Tuesday, April 23, 2013

There's a Reason He's My Ex


"Divorce isn't such a tragedy. A tragedy's staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce.” 
–Jennifer Weiner, Fly Away Home


Some days you might think you will die of divorce.

There are such pains to go through from the minute one partner decides "Enough is Enough", until pretty much the end of time.  You can be happily remarried, you can have no kids together, or kids all grown up, but that Ex will still pop up and cause chaos, from near or far.  

My Ex and I have two children together.  For the most part we both know our roles and there aren't that many surprises.  We are not super-strict on our visitation schedules, but this easy freedom lends itself to times when I wish we were on a rigid First, Third, and Fifth weekend standard possession regime.  

My girls live with me.  My house is their Home.  My house was also my Ex's home until about seven years ago, pre-separation.  I chose that house when we moved to our town and I paid for that house the whole time we were married.  I refinanced that house in my name only, at the point when I began to foresee the end of our marriage.  The deed was turned over to me in the divorce papers.  My house is my Home.

As he did before we were married, my Ex has moved around a lot since the divorce.  Changing roommates and apartments annually.  All of his living conditions have been acceptable to me and the girls, but they were never Home-y to them.  They were a place to stay for a few days every other week, if that.  He isn't worried about this.  He knows their Home is my house.  

My Ex has a girlfriend who lived out of town when they began dating, but now is moving her family and herself to our area and he will be living with her and them.  This will be a house, but it will be full of another family, her grown kids and their kids, as well as her school-aged child.  My girls will likely not have their own room there, so I am unclear on how their visits will go.  The girlfriend's young child is a boy of 13.  Not like they can stay in his room.  This will be worked out before my girls have a Dad-weekend.

My Lil Lady is 14.  She is not keen on picking up and hanging out at Dad's on the weekends.  Unless he has something fabulous planned she would rather stay Home.  Chillgirl is 10 and is a pretty happy kid wherever, for now.  Lil Lady doesn't protest much because she loves her Dad but she makes a point to whine to one or both of us to get back Home as soon as she can each time.  Her weekends with Dad typically are less than 48 hours.

The more frustrating part of our arrangement is he usually only sees them on those weekends, even though he lives only 15 minutes away.  He knows Mom takes care of the driving to church, to volleyball, to after-school events, to appointments and the store.  I ask for his help on school pick-ups or eye or dental appointments because I'm working 8:30am-5pm and his schedule is more free.  He manages most of these requests when nothing else is going on.  But if he's unavailable, its up to me to find the solution.  I bug my parents or my friends to help me out.  Its never his concern.  

I don’t miss him, I miss who I thought he was. –Unknown

I'm afraid I've created this monster so much so that when he MUST be the one to take care of something important, it is very difficult for him.  Last week I needed him to pick up Chillgirl from school, wait for Lil Lady to get off the bus, take them both to Lil Lady's eye appointment 10 minutes away, then take Chillgirl to her volleyball practice 15 minutes away from there.  Oh and I had asked him to clean up his mess in my garage, where he kept a bunch of his tools after his last carpentry job was done.  

He took it upon himself to clean up not only his mess in my garage, but the whole garage.  You see, this area of my house is the ONLY part that still has anything of his in it.  He has a garage door opener still so he can access his tools and things since he can't store them in his apartments.  I have never minded that.  He told me he'd like to clear out a bunch of his old stuff and he'd have the girls help him do this while I was at work and a hair appointment after work one day. 

This adventure took him longer than he'd planned.  Although he got Chillgirl from school and Lil Lady to the eye doctor, he grabbed them both dinner and headed back to the house to finish his job.  An hour after Chillgirl's practice started she realized it, and asked him what about volleyball?  Oh shit!!  I get the phone call from her telling me she didn't go.  This was NOT an option as this practice was her team's LAST practice before a huge tournament 3 days later.  I screamed at her to get in his car and I told him to book it to the end of practice.  I seriously cursed his existence and screamed in my car driving home from that hair appointment.

