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[quote=Anonymous]PP who suggested a trip.  The reason why I said a long weekend or a week is that it takes time to get into relax mode.  One or two days doesn't always cut it for starting to relax and getting past the sniping that a lot of married people do.  It's also weird to stop being in parent mode.  It takes awhile physically to turn off the listening for kid noise and thinking ahead about next steps in the day's activities.

Now I would like to address some points from your recent post.

Maybe it will calm you a little to realize that you are in a bit of a gender-flipped situation and that if you think about how kids were often raised in the past, it was still possible for kids to love a pretty uninvolved dad.  Hold this hope for a while instead of catastrophizing.  The concept you should research and study is "secure attachment".  How it is created and fostered.  And determine whether your kids actually feel rejected by their mom or are oblivious.  Being provided with shelter, clothing, food, and toys and not being treated in a trauma-inducing fashion is a good baseline.  Does she ever hug the kids or praise them?  Maybe you can ask her to build in some of that if none of that is happening.  It's reasonable to request that she demonstrate some loving behavior even if it's not spontaneous.

Children can be pretty literal.  Once they form expectations and routines, they often prefer and request their routine.  I wouldn't read too much into that.

With my kids, each has extracurriculars that I enjoy but one has a tedious extracurricular that I don't care for.  And my DH handles that one completely.  I think that it's okay to divide and conquer ECs.  The problem is that your wife doesn't have an interest in any of them.  That said, remember that extracurriculars for kids are a cultural artifact. They are not inherently necessary.

I also think there could be a bit of daddy's girl stuff going on.  When I was a kid, mom was the boring homemaker always doing chores and nagging me about school.  Dad was the fun one. Once I grew up, this dynamic disappeared.

Again, I really feel for your situation.  Try to stay as factual as possible about what is going on with your kids when making your decisions (operate based on factual observations vs. your emotions of fear and grief).[/quote]

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