Unlearning Conflict Avoidance - 9

[LuckyLuke]

The previous thread locked.

Thanks for your question and suggestions, sandi2 and Wonka.

That is a very good point about LL, especially since I see how my still-W and I seem to express ourselves differently at times. How very sad if someone cannot see your love for them just because of the language used; hopefully that LL book is available electronically.

That is a very good question about travel, sandi2, and what I would do to express my love for D without it. I guess I would answer "spend time with her!" (German has a saying that you love that which you have time for). We had a very nice time, for instance, just she and I, a few weeks ago, at a dumpling restaurant, a meal we agreed to keep secret from my W, co-conspirators.

And today D covered me up with a blanket (I am jet lagged, back in Sweden), and rubbed my stockinged feet, whereas my W basically ignored me. I give her a back or foot rub sometimes, something she sometimes asks for, so I don't feel like I am intruding.

How else? I used to read to her, but she is older now and it seems out of place (though my W and I read each other Watership Down many years ago, and it was a wonderful experience), plus my W grabbed the reader role a few years ago and I was out.

D and I sometimes just go for a walk and talk about this and that; yes, just being together and sharing seems to be where it is at. She nicely asked about my trip (I stopped in NYC on the way); my W projected "oh, you are back, how wonderful, now I will ignore you" when I came home, and I could feel her anger just beneath the surface.

Travel is important to me, as I understand it gets difficult when you are older, and I would love to share it with the kids. Just being in one place is not so interesting (my little town here in Sweden is not exactly a pulsating metropolis)

Daughter likes to hug, but I feel like I hold back (should be hugging my W, d%%n it! along with all the corollaries!) and like it is inappropriate for a dad to hug his soon to be 16 year old for too long. This may sound stupid and I am surely not expressing it well, but hugging her seems inappropriately emotional and connecting and vulnerable for me; I don't want to break down in front of her, or have her feel my pain. So I am not sure what to do when we do.

Yes, travel is an escape, but it is from routine, and nothingness, and cloudiness, and aging, and boredom, and life as just passing time. Novelty is supposed to be a Very Good Thing for relationships; it would be wonderful to share it with someone.

Luke

[LuckyLuke]

Wonka - thanks for the book suggestion, which I have had a first poke at. It proposes to ask your teenager how you can be a better parent: "... what would make our relationship better?". I think I'll do just that - ask. Maybe just asking will build a bit more intimacy.

Further developments: we have new frying pans in the kitchen - not quite sure what that means, but I was surprised how hurt I felt when I saw them (is W already moving out?).

W gone someplace yesterday while I slept off some jet lag. I didn't ask where she had been, which would have hardly been easy as we exchanged maybe 20 words during the day.

Luke

[LuckyLuke]

Journal:

W was unfriendly Sunday. On Monday I managed to ask her how her day was ("long") and then left her alone, and tonight she actually ate dinner with d and I, describing how she had been filmed at work, by a moving camera on a dolly, of which she seemed proud. I am happy for her - perhaps there is an element of MLC involved here also. So she seems to be loosening up a little.

I know her moods should not affect me, and after rereading MLC25's advice to others, will try and go for a hike this weekend (there is hardly any snow here) with some others, and work more on GAL, focusing on with others. Maybe d15 and I can do something also, which would be very nice.

I ran into the grandmother of a friend of d15, who said it would not work out with them to go skiing and use their hut, so something was being worked on there. Perhaps I should suggest that d and w go to someplace sunnier, take the weather pressure off, as it were. They both have the Swedish sports break week coming up.

I will need to travel for work again in the next weeks, but just within Europe.

Luke

[LuckyLuke]

Have asked a guy friend out to see a movie tonight. Amazingly this relatively obscure movie, made by an Iranian director, and in French, is playing in our little town.

I am again at home alone for 12 hours per day, working and poking around. The girls come home, have dinner, and then go upstairs, and I am alone again downstairs. I have asked for a time with T again. Will look into recommendations about working from home and the social isolation this often brings.

I usually only see d15 for 15 minutes a day, at dinner, as she is then upstairs with W (and I am down), but would love to see her more, though without demanding or forcing this in any way. She is usually tired after her 10-12 hour school days, so mostly wants to relax. Is there any way to increase my contact time with her? All this solitude is a downer.

Luke

[LuckyLuke]

Hi gm23,

It is very nice to hear from you - thanks. I just walked to town and scoped out the library to see if you can work there. It looks possible, so that is welcome news. Perhaps two hours a day there, in the mornings, should be good. I usually go running or walking in the afternoon and will continue with that. I guess the one question is whether just seeing people is good enough, or should I look for some shared office space arrangement where there is some sort of social life?

I've started moving the Christmas stuff off my son's bed, in preparation for sleeping up there again.

Luke

[LuckyLuke]

Hi Gabby,

Just hanging out sounds wonderful, actually. Some of us guys (among them two professional cooks) got together a while ago, and made sausages. The shared activity and then getting to eat together, with our wives and kids, who came later, made for an excellent afternoon/evening.

There is a yoga class that a neighbor keeps on saying I should take. That should be good.

Thanks for the ideas.

***

So - presumably - in three weeks, just after d15's birthday, my W will ask me to sign the paper that divorces us. Before I do that though, perhaps it would be good to make a final speech, and so I wonder what this should contain. Has anyone else here done something like that?

I still do love my W.

Luke

[MrBond]

"I usually only see d15 for 15 minutes a day, at dinner, as she is then upstairs with W (and I am down), but would love to see her more, though without demanding or forcing this in any way. "

You're not "forcing" your way into anything if you just go upstairs. You've gone backwards again. You're afraid to spend time with them. Just do it. No analyzing, no fear. Just walk up the stairs. Maybe you could have some dessert and just go up and offer it to them then hang around. Just do it.

[adinva]

Luke, are you still seeing an IC? I think this is a good problem to bring there for constructive advice.

Your daughter has in a way become like your W in your mind. You seem to have gravitated away from her as she has gravitated toward her mom. You seem reluctant to claim your natural place as her dad, for fear of something undefined. Your wife may be a lost cause but your 15yo daughter is not, and your IC can give you specific homework to try to salvage this relationship. I hope you do.

[LuckyLuke]

Mr. Bond, adinva,

W said no to dessert, so she got none, but I brought up Girl Scout cookies to my daughter, who first said no, but then consented to my leaving them on her desk.

One idea would be to cook with her, which she likes to do, and which does not involve leaving home.

The movie was very good ("The Past"), but my Tunisian friend didn't show up.

I emailed my IC here today, but she is not available until May, and now the government requires that therapy be regular, case dependent, and limited. With my travel schedule this may be difficult. An alternative is a therapist that I've Skyped with in the States.

The time I don't spend with my daughter every day feels irrevocably lost, and is painful to think about (it is keeping me awake now, at 1am). I recently met an older man whose younger (40ish) son doesn't want to have any contact with his dad. The pain this caused the older man was heartrending.

I'll do the Skype therapy.

Thanks - Luke

[MrBond]

"W said no to dessert, so she got none,"

That's fine. But don't let this one time stop you from doing it again.

"but I brought up Girl Scout cookies to my daughter, who first said no, but then consented to my leaving them on her desk. "

What do you mean by "consented"? I don't think you realize how much you sound more like her butler than her father. You don't need approval from her to do anything. Same with your W. You're her father. If she's reading a book, go up and ask her how it is. Just talk to her. AND better yet, just go up to her, give her a hug, tell her you love her and that's it.

Stop retreating into the cave of yours.