Being trapped with 780 dollars of "free money" in a casino during a snow storm seems like one of those "good problems"
I hope you make it back home safely!
W 34 Me 42 Married 7 years together 8 0 kids 1 beloved dog BD 4/6/2018 I moved out 4/7/2018 I moved back in alone 8/05/2018 I file 3/06/2019 D official 5/7/2019
Another snow day but managed to make it into work. Super quiet day of course as people are staying home. I switched my Spring Break vacation dates around so my H could go on his ski trip. I thought about not doing it just to make him mad (I AM human) but decided against it. That is just not who I am. So he can take his week to go with his "buddy". Whether or not that is really who he is going with... matters not. I would like to think we have gotten past the lying but I would be an idiot to assume that. Now I am just trying to figure out what to do with my kids that week. I hate travelling during school closures. Everything is jacked up in price and kid-friendly places are usually crowded.
My SD19 just sent me an article on the challenges of being bisexual in which she is a featured interviewee. I am glad she and I have been able to maintain such a strong relationship and that she trusts me and sees me as a support to her. Hard to believe she is an adult. Seems like just yesterday we were picking out her flower girl dress for my wedding. Time sure does go by quickly. I was so happy that day. Really felt like I had finally gotten it right in the relationship department. If only I had known then what I know now. I would probably have still married my H but I would have made some 180s a lot earlier. Like Living said in her thread, I took a lot for granted and I didn't make a consistent effort to maintain the MR the way I should have. I know it takes two and that he made his share of mistakes, but I am not completely blameless in that regard. I should have paid attention to my intuition and took steps to change things when I first felt like he was distancing himself. Sigh... forgiving oneself is a really slooowwww process.
"I think you hit the nail on the head. Commitment is what makes marriages work through all kinds of challenges.
Those of us who have been married forever (Wayne and I have been married 47 years and counting) know that life has its ups and downs not to mention the twists and turns no one can predict when you first fall in love.
If you want to know before you get married if it will work you have to look not only at your future partners values, behavior and the way they deal with challenges--you must become aware of your own.
You and your partner need to be committed to making it work. Long term happy marriages don't just happen-- you make them happen.
And by the way they won't always be happy--there will be some very tough times when you will question not only why you married this person, but why you are staying married.
Love will seem far away and very difficult to find--that is when commitment and "right attitudes" and having healthy values and even skills keep you there trying until you can find the love that was there all along just buried under the suffering that life sometimes dishes out....
Thanks for the inspiration--I just wanted to let you know I think you were right on."
This is so, so, so true. Wish I had read this thirteen years ago.
So...I switched my vacation days during Spring Break to accommodate my H’s ski trip. I was feeling a bit bummed that he would be out having fun while I was at home. I decided I wanted to take them somewhere so started looking around on the internet for ideas. Long story short... I booked a six-day trip to San Diego, California. My daughter is super excited while my son is mad at me for ruining his Spring Break with a vacation...lol. He is an interesting little guy...anxious about anything unfamiliar. He’ll enjoy himself once he is there. I wanted my sister to come with us but she has been travelling a lot lately so she said she would house sit. So I invited my MIL to come with us. I thought she would really enjoy a vacation with her grandkids and she isn’t getting any younger so I thought why not. Nice to have an extra person to look after my son while my daughter and I go on rides that he will more than likely refuse to go on. It’s a win-win. Anyway... she was thrilled I asked her to go. She has wanted to go to San Diego but the friend she travels with doesn’t want to go there. It is awesome to have something to look forward to.
Though I live in the Los Angeles metro area, San Diego is quite honestly my favorite of the major Cali cities. San Diego is just so chill and laid-back.
LA is too congested and too busy; I’ve never really understood the appeal of San Francisco, I’ve found San Fran too cold, too cramped (it’s a very compact city), and the city has some very real issues that need to be addressed.
If the weather cooperates, I recommend Mission Beach. W and I went there when we went to SD. It might be a bit touristy, but I really liked it. Also found a good number of sand dollars while at Mission Beach.
Not sure if you’ve ever been to Cali, but the food here is mostly excellent (I have had a handful of bad meals in SoCal). I hope you’ll enjoy it in San Diego!
Thanks Bo. My H and I drove down the Oregon Coast into Monterey for our honeymoon. We went through San Francisco and I’m with you... we went down to Fisherman’s Wharf and couldn’t wait to get out of there. It was kinda grungy. The other stops we had were great. I love, love, love that drive. So beautiful and scenic. Similar to Long Beach on Vancouver Island which is about a two and a half hour drive from me. The last time I was in San Diego was when I was 13 on vacation with my family. My sister has been there a few times. She agrees with you...her favourite Cali city too. I can’t wait. It is going to be nice to hang out with my kids in warm weather.
I would love to check out Mission Beach. I think sand dollars are really cool. I had one given to me by my dad’s friend who was a helicopter pilot. One of the perks where my dad worked is that I often got to go on helicopter rides to look for forest fires. One time we landed on a beach to check it out and that is where he found the sand dollar and gave it to me. Sadly, he died in a helicopter crash a few years later and then a few years after that, his widow was murdered in her home and they never did find the person who did it. Apparently she was tied to a chair when they found her. Murders are very rare in my home town. Pretty sure they did an unsolved mysteries episode on it. Don’t think it was ever solved. Anyway...I digress.
