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Ack. How’d I miss Friday? Oh … that’s right. I was putting it off until the evening as I’d be kid free, but then the cold I’m fighting kicked my tush and I watched a movie, took a bath and went to bed. I’m still pretty achy and crappy-feeling, but it’s amazing what 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep will do for the body.
My mom and Miss O and I spent Friday bargain-hunting for kids clothes. Bean is very partial to wearing dresses with pants instead of shirts with pants, and Miss O is still a bit too small for most of the ‘grow into it’ stuff leftover from Bean’s toddlerhood. It’s so cute to watch her tiny and cute self walk around with a head that looks, especially when her hair is down, almost as large as her legs and torso. Like an orange on a toothpick.
I’ve discovered that I really get a kick out of resale/second-hand shopping. There’s just something in my DNA that is energized and invigorated by scoring stuff for cheap. I did one of the big resale ‘events‘ and then hit the Salvation Army and Goodwill. Truth be told, the prices are just way, way better at the latter two than at the ‘events’, whose prices are usually on-par with resale shops.
As we drove around yesterday, Miss O nodded off. So I continued to drive so she could have a quick nap. And my mom and I talked about all kinds of stuff.
She asked me if Dave came to me and said “I made a mistake”, would I take him back.
Now this is a question I’ve asked myself before. I assume he’s asked himself his own variation of it at some point or another. I think, as humans, we always ask ourselves these questions. In a way we almost *have* to, as we look back and look forward and navigate through life. But they are questions that are hard to answer honestly; out loud, especially, but even internally. Each of us has a question of this magnitude. Some of us have more than one.
But these types of questions require us to swallow pride, to admit mistakes, to feel hate and anger, to face up to truths and lies. Things we’ve felt or told ourselves and things we’ve expressed to others.
I answered her without hesitation: I’d want to try.
It’s not that I’m in love with him. It’s not that I really want him back. Or that I’m motivated by wanting my life back. Honestly, I don’t think it could ever work again. But in that same vein of honesty, I don’t feel that our marriage ever needed to end. There wasn’t anything so egregious that – handled properly – couldn’t be rectified. I made small mistakes, he made big ones, and when everything reached it’s crisis, he’d moved too far away to ever give the marriage a chance.
That’s a hard truth to walk away from without regret, you know? That an inherently good, but flawed, marriage died without the due diligence it deserved. So when I think “what if he wanted to try again?”, and I factor in Bean’s still-broken heart and my own annoyance that we never actually tried to fix things, my logical, rational side says “how could you not want to give it a chance?”
There are hard truths in life. Some of us understand and accept them, some of us don’t. In my opinion, one of the hardest truths is that you won’t always love and like the people you love and like. You’ll hate them sometimes. You’ll wish they were not a part of your life, that you had nothing to do with them, that they would just go the hell away. In marriage, you’ll wonder if you married the right person, if there are greener pastures, if you made a mistake … you’ll also be amazed that someone can love you, faults and all, and put up with you day after day. And, if you’re really lucky, they’ll put up with you forever.
But there will still be days you hate them and they hate you.
And that’s okay.
If you want to read something worth reading, take a look at Necessary Losses by Judith Viorst. There were few things in there I hadn’t, on some level, accepted or known. But it was amazing to me to see these things in print. She has another book, Grown Up Marriage, that I want to read. Necessary Losses challenges so many illusions about love and life – the illusions of perfect love, perfect friendship, perfect marriage, a perfect life … Life is messy and sucky and fun and hard and great all at the same time. But it will never, nor will anything in it, be perfect.
So when I think about that mythical ‘trying again’, it’s from that place I was at while I was married. The place that knows there is no perfect, that love isn’t *always*, that hate is *sometimes* and that in choosing to love someone, we do so knowing that we could make that choice with someone else with equal odds of success.
But I also think about it from the place of betrayal, of shattered trust, of hateful words and thoughts and feelings. And, knowing that, I know that even with my best efforts, and even with true remorse and commitment from him, the likelihood of me ever achieving a loving, trusting relationship with him again are slim to none. Knowing that he is capable of such a betrayal – how could my trust ever be total and complete? And without total trust, how can a relationship survive? I, personally, don’t believe it can. Not really. Not in a way that’s good, and honest and true. If there’s betrayal and both parties can get back to absolute faith in one another, I think there’s a good chance. But getting back to that faith …
So yes, I’d want to give Dave another chance. And I’d want to really, really try – both for myself and for my kids. And, truth be told, for him. (Talk about truths that are not easy to admit out loud, as I’m sure some members of the peanut gallery will construe from that statement that I’m still in love with him and *want* him back. Sarah.) Because I do believe that people can make mistakes and be forgiven and given a fresh slate. I just don’t know if I’m capable of that level of forgiveness, were it ever sought.
