Ha ha, Ron! Totally, H2H, , Jen, Maya, GBO, Sun (I'll get back to you on that), thanks for your wonderful cheering words.
Well, I had a wonderful visit up north with STBX MIL and her husband. I realized that, although I've talked to them on the phone, especially when BIL went missing and his subsequent tragic discovery, I actually haven't seen them since last November! That's practically a year. And what a year it was. Anyway, I drove up on Saturday and spent the night, had a great dinner with them and enjoyed hanging out. We discussed BIL a lot, and I read all the sympathy cards they had received, but only made side mentions of H, and those were pleasant or neutral. I was upbeat throughout. I guess I was a little nervous about it beforehand, but one of my friends wisely pointed out that MIL must love me and want to see me, and probably worries that she has "lost" me in addition to BIL (not in as traumatic a way, of course). That helped me look at things without as much anxiety. MIL hugged me several times and said meaningfully how good it was to see me, and that made me feel good. I also ran into a neighbor of her's, and somehow she and I immediately got into a deep discussion about loss and change, and hugged at the end, and her 2 year old hugged me too (so sweet).
H and I had an email tiff last week, I really didn't mean for it to be one, but sent him something Optimist had posted on her thread and asked if it had any resonance for him. Of course, it's hard to read tone in email, but it seemed like it made him feel defensive, and he brought out the old arguments about why our R had to end (my selfishness, his drinking, that we "didn't fight about things") (I find this interesting that he is so fixated on fighting rather than working out conflict , especially since his previous R was all about fighting, and that didn't last either). I affirmed that we should have discussed those issues, and apologized for said selfishness again, and commented that I had had many regrets about well, basically, about not understanding his LL, although I didn't put it that way), but that we can't change the past, only learn from painful lessons and resovle to understand more in the future. He made no response to this, and that was last Thursday.
However, yesterday (Monday) he emailed me with no mention of Thursday's half-dozen exchanges or my apology, and said he hoped I'd had a nice visit with MIL, and that he had badly sprained his ankle the day before and was on the way to the doctor. I replied simply, that I had had a really nice visit with MIL, and some medical advice on bad sprains. Nothing since. I know he is having lunch with MIL today before she and her H leave on a trip.
Friends, I will be out of town for the next few days, and thus probably not on-line. So no grief from Ron, please!
