Yes, well of course he is in massive denial about having abandoned his kids. Gave me the whole 'I'd do anything for my kids except be unhappy' talk, yuck. Everything apart from look hard at himself and work out how to stay part of this family. He did tend to mostly ignore them when he was home at the weekends, and in the evenings he'd mostly shout at them for being noisy, so in a way he was abandoning us all anyway, just with him technically living here. He has been making more effort with them since he left, after the first few months when he was in a deep funk. I think he is really struggling with the kids being teens, much more so than me which is ironic given I've always been the one doing the day to day stuff. I do keep him informed about the kids and what they're up to so that he knows what's going on in their lives, though sometimes ds1 asks me specifically not to mention things to H and then I have to respect that. They come out eventually though and then I have to say that he asked me not to say anything, I can see that's hurtful to him but he has broken their trust, not just mine, in living elsewhere (I don't say that, but he has to live with the consequences of his actions here).
Anyway, I have quite a few things going on for the next month on weekends, so he is going to come home and take ds2 to his activities for 3 weeks out of 4. He commented on this yesterday but it wasn't in a complaining way, it was just pointing it out to me. Maybe I should have expressed appreciation, perhaps I will. He used to have a very negative way of speaking when he had to look after the kids or do stuff with them. It was very much the 'babysitting' mentality but luckily he seems to have realised that seeing them is a gift not a chore. I hope he does heal his relationship with them a bit, I know he loves them but struggles to show it. A bit like with me perhaps?
I had a doctor's appointment this morning and he rang to ask how it went, that was thoughtful of him.