This is all just an exercise in thinking out loud, and sharing thoughts and feelings on divorce and life, as I’ve drifted away from this kind of stuff for awhile. I don’t expect that this will ever be a real thing for me to consider, and I’m honestly glad about that. I’m really liking being a single parent, really liking being on my own and really liking being able to take my time looking for and choosing a mate that will respect, appreciate and – most importantly – share my take on life, love and hate. I don’t want to share my life with someone for whom those illusions have yet to shatter and for whom the potential and freedom of those shattered illusions is lost. I like the freedom of being single and the freedom of accepting and embracing my necessary losses.
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Today I met a mom who’s facing a divorce. She’s got a 7 month old, and her husband has moved out. There’s another mom at Bean’s school who has two kids and another on the way whose husband left her last weekend.
What the hell is wrong with men like this? They throw out excuses like “we have nothing in common.” (Ummm … were you a pod person when you got married? Because you obviously saw something there to take the plunge.) Or “I need to be my own person.” (*Love* this one – especially when ‘being his own person’ means jumping into a relationship with someone else while you’re still married. Way to be your own man!) Or “there’s no spark anymore.” (Like that persists, without fail, past the early years of a relationship. And the “new” spark they find with someone else will inevitably fade, too.)
Has our moral code so deteriorated that marriage is now a disposable commodity? By the “50% of marriages end in divorce”statistic, it seems it has. And I wonder how many marriages end simply by virtue of the statistic alone – by that I mean, how many people justify their actions by shrugging and saying “well, half of marriages fail, so I guess mine is too.” Does the statistic provide them an(other) excuse not to try?
I’m no bible thumper, no god-fearer, no moralist. But it’s disheartening and disappointing to see so many marriages fail with so little “good” reason for the failure. If I were less of an optimist (and that’s not saying a ton, since I’m more pragmatist than optimist), I’d be unable to think about pursuing a new relationship – what chance do relationships have when selfish choices are reason enough to doom a marriage?
(In the interest of fairness, I’ll say that in my case, I’m no totally innocent victim – Dave had historically let me know he wished I was more xxxx, and I responded with “I’m not, and you knew that when you married me”. Perhaps not the most conciliatory of responses, but not horrific, either, since the ‘more xxxx’ wasn’t “I wish you were more compassionate and didn’t kick puppies every Friday”, it was “I wish you’d go to Lillith Fair with me” and I responded “Oh hell to the no.” I exaggerate. A smidge.)
Disdain for chick rock isn’t something that you have an affair over. Nor is a partner’s not sharing all your interests or *wanting* to. That is why god invented Other People. Not in the horizontal rumba sense, but in the “go forth and make friends” sense.
Please let some single men understand this concept. Not just understand it, but embrace it enthusiastically. Let them also understand that sparks attract, but eventually fade into loving companionship. That’s no reason to start looking for greener pastures, either. Because it seems like there will be a whole crop of good, single women out there pretty soon, looking for the men who get that marriage isn’t halcyon days of sparks, sameness and bonhomie.
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Still kinda processing. My mom wondered if he was getting married, and no, that’s not it (that I know of, at least.) That would hurt, but wouldn’t disappoint me.
I just feel like he’s making choices to appease Shannon’s worries about her being in California and him being here. Where I am. You know, because there was so much appeal to be with me that he walked away from our family so he could be with her. I feel like I’m watching her worries changing the tone and scope of what was – and still could be if all this BS could just stop – an amicable divorce.
There’s a bit of backstory and detail here that I’m omitting, but I don’t want this to be about specifics, but about what it feels like is happening overall, if that makes sense?
I’m not trying to be all catty and snotty; I can understand that it’s probably hard for her to be there while he’s here, if that is indeed what’s going on. But that is not my problem. It shouldn’t factor into my post-divorce relationship with Dave, the choices he and I make for *our* children, or the communication I have with him. It’s an issue they need to resolve among themselves if it’s causing a problem between them.
