C: litigating divorce
I am trying to determine what I want to think and what I want to feel.
I have resistance to thinking my husband is a great father. I have the thought that my dad was a great father because he was a great person and I do not think my husband is a great person.

What I am trying to determine is if need to fight this resistance or listen to myself resisting this.
I have learned not to trust myself over the last few years and I have learned that my instincts are pretty good, even though I stopped listening to them for a while. So this part of me wanting to rebuild my self-trust wants to listen to the part of me that doesn’t feel the thought, “my husband is a great dad” is right or going to serve me/my kids.
Another part of me – not trusting this – thinks I’m just being lazy or selfish or not mature if I don’t want to think this, and I should just think this, since I just get to decide what I think.
I think opening myself up to my husband – letting myself believe thoughts he suggested – has been harmful to me and not in my best interest. So, I don’t know that I want to do that.
I understand that some people have a great relationship with their ex-spouses, and theoretically I would want that, but in this case, I feel relieved to not have to interact with him. I don’t want to love him. I mean I want to love him if we have a relationship, but I do not want to love him if we are divorced and we are having litigated divorce with him saying negative things about me.

It’s as if I can forgive him and have a relationship with him if we are married. I can accept that he is doing whatever he is doing. But if we are going to be divorced and he is going to attack me in court, I don’t really want to forgive him and love him – not in any sort of close way. Maybe just as another human on the planet, but not as someone I would want to have any kind of relationship with.
However we have young children, so I can never be completely rid of him.
I did spend months forgiving and loving him, and I just ended up feeling as if he’s sucking everything out of me, happy to take, but not to give.
I feel as if maybe I have different expectations or levels of forgiveness for different relationships. I am generally forgiving, but sometimes forgiving without becoming wiser and stepping back to take care of yourself is not a good idea.
Basically, I’m trying to come up with some thought/feeling/action combination that I can believe and feels authentic.
Maybe because I am not sure of the R I want. If he is being “kind” I might like a closer relationship, but if he is being “unkind” then I do not want a closer relationship. And at the moment he doesn’t want a closer relationship, no matter what I want. Meaning he refuses to speak with me, complains that I am doing X, when I do the opposite of X he then complains about that too.