Thanks for the responses FLTC and Ali -- I know it will take a while to get a thread going. I need to respond on some other threads, too, though I don't feel like I have much to give as far as advice since nothing I am doing seems to be making much difference!
Journaling/Venting: Am home with the kids today. H is out of town till Wednesday evening. He was at his apartment all day and spent the night there yesterday, and did not even call the kids to say goodnight (he normally calls every night if he is out of town, so there's no reason he couldn't have called last night). I have a bad head cold, and am not getting as much done as I should (have tons of laundry, plus I brought some work home that I really should do tonight). Lately, I am actually sort of relieved when H is not here. He doesn't help much with the kids/house anyway when we are both home, so it's not any harder without him, and when he's not here, I don't have to work so hard to keep up the DBing around him/do the things that he has said he wants me to do/work on. It's sort of like I have a little reprieve from having to try so hard all of the time when he's not here. When the phone rings, and I see it's him, it gets my blood pressure up since I never know how the conversation will go, and I hate it so much when he takes a flat or negative tone with me. When he calls at home, I always answer, as I know he wants to talk to the kids, and I don't want to deprive him of that (if I can, I let my son answer). If he calls at work, I often just let it go through to voicemail (though often he then won't leave a message), and then call him back when I am in an "up" moment -- I can always blame being too busy at work if he wonders why he can't reach me.
Ok, here's the vent: Thursday, I had gotten up at 4:00 a.m. to prepare for a meeting (was out of town), worked all day, then was supposed to get a 6:25 pm flight home. Because President Bush was in St. Louis, then Chicago, thus messing up the airports in both places (and I was flying from St. Louis to Chicago!), my flight was delayed 3 HOURS, and I didn't get home till midnight (I live an hour from the airport). He was up when I got home, but went to bed soon afterwards (but not before showing me 2 bottles of wine he bought because, "we liked these when he had them last week"). Then was up till 2:00 a.m. washing baby bottles, dishes, getting the kids' stuff ready for the next day. Got up at 5:00 to start my day. So, I got a total of 7 hours of sleep in 2 nights. Friday afternoon, we are driving to his grandma's house for dinner so she can see the kids (which I arranged since he never calls his grandma, then wonders why she seems to like me more than him), and I cam dozing off in the car while he drives. He says, incredulously/VERY annoyed (don't know why this would annoy him), "are you falling asleep?!" Well, yes, I am. I am exhausted and I am getting sick, but since you haven't bothered to ask me how I've been these last few days, I guess you wouldn't know that (no, I didn't say that - just said, "yeah, I haven't gotten much sleep the last 2 nights). It seems like no matter what I do, it annoys him, so maybe I need to start going a bit dim to the extent I can with the kids. So far, I have been trying to GAL, PMA, do 180s, but haven't really tried to withdraw/back off on contact. I think it's time. Now, I just have to figure out how to walk the line without cutting him out of anything regarding the kids. Obvoiusly, I will tell him what he needs to know about them, but what about funny stories about what one or the other of them did today -- I would normally share those, and we would laugh about them. Should I not even do that - just tell him whatever is important for him to know and then end the conversation? I guess I will have to think a little about how to implement this. Tonight if he calls, I will let S4 answer and talk wiht him, and will only talk with him if he asks S4. I don't have anything pressing to discuss with him right now anyway.
