Author: xen6

patience.

continuing to be under the same roof, to live in the same space, to see each other and interact with each other every day, pretending this is normal is becoming more and more challenging.

it’s not normal, we’re not roommates, and we’re not lovers. we’re not friends, but we’re not enemies. we’re in this limbo state, this transitional phase, and we have to figure out where the lines are drawn. it is not quite so obvious.

for the sake of peace, i am still biting my tongue every single day. there are a few things in particular which are slowly eroding my good will and hopefully will not foster so much resentment that i end up lashing out and saying something i regret.

the first thing… you have been horrible person every single morning without fail for the last 18 years using the excuse that you are not a morning person, like somehow this excuses you from being even semi-decent to loved ones after you wake up. you have even enabled our daughter to do the same thing and given me grief for calling her out on that behavior as being unacceptable. yet now, in the last month, you have changed your tune. you smile, you say good morning, and you are acting like a regular human being. don’t get me wrong, this is definitely better… but holy shit, what happened to the nearly 2 decades of “not being a morning person”? this has been a pain point for me for so fucking long, bullshit i just had to live with, and now that i have called it quits, you change? is this genuine? is this change because you are happier now and i was causing this misery for you all along? or perhaps this change is because you realized it is not acceptable behavior? maybe something else?

next, stop following me around. if i am putting away the dishes, it is not the time to come and do something else in the kitchen. if i am enjoying my personal time watching a movie, there is not an open invitation to join me and start asking questions about what is going on. if i am relaxing, playing on my phone lying in bed, you don’t need to find some busy work to do in the same room all of a sudden. just stop. it isn’t cute, it isn’t wanted, you’re just making things awkward.

last, i can’t listen to you belly ache and stress over money any more. i don’t want to hear it. i have accepted to take on DRAMATICALLY more financial debt than you in order to facilitate things. i have paid you a significant mount of no strings attached money to clear out your debt. i have offered to let you have whatever you want from the house, in fact i have insisted that you take more than your fair share. i have paid for your first month of entertainment and groceries. i have taken over the mortgage and all of the bills on this house we both live in myself leaving you with no expenses right now at all! i have done all of this without complaining a single word. yet you are still siting there, making spreadsheets listing pages of things you “need” but rather, actually just want, along with their retail cost and then staring at the total dollar amount at the end in despair and loudly complaining about it to whoever will listen. you’re calculating unnecessary renovation costs for your new home and then questioning how you will ever be able to afford any of it. you’re even complaining to the KIDS that “mommy is broke and will not be able to afford anything, so forget about getting the things you get now.”… wtf… shut up. seriously.

christmas

this year, more than any i can remember, my usual excitement about christmas was definitely forced. there are simply too many things going on this year, too many important changes, too many secrets, too many hidden agendas, too many things missing and too many things just backwards. this seems to be applied universally across everything i know.

so being genuinely excited for christmas like i usually am seemed almost impossible. but, as the expression goes, fake it until you make it. and i made it. and many things did work out well. and ultimately i am thankful.

there are a couple very notable things however which i want to recognize.

k has found a house, made an offer, negotiated and signed contingent on an inspection. that is huge. everyone is on vacation until the 6th, however once the inspectors, banks and notaries are back at work, this could possibly go very quickly. the place is currently vacant, so there’s no delay waiting for that… it’s just a matter of signing paperwork. there is some work that needs to be done on the house, but it is largely cosmetic. i do worry a little that k will drag her feet on that and try to stay here as long as possible. which, within reason is fine, but already she was suggesting pushing notary until february and move in till march… just because. i don’t want to be an ass about it, but at the same time, keeping this pot on the stove longer than is necessary with cause the bottom to burn. and no one likes a burnt stew. in any case… progress!

the other thing i want to recognize, a, you are still a beautiful mystery to me and surprise me every single day. what you gave me for christmas goes beyond thoughtful. it goes beyond anything i have ever received from anyone before. when i told you i was speechless, i wasn’t lying or just turning a phrase, i literally have no words to describe what that meant to me, and even now, over 24 hours later, i still don’t even know what to say. you make me happy in a way i have been missing for so fucking long.

