Know this Dr…there will come a time when your hurt and anger will not be so present in your life. If you follow the advice on here and successfully navigate your grief, you may even find yourself happier than you were before this all happened. When you finally get to that place and you look back on how you handled everything, what do you want to see? What do you want your kids to be able to say about it when they are adults and think back to this time in their life? Do you want them to remember an angry, resentful guy who took every opportunity he could to punish their mom (that’s what you sound like here) or do you want them to remember a guy they had a lot of fun with who rose above the situation and did his best to protect them from all of that? If I were you, whenever you find yourself reacting and feeling those resentful feelings, I would ask myself that question before I did anything else. Choose better not bitter Dr.
I like this quote. I am pretty much over her, it's just random situations that come up when I least expect them to. You make valid points and yes, I need to mindful by how the kids see me.
As for punishing the mother, I don't really think of it like that. I don't communicate with her at all, except for that one occasion last week. We use a shared calendar app to reserve our custody days and apart from an app for sending child support there is no other communication and that's just how I like it.
I told exWW that we could never be friends after what she did and I have stuck to this. During the early days after she moved out, she would break the custody agreement and pick the kids up on days and times that weren't hers. She would lie to my kids and tell them she was separated when she was living with me and the kids all the time she was conducting an affair. She left the marital home and moved immediately to OM's home, while telling me, "anyone would think I left you for OM." There was a lot of projection and gaslighting from her to me. This is why going dark is necessary. You cannot control a wayward mind nor should you attempt to. They are, as Sandy put it, "in complete rebellion."
