Good. How is everything else going?

Meh. Slow. Not back to work yet. Prototypes pushed back to October. Getting a bit frustrated with everything again, honestly.

Rough week. I am failing. Nobody wants to hear my complaining, so I'm not going to say anything.

It's all BS. I am about done with it.

Chin up!

Focus on things you can change and giving your kids love.

Something interesting happened today. I took my girls back to my xW last night, but I left our daughter's new shoes at my house. This morning she texted me, asking where they were. I told her that they were here and I overlooked them, and then she asked if I was going to church this morning, which I was. She asked which service, so I told her. She asked me to bring them.

In the past, I have asked our 5 year old if mommy takes them to church, and she says no, but I do know they have been to church a couple times somewhere quite a while ago, but they normally do not go to church. I have also asked her before if mommy takes them to MY church, and she has said no.

So today I get to church, and my xW and both daughters are standing inside the door, dressed up real nice in their Sunday summer dresses (This is a casual church, no dress code), and I gave them the shoes. No sign of POSOM.

I wasn't sure if they were there after going to another church, or if they had been there for the previous service. After the service I was there for, I had one of the attendants check the computer to see if my kids had been checked in to the kids' area, and they had - the service before the one I came to. Again, I don't think my xW has been to that church since we went together when we were married.

I walked past her car on the way in, and she had stuff in her passenger seat, so I knew the POS wasn't with her.

When I gave her the shoes, she didn't say anything to me, and avoided eye contact, but wasn't mean or angry.

What do you all make of this?

Well, I think it is good.
The Bible says that "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God."

Interestingly, last weekend my ex wife also took my kids to a church near her apartment. The children told me she refused to enter the main service and sat outside in the reception area watching the service on a CCTV.

But, the kids were in Sunday School and church AND my ex ww heard the preaching, even through a television.

Remember, the Word of God is sharper than any two edged sword.

I hope things are straightening for both of us. I don't want to miss any more of my girls' childhood. I do have to wonder if her mom had a talk with her since her mom and I patched things up a bit.

Honestly scrutinizing each move a wayward makes is counter productive. What are you doing to make yourself a better person for you and your children. Your post should address that primarily and what your ex is doing a distant second. All the time you use judging and critiquing her actions do not absolve you of your own failings. Take a self inventory and better yourself I did it and I know you can as well. God wants us to be the best person we can and hands us the tools, it's up to you to build. Hope my pastor is not mad that I used his line!

Does your pastor read your MB posts? =o)

I am doing exactly what you suggest, but I was merely asking the people here who have enjoyed recovery if this is a positive sign, if they have seen similar actions from wayward wives before their recovery. I know not every situation is the same, but I was just looking for insight. The fact that she was at church without POSOM is a HUGE thing, in my opinion. It is a radical departure from the routine she has kept since this whole thing began. Maybe I kinda answered my own question, there.

You and I are very similar. Try to avoid false hope, though. The POSOM may have been sick. Like me, you're looking for hope wherever you can find it, but that's a recipe for disappointment.

I'm not putting all my chips on this event, but she I don't think she has been to church since well before we got divorced. The only exception has been when her friend from NY came to visit, and they went to our old church ti visit, where the pastor is their former high school English teacher.

Like I said - significant departure.

Blindsided, if you really want a breakthrough in your relationship with her, your judging and critiquing has to stop reaching her.

In your exchanges with her, you act more like her father/preacher/teacher/naysayer than like someone she would fall in love with again.

I would strongly urge you to not engage in any substantive text or email exchanges with her unless you come here to the board for help in each of your responses.

If you are presented with an opportunity to engage her in a real text/email conversation again (obviously other than the logistics texts, unless a logistics conversation becomes more substantive), please consider posting each of her texts here and get help before each of your replies.

After a few improved exchanges, you may open up some opportunity to have more exchanges, and you will have learned more about keeping the exchanges positive and using them to make deposits.

Those days are gone. I have not done any of that kind of thing in quite a while. Our text exchanges have been civil for some time. In fact, on our daughter's first day of school, we exchanged pictures that we had taken with our phones.

Well, BlindsidedNM, the very last conversational text exchange you posted here was that way, and you weren't able to recognize all of your lovebusters in your responses.

In fact, you thought you had done pretty well.

Blindsided, some very recent posts show what I have warned you about:

August 6, 2014:
You say: "I find it interesting that she can afford to lose two weeks of income, and another Saturday of business (she is self-employed), and she wonders why she is broke."
----->Disrespectful. Also, I think if she feels broke in her opinion it would be that she got behind financially (or wasn't able to put away savings) the several years you were not paying child support.

