A newcomer's story

[adinva]

Wow, good stuff, thanks for posting!

[labug]

Feelings are just temporary reactions to situations, they don't have to be the guiding light for your decisions. Your actions and choices don't have to be controlled by your emotions. Choose to act based on the life philosophy you have within you, your own standards of truth and integrity forged through living a life and based on what you have found to be true and authentic.

My son and I were discussing this last night. This should be on everyone's bathroom mirror!

Thanks, Judy

[justjudy]

Well this Christmas business is harder than I expected it would be. I have been in such a good place, so prepared, so PMA. But I picked up my daughters from H place today, they had Xmas celebrations and presents etc today and the girls and I have headed to a beach house for Xmas with family and friends. But I struggled to act "as if" while at H place collecting them. They had Xmas without me in the home he has made without me. And I looked at him and just wanted to burst into tears at how much I miss his presence in my life, as my life partner and friend, source of security ans contentment. I wanted to put my arms around his neck and just breathe him in. I wanted to smile into.his eyes and have him smile back. Instead I packed up the car by myself, and drove here with girls to try to do do something totally different for this first post BD Xmas. Boxing day was the BD day so who knows what kind of mess I will be then...sigh...

[justjudy]

Boxing day...the anticipation was much worse than the reality. The events of boxing day last year when H dropped his bomb were on my mind of course but I found myself thinking mostly about how far I have come in just one year. In many ways it has been an amazing year - I found strength and resilience I never knew I had, my relationships and friendships have developed, my social life has flourished. I have also thought long and hard about myself, with the help of my IC and some good friends ans good books and BB like this one. I have learnt a lot about me, H, our relationship, all my relationships and about life and my life philosophy. Don't get me wrong, I still hate what has happened, I am embarrassed and humiliated, I am confused and bewildered by H decisions and behaviours but I now know I am going to be ok whatever happens

"There are things I didn't want to happen but have had to accept.
Things I didn't want to know but had to learn,
And people I couldn't live without but have had to let go"

Not sure who the quote is from but that was 2012 for me in a nutshell. So now onto whatever 2013 has in store!!

[justjudy]

Darn, I wrote a whole post about expectations and it didn't submit! Actually I can see some humour in that....I was writing about reducing expectations to avoid getting hurt...maybe I shouldn't have expected my post to show...haha!,

I wrote about being disappointed about my mothers lack of empathy to my sitch and how she was pretty unenthusiastic about coming alongfor lunch I morrow for D10's 11th birthday.

Also about (stupidly) expecting H would call my 2 daughters yesterday to wish them happy new year and bing disappointed for them when he didn't

But basically the lesson for me is twofold
1) lower my expectations, especially if I have just assumed rather than communicated those expectations
2) be an awesome parent to my two girls to minimise any feelings of neglect, abandonment etc they might be getting via H's "out of sight, out of mind" attitude. I never want my children to feel unloved or unworthy or unimportant so now it's up to me to make sure that doesn't happen

[adinva]

Aw, JustJudy, that stinks. I've been on a rollercoaster lately letting my expectations go where they would and feeling angry when they weren't met. I'm not so sure that's always a bad thing. I think for the newcomers here it helps them to get started on db'ing the right way. But in fact a H who doesn't call his D's on New Year's day is a disappointment. I would like to validate that for you.

A lot of people have been trying to help me understand the other side, like that your mom and your H likely have confusing feelings of their own going on and they're uncomfortable or whatever. Well cry me a river.

I would say try not to project your feelings onto your D's though. They'll have plenty of their own but find out what they are and meet them there. It's OK for you to feel hurt that your H isn't doing things you'd like a dad to do, but if your D's are fine they're fine. They may sometime be upset about things you think are fine or understandable. You've got to be 100% there for them, wherever that really is.

(((hugs)))

[justjudy]

Thanks Adinva

thanks for validating my New Years disappointment!! Neither of my girls was particularly upset and they rarely are by things H does or doesn't do. They seem to be able to shrug things off pretty well. So you are right, this is MY issue not theirs.

My role as the stable parent is to watch for and be there for those times when they are upset or not able to overcome a disappointment of their own.

And when I read up on other situations at least H is still sort of around for the girls, he hasn't ridden off into the wilderness never to be seen again like some do.

So...reset and keep going!

On a brighter note I took the girls to Cirque du Soleil last night - Cirque has come to town before but we have never gone coz H doesn't like "that sort of thing". But the girls and I all loved it, it was amazing!!! And D11 was still buzzing with excitement over it today when H called to pick her up for the weekend. Nice of her to be all excited to him about my GAL activities!

