Update: There isn't much to say, but I'm sure I'll ramble on anyway. I'm getting some pandemic fatigue. Which is exacerbated by dealing with exH to work on paying for D18's tuition balance for college in fall. She was accepted to her school of choice, and her program of choice, and was accepted into something called a "Core Honors" program. She was given a lot of money, but not enough, and it's an expensive school. I can swing half, but the reality is I don't want to. I have my own loans that I'm paying off and mommy and daddy paid for exH's education. D16 is doing her annual PITA ritual where a month or so before or after her birthday she just flies off the rails for no d@mn reason and bio mom and my H are ready to throttle her. I as the extra parent has to just sit back and watch the ride while D18 keeps asking me for the tea. Work is piling more and more on because I'm proficiently working at home therefore I need more to do apparently. I genuinely hate the class I'm taking in my master's program. Also I live in WI. It's freezing. We've been colder than Anchorage for almost a week now. There's like 3ft of snow on the ground that's just really ice hills now. I know to expect this every February. Yet every February comes and I wonder why I live where the air hurts my face. So all in all being locked in is getting to me and I'd very much like a vacation.
H and I are doing well. Lots of talking and quality time. We lock ourselves in the MBR a lot lately. I love our kids but there's a reason teenagers in normal circumstances are out with their friends all the time. The pandemic is kinda killing that, and our vibe...lol. We talk about everything. The poignant and the mundane. He's still very remorseful although we talk about the A less and less these days. He still goes out of his way to make me feel loved and appreciated. I'm really hoping that doesn't ever go away. I do my best to show him how much I appreciate how far he's come with a lot of stuff, like being willing to talk about feelings and digging into that, being more easy going with the girls instead of imploding an already tense situation, not leaving the burden of the household on me, etc. Most of the good habits he developed have stuck. I can say it's definitely changed my attitude around a lot of things. When I'm not left to bare the brunt of running the household or do all the emotional heavy lifting in our relationship and/or with the kids it's amazing how calm, go with the flow, and spontaneous I can be. To be clear I don't find that amazing. H is still finding it amazing while also realizing how our own individual actions can effect our partner. We rented a fancy hotel room in our downtown area for Valentines, and we have off the next day. I think it's really more of an escape motivation than it's a romantic gesture, but either way we've come a long way from last year.
A lot of that makes me think about something BlueWave posted recently, and May. About playing through the what-ifs if I had just walked away from this. If I hadn't subjected myself to a miserable IHS. Where would I be? Honestly Bluewave's point of starting from scratch gives you a whole new relationship to mess up in your own super fun personal way. I think she said it in the way of the LBS's flaws already being there out in the open. It's easier to callout and it's easier to own your part. I think about that a lot. Would I be trying this hard to show my H how much I appreciate how hard he works inside and outside our home for us if we hadn't gone through this? Probably not. He wouldn't be able to point out the micromanaging. And I wouldn't be able to not to take it personally and get defensive immediately. Same with his short comings. And I think about May watching her H slow waking up and finding his humility and remorse. As hard as it was to watch H go though the whole A, grieving the A, being confused about what he wanted, and then remembering who I was and who we were, I don't know that I'd like to take that back. I don't know that I would've been able to trust him again if I didn't watch the process in real time. I don't know that I would've believed it was anything other than lip service if he had gone and tried to come back. That's not to say my path is everyone. I know very well, my path isn't for most people. But for me I'm not sure it could've happened in any other way for us to be where we are right now.
