Clarity (At Least for a Moment)

I'm back in California, but the rest of my family is not; the celebration of life for my father in law will be this weekend, and I'll travel back to Minnesota to attend that, but I was struggling to balance work with family commitments and decided I needed to be back in the office, even though my wife has been noncommittal about returning to California before Labor Day (being unemployed herself) and it makes sense for our 3 month old to stay with her. I would have preferred that our almost three year old come back with me, but my wife arranged for him to attend preschool there and it seemed better for me to commute to/from Minnesota on weekends than to stay here with him and not see my daughter, so that's what I'll be doing for the next month or so. 

The subtext is of course my concern about the durability of our relationship, and her continued hostility toward me in every interaction. It came to a head last week when she insisted on meeting with my parents and her mom to announce an ultimatum that I either admit that she is usually right and I am usually wrong (due to memory deficiencies that somehow nobody else in my life has observed) or we get divorced. It was a crystalizing moment because it neatly encapsulated our issues for my parents in a way that I would have had difficulty communicating to them otherwise, and because I obviously wasn't going to pretend to have mental deficiencies or vow to accept that she is always right on account of them. I tried to explain that I was happy to work with her on understanding and accepting each other's different perspectives and experiences, and that I'm sure that, like hers, my recollections are imperfect (being human), but she arrogantly insisted that i needed to acknowledge that her memory was right 90% of the time while my recollections of events were right 40% of the time (which I take to mean she thinks we agree 30% of the time and that she is right six times out of seven that we disagree, although in reality she doesn't admit that she's wrong even 10% of the time), and that the intervention she expected from my parents was her last resort. 

Naturally, my parents were not impressed, and her behavior galvanized them to express to me their support of my decision to get divorced if that's what I wanted. And importantly, in that moment of clarity, I finally felt free to walk away from all the anger and resentment that I have been putting up with every day for years. She later asserted that she didn't actually want a divorce, and in my typical fashion I tend to want to forgive and forget, but even so, she reminds me on every text and call that the bitterness remains, and I've finally resolved to escape the abuse one way or another.  My main concern is that she will try to take my children and assets when I do; she claims to intend to return to California and to want to co-parent with me (whatever that means to her), but we are talking about a low-trust relationship at this point. I'm not pressing the issue while she buries her father, but I'm mentally preparing for a life apart from her, whether at her demand or by my choice. But it feels right to not be controlled by her hostility anymore. It's a breakthrough that I actually have her to thank for.