Thanks for your reply, CIW. I hope you remember you're making a choice. Is it an easy choice? No. I think very few things are. But it is more simple, relatively, than you're stating things. I also wonder at why seeing your children cancels out normalizing this kind of relationship for your kids. I think childcentric marriages are far from uncommon. I also think they do kids a great disservice, JMO, and this is coming from someone that struggled with that same kind of kid-centric thinking after the birth of my first.
I think BSR gave you good advice. Why would your wife have changed anything? If you never drew that hard line in the sand? Have your ICs ever talked with you about conflict avoidance?
None of this is to minimize the difficulty or emotions in this. I do mean, however, to empower you. I get that you don't want to hurt people. But you are hurting, and hurt people hurt people, as you have seen. So you're hurting, your wife is hurting, AP is hurting, everyone. When does it end?
When we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people, we can draw nearer to the earth, we can draw nearer to all the heavenly creatures that surround us. - bell hooks
