Whirlwind of Hurt 5

[burned]

TF,

You are suffering, and it shows. This could be the hardest part, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier. You’re hitting the anger phase and it will test you. Can you be strong but also gentle? Especially with yourself? Do you have ways to cope with the frustration that you’re clearly feeling? And especially the frustration that comes from the fear that you’re doing something wrong and losing your sense of control, and feeling like you’re losing your W?

One thing for certain is that you will protect your children with your life. Bet you 5 bucks your W knows that and knows exactly how to get under your skin.

NC helped me see those kinds of patterns better, but it took time, and in the moment it’s still hard not to react as if everything is normal and it’s a normal conversation about normal life. The rules have changed, now there’s a thin layer of manipulative WW diarrhea layered on top of everything. It’s all fraught. You have to put in extra effort to see through it. Give yourself extra time. “Act as if” she has some ulterior motive. What is it? And how can you dodge it?

Maybe it feels like an emergency to you that your kids might not get to stay at that school. Is it an emergency? Do you have some money saved to pay W’s portion of tuition if she drops the ball? Or does the school know that you’re going through some tough times and maybe they can make an arrangement? Or do they have a specific policy about tuition and how to handle non-payment?

Just spitballing. Build up a few different contingency plans, at least in your mind, so that you could honestly entertain the idea that if you told W to go F herself, your kids would be fine. You don’t have to act on any of it. But frustration comes from feeling like you’re stuck with no options except the one that’s being forced on you. So create other options.

We never nuked Russia because we knew they’d nuke us back and all life on earth would end. Mutual assured destruction. So if we never intended to nuke Russia, why did we have thousands of missiles hiding in silos under cornfields across the Midwest?

Options. And then nobody got hurt.

Or maybe the shorter version of this post would be to just add to what R2C said. The purpose of saying “Email me and I’ll get back to you” is so that you get an extra 24 hours to lose it a bit, spin, break a few dishes, cry a bit, sleep, and wake up the next morning clear headed, thinking, Oh, I see what she did there, here’s how I’m going to handle it. Rather than reacting to her in the moment. Because otherwise she’ll play you.