Second roller coaster ride (part 3)

[Card29]

Today would have been (is?) our 3rd anniversary.

[DnJ]

Good Morning Card

it's been a very good last week. Had some fun events with the kids and also with friends. Football team had a monster win on Saturday and I was at the game celebrating with a group. My voice is still shot from all of the yelling.

Excellent!

One of the weirdly difficult lessons folks learn is it’s still ok to have fun times during all this.

Extra bro-hug for today. (((Hug))) I empathize my friend. Those anniversaries and special days, especially the first year after BD, are tough. Hang in there.

D

[Card29]

Update time!

The anger has subsided for the last several days. The techniques I've learned for how to identify the triggers, and how to handle it when it comes, has really helped.

My friends continue to be an incredible foundation of support, for me and my kids. Before we had S1, for a couple of years we hosted weekly Tuesday night dinners for friends. I'm going to revive that starting next week.

Nothing majorly new with W. Still mostly talking about S1, although she did send a few non-S1 texts over the last few days while she was out of town for her grandmother's funeral. I'm guessing maybe she was lonely without her friends, emotional about grandma, or a combination of the two. I did a better job over the weekend of not just hiding from my feelings. Went for a nice long solo hike on Saturday with no music. Trying to practice mindfulness and feel the feelings. I do really miss W. But I really miss the W from pre-August-2022, when she started changing. Not sure if that W will ever come back.

I've been in several group social settings lately and decided to flirt when the opportunity arises. I've gotten 3 phone numbers in the last 2 weeks. I don't plan on calling any of them, but it does feel good to make a girl laugh and to just know I'm going to be fine if/when the time comes. Plus it's just been fun.

The grief support class is still going strong. 2 weeks ago, we took the week off due to more than 1/2 of the class having conflicts. We were back this past Thursday. I believe we have 3 sessions left. We are down to a core of 5 people, and the conversations are now intense and very personal. We shared a relationship history graph (the major positive and negative events in the history of your R with someone). You didn't have to pick the person that led you to the class. I picked my dad as it was a little complicated and formative for me. All of my positives were the events he took me to (football, drag racing, attending my baseball games, etc). All of the negatives were when he was drunk and acting erratic.

Seeing it on a chart really shows me why I didn't drink until I was 30. I've never been drunk around my kids, and even still, D11 has been voicing to me she doesn't want me to ever get drunk. I don't know where that thought is coming from yet. I don't know if it's because of me, xW or somewhere completely different (movies, TV etc). I get her back today and plan to have a conversation with her this week.

I hope everyone is doing well. I'll be catching up on the other threads later today.

[Card29]

I discovered another trigger for bad feelings...when everything goes off the rails with the kids and I'm alone. This morning was a s*** show. S1 was running everywhere while I was trying to get him dressed. D11 needed a note written last minute. I had to take our elderly dog to my mom's because she can't be alone anymore. I didn't prep lunches last night so I was scrambling to do that. We ended up missing D11's bus, so had to drive all over town dropping off the dog, S1 and D11. Was mad at W by the time I got to work, even though I know this morning was on me. Will be sure to prep lunches tonight.

I'm also on Day 3 without a cell phone. I went to a cousin's Halloween party Saturday night. It was a lot of fun, but I'd had a few drinks and accidentally left my phone in the Uber. I've been battling with Uber since then to try to get in contact with the driver. I'm locked out of my Uber account on my computer. I lost a cell phone several years ago, but it's an even bigger nightmare today. *Everything* needs your phone. I'll be upgrading my device situation when I get the phone back to make sure I'm backed up in case I ever lose it again.

[Card29]

I am now starting my first attempt at planning a holiday season with two different moms with two young kids and it absolutely [censored]. W#2 proposed that she take S1 for the entire week of Thanksgiving (which includes his birthday) so she can go to Chicago where she's from. Yeah no. Not how this is going to work, that you just get to take him whenever you please. This is exponentially more complicated than when it was just D11.

Also, the calendars that were proposed by the two moms would have had D11 and S1 not seeing each other for an entire month. Also not happening. This has taken up over an hour of my morning so far. I am trying to remain emotionless in the e-mails and texts but I want to punch a hole through my monitor. I want to say thanks to W for quitting as a step mom, F'ng up like 4 different R's and 2 kids lives because "you didn't want to stick around and let things get resentful between us". Like doing this isn't going to potentially make me resentful!

I am also very tempted to tell her I know about a bunch of the lies she has told friends and family to justify her leaving. I'm more tempted now than ever. At first I thought I had just laughed them off knowing they are BS "revisionist history" that most WAS's exhibit. But they're clearly still bothering me.

[DnJ]

Good Morning Card

Oh my, losing your phone would be quite the inconvenience. Nowadays, folks store so much on them. Hope you get it back soon.

I’m thinking of you, it’s going to a difficult exercise getting a schedule hammered out between all the parties. Do take small breaks (and some nice deep breathes) every now and then to ensure you remain rational, cordial, and yes sans emotions in your messages. And not bash your poor monitor.

Best of luck.

D

[Card29]

Hi DnJ,

I might need to workout twice on the days I'm really stressed. Yesterday I lifted at the gym during lunch, then ran a mile time trial with a couple of coworkers at a track after work. A friend met me at the track to watch S1 while I ran. The mile race had been planned a couple weeks ago, but it was a godsend. Amazing how tired you can get in 6 minutes. Last night was the first night I slept through the night since BD.

I'm more calmly dealing with the holiday planning today...so far. What makes it even more complicated is my xW's sister also just left her H, and xW wants D11 to see her cousin for Christmas. So it's 3 sets of D'd parents trying to coordinate a holiday, and I'm the only one whose family is in town. xW is from 3 hours west, W#2 from 5 hours north. So it's not even just "drive them around town to share the love". It's a mess, one that the WAW's never considered when they ran after their happiness fantasies and split up households with young kids

[Pattnee5]

Hi card
Amazing update and awesome on the running. It really is so good for mental health. If only more MLC people and WAS started running instead of blowing up their world. And well done on the sleeping. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard Christmas is going to be but remember to look after your needs too.

[Card29]

Thanks, Pattnee. It took me a holiday season or two to get used to the split with D11. I'm sure I'll eventually get there with this new reality, too, but this year will likely be hard. Right now waiting on W to agree on the proposal that xW and I are in agreement with.

And yes, the world would be a lot better if everyone made the healthiest choices. 2 years ago, W wanted to match her grand parent's anniversary number of 62. Moved out as soon as anything hard came up. Although I do assume she's going through a crisis with her MS. I hate to only be speculating. A friend has been encouraging me to ask her why she is doing this (so far I've only heard from her that it's about my mom and the stress of home life, which I know are both BS reasons for leaving). I am tempted but I know it's straight up R talk. If I get anything from her, it would likely be more lies. I've seen her in person maybe 5 times since Aug 20, and 99% of texts are business related (S1 or belongings). So not really any chances for it to come up naturally in convo.

[Card29]

2 months since BD and this week is by far the hardest week so far. Crushed right now. I miss W, I'm pissed I've had 2 kids and never got to share a normal parental moment (mom and dad together enjoying their development as loving parents) with either of them past the age of 2, I'm dreading another 7 years of constantly juggling child schedules with 2 different women, I hate the fact that D11 and S1 are going to spend less than 1/2 of their remaining childhoods with each other, I'm back to thinking about W with another man, I'm pissed thinking about the lies W has told about me to friends and family, I hate that I'm losing my in-law family who I've been closer to than my actual family. Just really going through a low time and I can't wait for this holiday season to be over already.