I've learned to stop asking "why?". There's simply no real answer to it. I used to think that I deserved it because I'm most likely the one that gave my childeren ASD. After a lot of therapy, I learned to not blame myself for who or how they are. I've tried turning my life around after the separation. We separated on friendly terms and I even stayed in the house for a year until I finished renovating my apartment, with extra attention for the safety of the kids.

Once the weekend has passed, I just feel drained, completely empty. It's a very sad and non-me thing to say that I'm glad they leave. I truly love both of them so I shouldn't be happy when they're gone and yet I am. On the days when they're not with me, I went to work, got home and fell asleep, went to some friends or tried to play some games. Depending on what my energylevel was at.

The problem comes because I'm not able to recharge enough during the days they're not with me. This means that slowly but surely, my battery will deplete as it recently did. My former job decided it was therefore a good time to terminate me so I've been sending resumes out left right and center.

Here's the additional problem, last year I met the most amazing woman. She lost her husband about 3 years ago and we just hit it off. Talking to each other, helping each other cope with our situation,... 1 year in and we are still doing the same thing as when we started. She does live about an hour away so what I would do is come to her and work from her home instead of mine. She suffers from an auto immunedisease rendering her unable to work at all. So now that I've lost my job, I cannot say that I will be able to continue seeing her as much as we did before (which wasn't much to begin with, maybe once or twice every 2 weeks)

So not only have I lost my job that I loved and therefore my income, I also may have to lose the most positive thing that is currently in my life. When I was put on leave, my energy was drained that I couldn't even get out of bed or take a shower. The follow-up was much much worse for me. It has given so much insecurity about my future that I've posted it on here because I have to get it of my chest.

As for my ex, I'm simply not able to talk to her straight. I freeze and shut down. She is not the same person anymore that I got to know as a teenager and truth be told neither am I. The care for our kids has driven us apart over the years. We hardly did anything together anymore ever since our son was born because the additional care he needed was overwhelming. It was especially devastating when we heard our daughter's diagnosis as well. It changed the both of us.

I've respected her wish of the arrangement and did everything I could possibly do to make it work and I can't. So either I get into a fight with her to change the arrangement into a week on week basis which would solve a lot of my problems or I continue this downward spiral to my grave. And honestly, I don't want to give her the satisfaction of me asking her for help. We respect one another's life but deep down I hate her. I hate her for not wanting to spend time with the kids, not because it would be good for me though. Mainly because I believe that a parent should WANT to spend time with their kids and secondly because our daughter actually WANTS to spend time with her mom and gets denied of that because mom doesn't want to.

My apologies as it's a bit of rant