Oh what a night...

Tweet

Last night R was on the phone with his sister for a very long time. Her husband just got diagnosed with cancer, and they talked about that, and everything else under the sun. When he finally came inside, I asked how she was doing. Big mistake. They way women talk a lot, but that man can yap until most people would have aching jaws. Anyway, somehow we got into the other night when he went and told the kids about the divorce behind my back. He gave me the old "you wouldn't understand" bit again, and I said "how the heck can I understand when you won't tell me?" Well here it is. He thinks it's the Dad's job to deliver bad news. And he decided that if the kids were going to hate anybody, it would be him. Sorry, not buying the theory. Did it ever occur to him that they would resent the fact that I apparently didn't care enough to be there for the discussion? (insert moron smiley here) Ok, so putting the best spin on it, he was trying to be noble and spare me. But does he really have a clue how some things affect people? I think not. So then we get into why he didn't discuss this with me first. Well apparently, I should have told him that it was important to me to discuss it together. Just saying that was how I wanted to do it wasn't enough. Why not? Well apparently, because the counselor said that's how we should do it. And that's how people on the internet have told me to do it. Yep, you heard it here folks. He thinks I do the things I do and say the things I say because other people tell me to do it that way. Somewhere along the way I turned into a mindless clone who goes to other people to find out what I should do and how I should act. Good grief. Look, I know I come here a lot to vent. But I don't do it so that you can can tell me what to do and say. I do it so that I can see if my feelings about things that were said and done are off base or not. I listen to what everybody has to say, but I do my own thing and I make up my own mind. Heaven knows, if I had been doing what most of you all had been telling me, I'd have had him out of the house a year ago, right? So I told him that when I say I want to do something a certain way, it is because I think that is the best way to do it. Not because somebody told me that was how I had to do it. And that if he objected, he ought to speak up so we can discuss it. Nope, it's on me to heavily emphasize how important it is to me. Then, he claims, he will take what I'm saying seriously. Sure, I buy that. Do you? So on the moving out front, his mom wants him to go live with her. He doesn't want to do that because it would be too far to come pick up the kids after school and then go back up there. I told him today (via e-mail) that I would relieve him of that duty. We shall see what he says to that one. He also said something interesting that I would love to hear opinions on. He said he wasn't going to get involved with anybody else until the kids were grown up. Why? Because it's natural for a man, when they get into a new relationship, to completely drop their own children and pay attention to hers. I said it depended on the guy and got scorn heaped upon me for being an ignorant woman who believes that some fathers would never abandon their children that way. What do you think about that one? What could he be smoking? And that was my evening. How was yours?