I’m also trying to wrap my head around being told that Shannon is a stakeholder when it comes to the girls. I patently disagree at this point – and don’t believe she has any say in decisions regarding them. Is that wrong? I need to talk more with professionals who can define these things for me, so I know if my take is realistic or not …
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Onto something way more pleasant, and more fun to think about. Dogs. Specifically, adopting a dog. I was out doing some low-budget retail therapy with my mom today – nothing like fitting into a pair of size 2 (yes, TWO!) *petite* jeans to improve the psyche – and one of our stops put us at a shopping center with a Petco. And outside was the local Aussie Rescue. Be still my heart.
Almost ten years ago, I rescued an Aussie. We were out jet skiing with my bestest friend, Kelly, and her hubby, Casey, and when we returned to the boat launch we met a sweet dog and learned his story. He and another dog had been dumped there a few weeks earlier. The other dog had since disappeared, but this guy was still hanging around. The folks said that someone had (deliberately) backed over him with a boat trailer. Well, there was no way we could leave him, so we loaded him into the car – in spite of Casey’s major animal allergies – and he rode back the hour or so to Gainesville.
We named him Jake and he lived with us for a few months, until I got him into Second Time Around Aussie Rescue so he could find a forever home. Kel – you’ll love this – I found his picture tonight in their adopted Aussie gallery:
Good old Jakety-Jake. The Jakester.
I’ve loved Aussies ever since. I’d been fascinated by them for a few years prior, after meeting a woman in the Sarasota Applebee’s parking lot who had a few Aussies in her car. She showed me how intuitive they were, so when I met Jake, I simply expected him to know that I meant him no harm. I sat with my face in his for an hour in the car, then rode in the back of Dave’s pickup truck with him from Kelly’s place, to the store for supplies, and then home.
He seemed completely unruffled by everything, and moved into our tiny apartment with four cats with few issues. Well, he did chew up a couple books on his first night, and he spooked Skippy right thru a screen once, but that was my fault. He was such a great dog. I’ve always wanted to “replace” him.
I met a few great dogs today, and have been perusing the available Aussies all evening. I want a dog.
Lyrics from Modest Mouse’s “Bury Me With It“
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Le sigh.
It’s tough being in charge sometimes.
I had planned to set up Miss O’s crib this afternoon, but I was out for awhile and then got caught up watching “Legally Blonde” on Oxygen. Can you believe I’d never seen that movie? So then I thought – I’ll do it when she gets home from Dave’s.
No dice. She had a sum total of about 30 minutes sleep in the 8 hours she was gone (in his defense, he tried to nap her in his bed to support my ‘she needs to sleep in a bed’ campaign), so when I took her to my room to get her ready for bed, she melted down and that was all she wrote.
Silly me thought it might be a smooth evening since she was so damn tired, but another two-hour sleep struggle has reaffirmed my belief that I need to get her sleep patterns changed. Thankfully I didn’t just spend money I don’t have on a more comfy long-haul carrier … {insert eye-roll emoticon here} At least I’ve hit my post minimum for The Baby Wearers’ for sale or trade board. I need to sell my woven wraps, too, so hopefully I can unload a few carriers pretty quickly.
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Did you see the headlines over at nfl.com? My boy threw a career-high six TD’s today – not bad for an old man, huh? Some sick yardage on those balls, too. Almost makes up for the Gators’ sad performance yesterday and the Packers’ loss today … almost. The ‘Skins beating the ‘Boys helped a little with the football morale boost, and if Chicago can stay on top of Philly, I’ll call the weekend a wash.
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I was talking with a friend today about divorce, and I realized how healthy I am at a relatively early stage in the game. There may be setbacks ahead, but right now I’m thankful to be in a good place. I’m also glad that so much of what I thought and felt has been captured in my blog. I just wish I had been blogging, or at least journaling, in the few months between implosion and my agreeing to a divorce. They were such emotionally turbulent months, but it was something I didn’t want to talk about in case things didn’t go all the way south, you know? It was bad enough knowing I’d have all the emotional/psychic wounds to heal and carry around if we managed to not get divorced – I didn’t want to have my friends and family have any baggage or say a bunch of stuff they’d later regret.
I’m proud to say I’m not bitter … it would be easy to be, and no-one would fault me, but I refused that emotion a long time ago. I hate bitterness. It always seems damaging: it doesn’t help a person heal or move forward, it holds them back. Anger can be useful, at times, and feeling hurt has it’s place, but bitterness is just useless. I definitely wallowed in hurt feelings and lashed out in anger a few times – hell, sometimes I enjoyed doing it. It was righteous and it got some of the venom out.