ONE time I needed him to live MY life for ONE day, running around like a crazy person, and he couldn't swing it.  My guilty pleasure of getting my hair done was destroyed knowing my child was forgotten.  She hates to be late or miss a scheduled event, and she was upset.  I was upset.  He was upset.  I reamed him out via text about how he can't do the job needed for just one day, and he reamed me out since he was cleaning MY garage when he forgot.  We haven't spoken much in the last week since this happened.

There is a reason he is the Ex.  If I was still married to him and this happened, I'd have to go home to him and a horrendous fight would ensue about how I do everything for the girls and he can't manage the bare minimum.  This is how we communicated when we were married.  Me scolding him like a child and him no doubt secretly hating me, but needing me because he can't manage his own life well enough and needs my steady paycheck.

I know these complaints seem minor compared to others.  I know plenty of stories that are worse.  I have a student in my religious education class who does not make it to class when he's with his dad on his weekends, because dad couldn't be bothered taking him to church.  I have a family member who's son is disappointed constantly when dad tells him they are going to do something or he will be at his game, and plans fall through or he doesn't show up.  Or he will promise to pay him money for working with dad, and doesn't.  Dad never paid child support either so this is par for the course but the son is old enough now to start figuring this out.  

There are Moms who walk away from their family, claiming unhappiness, but then clearly continue to live as unhappy people who didn't want to be bothered with kids full-time.  Not paying child support and displaying poor behavior in front of the kids and blaming others for all the wrongs in their life.  Sad and pathetic, and definitely someone's Ex.

It takes two to destroy a marriage. –Margaret Trudeau

Two people do the damage to each other resulting in divorce.  But after its over, some of us move on and want to live the life we couldn't before and expect the same of our former partners.  This is not always a joint goal.  Whether your Ex moves on or continues to try to hold you back, post-divorce antics can be ugly.

You may have an Ex who you didn't even procreate with so there are no residual attachments, and you can still be hurt when you hear they have moved on.  Maybe they had that child you both agreed not to have, but with the next person.  Maybe they had success or finished something they never would while they were with you.  These things may not be as bad as cheating, but you feel cheated nonetheless.  Feeling used up and spit out is a shitty feeling, I don't care how happy you are post-divorce.

I don't go about my days mourning my marriage.  I rarely think of my divorce, except maybe when I see a long-term married couple of my same age, and I feel that pang of jealousy and regret, wishing I could have made it work the same way.  But I married the wrong person.  They married the right person.  Simple as that.  

I am a better, happier person in my life now.  I make better decisions.  I am nicer.  My Ex may be all these things too, in his current life.  When our lives intermingle due to the kids, our former unhappy selves come out, and we must both take a breath of relief after, thankful we aren't those people anymore.  

As long as I have my Home and my girls and my future out there waiting for me to decide, I can feel happy in my divorce. 

These are the reasons I'm someone's Ex.





What's the truth? The truth is what happened to you and him or her, over the years, and what didn't happen. The truth is what you said and didn't say, how much you tried, how you changed, and whether you were lucky. I believe in luck. I think luck plays a huge part in success. Or failure. In the end, who cares about the truth? You still end up divorced. Finally, the biggest asshole wins. Sort of. At least the biggest asshole takes home the most stuff. If you consider this winning then have at it. You're an asshole. 
–Margaret Overton, Good in a Crisis: A Memoir







Thursday, April 4, 2013

Ch-ch-ch-Changes


As I mentioned recently our household is a-changing...but it is also still the same.  It is still fiesty ole' me, the single Mom, and my two busy girls plugging away, each day much the same as the last.
I wish something like this still worked at our house...hmmm, wait, I don't see 
yelling on the list so this is not for us
Each week begins with a flurry of obligations and much the same routine that always includes work/school, volleyball, religious education, more volleyball, my training for triathlons, and more volleyball.  The girls are growing up, but they are still my same daughters.

Did I mention volleyball?
I expect Chillgirl will be in my bed come morning even though I refuse to let her start there.  To be honest, even though I discourage this behavior, I've been known to reach over to check if she's there in the wee hours of the morning, and wonder in puzzlement if she's not.  Before school, she takes several prompts to get up out of my cozy bed (she's not allowed to be cozy if I had to get up already!!!) and go get dressed.  One new change with her is she finally cares what she's wearing, and often changes her mind a few times before deciding on the same shorts she wore two days ago and one of five tshirts she rotates out religiously.  With a dresser FULL of cute shirts, pants, and shorts, she doesn't stray too far from her favorites.  Hair in a ponytail, brush teeth, and she's downstairs for breakfast.


