Trying to Detach

[may22]

Cardinal, I love you getting a glimmer of IDGAF. Fan those flames, girl. I think you are a looooooong ways away from turning bitter, if it is ever even possible for you. People here coached me on digging into my anger a little and I do think it has really helped me, even as it is disconcerting and destabilizing to be in that space.

Wooba, thanks for the good words on progress I've been thinking about you a lot. I know you're so right about cherishing every hour you do have, and one day we will need to let them go completely. I have friends with college aged or slightly older children who are now living at home, and they are in seventh heaven to get all this extra amazing time with them because of the pandemic. My one friend whose kids are home told me she has laughed more in the last few months than she ever has, joking around with her kids, they started some sort of exercise competition that apparently is hilarious. I'm so happy for her and then think of how hard that transition must be. A colleague I work with, older, very stoic man, had his daughter go off to college last year. I asked him how he was doing about it the week after she left and he looked at me and said it was very, very hard. He had been sleeping in her bed since she left and the pillow smelt like her. I was like DANG MAN I can't believe you just told me that in my head-- and also how very, very difficult it had to have been for him to not only do that but to tell ME about it. Obviously he got over it but it was really staggering to think of what that must be like-- and his kid was 18. I was reading FS's thread about remembering the children going off on a vacation with their dad without her and how horrible that was and it made me want to throw up just thinking about it. I remember reading that part in her thread months ago and wanting to throw up then too.

Wayfinder, I know you’re right. I think I’ll be able to $uck it all up when the time comes and do what is right for the kids because I have to. I’ll find an outlet for my anger. I want it to power me through the next phases but I can’t let it affect the girls. I appreciate you being honest, though, that this all does just $uck. It isn’t okay. It is sad and awful and will be something that affects them for the rest of their lives. I feel like I can manage all of that and do it OK if it wasn’t my choice, though, you know what I mean? If it is something that happens TO me, I can deal with it and do my best and use whatever tools I have at my disposal to heal and be the best mom I can be. If I am responsible for the final decision, I am not yet to a place that I can do all of that.

Anyway. The kid part is hard. I told the IC yesterday that I can see two paths for me right now, equally difficult, equally OK, to stay in and work on the M and to go. That I've been focusing on the many positive things about not being M to him anymore and they feel good. In fact, when I think about staying, losing those things starts to feel like a shame (like my puppy) and are starting to loom larger and larger for me. But I also told her-- I purposely don't think about the kids when I'm doing this exercise. It is me and me only. If I let them creep into the picture it all comes crashing down.

The IC and I talked more about my anger about a bunch of things, not all having to do with the children-- the financial piece and loss of financial security is a big one. I feel like I’m keeping my anger where it is. Alison, mine isn’t a big beautiful bear. I imagine mine like a tornado (but round somehow) that hasn’t touched down yet but is spinning and hot and full of unbridled power. And when I need it, when that step of S is taken, it will touch down and power me down the path I need to take, clearing out everything in my way. I don’t know that that is a healthy thing (I didn’t talk about it in this way to the IC) but that is what I’m picturing, at least now. Still kind of untamable but somehow not as scary as the rabid bear I had earlier (or Wayfinder, the May Hulk).

We talked about grieving, too. She wants to start there next time. Even starting the conversation about my grief really opened something up in me. I went back through my journal and read about how I was feeling from earlier BDs and it rocked me again. I am feeling sad and low-level anxious again now, a little resigned.

We spent some time on H, can he change, why do I think he could, why do I think I could trust him again. And for me, again, it is this enduring belief that what we have between us is strong enough to weather this storm, that there is a possibility- however small it is starting to seem— that he *can* do the hard work, that I can too, that we end up on the other side of this stronger and better because of it. And I know I only control half of what it takes to get there. But I guess I’m still standing, I’m still here, because of this coupled with my inability to take a step that I think-- at least today-- will be detrimental to the children.

I also spent more time processing with her the real possibilities of the split time situation. Wayfarer, god, I hear you and I know you’re right. The kids absolutely deserve 50/50 time with them. What I’ve written out in a proposal (but haven’t shared with him yet formally, though we’ve talked about it a little) is that we’d stop after school care, he’d take them from 2:30 - 5:30 every day, I’d take them from 5:30 until bedtime (8:30) so that would be an even split of awake time. (Mornings are a $hitshow and don’t count.) I worked out a schedule where they spent the night with him Friday nights and he dropped them off with me at like 5:30 or something (I can’t remember exactly without looking it up) on Saturday and then we had exactly even awake time with them, but their home base was with me and they slept here every night. So they’d get 50-50 time with us, but because of the sleeping situation I’d have what is considered full custody and get child support.

I think it is fair and in alignment with what he’s said he wants. But, I also know that he’s an @sshole and will want to be an @ss when I’m no longer kissing his, and I can 100% believe that a few months down the line, especially with AP whispering in his ear, he’ll start to look at that child support payment and say why can’t they sleep here with me half the time? If he goes down the path of selfishness and entitlement, I have no reason to believe he’ll make any decisions that are in my best interest, allowing me to afford the mortgage payments on the house etc, no matter what he is saying now. So that is a part of it too.

And if I walk it will be the excuse he’ll sit in until we are 100 years old, that I was the one to make the decision. I know it in my heart. And I’m not yet detached enough to make that not matter. He’ll take my kicking him out and run with it. He’ll tell the children, he'll wallow in it, he'll throw it in my face at my granddaughter's wedding. And I’m not yet at a place where I’m okay with any of that.

The IC said she felt I was stronger and that the boundaries were really helping, encouraged me to stick with them. She pushed me a LOT on what happens if we don't go on this trip and when will I be ready to say enough? I said, IDK and she wouldn’t let that be the end. We talked about my core value of the family and what was best for the children, and I told her what I’d written above, about being able to walk when I can see that my parenting is being affected negatively, when I can see that the MR has deteriorated to the point where it is negatively affecting the children— then I can go. She was supportive of this, said that watching everyone’s emotional health will be important.

H and I talked more this morning. He tried a variety of different ways to get me to agree to just go on this trip without making it an ultimatum and referendum on everything. He said he’d been thinking what happens if I don’t go, does he go by himself, is there any way I would let him go with the girls for the whole time, but that he doesn’t want that. He wants me there. I feel like he’s setting this trip up as some kind of test, which is really stupid and I refuse to participate in some kind of beauty pageant to prove anything to my H.

I held my line. I said I can’t do it. I can’t do what you’re asking.

More of the same. He ended up saying he was mad at me. He feels like I don’t understand him and don’t try to. I’m not sure I see the point right now.

If I had to guess I think he’s going to do what I’m asking. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about that. I guess I'm pretty close to that 50-50 mark, Wayfinder-- you might be right. I really don't think I GAF anymore what he chooses. I just want him to put on his big boy pants, take responsibility for what he's created here, and make a decision, one way or another, to move forward.