(Tried to post this earlier this afternoon, but the website wasn't working properly, so, here I am trying again!)

Thanks for your good wishes, gang! The entire community was very fortunate not to have any fatalities and only minor injuries from the storm. The clean-up is well underway; we are bouncing back quickly.

Update

Busy but quiet weekend, for the most part. SO and I had a minor misunderstanding on Friday night. It was his D's 16 b-day party. She had a sleep over at his mom's, an hour's drive away. He told me he would be coming back to town that night, and wanted to see me (even tho he's on dad duty). I had early evening plans with friends, which ended around 8:30. Still no sign nor phone call from SO by then, so I was starting to get pretty disappointed. I ended up going home by 9:30, and he called shortly after 10. By then I was exhausted and knew he wouldn't get back until around 11. I was irritated that he was disrespectful of my time. We both opted in the conversation to just pass for the night.

The next evening we met for an unplanned dinner and talked through it. We both apologized for getting grumpy with each other. I let him know that if he had just been clear with me about his plans to stick around for ALL of the party activities initially, I would have understood and I would have been fine. I already had the suspicion that he was trying to take on too much, and that became apparent when he wasn't back to town by 9.

He told me that what is really working for him/us this time around is that I give him a lot of latitude. Um, okay, whatever. LOL! From my perspective, what is really going on for me is that I don't accept blame or responsibility for his actions this time.

Two things concern me at this point, however. He still seems very uncomfortable with my negative feelings -- sad, anger, hurt, disappointment. When I expressed those on the phone, calmly and collectedly, he told me that he didn't feel "safe" with me. This seems to be a bit of a red flad and something I want to explore further with him in a neutral conversation.

The second thing, which I asked him on the phone Friday, was what was the guarantee that the D-related issues would disappear and stop magically being a barrier when she graduated high school? We discussed this some a dinner on Saturday. From an outside (albeit not completely unbiased) perspective, there's a lot of emotional blackmail that goes on with his D16/XW and him. I'm concerned that he won't be able to break that "spell" just because she graduates h.s. He primarily identifies money/c.s. issues, as well as wanting to be a part of his D's life right now.

I guess this is just a wait and see thing, eh?

M


Every Day a New Day