What also helped me work some things out was writing an email to Dave that I never sent. When I started it, and as I built it, I fully intended to send it; it was my chance to say my piece – to really tell him how his choices had impacted me and how they made me feel. I was doing a no-holds-barred “you did this to me” email – he was going to be sorry for what he did, dammit. I worked on it for several weeks, adding hurts and spewing vitriol. It was an awesome piece of judgment.
After I had put most everything I wanted to say down, I sat on it, waiting for the right time to send it. I wanted it to carry the most impact possible, for him to receive it when he was most vulnerable to my words and would feel the worst about what he had made me feel.
And then something happened.
I stopped needing him to know any of it. I stopped needing to even say any of it. I was almost uncomfortable with everything that was in there – uncomfortable that I had felt so much pain and anger, and that I needed him to know what I felt. There came a time when I realized that even if I sent it at just the perfect time and it had the desired impact, even if he came to be sobbing and begging for forgiveness (not for another chance, just for my forgiveness) it wouldn’t change a thing. It wouldn’t change what had happened, it wouldn’t erase all the pain and anger that I had felt and it wouldn’t change the future. It just. wouldn’t. matter.
I deleted the email. It had served it’s purpose and in writing it – and in deleting it – I had exorcised the demons it represented. Writing it gave life and legitimacy to the emotions, and deleting it gave them a good death and a respectful burial.
Lyrics from “Paying the Cost to Be the Boss” by the incomparable B.B. King.
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Beanism du jour: “Your pancakes are not my best. I like Village Inn better.”
I’m going to console myself with assuming she means the microwave pancakes I made her yesterday, and not the scratch-made pancakes I make on weekends. Because I just know she doesn’t mean those.
The little turdburger.
But – speaking of turds … we now have two days in a row of poopie on the potty. I’m so excited for her!! I think the key was giving her the option of being able to wear a Pull-Up when she wanted to poop. The kid really likes control … I have no idea where she gets that from.
She’s still a bit of a PITA about actually going to the potty. She doesn’t tell me herself, and her immediate reaction when I ask her to go is “no”. So I just have to take her – but it’s a fine balance between removing her control and making sure she’s trying often enough.
I’m trying to decide if I have the wherewithal to take both girls to the Ice Cream Festival. If it was cooler and I could wear Miss O, I’d be a lot more inclined to go. But I was there last year and know that it’s not a super stroller-friendly environment, so struggling with a stroller while hoping Bean doesn’t run away (and she’s going to run away) is probably a bit more than I can handle in 100-degree-plus temperatures.
Oh joy – Bean crapped in her pinties. Le sigh. Potty learning while I have one who naps on my back is just not easy. I spend an hour unable to take Bean to the potty and this is my reward.
Well, since that’s such a non-joyous occasion, it makes a nice segue to the following.
So Bean met Shannon yesterday. She’s in town visiting Dave and rather than keep being at odds about this, I chose to just agree to a brief meeting at the park. She seems nice enough and Bean loved meeting her, as she talks to her all the time on the phone. It’s still something that I’m a little uneasy about, on several levels, but as long as it stays very low-key and Dave stays consistent with the ‘friend’ messaging, I’d rather just stop butting heads about this one.
Shannon’s style of interaction with Bean was a little more “in your face” than mine and Dave’s, kinda that hyper-involved thing that just isn’t my style. Don’t get me wrong – I’m very involved with my kids, but in more of a laid-back way than a super smiley ‘right there’ kind of way. And I felt like she was bit more forward with my child than I would have been in her shoes, but the good intent is there.
I don’t know if the being forward was just how she is, or if she was maybe trying to hard to make sure I thought she and Bean would get along or what … my approach would have been to be more of a “speak when spoken to” kind of interaction with Bean, rather than the way Shannon kind of usurped me, but like I said, the good intent is there and likely more important than the style of interaction. I do want to talk more with Dave about all this, but I wasn’t horrified and I think I handled it all as well as I could. It’s really not something any mother wants or likes to do, introducing their child to someone who will be sharing the “mom” role … I get the cosmic “more love” thing, I just can’t stop the ache in my heart about sharing the role. I’m fairly certain every parent’s gut clenches at the thought of a second ‘them’. I don’t have any problem with Bean spending weekends at Dave’s, but the thought of them all playing happy family with my children is not an easy pill to swallow. It’d be different, I think, if the girls were older …
But it is what it is, and while it hurts, I’m working hard on not letting it hurt more than it has to; that is, not torturing myself with ‘more’ than what is. Dave has said there’s no reason for Bean to know her as anything other than Shannon any time in the near future, so I’m hopeful that continues and that no-one will be forcing her to call Shannon anything else or to feel more for Shannon than she does on her own at any point in time. I don’t think she assigns any special significance to her yet, as she’s not said another word about her since the meeting. I’ll have to talk to Dave about not overselling Shannon, and letting Bean react/progress naturally about all this. I don’t know what his thinking is on it, but I hope we’re close to some agreement … the being in opposite corners thing all the time gets so old.
