One year in...

[Jac12]

Update:

I decided not to attend my W family Christmas dinner as she has decided it's too awkward for her to join my family at this moment. We did have an R talk as the Christmas talk fed into it a bit. Nothing crazy said - I mostly listened and was honest with my feelings when she asked.

W: "I feel like we are moving in a better direction and our relationship is better but I don't feel romantic yet and I don't want to give you hope. I just started to do some work on myself and I'm going to do my own counseling"
Me: "I understand how you feel. I know you need time as you've been through a lot this year and I support you working on yourself".
W: "Thanks, and I appreciate you changing your plans around so I can see our Son on Christmas morning"

We decided I would take our son to my family's Christmas eve festivities and then bring him back home. My W and MIL will be at my house and stay overnight. After we do our "broken family" (lol) Christmas I'll take my son to my moms and then drop him off at my W's moms in the afternoon.

My thinking was that although W is feeling more normal again nothing has really changed in our situation. Plus, my mom goes back to Florida Jan 1 so it'll be nice to have Christmas dinner with my family.

I had a nice Christmas party last night, workouts are going well, I'm doing what I can to connect with friends and stay busy. I need to step up that part still though.

Note: It's super interesting that my W thinks (and likely knows) that she has all the power here. She said: "I don't want to give you hope". Like what the hell? She clearly doesn't recognize all that she has put us through in the past year. Leaving her son, putting our family in debt for the first time, broken friendships....and I've stood by her and tried to empathize with her struggles. And she doesn't want to give me hope?? The crazy thing is she's right, I give her too much power and I'm going to continue to detach and GAL. Humans are complicated.