Standing vs standing still

[may22]

The first was his declaration that I had to give him first option when it came to babysitting the children and he had to approve all babysitters (the babysitter in question was his mum, and I had asked her to watch the children over night because I needed to go to work early the next day). I responded fine, but it worked both ways, he would need to inform me when his mum watched the children for him also. He huffed ("She's MY mum!!!") and then stormed off.

OMG FS, this cracked me up big time. This was hilarious and I laughed out loud reading it. I hope you are able to get enough distance to see how ridiculous this kind of thing is too... he obviously knows it also (and so reverses course later on). Do you think he has the capacity to be embarrassed? or just thinks you set him up or some other way to cast blame?

On other fronts, I reached out to my childhood best friend. I haven't spoken to her in 13 years. Distance and children led to a natural drifting apart. We moved back into the same rhythm as we did when we were kids - some difficult topics (my separation, her affair, her discovering that someone close to us had been sexually abused all her childhood) to simple topics (childhood boyfriends and general gossip) . It was lovely.

I also reached out to my mother - there was some awkwardness, but otherwise it was pleasant. It was obvious she missed me an wants to stay in my life. I can't remember how much of my childhood I shared here, but it was tough and I left it more or less behind when I moved countries. I guess I need to forgive her for her part in making it tough. She was doing the best she could.

I think this is great-- difficult I'm sure, but good to focus on some of the other important relationships in your life.

I also agree with DejaVu that if you can open the conversation with your daughters, that would be a good thing. I was reading a book about children in divorce and it sounded like what DejaVu describes is not unusual-- the children wanting to protect their parent (especially the mom when the dad was the one to MO), feeling guilty for knowing, feeling guilty for liking her, not wanting to see their mom sad or hurt. I think if you can open that conversation and make sure they know they can share ANYTHING with you, that might really help them out. Otherwise, the burden remains on them.