My kids have suffered and I feel sad for them, but they also have gained from this.
Yesterday I read an article on the difference between hurt and harm. It used a cavity as an example. Eating sugar doesn't hurt, in fact, it's pleasurable, but it harms you, gives you a cavity. The dentist putting in a filling may hurt, but ultimately it's for your own good, it actually repairs the harm. For me, that was an important distinction. My children may hurt for now, but that doesn't mean they have to come to harm in the long run. Eye opening.
I think intention is important. Most people come here for sure this is going to ruin the rest of their children's lives. It will change it for sure but ruination isn't a given. Kids are resilient and their environment through tough times is so important.
So if the intention is set that this is going to change the kids lives negatively, it most likely will.
However we can just as easily set a different intention while acknowledging that it's painful. Painful experiences can make us grow in positive ways and our kids are going to have other painful experiences throughout their lives. Helping them learn to control what they can control, let go of what they can't is such a gift.
Me 57/H 58 M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13
Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do. I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering. Caroline Myss
Most people come here for sure this is going to ruin the rest of their children's lives.
I did. I fought for months for them not to know. And I still wish it had worked out differently. But I learned I can't protect them from some things, including their dad's decisions.
IC challenged me on this one. She asked me to name ways that my children's lives would be different, other than living at two different houses. And I don't know what my answer will be in a couple of months, but I'm going into this S hopeful that my kids will be OK. And that's a really different attitude than I had a few months ago.
It will affect them forever. My parents divorce, my grandparents divorce, it all affected me. I still carry some of that. But I do believe we, as parents, can take the high road and try and minimize the damage as best as possible.
Me 47 - W 35 M 9 - T 10 2 Daughters - 7 & 9 Discovery of EA- 8/4/14 S - 8/5/15 D mentioned - 9/11/14 R & Piecing - 3/17/15 Regard one another as more important than yourselves. - Philippians 2:3
Epigenetics, have not heard of that. I will look that up this afternoon.
There isn't enough bandwidth on this server for me to unpack my parents divorce and all of the sexual implications that went along with it.
Me 47 - W 35 M 9 - T 10 2 Daughters - 7 & 9 Discovery of EA- 8/4/14 S - 8/5/15 D mentioned - 9/11/14 R & Piecing - 3/17/15 Regard one another as more important than yourselves. - Philippians 2:3
Not much here to report. H just picked up the kids. It was supposed to be his weekend but because he's keeping them for all of Thanksgiving week he offered to give me this weekend too. We ended up splitting because I have a dinner party tonight I want to go to.
He was remarkably flexible about sharing the weekend. Offered to keep them 24 hours morning to morning or afternoon to afternoon, my choice. Responded to my anxiety about having been apart from them (for all 8 hours!) during my first week at work by offering to just stay at the house with them during the dinner party. It was kind of him to be so flexible.
He was wearing his new jeans this morning. I noticed but didn't say anything because I thought it would be pursuing. We didn't have anything to say to one another during the 2-3 minutes the kids ran to get their stuff. Or maybe, I didn't have anything to say to him and he was waiting for me to start. I don't know. I've been quite dark with him since the beginning of October.
I woke up this morning really suspicious that he may have had one-night stands more than once in our past (and I have a couple of occasions in mind that make me suspicious about that), and I'm trying to unpack how I feel about that. I'm really tired of the situation at this moment. I know I've been all over the map with it. Right now, I'm bored of it.
Today: Running, a good yoga stretch after, a barn sale with a friend, figuring out the side I'm bringing to the dinner party, and then the party. Tomorrow, the kids and I are going to hang the Christmas lights. I have a beautiful old house with pillars and a great wrap-around porch on the front and we've never decorated it for anything in the 21 months we've lived here. We deserve this.
If someone can please tell me where my head is I would appreciate it. Right now, I think I'm just living in the moment, which is the right thing. I don't know if I'm behaving appropriately to H to bring about my goals. I'd like to:
1) Know if my suspicions about the one-night stands are accurate 2) If they are, figure out what that means to me and where my boundary around that is 3) Get us to a place where we can both admit to one another where we went wrong and decide if we're willing to rebuild.
I get that he's not there on #3, or if he is he doesn't want it badly enough to chase it down. My hope is that he didn't cheat other than what I know about because I don't know if I have it in me to make the effort with him if he did. It would be better if we could rebuild the marriage. Just for today... I don't care either way. I don't know how I'll feel this afternoon or tomorrow, but for today, I just don't want to be disrupted any more.
Anyway, that's a pretty long post for having nothing much to update today. Hope you all enjoy the weekend! It's chilly but beautiful here so I'm looking forward to enjoying it.
Me42, H40 D12, S8, S7 A revealed: 7/13 Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15
