[ovrrnbw]

Thank you DejaVu6 for your words of encouragement. I will catch up with your posts later.

So yesterday he rang to talk to me about the kids and the fact that the youngest son (21) had given him a hard and frosty reception when he came to collect the dog (me out for the day GAL!) I told him that I was sorry to hear that but that H needed to put on his big boy pants and sort it out. If that meant he was going to be met with a frosty reception a few times then he needed to man up and persevere (said in a teasing manner and seen as such)

Good!

He then moved onto starting to tell me about the OW and how they were talking but weren't a couple and that they were talking because of the problems she was having with her ex. I was a bit rude and stopped him mid sentence and said that I really didn't want to talk about her as she was none of my concern and her ex husband certainly wasn't, and I didn't want to talk about our R either. He seemed a bit taken aback. I explained that as far as I was concerned there was no marriage whilst he was in a relationship with another woman and when that ended (because I knew that it would) he should come and talk to me and we'd see where we were at. In the meanwhile neither myself or the children were interested in his sex life. He just said 'fair enough' we both know where we stand then.

Strong, but why say you'll be there for him after he gets done with his little girlfriend? It sounds like plan B.

I did take the opportunity to talk 'business' about the house etc and did ask that before he got his feet under the table with OW he needed to wind down the marriage and all that entailed. He said that he knew that, but there was no hurry. (I suspect cake eating) He had said that he would help to prepare the house for sale but no inclination to even sort out the garage or loft at the moment but he did let slip that he wouldn't need to be back at the house so much because the OW had offered to do his laundry. I laughed and asked if that was to keep him away from the house and he said that it was.

I asked him to think about whether that was fair when he had the marriage to wind up and he said 'probably not' and when I asked further what the motivation from her was and he said 'I think she's worried that we'll get back together'

It remained very civil and I just asked him to consider whether he wanted to be controlled to that extent which would very obviously lead to a decline in civility between us and may also herald her wanting to keep him away from the boys. He said he would give that some thought. I told him calmly that he may be prepared to have the OW control his life but he could be certain of one thing; she wasn't going to control mine.

He told me that whilst he was what I would still describe as crazy H; he was happy being crazy H at the moment and felt more settled than he had in a long time ie I'm better off out of the marriage.

The whole thing hasn't upset me, but has unsettled me. It felt quite final and emotionless. I regret engaging him for so long on the phone and felt myself going into 'lecturing' mode but drew back quickly. I did however want to take the opportunity when it presented itself to lay down some boundaries and reiterate that I wasn't going to be involved in his drama.

Make your next interaction more concise, you clearly have the strength and the smarts. But we all have emotions, and they can overrule everything if we don't keep them in check.

I love the boundaries.