The things we do for our children … even when it rips our hearts out to do it.
Lyrics from Martina McBride’s “In my Daughter’s Eyes“
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Guess what Miss O did today? C’mon, guess!!
She took her first crawling “steps”. She was just pleased as punch with herself, and Bean and I were cheering her on. She only makes it one or two paces before she drops, but she’s able to repeat it, so I know she’s got it down.
Yay Miss O 
Bean insisted that we all (she, O and I) wear hats, and then announced that we were married. You know she’s her father’s daughter when in a fit of pique (at me, for allowing Miss O to hold the green plate in spite of Bean’s dictate that she only hold the orange plate) she rips her hat from her head and announces “I’m not married anymore!”
Come on- that’s funny, right?
She then ran from the room and threw her drama queen self on the sofa. A split second later she came running back, hauled off and smacked my back (I barely choked down a surprised laugh) and ran back to the sofa. She’s in time out as I type this, reflecting on the wrongness of hitting mommy. Mommy who is, incidentally, still chuckling to herself about the whole meltdown.
It was a day chock full of Beanisms again, but sadly, I always think I’ll remember them and then forget them. I posted about the above Beanism as soon as it happened, and jotted this next one down earlier.
She and I were playing kitchen, where she cooks something and serves it on plates. I got her a small rolling pin and some baking pans at Ikea yesterday, so she’s been rolling out dough for bread ever since. She’s been very bossy lately – wanting everything done the way she wants it done, and gets pissy if you don’t immediately comply. Since that’s about as fun as a root canal, I thwart her bossiness at every opportunity. So when I balanced a plate on my head and she demanded I stop, I kept balancing it and then making it fall before she could grab it away.
She sidled up next to me (I was expecting her to hit me but let it play out without pre-empting) and after I made the plate fall off she said: “Don’t worry, dear (then patted my arm a few times). I will help you. I’m right here.” And she put the plate back on my head, thinking she could help me get it up there properly so it wouldn’t fall off. Even little turdburgers have their moments
Actually, I’ve been thinking to myself that I kind of like three. The bossiness is a bit much, but I don’t find her that difficult to handle these days. I’m sure I can credit Zoloft with a little of that, but her “bad” behavior isn’t all that bad. I really only find myself badgering her when I’m trying to get her to do something *now*, and/or to stay focused on what it is she’s supposed to be doing. Like if I want her to clean up before we go out, it takes a lot of nagging, standing over her and like a hundred “1, 2, 3 …”s (which likely defeats the purpose of the 1,2, 3 thing anyways)
I’m kind of in a Zen place again about the damn divorce … don’t get me wrong, I have moments, but I’m better able to shut them down. Not in a suppressing kind of way, but in an “I’m not going down this rabbit hole” kind of way. I just don’t really have a whole lot to gain from the way my thoughts were going, and while the speed with which this all took place for me and the continued breaches of faith from Dave are hurtful and understandably anger-inducing, I just can’t extract anything of value from it.
I can grow personally from this, but I don’t need to drag myself (and Dave and Mariah by extension) thru the dirt to do it, ya know? I need to – I *have* to – choose to let a lot of this just go. Yes, he’s a douche for the way things went down; yes, it all sucks; no, I didn’t have any type of heads up before my world was knocked out of orbit; no, I didn’t deserve this. But my obsessing on any or all of those points isn’t going to change anything or make the wrongs, right. And, most importantly, it isn’t going to let me move forward. And that’s the path I choose.
Lyrics from “I Used to Love Him” by Lauryn Hill
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I feel like I’ve totally lost the high ground I once had … I’ve got no business calling names or being so damn snarky. Well, I guess I kind of do, but still … it really should be directed at Dave and not at Mariah. She *should* have stayed far, far away from him. She didn’t. That’s pretty much the extent of her culpability in this. She couldn’t have poached him if he wasn’t poachable; he wouldn’t have fallen in love with her if he was still emotionally involved with me.
