Strange days...

[2ndTimeHurt]

Fair enough man.

I know that the plus side is my ex not seeing our son. That sounds horrible but she needs that. I see him pretty much everyday. And the times when she has him and her plans change, I'm grateful that I get to see my son some more. One day she will realise she's been neglecting him. That's for her to figure out.

But you're right, I don't know what tomorrow brings.

[2ndTimeHurt]

I'm hurting but I'm grateful.

I've been reading other's sitch's and it breaks my heart that some fathers can't see their kids.

I have my son the majority of the time. To put things into perspective, this is how often I've seen my boy this week; which is pretty much the norm.

Sunday-spent 10 hours with my ex and my son. It was supposed to be her night with him but he spent the night at my place.
Monday- all day and night with me. Ex didn't see or talk with him
Tuesday-same as Monday
Wednesday-I picked ex up at 6 to do taxes. I dropped the 2 of them off at her place around 9pm.
Thursday- she dropped him off in the morning before she started work. I had him the rest of the day and night
Friday(today)- I've had him all day and he's staying here tonight.

During the day he is either at daycare or with my mom. But he spends most nights here with me. I do night time routine, baths(I honestly don't know when the last time she bathed him!! How crazy is that!), and morning routine. On occasion she will be here for family dinner or I'll go to her place. But for the most part, s3 spends his nights here.

I'm eternally grateful I get this time with my son BUT, I feel a tremendous amount of guilt for the situation we're in. I take most of the blame for her leaving.

She should see our son more than she does right? It absolutely kills me when my son asks for grandma, or even crazier, my dog!!!!; instead of her. It's such a pain in the ass that I can't or won't tell my ex that she's being so selfish with regards to our little boy. It's exactly like watching a kid play with fire and watching him get burned. I want to say something to her but I know I'm not supposed to.

[trc2009]

Man, it will kill my W if she saw our son that little when we were living apart. But every wife/mom is different. I can say a lot of things about my W but the one thing she is is a wonderful mother.

My wife has tremendous guilt right now about breaking up the "family." She flat out told me that and that is a huge reason why we're living under the same roof again. She doesn't want me to only see the kids 3-4 days/week and vice versa.

Our situations are incredibly similar. My W is 6 years younger than I am. We met when she just was about to turn 21 and got pregnant 6 months later. A question, is your W enjoying the extra freedom that being apart from you and your son gives her? My W DEFINITELY enjoyed greater freedom to do and talk to whomever she wanted while we weren't living together. To quote her, "I'm starting to wonder whether or not I got married too you and I want to be able to enjoy life on my own for once."

Part of me can't blame her. I'm a family man and enjoy my family but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a blast when I was 18-25 years old.

Also, I have been working on anger issues as well but only started IC a month ago. My wifes big hangup is that she doesn't feel "safe" around me even though I've never physically hit her (but obviously it hurt her emotionally).

Crazy how similar our timelines and situations are (other than my wife being a model mother throughout our issues).

[trc2009]

I have to confirm what others have said here because my issues w/ W are largely due to past issues w/ me losing my temper.

To me, she lied about a bunch of stuff. To her, it was her not telling me stuff because she was afraid that I would get mad an lose my temper.

Now, I didn't lose my temper often (maybe 6 times in our six years together) but that was enough for her to be very, very careful about what she said to me.

Make sense? It took me a long while to really understand that an accept that she wasn't lying to me to be deceitful. But simply not telling me certain things in fear of my reaction.

[Scorp7]

TRC, I cam relate to what you're saying about your W being afraid to tell you what she was truly feeling because of her being afraid of your anger. My W has told me the same thing since she's been gone. I was like you, I rarely ever got angry with her, only a handful of times in 11.5 years. She did see me angry at other things though as well so that was enough.

She does have responsibility though for telling you what she truly was thinking and feeling. Saying she was afraid to tell you is an excuse. There are many, many ways that she could have told you her true feelings without feeling afraid (leaving a letter for you, seeing a counselor together, meeting with you with a family member present etc).

I feel that when kids are involved that the parents owe it to them to do EVERYTHING they can to work out their issues before they ever even consider D. The fact your W didn't tell you her true feelings until after she left shows that she never truly gave you an opportunity to work on your M and address the issues.

[2ndTimeHurt]

Man, it will kill my W if she saw our son that little when we were living apart. But every wife/mom is different. I can say a lot of things about my W but the one thing she is is a wonderful mother.

