Wow, I guess it's time for an update. I have been MIA the past few months and really focusing on my kids and healing. First off, thank you Ready, Treasur, and KayDee, I did read your responses at the time and it gave me a lot to mull over. It has remained hard to limit contact with the ex, but I find myself more and more okay with it these days. As far as the inlaw situation, it's still weird. They came to visit again in September but he was unaware. You are absolutely right that it's really none of his business who I have relationships with at this point. His mom is considering writing him out of her will and me in. I told her that if she wants to do that, it is her choice, but any money that would have gone to him should be given to the kids. I don't need more drama from it being given to me. I don't want to touch that mess with a ten-foot pole.
As far as the well meaning friend, they luckily have stopped thanking me every week for the ex saving them. I had to snort at the comment that Putin likes puppies. I think my own thinking in the past few months has changed as well with time and being able to process and more fully choose my own response. It's funny reading back on something that was hard for me at the time and realizing I've worked through whatever distress was caused and it doesn't bother me and I look at it slightly differently now.
Things have been calming the last few months. I still have my moments of resentment and bursts of sadness that I am alone and feel abandoned but it is no longer constant and most days I am pretty happy. I had a moment a couple months ago that I was celebrating a friend's birthday with a group of women. I looked around at all of them and realize how fortunate I am and that I was able to create this lovely support system of women. They have become some dear friends, they are real and vulnerable and not afraid to call things like it is and I love them for it. I realized that in my grief I ended up building a community around myself.
The kids continue to struggle on and off but are doing okay overall and know that they are deeply loved by me. While it's not perfect, I feel like I am doing my best and loving my kids and increasingly realizing that I don't have to be perfect to be a good mom.
One of my children had a medical emergency requiring hospitalization for a short time. It required dropping what I was doing and rushing this child to the hospital. I had to call the ex, tell him and ask for help with the other kids which he gave. He and OW came and picked up the others and took them to their house, got them to school (he's NEVER done this EVER in his years of being a dad). He joined me at the hospital and then OW made sure they were picked up and fed and homework was done and they were taken care of. It was a weird experience for me. We sat all day in the hospital talking and catching up about various people we both knew and talking about what was going on in the kids lives. He shared details of his life now and things that were frustrating him. I felt for the first time in a long time that I missed my husband. Sitting in the hospital felt familiar, it felt so normal to be with each other taking care of our child. When all was said and done, and I had returned home, I felt really strongly like I should tell the OW thank you. I had never talked to her, introduced myself, anything. I felt so strongly like I should and have learned that when I get personal promptings to do something that is kind I should do it. Now, this is that last thing I wanted to do at the time. I had a strange outfit on that I had thrown on in haste to get to the hospital, I had vomit on me and hadn't showered for 40 hours and looked and smelled like it. Let's just say it wasn't the way I would ever choose to actually meet someone. Well, I went around to her side of the car, knocked on the window (and slightly enjoyed the look of horror on my ex's face because he had no idea what I was doing hahaha) and just told her I wanted to know how grateful I was that she took care of the kids and was kind to them. She started getting teary. I'm not sure what all was going on in her head and truthfully it doesn't matter. I went inside, had a talk with my kids about doing what we feel like we should even if the other person doesn't deserve it (they were all flabbergasted at what I had done too, I think my teen still is). After eating and getting people to bed, I had a good long ugly cry in the shower. At first I felt so confused at why I would feel like I should thank her. I felt it was unfair that I should have to thank someone that helped destroy my family. I also felt a sense of relief. So much of the anger and resentment that I had been holding onto seemed to evaporate in that moment that I expressed my gratitude. I still don't understand why this was my path to a very powerful bit of healing in my life, but it was. It also was scary and still is to some extent realizing that I have let that wall of anger down and now I am left somewhat unprotected. In the end, I did what I needed to do for my own sake and peace. I knew for me I needed to express gratitude. It wasn't for her benefit or the ex's, it was for my own. It was about being the person I wanted to be and showing my kids the type of person I hope they will be. While I wouldn't want to hold that anger the rest of my life, it does leave a new sense of vulnerability. It leaves me wondering about the nature of forgiveness and how something I was working towards with only minimal success could just happen in an instant through doing something I didn't want to do. Also, if any newbies decide to read my monologue, realize, I don't suggest even for a second that I think that this is a solution for everyone. It was simply what I needed to do for me.
In the last couple of months, I have realized (or was told by my therapist and realized she was right) that I feel sorry for OW. I know what she got and she didn't. They now sit by me at sports games, she has even come without the ex to support the kids and sits by me. Sometimes I don't know how my life got so weird and my friends and I laugh about it a little. If you would have told me two years ago when the bomb went off in my life that I would be able to sit there and chit chat like that with them I would have thought you were insane. The thing is, I don't really mind it so maybe I am the crazy one. I guess it maybe comes with the acceptance that it is what it is and detaching. I did talk this through with my therapist because the first time it happened I was worried. Was I self abandoning? Was I doing something that wasn't in my own best interest to do? I realize though that even though it feels odd, I was being true to myself and the person I want to be. The person I lost when for years I was stuck in a codependent trap pushing down my own instincts wants and needs. I've realized there is power in this as well. I took my own power back by accepting what reality is and choosing how to respond, not just reacting. I don't have to treat their relationship as some big thing that makes me change my patterns and behaviors and ability to do and go where I please in my own community. Last spring, they had the power, I allowed their presence to change me, to bug me to cause me to avoid them and interacting with people around them and they no longer hold that power over me.
There have been other things along the way but nothing as major. A few observations about the MLCer. He seems to be slowly progressing. Who knows where he is in the stages of things, but he is gradually becoming more helpful and thoughtful. He seems to be missing the kids more and more and tries harder to be there for them. He seems to feel guilty when he can't make it to something. I've noticed he seems very forgetful about things. I think that the limerence might finally be starting to taper off. He has started therapy again, after quitting in a huff the last time (probably because the therapist questioned him about something and he didn't like it). It also seems that they are also going to couples therapy.
I am a little annoyed that he would never do it for me, but really, it probably wouldn't have mattered at the time of BD anyway. I look at it as he can't let this relationship fail because of all he gave up for it. Who knows if that's the truth, but all is certainly not roses even though they still seem relatively happy together. There are other signs that things aren't quite the fantasy they were at first, comments OW makes to me about how particular ex is about certain things and how she never feels like she gets it right or how she enjoys random days off in the week so she can actually have a little space and time to herself. I guess working together and living together is maybe a bit too much together. I'm a little unsure why she confides these small things, but it does give a window into this MLC and how things are progressing. He has finally started to reconnect in at least a superficial way with his childhood best friend. The friend said it's all surface level but ex has started trying to reach out again. His siblings report the same thing, that he gradually is making contact again.
I don't really hope that he will come back at this point, but I'm hoping if he can continue to progress he will be a better person and father by the end of this journey he is on.
For myself, I am now feeling open to new relationships (not that I really have any clue where to find one of those as I don't really want to venture into the world of online dating). I scheduled an international trip by myself with a singles vacation tour in a few months. I'm equally excited and terrified to step out of my comfort zone but realize I need to do that and I am unwilling to let my own discomfort keep me from seeing the things I have always wanted to see and realize that I shouldn't wait for a husband to do those things with.