Yes, it is to do with R but also separate. Everything is so complicated. I can identify with being the good cop, I left dh to be the mean parent, the parent who imposed strict rules, the unreasonable parent. The parent who was at a disadvantage because I knew the kids so much better and spent so much more time with them and comforted them. I told dh in my email to him the other day that I wished he had a better relationship with ds2. Ds2 is 14 and so at the most tricky age, and he has always been close to me, but I told dh that he's like a cat, you just have to hang about for a while and wait for him to come to you and offer him little titbits (in ds2's case it's his subjects of passion). The other time ds2 opens up is during car journeys with just us two, so maybe I need to tell dh this too. Ds1 will travel up to see dh on Fridays but ds2 refuses to (he's like a cat, he's territorial...) In a way I've been reluctant to want dh to be close to ds2, that was really rubbish of me I can see now. Sorry, got off track there with my own story, but our relationship with our kids is complicated and impacts our relationships with our spouses because they have their own stuff there too which we can inadvertently interfere with ('you're doing it all wrong'). And as our relationship with our kids changes as they grow up, we need to step back and let things happen more with both them and with our husbands. It's difficult, don't we have enough mourning to do already when we're losing our babies?