Sometimes the pain and anger still get the best of me. And I don’t think, in the exchanges I’ve had with him, that he really gets just how bad what he did is. He took years, supposedly (years, I might add, during which he was still telling me he loved me, having sex with me, sending me sweet notes and emails, telling me he missed me when he was away, taking me out for nice dinners … in other words, years where his facade was that of a happily married man) to fall out of love, to stop wanting to be married to me, to disengage. That’s horrible. And he did that all, *and* met someone new *and* fell in love – all within the safety of a loving (from my side, at least) marriage.
And I’ve basically had, what, 8-9 months to come to terms with all of that? And with the fact that the man I loved and thought I’d be with forever didn’t love me and felt nothing but apathy toward me? I only agreed to divorce 7 months ago, and we separated at the end of April – which is when all of this really hit me. Yet he still seems surprised that I still have feelings about all of this, that I haven’t fully moved on, that I sometimes revisit the past … that, on rare occasions, I let the pain and the anger get the best of me and I lash out at him and her.
I know I need to let all of this go at some point. And really, I want that point to be soon. I don’t enjoy wallowing in pain and memories, but sometimes I can’t help it. I don’t enjoy being spiteful, but sometimes I’m so damn angry about all of this that I can’t be anything else.
But then there’s that bigger part of me. Not necessarily bigger in that it always overshadows the petty, vindictive part – but bigger as in bigger person. That bigger part of me still wants to be his friend; wants to put all of this behind me; wants to see Mariah as just another person who will love my girls … that bigger part of me really does spend a lot of time in the forefront of my psyche, it’s just no match whatsoever for my freakouts when they happen.
I’m scared, really really scared, that because he’s gone back on so much of what he said would happen already, he’s going to try to take the girls from me at some point. I can’t believe I actually put that in words, because it’s such a real and visceral fear that to see it in writing has me almost in tears. And I think that underlying fear makes everything else that much sharper when it happens: when he goes back on his word that Bean meeting Mariah will be a joint decision, it’s like he’s not only taking that ‘promise’, for lack of a better word, away, he’s threatening the ‘promise’ that he would never go after custody.
And the fear is much harder to let go of than “just” the pain and the anger. Every time I’ve relaxed and assumed we’re on level ground, he’s taken something else away – so now I can’t relax. I feel like I have to fight and kick and scream for the few shreds of what I have left. It feels like my complacency and my wanting this to be amicable and to not be contentious have allowed him to take so much of what he ‘promised’. It’s sadly ironic that I believed he’d honor all these post-divorce ‘promises’, when he couldn’t honer the biggest promise of all, but that just shows you what a trusting idiot I can still be.
So now I’m struggling to somehow put all that fear, and the residual pain and anger, into a small box that I can keep closed off at times. A box that I can open up and sift through at times, but one whose contents don’t dominate my life, my thoughts, my emotions. It’s so much easier said than done …
Lyrics from Jimmy Cliff’s “Struggling Man“
How strange is it that it still bothers me to see Dave called an asshole? I guess he kind of is, but still … I feel defensive of him when I read that kind of stuff. I know I shouldn’t be. Old habits die hard, I guess.
Why don’t I out Mariah? Mostly because I’m *not* an asshole It’s pretty likely that she’s influencing some of his behavior, but I don’t know that for a fact. And she’s a mom, and her kid(s? I’m pretty sure she has two) deserve a little protection from all this. So, on the off chance she’s not involved in his shoddy treatment of me, and for her kid(s)’ sakes, I’m gonna keep her name under wraps for now. If their relationship progresses as Dave is saying it will, I’ll out her eventually just because I’ll have to call her by her real name in person anyways. Fun.
I totally agree it’s too soon for Mariah to be a part of Bean’s life, but all of my pleas on that front fall on totally deaf (and spiteful) ears. Because I’ve voiced that I hope it doesn’t work out for Dave and Mariah, I’m obviously never going to say or do anything that wouldn’t be selfish. And “what’s the real reason” for my not wanting Bean to have to start dealing with this already. Because it’s got to be either my attempt to sabotage their premarital bliss or something self-serving. I couldn’t just be looking out for my kid or anything.
