Parenting: Truce
I'm about to climb into the shower, and then get the kids ready. We're taking them to breakfast this morning since we got up too late to take H to daycare, and then we're going to go have family portraits taken.
With P. And her new boytoy. Seriously. This was her idea. She wants a family photo shoot for H's third birthday.
Did I mention we're throwing a joint party for the kids? Yup.
I'm kind of amazed at all the progress that's been made in just the last few months. If I look back at it, I can see things started to improve shortly after I had Sephie. Maybe Sephie was healing, or maybe things just kind of clicked with P that there would never be a reunion between her and B. I'm not sure, but especially once the drama with L reached full force, we have been acting more in concert--even talking on the phone to make parenting decisions, rather than text messaging.
And, in a bizarre twist of events, what lead to the joint party was a phone call she made to me while I was in Kansas. She sent a text message asking if we could talk to plan H's birthday, which is today (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LITTLE MAN!) and although I wasn't looking forward to it, I called her.
She apologized for everything. Sleeping with B, trying to keep me out of H's life, treating me with so much hostility. And it sounded pretty sincere. She even thanked me for being such a good "second mom" to H, which blew my mind.
I appreciated her words, and I can say with them, a lot of my resentment melted away. But I don't think I'm quite ready to cross over into "forgiveness" yet. That's just going to take a little more time. As I said elsewhere, you can't apologize for doing really horrible things to me for years, then apologize and expect things to magically be better. Maybe it's wrong, but that just isn't how I work. I need time, if only to ferret out that this sudden change in personality is legitimate.
At the end of the day, we will never be friends. It's not going to happen. But I told her, and I truly meant it, I would like to get to know her outside of the experiences up until now, to see her as an ally in the parenting of H rather than an adversary. That's kind of how the joint birthday party came to be; kind of a beginning for us as a complicated and blended family unit, plus it saves me the headache of having to plan a first birthday. So, everybody wins.
Wish me luck.
With P. And her new boytoy. Seriously. This was her idea. She wants a family photo shoot for H's third birthday.
Did I mention we're throwing a joint party for the kids? Yup.
I'm kind of amazed at all the progress that's been made in just the last few months. If I look back at it, I can see things started to improve shortly after I had Sephie. Maybe Sephie was healing, or maybe things just kind of clicked with P that there would never be a reunion between her and B. I'm not sure, but especially once the drama with L reached full force, we have been acting more in concert--even talking on the phone to make parenting decisions, rather than text messaging.
And, in a bizarre twist of events, what lead to the joint party was a phone call she made to me while I was in Kansas. She sent a text message asking if we could talk to plan H's birthday, which is today (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LITTLE MAN!) and although I wasn't looking forward to it, I called her.
She apologized for everything. Sleeping with B, trying to keep me out of H's life, treating me with so much hostility. And it sounded pretty sincere. She even thanked me for being such a good "second mom" to H, which blew my mind.
I appreciated her words, and I can say with them, a lot of my resentment melted away. But I don't think I'm quite ready to cross over into "forgiveness" yet. That's just going to take a little more time. As I said elsewhere, you can't apologize for doing really horrible things to me for years, then apologize and expect things to magically be better. Maybe it's wrong, but that just isn't how I work. I need time, if only to ferret out that this sudden change in personality is legitimate.
At the end of the day, we will never be friends. It's not going to happen. But I told her, and I truly meant it, I would like to get to know her outside of the experiences up until now, to see her as an ally in the parenting of H rather than an adversary. That's kind of how the joint birthday party came to be; kind of a beginning for us as a complicated and blended family unit, plus it saves me the headache of having to plan a first birthday. So, everybody wins.
Wish me luck.