It's all about my boy to me. It's the only reason the door is still cracked open. It's tragic though that by the very nature of this affair she's having she has to paint me as the bad guy. There has to be a bad guy. I guess when a marriage breaks apart there's always got to be a good deal of blame - after all, it's a lot more than just a high-school relationship. But the real tragedy is that there are such bad feelings in both directions, and though I do my best not to let them get between us, they do enter into our interactions sometimes subtly, othertimes quite overtly. The tragedy is that the feelings make it extremely difficult to interact in order to deal with routine things like finances and our child. I'm trying to break ground here, but it's difficult when I'm always made out to be saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
She feels left out of my plans, yet when I try to include her she tells me she doesn't want to do anything with me. And then she complains that she can't make plans without me making mine first so I should tell her my plans so she can make hers, and then she complains that she always has to work her life around my plans. It seems so contrived, like she's doing anything and everything to make me out to be her oppressor. I know that emotionally she believes that I'm doing this to her - she's depressed and I'm the one she associates with this, so I'm doing it to her. Somewhere though, she has to know that this isn't so. All she has to do is assert herself and she gets what she wants without me standing in her way, but it's far more convenient to deny herself for whatever reason (fear, laziness, etc) and blame me for not getting what she wants. I selfishly start seeing this as someone that I don't want to be with, someone that will only bring me down.
My W is a great person, she's got these negative traits that weigh more heavily right now. It's my choice to focus on them, just as it's her choice to focus on mine. I often try and consciously offset the negative thoughts with several positive observations or thoughts about her, but it's painful and somewhat stupid to admire the freezer door. And I have started to be more and more aware of the disrespect factor again. I am hurt and angered that this woman would disrespect me by carrying on this relationship with my family member under the same roof. I often think that out of respect for our family she should tell OM that she'll call when she's divorced, but I don't think she has the strength. I don't think she's capable. So now I'm choosing to see her as incapable of respecting me - I'm accomodating her active disrespect of me for what?
She seems to be getting angrier and angrier at me (which to me means she's fearful and she's projecting her anger at herself). She started talking about me doing things behind her back, and claimed to know more than I think she knows and that she doesn't know what motivates me - that she thinks I'm on some kind of ego trip. I have no idea what she's getting at (maybe she knows I post on here!), but as far as I'm concerned I'm doing good for my son and my intentions are in the right place. There may be a bit lost in translation, but on the whole I'm doing far better than could be expected for someone in my sitch.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. ” – Albert Einstein
