Partner (who lives a little under an hour away) and I took Kids (mine and his) overnight with some very good friends of ours near his house Friday night, Kids and I stayed home Saturday to they could hang around with their local friends, then Partner and I took all the kids to the river near Partner's house all afternoon Sunday with more good friends and dogs. It's a lot of driving, but it's worth it. It's sometimes difficult to get mine out of the house because we're all screen/movie/book geeks (computer, gaming, phone, laptop, etc.) but once I did, they had a great time. I try to get them out of the house somewhere or another away from screens every weekend they're with me.
We had one of the best weekends, ever, on record. Son keeps asking me when we can go back again and I am absolutely thrilled because he's an introvert like me, and has a hard time in groups of people he doesn't know. Partner calls it co-mingling our families. We love to co-mingle. I am so happy! Happier than I've ever been.
This may not seem like an odd weekend to you.
When I was with Ex, he would never have agreed to have a weekend like this unless it was a huge gathering of his own family, or a group of his friends that we were joining up with. First of all, we didn't have many friends, and mine had all but disappeared, as his control and mental health issues stopped me from seeing them.
If you stop accepting invitations, people eventually stop inviting you.
There was always a giant list of TO DOs in his head, that inevitably didn't get done because there were so many THINGS THAT HAD TO GET DONE he would become overwhelmed and not do any. Either that or he would start several projects and leave them unfinished all over the inside and outside of the house, because it was just too much, leaving detritus reminders that would depress him and make him angry.
This caused me a lot of angst and anxiety because I hate having a cluttered house (one of my issues - clutter all over my own house makes me feel scattered and uncomfortable) and he would become cranky when he was doing all the THINGS. In addition to that, everyone in the house had to be working hard and beware his anger if they weren't - including our children no matter what they had going on or how old they were. My anxiety came because I knew that he would blow up at any moment at any of us for any reason, and I ran around like a neurotic chicken with my head cut off trying to make sure everyone was doing what he wanted them to be doing, assuming, of course, that I was correct in my assumption of what he wanted everyone to be doing, (can you say codependent?) so there would be no blowup. Which was fruitless, of course, because I had no control over what he did.
How the hell did I ever manage to live that way? What the hell? I'm feeling anxious just thinking about managing all that.
It's funny because now when I ask Kids to do something for me they are pretty willing to do it. There is no anger or verbal battling when I ask and there is no crazy hidden agenda about keeping score with what I'm doing around the house. I ask them to help me out, and for the most part they happily do it. Whether it be mowing the lawn, caring for the animals, or cleaning up after themselves, they seem happy to contribute.
It's a happier and relaxed way to live. Whoda thunk??
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