real

do you remember back in school when you had group projects to do? or even if you just had to pair up with one other person for an assignment? usually the first thing most people would do is divvy up the tasks amongst all of the group members. everyone was responsible for their own little part and then at the end you would combine it all into the finished project and submit it for grading.

do you remember the feeling you had when other people were making progress on their part and you hadn’t progressed quite enough yet? awful, right?

but… on the flip side, do you remember when you finished your assigned tasks before everyone else? the feeling of relief, of accomplishment, of satisfaction? you may still need to make corrections, you may still need to help other group members with their parts, you still need to submit the whole thing for grading… BUT… you did your part. there’s something so good about that feeling.

today i bought my stbxw out of our home, now legally my home.

i was worried about this day. i was worried about this step in particular. this is kind of a point of no return, at least financially. it kind of makes things very real. there are legal documents signed. there is a LOT of money that i had to pay out. there are a lot of things made crystal clear that we both had to discuss and agree upon like adults.

i was worried there would be tears. i was worried there would be second guessing. i was worried there would be pleading, or last minute amendments, or any number of uncomfortable scenarios…

but none of that happened, everything is done, and i kind of feel relieved. i kind of feel like i have now completed my part of this specific project and the majority of the remaining tasks are on someone else’s plate. i still obviously have a vested interest in making sure we get a passing grade, but if we do not, no one can say it was my fault. i did my part.

this wall hurts me.

so cleverly crafted, made to be ultimately defensible in so many ways. it’s pretty, it’s logical, its manufacture was clearly communicated, the specifications were submitted and not contested. yet… it bothers me, but the time for protest, i fear, has passed.

you retreat behind it more regularly now. i have no knowledge of what occurs beyond that delimiter. it is impenetrable to all senses. i only have knowledge of what you explicitly tell me, which is not very much. and even the bits you do tell me are vague and intentionally nondescript.

i have no such defenses. nor do i want to build any. it’s fundamentally incompatible with who i am and what i want. in the past, every time i have tried to do so, it resulted either in an arms race, or complete isolation despite having intimate proximity. any permutation of those outcomes are not anything i want to have anything to do with. however the outcome which leaves you behind an impenetrable fortress and me out in the open, is also undesirable.

can you let me in? can you build a doorway just for me? you can guard it, you can leave it locked when not in use, you can hide it and keep it a secret that only i know. but can you make that happen? i can’t bear being like this for much longer.

you’ve said this on more than one occasion, you + me vs the problem is non-negotiable. does this only apply in one direction? or perhaps you + me is not a valid equation any more? i don’t really know where i stand. i can only guess.

the thought crosses my mind regularly, should i just stop trying? you’ve explicitly asked me not to do that, but what am i supposed to do when i am given so little information to work with. talking to myself is what i do here, it’s not what i want to do with you. i want to talk to you and i want you to talk to me. i want you to want to talk to me, actually.

this wall hurts me.

dear j

i figured something was up yesterday when you never sent me pictures of the cookies you were baking once they were done. you were so excited about them when you sent me that first picture. i resisted the urge to poke fun, those candy cane shaped ones looked especially… suspect. in any case, when all i got was radio silence after asking you for pictures of the finished product and sharing in the christmas cheer, i just assumed you had gotten into a fight with him. or maybe a kid got sick or something like that. something frustrating, or annoying. something mundane.

never in a million years would i have been able to foresee receiving that message from you at 4am this morning.

how monumentally unfair. holy fucking shit. my heart literally stopped beating for a moment as i read your words – “My husband passed away.”

we barely knew each other, i mean, we only actually met a month ago, but you were going through almost the same things as i was, and still am, and we shared so many parallel feelings. it was so comforting, so helpful, so cathartic to be able to talk to someone else about all of this who was feeling the same things and going through the same experiences. it was so relieving hearing about someone else’s struggles which so closely mirrored my own, making my own personal brand of fucked up seem just a little more ‘normal’. that’s the fucked up thing about separating from someone you’ve been with for so long and have so much history with, especially when there are kids involved… unless they’ve been through it, no one really understands. friends get real tired of hearing about it, real fast. it’s even worse when the reasons for your separation are related to your own unhappiness and your own struggles with limerent feelings. that on it’s own is met with so much judgment that it’s pretty much guaranteed to be something you have to work out on your own and never talk to anyone about.

