I don't need the quantity of friends she has, but I also can't just sit back and wait for these connections to fall into my lap. I need to work at it. It's not natural for me.
I completely understand this. My family was my life and now that it has completely gone and a new one is being built starting with my daughter and myself. What are you doing to work at it?
Good question.
The future is really unknown for me. For now, I am focusing on my job, exercising 3x/week, and keeping in touch with friends (although most of them do not live locally).
Long-term I think I need to consciously work at building this new life and meeting new friends. My instinct is to spend time by myself because I'm good at that... playing guitar, reading, working out at home. It's probably a matter of just putting myself out there, trying Meetups, etc.
I can see how easy it would be to jump to a serious relationship in these situations.
Originally Posted by rooskers
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Why do I keep giving her updates about the kids? Why do I feel like I need to notify her that one of my family members is visiting?
I believe you want to still be attached with her in any small way. I was wanting to do the same thing at the beginning but realized it was just causing more problems. My feeling is you need to detach on this and start living your life without including your W. That means when you are having visitors or spending time with the children not only do you not need to give her updates but it shouldn't even cross your mind. Just enjoy the time with the people you love and leave it at that. If she reaches out and asks then you can make the decision whether you want to give her the update.
I didn't paint the whole picture here. When we S'd in June, W was very high-strung and asked for these updates when the kids were with me. She hasn't relented much -- when I do reduce the updates, she points it out (in our co-parenting counseling).
At the time, I thought this was a way for us to build trust and possibly work on the MR. It never happened, so I no longer see this as useful.
In fact, I am only playing into my W's irrational fears by giving these updates. She will never get over the fear until she has to deal with it head-on. Just as I have had to confront my fears about my W trying to withhold the kids from me.
More recently, I have thought I should continue these updates until at least we begin mediation. But in the last 2-3 days I have been thinking I should stop them now altogether. My sister wants to visit next month, and I started to worry about W's reaction to this visit, and I realized how my worry was completely unhealthy.
