I have to first thank all of you women for your helpful comments and the support they have given me. So maybe I'm not crazy (and maybe I am!) for feeling the miriad of emotions I do about this situation. I've been a therapist for twenty years and heard about this stuff, but never, ever got it, which I didn't realize and probably still don't realize the extent to which I didn't get it. Being a trusted confidant who can share observations and ask what are hopefully thought provoking and constructive questions is so wholly different than living it every moment of one's life.

He had a good day with his kids. I had a good day with my kids. Guess what? They happened separately!

I took my kids to an apple orchard with their cousins, aunties and grandma. Then on to grandparents' lake trailor to enjoy dinner and a bonfire. No accident we got home at bedtime and had left in the morning.

Injured immobile princess was mobile today and went shopping with her dad to buy ingredients to make a special dinner for her dad and brother, pee. My husband shared with me what a good day they had hanging out watching tv, commenting on the shows and laughing, how his son was calmer and 'more conversive.' While pee views his existence out here in the stix as an experience of immersion in retardsville, he was happy to set traps around the property and try to eliminate predators that kill the chickens (I have horses, chickens and ducks on a hobby farm).

When I got home, my husband had a bottle of wine chilling (in our room, because pee will help himself otherwise). We began to have a glass of wine together, although things felt stilted. He explained to me for about an hour that I need to keep trying to reach his kids. He also gave me the ulcer medication he had thoughtfully purchased for me (I have developed ulcers I was hosptialized for a month before our wedding this past June) and checked with me during the conversation whether I had taken it. So I took it.

My understanding of what he communicated to me is that when I offer dinner and am ignored, and set out dinner and pee or princess come into the kitchen and make something else for themselves and retreat into her room to commiserate while my sons watch from the table with me, or when I ooh and ah over princess's magnificantly swelled knee and silently accept her dad's call to duty activated, or put a positive spin on princessandthepee's boxing up of all my my childrens' toys (they are helping to straighten out the basement, we're going to rearrange it), is that what I need to do in order to gain their trust is continue to put myself and my children out there. pee has many layers of armor and has to see that we are united. princess has been very damaged by her mother and really wants mothering.

Ok, great! I think I'm a pretty good mom, I think I have a good amount of love and nurturing to offer. I can tuck away my tears most of the time, I'm a damn German. I told my husband I do not, however, want to end up back in the hosptial because of the ulcers. I have been experiencing for the past few weeks the same pain and symptoms I did a few months ago, when I knew nothing about ulcers. He told me at that point he had nothing more to say to me. Mind you, this is all a very calm conversation. The glass of wine was unfinished and he utilized his truly enviable (to me) ability to go to sleep.

So here I am, experiencing a feeling of unity. I thank you for your support and helpful comments. Oops, I'm supposed to be feeling united with my husband. Well, maybe when he has something to say to me we can work on that. He is a dad who parents from guilt and shame. He is a really magnificent man when not compensating for their doozy of a mother. I wish the three of them understood what that woman would have done to her kids if he had not stayed married to her so that he was able to be physically present with them in their home each day rather than allowing her uninhibited access to them on days where he would not have had time with them.

Damn, I have to figure out something fun to do with my kids tomorrow! And guess what, there's an implication I shoudl feel guilty about it because it will occur away from this house.