despite the fact that we only just met, we certainly had a connection, that commonality, that separate yet still shared experience. i appreciated talking to you so much, and i know you felt the same way. but i fear our paths have now very much diverged.

i will try my best, but i really don’t know how to help you here. i don’t know what to say to offer you any kind of comfort. i don’t know how to react when you tell me what you are feeling now. what has happened to you is my worst nightmare. i am still completely shaken by this, and i can’t even begin to imagine how you actually feel. when you told me his last words to you, when you told me what he told to your daughters… i don’t even know what to say. that is beyond brutal. that is beyond what anyone should ever have to bear.

i can tell you over and over it was not your fault. all of your friends and family can tell you it was not your fault. but i know that you will always believe it was your fault and that there is nothing in this world that can change your mind. i know what you are thinking. i know how you think. we’re too similar like that and i know how i would feel.

i’m so sorry, you didn’t deserve this. your two little ones didn’t deserve this. what a fucking tragedy in its purest form.

try to hold on, ok? i know your journey will likely never get the happy ending you were so desperately hoping for, and that breaks my heart so fucking much. but your girls need you more than ever now, they are still young, they still have a chance. help them see that, ok?

please take care of yourself as best as you can. remember to eat. remember to sleep. be kind to yourself.

gentle reminders

it’s funny how earlier this morning i thought about how k’s behavior lately was only temporary… and then this afternoon the hidden truth peeked through once more.

comments were made to the kids about things they have zero control or influence over, things they have no business caring or even knowing about, things which don’t really even concern them, at a volume explicitly sufficient to reach the ears of a certain someone in the other room, who is clearly the one who she wanted to make those passive aggressive comments to. thanks, message received loud and clear.

to her credit, she did somewhat apologize several hours later, but the emotional damage was already done. there is no undoing it now, especially not with a sorry. and double that when it is an “i’m sorry, but…”

i’m thankful for not having taken the bait.

i’m sorry z and l you have to be subjected to that. that is not fair. you won’t get that from me, i promise.

trouble sleeping

the past few weeks have been tumultuous to say the least. lots of heavy thoughts and feelings. lots of self reflection and analysis. lots of coping and reasoning. lots of self loathing and hatred. lots of hope and excitement. lots of guilt and fear. lots of relief and release. suffice it to say, my head has been all over the place and back again.

i think the things which are affecting me most right now though are more centered around fear and uncertainty and i think that might be what is affecting my sleep. i find myself going down some deep rabbit holes questioning whether this is all a mistake and that there actually are no greener pastures to explore. k is not helping things at all. ever since this started she has changed her tune and has been on her best behavior. i know it will not last and it is just a reaction to the hurt i inflicted on her with this, but it does fog everything slightly. it makes me think that perhaps things can change, perhaps this is redeemable, perhaps all the unhappiness previously experienced was just a precursor to a happier time… this is delusion though. this is what i have been telling myself for years. this is how i got stuck so deep in the rut to begin with.

i have been making lists. lists of things which broke my heart. lists of things which i will not miss. lists of things which undermine or belittle me. lists of things which i do not like or actively hate. i have to keep reviewing and reaffirming those lists to keep myself on track. is that crazy person behavior? it that awful of me?

i guess on the flip side i also keep repeating over and over my number one priority. this needs to end amicably for the kids and for her. i can keep eating some shit for a while to make sure that happens. she is no longer my life partner, i do not owe her an explanation, nor can i expect or even ask for her to carry some of this burden. this is what i want, and the only person i can trust to make sure that it happens is myself. so i must do whatever is necessary to ensure that outcome.

i’ve been reading a lot on reddit about divorce, different people’s stories and the outcomes of each. there seems to be a lot of common themes and roles, and also a lot of common lies people tell to themselves and to those around them. there is always the victim and the perpetrator and when someone falls deep enough into one of these roles, they seem to lose sight of everything else.

some of those stories are scary, i see myself in their shoes and then i see some of the reactions from other people and it makes me sick to my stomach. people can be so kind and supportive, but they can also be so fucking ruthless it’s doubtful they are even human. so many people speak from their own experience stating things which ultimately are just beliefs they formed to help them cope as fact and it is upsetting to me, because i fall for it. but i need to remember, no one knows my story except for me. so despite similarities, these are not my stories.