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Donna...I am enacting your advice. I am now going to call the kids every night. You are right. They are too young to be making those decisions. S9 still tells me that XW 'discourages' his desire to call me.

To Dday....what you did TOTALLY jives with Dr. Grey's advice re: saving a marriage and that phrase we have here 'hope for reconciliation'. Grey says that most dysfunctional marriages can't be rebuilt until they are completely destroyed and rebuilt from the bottom up. He states that this 'hope' is a form of denial. I think your divorce proves that. Most of the advice we get here is on this forum is totally off base with regards to tolerating infidelity and allowing spouse's to disappear for 4 days and then get greeted with a hot meal and lingerie when they return. Enabling behavior that is.

I pray that your NEW marriage lives long and prospers. Work hard to prevent those 'insidious changes' from returning. G-d bless.

FIB


Me 55; XW 47; 2 kids (S13, D11)
Bomb 05/19/06 Original thread http://tinyurl.com/yg2ou2t
Last anniversary 04/25/10, Divorced 5/12/10
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FIB, question, now that you are three months into being single, how did your feelings change pre- and post-divorce in terms of stress in general and attitude toward your ex?


Me: 47, Ds 17-13, D final 6-11
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Humm...

New thread...and great advice.

Your kids are adjusting. Let them. Call when it is right. You will know when you appear clinging. They will also know when they should call.

My phone time decreased also after the D. But they miss me and we get 100% when we are together - that is worth everything.

Yep, we got screwed. Maybe it was meant to be. We learned. Big time. About life, about kids, about relationships. We made new friends.

Keep going.

Strength and Honor.


Jeff

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The important thing here FIB is that you WANT a close and regular relationship with your children. If you want it, you will find a way, through time and trial and error, to have as close a relationship as you can have given the situation.

I feel for everyone who lose that every day contact with their kids as a result of divorce or separation. The truth is that there is no perfect answer in these situations, which simply emphasizes again the sanctity of marriage and why it is important to do everything possible to keep a marriage healthy, viable, and lasting.

Sometimes we simply have no choice, as many of us here have experienced.


My trial right now is the empty nest. For the first time in my life, I do not have my boys, either of them, with me each day. Even more, I now have nearly 700 miles between us. I feel the ache of their absence every day. At least I can take solace in the fact that in this case it is simply the next stage of my life. I'm so sorry that you and others are dealing with this same kind of loss prematurely.


I have no trite or easy answer, and I'm sure there is not one. One of the things that I have learned over the past four years is to embrace my place in life and find the happiness and joy that it contains.


I know you will and are doing the same with your situation right now. Take heart in the positive changes and find a way to use the positives to make some of the negatives better.


Again I will say that your children will never doubt that you WANT to be in their lives each and every day. While that does not fill your empty times, it does mean that your children will never be without their father, whether present with them or right at the front of their heart.


Blessings,

Bill


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Bill and Jeff....what a road it's been, right? I just had one week off from work and spent it all with my kids. Finally, after a few months, I had them in the house everyday. I took the kids for 2 days to Hershey PA. It was too hot and D7 couldn't take the heat. I took her back to the hotel and lost a day's time but I was with my sis and her kids and another friend. Funny: you can travel all the way out to a park in PA and the hotel swimming pool turns out to be the big hit.

On the flipside, as the time to return the kids back to XW rolled around tonite, you never saw someone checking the clock like a HS kid staring at it on the last day of school. I swear, as it got closer and closer to the witching hour, I think I could hear every gear in the clock ticking. I drove home and ...I felt terrible. I found myself fighting back a lot of emotion. XW now gets them and I won't see them for nearly 9 days.

Sucks. Funny thing is, the kids, I think, take it much better THAN I DO. Yes Jeff. I know they love me. My kids tell me that constantly. My son has me catching for him daily as he keeps his pitching arm limber. D7 tried coconut cream pie at Bob Evans in PA and loved it, so, hey...I baked a homemade CCP with her a la Emeril Lagasse. D7 usually falls right asleep and I stay up with my son, in peace and quiet, watching the Met game with him. I put my arm around his shoulder for a bit.

No more eggshells.

No more telling me that I have to put him to bed.

Just peace and quiet...baseball...and my son.

My daughter, well, we have a special bond. Sadly, D7 still makes some negative comments:
-re: getting on the phone to say hi to her mom, "what am I gonna say? Hi Mom. Goodbye mom."
-re: leaving, " I don't want to go home to that crazy woman." Yes, she said that once.

