Grief and Gratitude, Grok - Shifting

[grok]

On the airplane,
on the way home,
missing my children,
had a good week in southern CA working and socializing with workmates from HQ and around the nation.

I walked 8+ miles yesterday to work off some of the great food eaten while socializing. The axe throwing social event didn’t burn enough. And I did find trinkets for the kids to bring back. Little hand painted frog figurines that have a wobbley tung stick

I am pretty detached now but it still feels like there is a giant hole in my life. Like a limb is missing. The asymmetry in affairs is difficult…at least in the short term. The cheater is looking forward to their “wonderful” fantasy relationship thinking it makes things better. The LBS is looking at loss and hardship. This hits our notions of fairness right in the face.

STBXW is still focused on OM even though I don’t believe they meet in real life right now. Every now and then I see the behaviors where I know she thinks she is messaging him. I saw them while daily checking my security cameras to see how my children were doing without me at home.

My snooping many many months ago found messaging to the effect of “I’ll just go and pine away for you in my RV for years … waiting for you to resolve your situation”. … meaning dump his current wife. Last year I heard every rationalization that dumping his current wife had nothing to do with her romance with him. That was just between OM and current wife. Yeah, as if. Accountability kryptonite…

No, I wasn’t checking on STBXW. You see, on my last week long work trip she only showed up at the home for 3 or 4 hours in the evening each day. I check to see how long my children have been alone. I try to FaceTime the kids multiple times a day to make sure they don’t feel alone and that I’m still running the home.

Thankfully, W is comfy with current state (smh)

Despite what she said, this trip STBWX behaved a little different. She stayed in the home overnights and most of the daytimes. How much value that has?

I think more for S12. He knows the least about her choices. I don’t think he knows about OM. And has the most schoolwork to catch up on. He seemed kind of down a lot when I called him.

D17 was a bit testy about doing lots of chores, on her own initiative!, to keep the dishes done and things cleaned up. She complained that D19 just excused herself because she is soooo tired after work and S12 didn’t want to help out. The implied subtext is STBXW was NOT helping out with anything but the dogs.
G, ”D17, I’ll talk with S12 and D19. You did great, thank you. Don’t worry. I’ll fix things when I get home.”

D19 expressed ”mama is here to walk the dogs. I don’t know what everyone else is doing. They are all kind of just doing their own thing all week. They all stay up very late and keep me up.” The implied subtext is STBXW was NOT parenting or controlling the home. Just present.
G, “OK D19, I’ll be home Friday evening. We’ll have bedtimes and order.”.
D19, ”THANK GOODNESS”

Heh, even at 19, appreciating parental order and structure.

Primal Loss by Leila Miller
Forward

“In the Divorce Fantasy World, there are only two choices. Unhappy parents stay miserably married and fight for the rest of their lives, or they get divorced and everyone lives happily ever after. The idea that one or both parents should change their behavior doesn’t register as an option, nor does the idea that the divorce might seriously wound the kids.”

”Each parent is half of who the child is. When the parents reject each other, they are rejecting half of the child. They may tell the child, “We still love you; we just don’t love each other.” The child cannot make sense of this impossible contradiction.”

Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce by Elizabeth Marquardt

How a child perceives parental differences in an intact family: (H <—> W) <—> (child).
The parents resolve the differences before it reaches the child..

How a child perceives parental differences in a divorced family: (H) <—> (child) <—> (W).
The child has to resolve the differences inside themselves.

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