Things have been mostly uneventful the past week and I've been pretty busy. Only a few little updates to my sitch.
W did take D18 with her to IC last week and it went as expected. The IC and W tried to convince D18 that she doesn’t know what’s actually going on and nothing her mom is doing is wrong. D18 wasn’t buying it and let them know that. She said she voiced pretty much all of her concerns and didn’t shy away this time, which upset her mom. She told me the IC is terrible and is probably causing more problems than she is helping with. I told her that she can’t control that and to just focus on her relationship with her mom. One positive thing she told me was that they asked D18 to find a neutral person she can go to when she is mad at me and a person she can go to when she’s upset with her mom, that way she isn’t going to each of us with her concerns about the other one. I just made sure D18 is comfortable with the people she chose and she said yes. Neither W nor I know who she picked, which is also good. D18 was invited back whenever she wants, but I don’t think she plans on going again.
I got to watch D5 and D7 playing indoor soccer. As I mentioned previously, OM has a child playing in the same age group. D18 had already told me about it, but W didn’t know that I knew and decided to wait until a few days before their first game to tell me. She said something like “I’m just letting you know because you might cross paths, and they’ll play against each other and I don’t want you to cause a scene.” I told W she can take care of the team for the remaining games. It’s frustrating because I set the team up, I socialize with the parents and I was supposed to be coaching them since their regular coach got sent out of state for work. But I’m choosing not to put myself in that position and will find other activities to engage with the kids.
I still have not received a parenting plan or and other paperwork from W. Not sure why I still expect her to meet her self-imposed deadlines. She originally thought we’d be D’d in November. She’s still in the house until we have a legal parenting plan. We did separate one bank account and our phone plan. Our other bank account will be split as soon as W fills out a form for a direct deposit change. I printed the form right after we left the bank. It’s still sitting on the counter.
A thing I’ve been thinking about recently is in regards to W dragging her feet on things. At what point do I just start pushing things forward. I am in no hurry to move on and W moved on long ago. In some ways it benefits me to let things drag on. It keeps some stability in the house for the kids for the time being, especially until D18 goes to college. And if the market goes to crap, it’ll be way easier for me to keep the house after D. I guess there aren’t really any cons to my situation as long as I can emotionally handle things. Valentine’s Day hurt, but it felt a little like closure. Or another step toward detachment at least. Maybe I’ve answered my own question. It’s tough juggling wanting to move forward with letting things play out. Doing nothing is sometimes doing something. But sometimes it feels like delaying the inevitable. But at least it’s a choice that I get to make. I’ll let the month of March play out and see where things go from there.
As far as my GAL, it’s going great. A chaperone from the soccer trip invited a few of us, including W, to a trivia night at a local brewery with her friends. I was the only one who went. Didn’t know anyone else, but met some cool people and had fun. They go every Friday so I have that option whenever I want, which is nice. I got back into my running program and finished week 10 and I finally signed up for my half-marathon which is in 2 weeks. I think I will start up the Insanity workouts again after my running is done, and actually finish it this time. When the weather improves a bit, I’ll be able to start doing a bunch of hiking too.
That’s pretty much it. I hope everyone is doing well.