BUT....they love her and express it to her and tell her they love her and miss her. They should. It's their mom.

Finally, to Clinging. I never hated my XW. I hated some of the things that she DID. I miss our old relationship. I don't miss who she is now. Much of my stress right now is financial. I feel no stress related to her at the moment. I DO feel that I have to handle things carefully or "I will end up back in court" if that explains anything.

She is more cordial than she was during the D. She usually calls back in response to some of my texts where she wouldn't even answer me in the past. I HAVE gotten MORE parenting time than is written in ink to date. I DO believe that if she gets pissed at me for some reason in the future, she will use that time to punish me. The latest joke between us is that she usually responds with 'K' or 'OK'. Last week she responded to something I wrote with 'will do'. I texted back, "wow...I got 4 more letters." She texted back "I guess that's progress". Overall, we don't have any communication together outside of things related to the kids, or, my favorite, "where's the check?". "Mailed it yesterday."

Finally, I try to use what I have learned here re: being a leader vs a wimp. I find it disgusting to have to ask for extra time with the kids. So, instead of wimping out and saying, "can I please have an extra hour with them", I do the best to stay away from old stuff. I change that now. "The kids would like to go out for ice cream. I think they would enjoy it. It's hot tonite and they could use something refreshing." Yada yada.

I miss being married. I don't miss being married to XW. I miss being a family but I don't miss being a family under the recent circumstances. Do I wish that things could have been different and that my kids were living in the house we built and together under one roof with two parents? Yes.

But that was not in cards for XW and I. We are just another statistic now.

FIB


Me 55; XW 47; 2 kids (S13, D11)
Bomb 05/19/06 Original thread http://tinyurl.com/yg2ou2t
Last anniversary 04/25/10, Divorced 5/12/10
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Hugs FIB, I think your way of thinking about how xW would respond to an argument is correct. But sinc eyou know that ahead of time, you can prepare and try to avoid it.

So your D is opening up more to you?

Glad you had fun,
K


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Quote:
I miss being married. I don't miss being married to XW. I miss being a family but I don't miss being a family under the recent circumstances. Do I wish that things could have been different and that my kids were living in the house we built and together under one roof with two parents? Yes.
I am going through the exact same emotions -- except for a small change.

I miss being a family too, although the family with STBXW wasn't all that fun. I took the girls yesterday to Six Flags Great America and recruited one of D11's friends to come along because D8 can't ride the bigger rides.

It was an excellent day on many levels. I found myself only occasionally looking at the married couples working together, enjoying a great moment in their children's lives together.

Last year it seemed as if the marital bliss surrounding me would crush me.

Today, I took the day off to go swimming with them again.

The girls deserve better than they've gotten -- a mother so down about her life that she'd blow up their future in search of what? This week it's happiness from a bottle in Sturgis S.D.

My change to yours is right now I hate STBXW. That person I married is gone, replaced by this selfish one and I can't stand the fact it's going to take me 3 to 5 years to rebuild my finances. It's 3- to 5-years of D8's and D11's childhood I can't have back.


Me: 47, Ds 17-13, D final 6-11
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CTH...the only thing I can tell you is what everyone told me: it gets better, at least to some degree from the start.

I don't think you really accept or get over the loss of time with your children. I think the word is 'adapt' and forced adaptation at that.

I have started my financial rebuild and yep...will take time. When I get an offer on my house that goes to contract, THAT, will hurt. I wish I could afford to buy out her half and stay there. It is not in the cards.

I saw two cancer commercials the other day: one was a little boy throwing a baseball to a dad that wasn't there. There other showed a mom holding her son's hand in a busy station, then, she disappears and the clip shows the boy getting frantic and then crying when she is gone.

Your 'job' now, is to be the most stable and greatest dad in the world....NO MATTER WHAT, and, I can see that you already are.

Stay the course.

FIB


Me 55; XW 47; 2 kids (S13, D11)
Bomb 05/19/06 Original thread http://tinyurl.com/yg2ou2t
Last anniversary 04/25/10, Divorced 5/12/10
Status: Loving father of 2 beautiful children;
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You had me until I read "Mets". smile

I am really so very glad to read about the growth you are having with your daughter. Your children sound lovely.

The financial side of divorce constantly blows me away. I have to believe it gets better!

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Mets... 55 wins, 56 loses - 18th overall in MLB - last title in 1986 and only other title in 1969

Yankees... 69 wins, 42 loses - 1st overall in MLB - Defending Champion and 27 times a champion in 109 years.

Go with a winner.

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