Tales from the Crucible: A Long Overdue Update

[NotATLDave]

Journey,
Everything is great with our D8 outside the country. She goes to a school that rivals the best private schools in the states. She's in a Brownie troop and does other after school activities. She loves her school, has great friends and us - her parents. What else does a kid need? Plus, our neighborhood is a similar to any suburban housing development in the US. and she can ride her bike around and have some freedom that we wouldn't give her in the US.

My W (like other trailing spouses here) have a very hard time because it's not an easy place to get simple things done without help from a local person. But getting help from a local person requires the ability to speak the language. It adds major layors of complexity to everything and in the beginning it was a nightmare. But since we bought a car last year, we've been able to re-claim independence and run to grocery store, B&Q (HomeDepot) or furniture stores on a whim. That type of get-up-and-go type of freedom is what a car provides and is an unalienable american right. If you never had, you wouldn't miss it, but that allowed us both to reclaim our freedom.

But back to my W. She derives a huge amount of self-worth from being a great "domestic engineer" and mom. When she discovered that she was no longer in control, I think it shook her. Plus she had to endure this in isolation during the day. Now she has a good circle of friends and has found her groove with our housekeeper. It's quite funny how much work my W still does despite having a housekeeper. She will take the simplest task and fill her time with it. Then, she claims to be fiercely busy. RIght now, she's in the states to take care of some issues with our house and the amount of real work to be done is miniscule. It's a piece of cake with hired help and being a single parent (here) is very easy.

These times when she's in the US and I'm here with my D8 just undo her. Earlier this year she had go to the US and she had a panic attack about her separation from us. I think it's separation from our D8. I'm starting to see some potentially scary signs of "unhealthy" attachment to our D8. I'm fairly certain that our D8's dependancy on her is her source of "juice" (validation). Driving to the airport, she kept having crying spells because she was "worried" about us. She *realy* wants to feel like we *need* her. These breaks are probably good for her because they show that we love her without all the work she does.