I doubt it. He has shown again and again he doesn't think like this. I would not expect him to change at this stage in his life. However, I believe he is seeing how some of his actions hurt our girls and he is trying to make amends to them. However, this insight does not extend to me. Although I am glad he is trying to do better by the girls, it does hurt some to know this because I think, "yeah, that's great you apologize to them and make amends, what about me???"

My H does think very highly of himself and considers himself superior to most people, so yeah, he has probably done this. But it doesn't concern me much now. We don't live together anymore or have a stake in each other.

We were talking about a clause in the legal parenting document about the parents waiting a certain time period to introduce a new "friend" to the kids (so you aren't introducing every casual date to the kids, but only a person with whom you have been together for a while--so you don't go introducing a whole train of people to the kids and creating unnecessary angst for them). So H was indeed on topic. I didn't mind that he mentioned he had a girlfriend, as I know that, it was just that I didn't think he needed to reveal that he had already introduced our daughters to her, in the way that he did--very publicly with no warning or consideration. But he has no sensitivity or insight whatsoever, plus he just plain doesn't care about me, so I guess what he did is right in line with who he is. I don't think he was trying to build himself up. He was just saying he makes his own decisions about how to run his life, and in fact has already done just what the legal doc was trying to moderate. We deleted that part from the document, and I was OK with it.

Me too. Actually, he's not really moving me forward. I am moving us forward in therapy. (My T is really very good about meeting me where I am.) I have had this fear that once the D is over, my therapy would be over, because we spend so much time dealing with it. But T has specifically said to me a few times that he looked forward to working with me on what was beyond. It is good to hear him say that. I really do feel this is going to be a renaissance period in my life. My kids are older (high school and college), I don't have as many childrearing responsibilities as I used to, I don't have H to worry about--keeping him happy,walking on eggshells so he doesn't get pissed off, keeping the house up to his specifications (never good enough), trying to keep the marriage afloat, etc. All these responsibilities are easing up, and I can focus more on myself now, which is really cool. I tend to spend lots of time taking care of others and I don't have to do that so much anymore. It really is great to be out from under this marriage. It was just such a drain, so depressing. I am planning/hoping to go back to school to retrain in a different career so I can support myself better (and be happier too). I know I could not have done this when we were still married as all those "family" and "marriage" responsibilities didn't leave me enough space to do my own thing. I know that's partly my fault but I don't have that to worry about anymore. I think also my H would have been angry at the thought that I would use "his money" to go back to school. No, I know I never would have done this if still married to him. Sometimes my youngest daughter will say something to me like, "you don't have to do that anymore. Dad doesn't live here. He's not your boss anymore." That makes me feel kind of bad, like yeah, I guess I did let him boss me around and create this bad image to my girls--that men can boss women around and women will do what they say and cater to them and don't look after their own needs. Oh, well. That's done with. I hope it wasn't too damaging to my girls' views of male-female relations. I am trying to set a better example now.