It's been awhile and I can see big changes have occurred since our entire forum has now been archived…lol. Was it something we said??
So... a brief update... as I had mentioned in the past... OW has been battling a significant illness for the entire time XH has known her. Sadly it all came to an end a week ago when she passed away at the palliative care unit of our local hospital. XH texted me that morning so I pulled our kids from school and took them over to the hospital to say goodbye to her (their choice) and then spent the rest of the day on a little road trip with D15 while S15 decided just to go home and isolate in his room. He and his sister had very different reactions to the news. D15 was sad and wanted to spend time with me. S15 was sad but also mad. He spent an extra day with me before going to his dad's and expressed his anger on the drive over saying "I hate going back and forth between houses and now the reason for that has left." Yikes. I didn't really know how to address it except to say that his dad and my relationship was in trouble long before OW showed up and she wasn't the reason his dad left, she was just the way he chose to do it. I don't know if that helped him or not but it was the best I could come up with at the time.
Strangely, I think my kids have handled her death better than I have. I’ve experienced more emotions than I anticipated and am still dealing with them to be honest. I am sad for XH and for OW's kids and my kids and even more sad for OW who did not deserve to die at the age of 41. I am also sad for myself as I had finally gotten past all of this and, since her death, have been revisiting so much of it in my mind again. Case in point... XH and my kids left on a two-week trip to Europe today...the very same trip he and I had always planned to take them on together. As sad as that makes me, I am happy for my kids. Not just because they get to go but also because the XH I was married to would have taken off to Europe on his own for a month and left the kids with me. This new version of XH is forking over the money to take both of them and is only going for two weeks (due to cost as well as minimizing missed school time). They deserve to have a dad who will do that for them so I am so thankful they finally have that. And I know that I will take them on a trip soon as well. It’s just a shame they will never get to experience any of those things with both of us at the same time. OW or no OW…maybe it was just never meant to be.
Life for me day to day hasn’t changed too much except I think my sister, BIL and I have finally come to terms with the fact that the pandemic and the aftermath have altered our house-building plans to the extent that it now feels like too much of a financial (and emotional) risk to continue. Luckily we haven’t invested too much money beyond the initial money spent on the property. Lots of time and energy spent planning, particularly on my BIL’s part, to get to this point though so it does feel like we failed in some ways and wasted a lot of time that could have been spent on other things. We’re leaving for Croatia in a few weeks so are going to wait until we get back to make a final decision but as far as I am concerned, the writing is on the wall. I just want to sell the property so I can get most of my money back and then buy a house of my own. I am getting quite tired of living in my sister’s guestroom. Thankfully, there are a ton of houses with suites being built around here which is what I would need to have my own home AND live the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed. I love travelling just too darn much and I don’t want to give that up.
I have not been dating at all. I still have a couple of dating apps on my phone but haven’t been using them. Every time I think about jumping back into it, it just feels like too much effort… and too much of a risk given my responsibilities in other areas of my life. I am keenly aware time is passing by quickly though and my odds of finding a partner with whom to spend the last third of my life (fingers crossed I make it that far), is diminishing daily so I feel the pressure once in awhile. Anyway…I could write a whole lot more but I really just wanted to give a bit of an update and say hi to the people from my “era” who are still visiting the forum from time to time. I think of you often and am still very grateful to have found all of you. Don’t think I could have done as well as I have these last few years if I hadn’t.