My wife has tremendous guilt right now about breaking up the "family." She flat out told me that and that is a huge reason why we're living under the same roof again. She doesn't want me to only see the kids 3-4 days/week and vice versa.

Our situations are incredibly similar. My W is 6 years younger than I am. We met when she just was about to turn 21 and got pregnant 6 months later. A question, is your W enjoying the extra freedom that being apart from you and your son gives her? My W DEFINITELY enjoyed greater freedom to do and talk to whomever she wanted while we weren't living together. To quote her, "I'm starting to wonder whether or not I got married too you and I want to be able to enjoy life on my own for once."

Part of me can't blame her. I'm a family man and enjoy my family but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a blast when I was 18-25 years old.

Also, I have been working on anger issues as well but only started IC a month ago. My wifes big hangup is that she doesn't feel "safe" around me even though I've never physically hit her (but obviously it hurt her emotionally).

Crazy how similar our timelines and situations are (other than my wife being a model mother throughout our issues).

Hey trc, glad you could stop by my thread.

My ex truly belueves(she believes a lot of things I don't necessarily agree with) that she is a great mother. That is the way she feels and nothing I say will change that. I keep my mouth shut. I have no doubt she loves him to death. She does have a lot of personal issues which are clouding her mind. I'm not mind reading this. It is clear as day. Her past upbringing plays a huge role as does her current situation. She's stressed and sad and happy and confident and self conscious etc etc. She is constantly flip flopping and it's blatantly obvious she's suffering from something. I'm just letting her be and showing her my neutral side, my compassionate side, my caring side, my going dim side. Basically I'm not giving her any reason for me to be a stress factor in her life.

My ex went out a lot the first time she left me. For 14 months it was all about how she could find happiness externally. This time around she doesn't go out as much(money is very tight for her), and she hasn't really mentioned the freedom thing to me. What I've heard from her is that "we" tried and it didnt work or we're just not compatible. I don't believe any of that.

About our ex's being afraid... I've lived that path for a long time. For 2 years I was in counseling and read books and listened to podcasts. My anger is pretty much gone. My counselor told me I wasn't abusive in the classic term but more along the lines of a guy with bad behavior. The point is, my ex felt abused. She owns the right to feel how she did. And because i love her so much i was able to see the pain i caused her without making excuses for nyself. That was a turning point for me. I didnt feel I was doing any wrong at the time, but once I saw it from her perspective, my feelings changed. Tremendous guilt and shame. My IC said I had healthy shame because I was so focused on changing my behavior and I actually empathized with my ex.

The whole abuse thing is a slippery slope. It is on a wide spectrum. Something abusive to one person is completely innocent to another.


I agree with Scorp about it being your w responsibility to tell you. Here's the thing though, what if she had a story in her mind that justified not saying anything to you? It could be that she was scared, or didnt think you'd listen, or she thought it would fix on it's own etc. point is, you and I both know its her responsibility to say something, but she had her reasons not to. We have to accept that. It's not her fault. She is the way she is based on every single second of any insignificant or important experience of her life. What I mean by that is, very very few of us(if any), go through our entire lives being consciously self aware. Most of us are on auto pilot. Hardly any of us experience free will down to the emotional level. People experience things based on reactions(not thinking) and every one of those experiences shape who we are today. Not too sure where I'm going with this. Anyway, don't put blame on your w for not speaking up. She did what she did and that's that. Every time my ex does something strange or rude or negative, I constantly remind myself that she's sick, she's not thinking with self awareness, her past shaped her, she's still on auto pilot etc. The same thing goes for all of us. Lbs's get a gift though. We learn about self awareness and self growth. We can change our current auto pilot path to something more conscious. You learned about your anger issues. Now are you consciously going to remedy that and work on it? The choice is yours. That's a gift right there. Becoming aware of something so destructive(anger) and having a choice to fix it. Some people go their whole lives thinking their negative behaviors are normal or acceptable or worse, they think they have no negative behaviors. Not sure where I was going with that either. Hope it helped though.


Maybe a little journaling time.

My ex has been strange as usual. Just last night she called me sick at around 11:30. I brought her meds and soup and 7-up. I know I'm an idiot, but I want to make sure she's ok. She immediately felt better after eating some soup. She had more hair dye so I helped dye her hair and cut it. I stayed over til about 4:30 am. I know that's crazy. I even massaged her feet the other day. Stayed over pretty late that night as well. We've talked for hours. We've also gone dim for days. She asks a lot of what I'm doing or where I'm going out. I try my best to say "going out", but she knows me too well. I ask nothing about other dude. I pretend he doesn't exist. My ex just called while typing this. Pleasant conversation, she told me about how she cried at work today because a client was being rude to her. I listened and validated. She also flip flopped again. She was supposed to go out tonight but now she's not. She said she told me earlier but I don't recall. So s3 will spend the night with her. I'm happy for the both of them. So I guess I'll have some free time tonight.

