J,

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like a perfect day. The quest for a perfect day is sort of a one-person contest w/me. I've been able to get pretty close by myself but your ending is better.

One question for you? What kind of relationship do you have w/your OP? If you have described it, then I am sorry because I missed it.

Just curious because you asked a tough question in your last post to me. I have thought about it lots and I'm afraid the answer requires more poise and grace than I can muster.

My OP has an incurable STD, lied to me, lied to my x, has had at least 4 abortions. She and X violated me in every way...sleeping w/X in my bed, screwing in my shower, staying over while kids were home when I was out of town (the worst offense of all). It burns me that she is so friendly to my kids when she did everything she could to wreck their childhood. I have asked X not to leave them alone w/her until they are married because I do not feel she is a responsible adult. He says she would never do anything to hurt them. Oh brother.

I haven't spoken to her and hope I never have to. I have seen her but pretend she isn't there. Not sure how to resolve this. Do I have to speak to her? It seems she is the future, although X calls their impending union a "business decision" because of OC.

JJ - I love you more than I love my luggage...and that's sayin' something...the Wookie just bought me RED luggage!!!!!!!!!!

I love your updates and I think you are better than butter and salt on hot corn tortillas!

((((Starving)))) Just because.
Business decision because of a baby??? That poor baby. Those idiot parents.

- Kimmy

Thanks Kimmy. If there is anyone here who knows how strong you are, it's me. I could've done what you did but it was too much. XH tried to come back but I couldn't handle an OC. That, and I didn't believe he could change. This was the second pg. OW terminated the first but the 2nd was her trump card. She went from cashiering in a grocery store to being a SAHM. She is completely supported by XH. He loves OC and once told me he is tired of f-ing up. So, he is resigned to marrying her. It's his life and his choices.

Yay to you for your happy ending.

It's raining in Dixie. Good thing I patched the roof. Not sure why I did, it wasn't leaking at the time.

Cool too - much too clool for early Oct.

I should go to Zion and talk pictures of the waterfalls. There's always waterfalls in Zion when it's raining.

SS

Well..............

This is an interesting week to ask that question, starving. Monday was Yom Kippur and my ex was interpreting (she's a sign-language interpreter) at services for the entire day. Yom Kippur is a marathon religious event if there ever was one. More than nine hours of services in less than 24 hours.

So DD was with me the night before and all that day. My ex insisted that I had to hand DD over to her new husband at 6pm because she would still be interpreting but wasn't willing for me to bring our daughter to services.

I didn't want to do it and told her so, but after I thought through all the alternatives, I decided this was probably the least harmful one. So I arrived, all prepared to change DD into her dress and hand her over to my ex's new husband.

NH (New Husband) comes out of services, walks up to me, grabs DD out of my arms, and walks away with her.

Without saying anything.

Without taking her backpack.

Without stopping to find out how she was doing.

He made it maybe ten steps before I called him back. So he comes back with DD and says, "Okay, DD, say goodbye to Mama..."

So I took her back in my arms and said, "I'd like to put her dress on her, please."

The man refused to give me her dress, tried to pull her back out my arms again, told me that HE was going to change her into her dress (!), and then when I wouldn't give DD back to him, said, "I'm going to tell [ex] that you won't give her to me!"

I think my response was, "Uhmmm. Okay."

It's worth noting that he had previously been ordered by our parenting coordinator to avoid changing DD's clothes and being involved in other naked-little-girl situations.

Things calmed down a great deal after my ex showed up. She seemed to be a bit perplexed at why he wouldn't give me the dress and let me change our daughter. And it appears to me that her new husband pretty much had a tantrum and was acting about as well as a sullen child himself by the end of it.

We ended up all changing DD together and then we all went our separate ways.

So my advice to you about your ex-husband's affair partner will be colored by my recent interactions with my ex's new husband, whom I do not like nor trust:

If you are concerned about her being around your kids, then don't participate in it. Take the time to clearly understand where the limits of your control are, and don't spend one single second on the stuff you can't control. But you never have to participate in conversations with her about your kids, nor do you have to give her any inroads into your life, your time with your kids, or any similar thing.

So, for example. Penguins are banned from my house because of the associations with two men -- one who helped start my relationship with my ex, and one who helped end our relationship. I've gotten a fair amount of grief about it. But it's my house and by golly, all the penguins can live at my ex's house and not come to visit my house.

That's a silly example, but it illustrates -exactly- where the line of control is. Think it through and make sure you know what you can really control -- and then make that the healthiest environment you possibly can for you and your kids.