[adinva]

cool!

[justjudy]

I am feeling very topsy-turvey today. I don't know if I am sad or lonely or a little depressed. Come to think of it perhaps its PMT. Coz even with everything else thats going on normal cycles continue. PMT used to always make me feel irritable and harassed but these days it does tend to make me feel melancholy.

I should be happy, I have parked myself beside the pool for the afternoon complete with ipad, novel, soft drink, blue sky, sunshine. On the deck I oiled myself and the pool I sorted out myself for the first time this summer. So llife is good and I am coping and managing pretty well mostly.

But my girls are at their dads for the weekend which makes the house quiet and the days long. I try to get busy and GAL which certainly does help a lot.

I've been sitting here reading through other threads and it is making me tired. Tired of trying, Tired of waiting. Tired of nothing changing. H is still superficially pleasant saving his coldness for email, like an email discussion last night over finances. I tell myself that for me finances are about 'business' so maybe he just has his business head on for those discussions. But one of my 180s is to be softer, react softly and so the tone of my emails is gently, gently - perhaps that emphasises the coldness of his.

I have been re-reading DR, last night I read LRT and the chapter on MLC. I think I am doing OK with LRT but I am getting tired emotionally from absolutely no changes in H. I felt better reading on about MLC because the message there is that what is needed is patience and time, both in bucketloads. I am early days really - BD 12 months ago, about 2.5 years in, still in Replay. Long time to go yet, so I guess I just carry on.

I suppose we all reach a stage where we wonder if it is worth continuing. How long do you wait? MLC timelines are long, no question and it gets very disheartening watching life pass by. Yesterday I caught up with an interstate cousin home for the holidays. We grew up together, married within months of each other, had our first child almost at the same time. It was surreal to look at her life, still on track, happy little family unit - and then consider my train wreck...

My girls bring home tidbits of info about H - I try not to take too much notice but I can't help thinking he doesn't seem happy. H is still adamant and resolutely convinced this is the path we will take, talks child support and financial settlement and moving on...yet he doesnt sound happy in his new life. The girls say he is so quickly and easily frustrated by everything and anything that you might as well say he is always frustrated. That doesn't sound like a man happy with his life choices.

I just wish he would realise he needs to look inside himself, that running away was not the answer. He needs to acknowledge his issues and return home to his loving wife and family where he would receive the space and support to work his stuff out.

I admit I would handle things differently now than I did 12 months ago and he probably doesn't know how much I have learnt and grown myself over that time to know that it would be different. To be honest, perhaps I really needed this separation time to do that work on myself and learn about not just MLC but our relationship and my role in its dynamics and how I could do things differently. But maybe there is more work to do yet though.

I guess like all LBS I just worry that he will get stuck and never return, or "wake up but not own up" (I read that on a old post and it struck a chord). So easy for pride to get in the way I think and thats a worry.

I waver between thinking it over, all done, he's finished, "we are never ever getting back together" (Taylor Swift's song in my head lots lately) OR just having a feeling that we will get through this given enough time, patience, commitment, forgiveness, unconditional love, grace, PMA and plain hard work.

[justjudy]

Can anyone tell me if I am right thinking this is weird...

Firstly, that H doesn't contact D11 at all between her visits. Things means 10 days go by without him calling, texting or contacting at all. I couldn't go that long without hearing from her. I did raise this with him months ago and he said he didn't want to intrude on my family time, to which I replied that I appreciated his concern but thought that both girls would like to hear from him more regularly and that I didn't consider it intruding, he was welcome to ring any time, every night if he wanted to. So he phoned, D11 was delighted, I texted him the next day to tell him that and thank him for being willing to take this on board. He texted back "I enjoyed it too. Thanks for the hint" then hasn't rung since! I get her to ring him sometimes say if something cool happened that day at school so I am not expecting him to do all the work. Having said that, he is the parent here not D11. Is his "out of sight, out of mind" approach unusual?

Secondly, I just spent a week away over Christmas with the girls. It seems H came over at least three times while we were away. He's done that before if he knows I will be away, it makes me a little nervous coz he has in the past taken stuff. Some was his so that's ok although I'd still like to know so I don't think we have been burgled! But other times he has (accidentally?) taken stuff that was mine and I had to call him out on it. However this time he only took stuff that was his but also cleared out some junk I had sorted, as well as feeding the chickens, watering the garden, fixing the pool pump, filtering and topping up the pool - all the little household tasks he used to do. Is that weird?