Trying to Detach

[Pommy99]

May, your strength is really shining right now. I’m so pleased to read that you are standing firm with H and his behaviours, and ensuring you do what’s right for you over this trip.

I know you had a boundary around him blocking AP and deleting WhatsApp ahead of the trip, but is there anything else you want or need in order to go? (I have been trying to catch up daily but might have missed some posts). Are you wanting him to commit to the M before you agree to go? I’m just wondering what long term assurances you need before you can go - if any. Or is it simply a case of a month-long trip without her in the picture...but then what? In what capacity would you go on this trip? Mother? Wife? Friend/Co-parent?

Re the custody arrangement, I know how awful it is for your children to go and spend time in another home, leaving you alone. It’s not what you signed up to, and I totally felt resentful that H had taken away my M, my H, potentially my home and also my children. Why should HE get to live the life he wants whilst mine is in tatters? It certainly was a bitter pill to swallow, and it was painful. But I came to realise that those nights without the children were time for me. Where is May’s time in this arrangement? Hiking with friends one weekend, dinner or night out with bestie, maybe one day a date, or perhaps simply watching a film that’s not age-appropriate for your kiddos, or an indulgent bath and early night in an empty house? I’m not suggesting that this is how you are, but I found looking beyond the pain of my H taking my children from me, there were ways I could make the time alone to be a gift. You need time to GAL, right? To get out there and meet potential partners. This might be so far off your radar right now , but whilst you’re at home with the children every night, you aren’t out meeting OM. I’m not suggesting this as a manipulation technique but equally it doesn’t harm for H to know you want time to get out make new friends.

I will also admit, perhaps ashamedly, perhaps unashamedly, that I often thought about how I could make life difficult for H and I figured that any controlling on my part would make me look bitter. I’m a little worried about you exerting any 1-year/2year rule re other partners. It is an important discussion to have but perhaps it needs to be a discussion and not a condition that you set out? If H is the great father that you really see, then he will fully subscribe to the sensitivity of introducing a new woman into his children’s lives. If he does this prematurely, chances are they will gravitate towards you and may manifest behaviours about not wanting to see him in her presence. Perhaps I am projecting my own experience but my Ds were fiercely loyal and said the would not be ready for a long time to accept a new woman in their dad’s life. (It’s probably wholly irrelevant but I have been trying to figure out how your H and AP are going to build this dream life together, on his reduced spending capacity, and her needing to move interstate but not move in with him until such a time that he can introduce her to the children. I suppose that rational thinking goes out of the window in the name of true love.... ugh)

May, you are doing brilliantly and whatever the outcome you will will have been true to yourself and your children. You deserve so much happiness. I hope a-hole can pull something out of the bag before the trip, but if he can’t , one day you will know that you acted on what you deserve, which wasn’t second best. I am so rooting for you honey, tonight’s G&T will be for you and your happy life xx