He’s still got his boxers in a bunch over my showing Bean our wedding pictures. She asked, I showed. There was no drama, and really, she lost interest within a few photos. All she took from it was that mommy wore a dress and daddy wore a black suit. *All* the books say we’re supposed to have pictures of he and I together for her to see if she wants them – while he’s done a General Sherman on photos in his place, I’m stuck with all the photo albums and I’m not going to withhold them from her. Sheesh.
Beanism of the day: “I love you with all my heart. So don’t holler at me. That makes me a little sad. Those. Are. The rules. Do you understand my words?”
I haven’t hollered in a while, but while debating whether or not I should get my ass back on Zoloft to help me be more patient, I was hollering pretty often. Obviously often enough to make an impression. Ouch.
The “do you understand my words” is probably from a combo of things. When I’ve given her a time out, we talk afterward, and I always ask “do you understand?” And her grandma tells her she doesn’t understand her words when Bean isn’t speaking clearly (we won’t mention that grandma doesn’t always hear her well). So she’s hybridized that and when she’s giving me a talking to, it usually ends with “do you understand my words?”
Her Beanism tells me a couple things – one, I need to not yell again ever. (I’ll let y’all know how well *that* goes … she’s three, for cryin’ out loud!) And two, it’s something she’s always seemed okay with. Not like she enjoys it, but I never figured she was storing the events, ya know? Well, I did, sort of, but you know what I mean. You don’t think that just hollering the same thing you might say in a normal voice is really a scarring event.
But while it rolls off her like water on a duck’s back at the time, she’s obviously assigning value and feelings to it when it happens. So it’s possible that some of the stuff Dave (and sometimes I) assume she’s fine with could be stuff she isn’t actually fine with. And I’m not just referring to the divorce, but that’s a big chunk of my concern.
I wish, Anonymous II, that Dave would go to counseling with me. (I also wish I knew who you and Anon III were – I’ve got Anon I pegged already ) That was another concept he put out there early on, but when I revisited it recently, he wanted nothing to do with it. It’s yet another thing that eats at me, but that I have to find a way to reconcile. I’m going to try again, but I’m not too optimistic …
Lyrics from “Something to Sing About” from the Buffy musical Episode, Once More With Feeling
I’m stuck in some limbo of unresolved … thoughts/memories/feelings … Or maybe it’s unreconciled and not unresolved …
I just can’t reconcile the Dave I’m seeing now with the man I married. The man who couldn’t wait to give me my engagement ring; who wrote wonderful vows and got choked up delivering them; who wrote me poetry and left me silly notes …
I guess I was just totally naive and stupid to believe that our post-divorce relationship could remain amicable and even, in some way, close. He talked such a good talk about us still being friends, doing things together with the girls, yadda, yadda, yadda … And even though all of this hurt me, angered me – I still wanted to at least be friends. Not close friends, not call-him-just-to-say-hi friends, but grown ups who could compartmentalize The Divorce and still interact and, a few times a year, do things together. Things like her birthday, maybe even Christmas, and things like Sea World, so her first roller coaster ride wouldn’t be something she did with one of us and told the other about, ya know?
Now he treats me like an unliked business associate. Someone he has no choice but to deal with, but makes it obvious he wishes that were not the case. I think if he could just teleport the girls from my house to his and never speak to me or see me, he’d be happiest.
And I have no idea what I’ve done to deserve such cold and callous treatment. He says that neither of us can handle anything more than a business relationship, but I disagree – tho he’d have to chose to be my friend, and we all know how well I’ve fared in his choices in recent history. But if *I* can want to be friends, and I’m the wronged party, why can’t he?
I can’t help but wonder how much influence Mariah has had and is having on all this. Would you believe he actually told me the other day he doesn’t want me nursing Miss O at his house? Seriously. This is the same guy who used to say he was just waiting for someone to give me grief for nursing in public, and he wants me to sit in my car in 100-degree temps and nurse there.
It’s just devastating to be reduced to a schmear of dog sh*t on the bottom of his shoe; to have our marriage reduced (by him in a recent email) to “not right for each other” for “a long time”. Just a total cop-out on the work a marriage requires and the love, joy and emotion that we each invested in (and took from) the marriage. A dismissive wave of the hand at 12 years and at me, because he’s found someone new.
He’s already got Bean talking to Mariah, and Bean’s already (of her own accord, per Dave) determined that Mariah is “daddy’s best friend” and that she has sent Bean gifts (Dave says the gift was from him). And even though we had agreed to decide together when it was time for them to speak on the phone, he went ahead anyways. And while he’s just presenting Mariah as a friend, and plans to continue that even when she moves here, it still seems to soon to be adding this layer to Bean’s life. And it seems selfish and self-serving.