Texted my H this evening to ask him about getting a notarized travel letter so I can take the kids over the border. He said he would be happy to get me one. I told him a bit about our trip and he replied “awesome”. I had talked with him before we separated about taking the kids to San Diego. Not sure he remembers. Must be strange for him though... for me to be going off on a vacation with our kids and his mother. I’ve taken a few trips with our kids solo before though so it’s nothing new I suppose.
Great to have something to look forward to. Hope you find something to look forward to as well. It is a great mood booster. (((HUGS)))
If you want to call it something to look forward to, I recently bought some new dress shirts to better reflect my weight loss of the last couple of years, to improve my appearance / overall attractiveness, and boost overall confidence / PMA.
My mom is also visiting SoCal from our native Ohio. She is here to visit me and the boys (that is the stated reason), but she is also here to be moral support and help me with what is going on with W.
D is kind of an epidemic in my family—my parents had an extremely unhappy / quasi-emotionally abusive marriage, and my mom left / separated when I was a junior in college (I was 22). My step-dad also divorced; and my uncle (mom’s brother) also is divorced and does the single dad thing. FWIW, W’s parents are divorced (when she was around 6).
When I was dating / searching for a marriage partner, and when I married W (and even W and I would talk about it earlier in our MR), I would talk about how I didn’t want to end up like my parents (or even my uncle) and get divorced. I so desperately wanted to avoid that—but now here I am.
The dress shirts are my Valentines’ Day gift to me; I want to do something for the boys too.
I’m concerned that things with W will continue to get much worse (and they probably will, but I also trust things will get better in time); I do appreciate your feedback on my thread, but W has threatened to take the kids and move out if I don’t agree to her parenting plan, or come up with something comparable. I have an email out to my L on this and a couple of other things—just waiting on a response, so we’ll see.
If you want to call it something to look forward to, I recently bought some new dress shirts to better reflect my weight loss of the last couple of years, to improve my appearance / overall attractiveness, and boost overall confidence / PMA.
That does help, doesn't it Bo? I, too, have purchased some smaller clothes lately and fit into ones that I never thought I would wear again. It is a good feeling, for sure.
Originally Posted by Bo562
When I was dating / searching for a marriage partner, and when I married W (and even W and I would talk about it earlier in our MR), I would talk about how I didn’t want to end up like my parents (or even my uncle) and get divorced. I so desperately wanted to avoid that—but now here I am.
Divorce is, fortunately, not that prevalent in my family. Me and my dad's brother...that's about it. There are a lot more on my H's side and, of course, the most influential being the divorce of his parents when he was a baby. I think that has had a big impact on him...never having lived with his father. He has a lot of anger towards his father. It also gave my H a lot of justification to do what he is doing. "I turned out okay. The kids will be fine...in fact, it may even be good for them." Yep...he actually said that to his mom. The narrative of him turning out okay is debatable. History would say he has not...at least not in his personal life. My H and I talked about it earlier in our marriage as well. I thought we were on the same page. Clearly, we should have been talking about it all along. We should have been talking more period, and nurturing our relationship. We are both guilty of not doing that and it has, unfortunately, got us to this point. I so did not want this kind of life for my kids. My daughter is dealing pretty well but my son tells me he uses his video games to disconnect from all of his stress and sadness over his parents splitting up. That breaks my heart.
Originally Posted by Bo562
W has threatened to take the kids and move out if I don’t agree to her parenting plan, or come up with something comparable.
Bo... I just don't see how she can do that. For sure get some advice from your lawyer on that before you consider giving in. It seems quite unreasonable.
Originally Posted by Neffer
Girl, you are not a lighthouse. You are a radio telescope!
Awww...thanks Neffer. I don't always feel that way but I am trying. I think this trip will do wonders for my PMA. I still wish it was my H coming with us...we so did not do this kind of thing enough in our MR. But...I am not spending too much time these days stuck in that mind set. It is a cheeseless tunnel, for sure.
I am anticipating a call from my lawyer soon. I think the SA will be ready to sigh sometime this week. Not looking forward to it the way my H is, that's for sure. It all still feels so unnecessary... we could have made it. There really were no major issues between us (before the double life started) other than complacency and poor communication. With a little effort from both of us, we could have turned things around. But the key is that it needs to be both of us and my H has made it clear I am on my own in that regard. So... I am just going to focus on accepting WHAT IS and keep moving forward... one step at a time.
It all still feels so unnecessary... we could have made it. There really were no major issues between us (before the double life started) other than complacency and poor communication. With a little effort from both of us, we could have turned things around. But the key is that it needs to be both of us and my H has made it clear I am on my own in that regard. So... I am just going to focus on accepting WHAT IS and keep moving forward... one step at a time.
A million other members nod in agreement with this...you're doing the only thing you can do DV6...just keep on going!