Anyway, I can sense I'm becoming more neutral to everything. I'm not neutral, just heading in that direction.

[2ndTimeHurt]

More strangeness..

Yesterday my ex texts me about her plans for the day. She wanted to take s3 swimming, but she also wanted to drop him off because she had "something to take care of". She kept asking about what I did the night before. I just said I had an awesome time and it was weird too. She pestered me about the weird part but I deflected and focused on the awesome part. I took her bait and asked what she had to take care of. She said I don't want to know. Then texted right after that maybe I do want to know, but she'd much rather discuss it later. I said fine I gotta run. She kept texting and flip flopping like crazy about her plans for the day. I just told her I'd be home in an hour. She called about 2 hours later and asked if I wanted to go swimming with them. I said sure because its fun swimming with him. We had a great time and got along. She brought food along and cooked me a dinner after swimming. She wanted to play rockband so we did that and had some wine. She seemed to be really enjoying herself. Then she tells me she has to catch her bus(to go and take care of whatever it was). I didnt ask. She said she just wants to go home and sleep. She also says "as you can see I don't really want to go", I'm assuming that was in regards to taking care of whatever it was. Her bus comes and she leaves.

Today I don't hear anything from her until about half an hour ago when she asked about s3. I just told her he was good and to enjoy pool(I remember he'll telling me she was going out to play pool tonight). I got a smiley face in response.

Anyway, I thought yesterday was bizarre and I'm left wondering why she left s3 with me lastnight(it was her night I'm assuming). She said she would discuss it with me but I haven't heard anything. I might ask her about it tomorrow. We'll see.

She also posted a cryptic fb poem and a song lyric that I messaged to her a while ago. I'm more curious about her behavior rather than consumed emotionally.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

On a side note, I had a blast on Saturday night. Met up with some old highschool buddies.

[2ndTimeHurt]

So apparently she doesn't want to talk about it now. She seems depressed. She says there is a lot going on with her tight now. She wants to see s3 a bit more this week, which is fine by me. She also wants to spend the night with her mom and s3 on sat. I'm all for that. She says she "needs" it. She hasn't really been getting along with her mom ever since she started seeing om.

We'll see how this week goes.

[2ndTimeHurt]

It turns out she dumped om. She seems to be in a all men are assh*les kinda mood. I was over at her place last night and it started off great. She was in a great mood. The best mood I've seen her in a long time. Then all of a sudden she was all pissy because I couldn't give her a straight answer as to why I'm uncomfortable discussing my dating(lack of dating) life. The night ended very sour. She apologized after through text which was nice of her.

I'll just keep on keepin on.

[2ndTimeHurt]

Another strange night.

Ex worked today and I was supposed to pick her up after work and drop her and s3 off at her moms for an overnight stay. We get there and ex noticed that her mom called. She calls her and it turns out they were supposed to come over tomorrow. My ex is really upset by this(many reasons). She tells me all the reasons shes upset and i sit and validate everything. Im pretty upset too because I drove 45 minutes across town for nothing. Gas ain't cheap!!! I kept the conversation about her though. We end up heading back to our end of town. I had plans tonight but agreed to take her grocery shopping on the way back to her place. We do that. After we get s3 buckled up she asks if she can drive. She comes over to the driver side as I'm getting out and gives me the nicest hug. A real honest hug. Her arms wrapped around me and nice and tight and long. For no apparent reason. No idea where this hug came from. It felt so good. Anyway, after she gets in, her mood completely changes from upset to happy. And I mean really happy, like she's hyper or something. I really enjoy when she gets in this mood.

We needed to pick up a few things for s3 from my place so we head there. As we pull up she asks if we can play some rockband. I said sure because I wasn't heading out til later. We feed s3 and play rockband. She's as happy as ever still. She was playful and even gave me a wet willy. She's never done that before.

It was getting late so we headed back to her place. We said our good byes and that was that. Turns out my friend was too tired to head out(she does that a lot), so I just head back home. I'm just gonna watch some shows now because I'm too tired to do anything else. I only got 3 hours of sleep last night. Looking forward to getting a nice sleep in tonight!!