July 28, 2014 (this is so typical of the quarrelsome, preachy NM):
Her: {5 year old} wants to get her ears pierced. What do you think?
Me: No way. She hasn't reached the age of reason yet.
Her: The age of reason? All girls get their ears pierced. Some earlier than others.
Me: Why did you ask me what I thought?
Her: I forgot you've turned into my dad. Never mind.

" My xW asked my opinion, and I gave it, and I gave her a reason to support it." [/color]
----->No you didn't, you gave her a demand and a quarrel.

You say: "It is as if she is living vicariously through our daughter and my not agreeing to get her ears pierced is somehow a slight against HER."
------>Very disrespectful judgment.


So no, you haven't changed or retrained yourself to not be preachy and disrespectful. And, no, it hasn't been a long time since you were like that.

Blindsided, look at it this way:


Would a relationship be attractive to you with a woman who mutters under her breath "and he wonders why he is broke" about you? Would you want to become vulnerable to this person?


Would a relationship be attractive to you with a woman who disrespectfully diagnoses you to be living vicariously through another person and imagines you to take things as a personal slight against YOU when that person doesn't do what you want to vicariously experience?


That kind of relationship is not attractive to your ex, either.

This is the type of text exchange I'd love to see you engaged with her in:

Her: {5 year old} wants to get her ears pierced. What do you think?

Me: I would prefer for her to be older first; is she asking to have them pierced?.

Her: Yes, her friend just got hers pierced and I have reservations too so I wanted to bounce it off you

Me: Shall we tell her that we need her to wait until she is old enough to clean them and insert her ear rings by herself?

Her: Good idea. I'll try that. Thanks!

Me: Any time. Welcome. {insert a compliment here}

Blindsided, I've been thinking about this since yesterday, and I can't figure out why you want to restore a relationship with someone you love to hate on so much.

Here are only SOME of the things you have said about her in the last TWO MONTHS, much of which is very hateful and despising. Trust me, she can detect this in your demeanor.

You have NO CHANCE at restoring ANYTHING with her until you stop hating on her. Even if you aren't verbalizing these things to her (some of which you have), she can detect them.

Honestly, if I detected an XH thinking even ONE of these things about me, I'd not have made as many (or any) overtures towards him as she has toward you.

Do you not see how often she keeps reaching out to you notwithstanding your spiteful attitude towards her?


==*sigh* I just cannot win with this woman.

==I don't know where she is coming up with this stuff.

==I don't have to say a thing and she unleashes

==If I had no desire to restore my family I would tell her to get stuffed.

==I cannot rearrange my life every time she wants me to.

==She chose this path.

==XW has been pulling a lot of passive-aggressive crap lately but I've been letting it go. She's still angry.

==Then she decided that she made a mistake, and treated me like a mistake for the next 10 years.

==she was rambling about needing ID to use a card or something,

==She doesn't know much about kids, or just doesn't care.

==See how pissed she was that I did not bend to her will?.

==I swear to you people I think she has a narcissistic personality like my mother.

==Of course she has a problem with that because she's probably still mad at me for Sunday evening, and she loves to be passive-aggressive.

==No consideration for our daughters - just that "her parents don't see them very much", as if their own father sees them enough.

==I honestly believe that she regrets having kids, as they are in daycare or with me the majority of the time.

==/rant

==She wants to rub my nose in the POSOM's presence.

==She has been bringing him around to punish me for something she is obviously still mad at me for - probably "making" her cheat

==I have to see this creature if I want to see my kids.

==Just very tired of dealing with her tantrums and constant belittling

==If I am to "move on", I need to get the f*** away from her.

==....and if I already have an obligation, she gets furious as if I am here for her convenience.

==The xW flat out defied my request to keep the girls this coming week, which I expected, knowing her as I do

==She cannot compromise in anything.

==if there were no kids involved, she'd be a fuzzy memory by now.

==I'm sure she knew it was there but dumped it on me as retaliation for her perception that I somehow manipulated her father on my trip out there.

==She NEVER respected my opinion on ANYTHING. She would ask me, looking for the answer she wanted, and I almost never gave it to her. It was almost like her saying "I want to do something I know is wrong, so if I ask your opinion, it gives me license to do it anyway no matter what your opinion is."

==It is as if she is living vicariously through our daughter and my not agreeing to get her ears pierced is somehow a slight against HER.

==and she wonders why she is broke.




Honestly, I wonder if your xW would be safe with in a relationship with you anyway as long as you continue to despise her so much.

Do you think she has been reaching out? Why? I am not good at reading any kind of signs if she were.

These things I say to vent my frustration here, I don't say this stuff to her.

Yes, I think she is reaching out.
Especially by going to church