Hi Kimmy! Thanks for your kind words. I'm currently working on a project to find a place where I can post my writings all in one coherent place, and in a little more detail than I usually post here on the campfire thread. I can't do it over on SYMC for various reasons, unfortunately, so we're working on a place for me and people like me who want to talk about current relationships and new love -- and then figure out ethical ways to deal with it. It's an interesting effort, but I'm glad to be doing it. I really need an outlet for my writing -- one where I can write freely and without concern.

SS, I'm glad you're getting a little rain. The desert will bloom, yes? Or is it the wrong time of year for that?

Penguins? Help! Obviously not the bird.

Yes, penguins the bird. See, my ex's new husband looks very much like the Penguin from Batman, and he's collected toy penguins for many years. So all the penguins live at my ex's house and they don't come over to my house. Similarly, there was a toy penguin involved in the beginning of my relationship with my ex, also associated with a man she'd dated (I had also dated him). So all in all, I try to keep penguins out of my life as a reminder of the difficulties of foolish ethical choices.

Still raining on and off.

Wrong season for bloom - but the sage and other desert plants smell good in the rain.

Mmmmmmmmmm.

J,
I sometimes think about you and HoFS. I go round, and round with it, but nothing comes.

Hope you find solutions before much more time passes. I don't know what the solution is, or can be, or will be, or even should be, but God has always held the answers/solutions to all my problems.

God be with you.

SS

SS, I think about it too. I know what I want. I don't know what's ethical, what creates the greatest chance for peace, tranquility, and happiness for everyone involved. I don't want to make selfish choices. And restraint is very difficult with such strong emotions involved. It's a good thing, in some ways, that HoFS and I are trying out the "traditional role models" route. I jump from A to Z without even noticing that there are letters in between, and then I go back and fill them in when I need to. HoFS walks from one thing to the next and examines each of the intermediate steps for flaws and logic errors. If this were mathematics, I would've written down Fermat's last theorem and left the proof to him. It's a good thing that he's patient and loves me and stuff. If I were him, I might get annoyed that so much stuff was left as an "exercise for the reader."

I just made this analogy up. I think I need to share it with him. It really is quite apropos.

On a side note, being traditional is a fascinating adventure for me. I bet all the radical feminists and some of the lesbians that I know would be horrified. I think of it as cultural anthropology. In other words, I've gone native, right here in America. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Remember the old math joke about obvious?

The professor says, “It is intuitively obvious to the casual observer that….”

A student says, “I don’t understand. Will you please explain?”

Professor thinks for a few minutes then walks out of the classroom. For weeks the class meets but the professor fails to show up.

Finally, near the end of the term, the professor staggers into the classroom all dirty, unwashed and dishevel with a long, unkempt beard. He lugs a huge dusty old tome up to the front desk and flops it down. He opens it up to a page near the back and says, “See, right here. It IS intuitively obvious to the casual observer!”

Heh heh heh. Appy, that's hilarious. I wish I were still a nerd.

And on the opposite side of nerdiness, we have, well, something else.

I'm gathering up posts of mine to try to put together into a coherent set of thoughts (usually known as "a book"). If you have a favorite post of mine, would you mention it or link it up here? I'd really like that. Thanks!

Well, J, I'm sure you know, very often, traditional roles
exist not because they were set down by cruel slavemasters and selfish patriarchs, but because they actually work.

People love to think their generation is the first that thought to buck tradition and try a different approach. I always say, hey buddy, those shenanigans are nothing the ancient Egyptians didn't already try.

I get in trouble with this all the time. People have these knee-jerk reactions, you know.

Disclaimer: I'd never demand that someone in my life fit into some role I'd cooked up in my head. The opposite.

GC

Hello everyone!

(Kimmy is dancing around the fire hugging and kissing everyone!)

Lovely day, huh?

Here, GC! Circus p-nuts for you!

Hot tamales, chocolate truffles and jelly bellys for everyone else!

Sounds good, but I'll hold off till tomorrow. I'm doing a brief bit of a fast today. I'm having liquids, so it's not a complete fast.

Hmmm. Actually, could I have real tamales, a big salad, and milk with that instead? Sugar doesn't sound as good as real food right now. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I just found an EXCELLENT tamale place...so real tamales for JJ!

Oooooo! Wouldja post the recipe, Kimmy? HoFS and I have been talking about making tamales. I got masa and corn husks a couple weeks ago but wasn't sure where to go from there other than the recipe on the masa package. Something someone really likes would be fabulous!

It's not a recipe...it's a tamale place.

Sadly, there are only two things that my mother in law didn't get to teach me before she passed. They are how to make her tamales and how to make her pollo mole.

Now I'm really hungry.

Have you ever had Honeycrisp apples? OMG! The stores here only have them for about 2 months out of the year...but I won't ever eat another kind of apple. I'll just wait till Oct/Nov every year for them.