Still Moving (Saying ILY Pt 7)

[mtb1981]

mtb, I see you posting on other's thread and that is awesome! How about a quick update about how you've been doing?

Doing quite well. Thanks. I've been in a fulfilling relationship with a wonderful woman for the past 2 years now. We just welcomed a new baby girl into the world a couple months ago and couldn't be happier. I never knew things could be this good. I think a lot of us get stuck in a rut when trying to save relationships. Looking back, I wasn't happy even before BD. I was just going through the motions and waiting it out. Because I refuse to get divorced. Its only a bump in the road. It will get better, I just need to wait it out. After BD, I did all the wrong things to. The begging, pleading, etc. She's just confused. She'll snap out of it. I just need to keep holding on and waiting for her to get better. That's when I realized I had put my happiness and life on hold doing everything I could to try to help/fix someone that didn't want to be helped/fixed. It wasn't fair for anyone involved. Me, her, or the kids. I realized that I was setting a horrible example for my kids. I thought I was teaching them to never give up on a commitment, but I was actually teaching them that it was ok to put up with all kinds of bull$hit. That it's ok to enable a loved one that needs help instead of helping yourself...

The XW continues on her downward spiral. She hasn't seen the kids since December of last year, and called them twice since then. The phone calls last about five minutes and then she wants to talk to me. I calmly tell her that if there is anything she needs to communicate to me, she can text. She gets mad and we go on about our lives. About a month ago, she was arrested for possession of meth. A week later, she was arrested for armed robbery. She's currently sitting in county awaiting trial...

The silver lining with the arrests is that I finally had to talk to the older kids and give them some answers. For the past almost 3 years, I have struggled to answers questions the kids have about why they don't see their mom. It's not my place to say bad things about her, and I didn't want to say "your mom's on drugs and doesn't care to see or talk to you". Although it's true, its not appropriate. So I always said she was dealing with some personal things and she would come around again when she got things figured out. This was just too open ended though and just led to more questions from them. Once her face was on the front page of the newspaper with an article about the armed robbery, I knew I had to prepare them for what they were going to hear. We sat down and I asked them what they knew about addiction and we talked about different drugs. I explained to them that there mom is addicted to drugs and people do extreme things when they are addicted to drugs. That she hasn't been around because of her addiction. Sure enough, a couple days later, a kid at the park said he saw in the news that their mom was in jail. Instead of being blindsided, they were prepared and said that their mom struggles with addiction, made some bad choices, and that's all they have to say about it. And that's the exact reason I let them know. Not to make her look bad or make me look good. I felt that I had to tell them to protect them. In the end, they seem much happier now because the questions that weren't answered before have finally been answered. The have some sort of closure now...