It just feels like the kicks keep coming. I’ve been, in my opinion, at least, absolutely amazing to him throughout this process. Yes, there was ranting, raving and screaming (when Bean was at school or at my folks’) in the very early days, and I’ve unloaded a bit about him on here, but christ, I think I’m entitled to all that. I mean I haven’t been vindictive, I’ve been almost militant about making sure he gets equal time with Bean (and as much time with O as is feasible), I haven’t contested anything, I haven’t sent 12 dozen pizzas to Mariah … and I’m repaid with increasing coldness and antipathy. And I haven’t done a thing to deserve it …
I’m feeling pretty pissy today. I lost my temper with Bean when she knocked a drink over while reaching for something I’d taken from her and then told her “no” over, and I pulled her from her chair, swatted her butt and sent her to time out. At my parents’ house. So not only did I lose control, I lost in with an audience, something that usually helps keep control. Which means I *really* lost control.
I’m angry because my girls are getting the short end of the stick as far as my patience goes, and that’s due, in some part, to the fact that I have to fly solo with both of them so often. And the fact that I almost never get a real reprieve, as Miss O is just too little to spend any real time away from me.
I know that plenty of people do the solo parent gig for longer than I do, or have done it for longer, or do it with more kids or whatever. I know my situation is not unique, and that things could be harder. But damn it – this isn’t the gig I signed up for. And my kids are two of the more challenging kids around, both in age and in personality/disposition. And I am not a font of limitless patience and cheeriness. I’m kinda cranky sometimes, I need my solitude and I like things my way. And none of that is a winning parenting characteristic, and especially not a winning single parenting characteristic.
I am so angry that, in addition to everything else Dave took when he betrayed everything I believed in, he took away part of my ability to be the parent I want to be to my girls. I’m not naive or foolish enough to shift all of the blame onto him; I don’t even want to assign half of it. Falling short of what I want to be is on me, but he’s responsible for stacking some of the cards against me. He’s made it harder for me to be the parent I want to be, and, in turn, made my girls feel the effects of that.
Because there should be someone else here to help absorb some of this. To help discipline and entertain; correct and snuggle. Every time I have to tell Bean to wait for a story because I’m tending to Miss O; every time I feel my patience being stretched to it’s breaking point because I have to do every single thing myself; every time I have to let Miss O lay and cry because I’m tending to Bean – I curse him. It’s bad enough that I have to suffer all of the hurt and disappointment and logistical stuff and stress of single parenting: that the girls suffer indirectly because of the toll it all takes on me is unforgivable.
So I took a damn Zoloft this afternoon when I got home with Miss O (Miss I stayed at her grandparents, then took over two hours to fall asleep for her nap – sorry guys!). I’ll talk to my therapist about it when I go in this week, but she did tell me she thought it would help with my shorter fuse – after telling me that I hadn’t described anything that didn’t seem totally normal (both from the perspective of the kids and from my reactions) and that I should just track how many times I felt I’d lost control so she could give me a better answer. I figure I’ll start a low dose now, and if she thinks it’ll help, I’ll have a couple days of the lead time out of the way, since it takes a week or two for Zoloft to have an effect. If she thinks I’m doing well enough, I’ll stop taking it.
This has been a pretty stressful week – the divorce was finalized Tuesday and he’s already doing his victory lap with Cali Ho (*love* that, Julia) this weekend, so when I’m feeling stressed about being alone with the girls, it’s not helping knowing he’s there playing house with She Who Must Not Be Named. So it’s possible that my ill temper is a convergence of factors and that in a few days I’ll have my grip again. ‘Course, if I were to find out that she gave him crabs, my mood would take a definite northward turn, as well. Just sayin’. Certainly not wishing or starting any rumors …
I think this might be the night I open that emergency bottle of wine.
On a totally unrelated note, a big “Brett, say it ain’t so!!” for my beloved Brett Favre who supposedly wants to unretire and has asked the Packers to release him from his contract. Seriously, if he’s that bored, my girls love football and would be happy to have a “manny” (you get that? a man-nanny? you likey?) to play with them while I cook and clean. I’m no Cali Ho, so this would truly be a platonic thing – hell, Deanna and the girls are welcome too. I just need the help and he seems to have some time on his hands …
Lyrics from the Eagles’ Wasted Time (I’m showin’ my age with two Eagles lyrics in a row …)