Shopping is my LIFE!!

I expect Lil Lady to be a total teenager.  To NOT hear her own alarm and be still fast asleep when I open her door at the last possible minute she has before she's really late for the bus.  She must be yelled at repeatedly to get up before she misses it.  I tell her each night when she's still wandering around "getting ready" at 11pm that she will be sorry in the morning...and I'm always right, she is.  One change for her is her lack of interest in breakfast.  She was always the good little cereal-eater, maybe with a bit of fruit or a yogurt.  Now she takes so long to do her makeup and hair, I'm lucky to throw a waffle at her as she rushes out to the bus stop.  I constantly preach to her the benefits of a good breakfast for brain and body function, but at this age, make-up and cute shoes take precedence.


Changes have come about in my relationship with Sinatra as well.  We have fallen into our own routine in our post-legal-war lives.  His two youngest go with their mom every other week and his oldest stays with him full-time, unless Sinatra comes here to stay with me, and he then goes to his mom's or comes here with Dad.  That, and the not-so-rigid schedule me and my ex keep, means Sinatra and I have very few weekends where somebody's kids aren't hanging around.

Picture Perfect Santa Fe

So we plan our travels to get away from them it all.  This year we only got one itty-bitty ski trip in to New Mexico, sans kids, and with great friends (who had their kids).  We made the most of our time-off together, but often mentioned how much the kids would've loved it.

The kids weren't all in agreement on a ski trip for Spring Break so rather than spend that exorbitant amount of money and hear whining, we planned a short stay-cation in a nearby wine and hill country town.  We had a country house out in the sticks and the kids ran wild around the place, and Sinatra and I got to visit a few of the wineries.  Win-Win.

Hours of Monopoly...actually it was called Wineopoly



Another change Sinatra and I have made has been one of ATTITUDE.  Mine, mostly.  For all my relief from the divorce modification being over, I let negativity creep up on me and I started questioning what were we DOING? Living apart? Indefinitely? Why? Who does that?  I didn't sign up for this initially.  I wasn't asked my opinion on it when it was decided.

I blamed Sinatra for deciding with his ex what he could live with, but not considering what I could live with.  His ex cried her little fake tears and made promises (ones she has yet to keep) and got her way.  He is the nice one, the soft-heart, and she knew it, and she played him.  It pissed me off on so many levels.



I moped around and behaved horribly but when Sinatra finally had enough of my antics, we had a conversation about my anger and sullenness with him.  His answer? What else can I do here?  This situation is going as well as it can.  I am trying.

Are we going to keep doing this every few months?

Whoa.

Way to man-up and tell me like it IS.  He was right.  It IS what it IS.  You love me, or you leave me.  Pick.

Soon.

Now.

Something clicked after that.  In me, mostly.  I think he's known all along what he needed  to do.  His decision wasn't about me and him.  It wasn't about his ex.  It was about his kids.  They needed a decision. Nobody else in the situation was going to make it.  He had to.



Those three kids knew the turmoil going on in each of their parents and between their parents.  Mom was not going to be the bigger person and allow Sinatra anything he was asking for, so he had to be the compromiser.  I got caught up in what I lost in the deal, but now I finally understood we both lost, but the kids won.

I let go of my anger for the most part.  To Hell with their mom-- she may think she won, but she didn't either.  Yes, the kids are still living in town, but her one-big-happy-family fantasy will never happen again, and she knows it when she's ever being totally honest with herself.

Sinatra and me? We win, even though we lost.  We are sacrificing our time together to allow all five of our kids grow up in the homes they all have known since toddlerhood or earlier, the schools they know, around the friends they've grown up with, and with both parents nearby.  I was not willing to uproot my girls from all we know, and I know he really didn't want to either, no matter what he said.

Cookin' up grub for the childrens
Its OK.  I've changed my mind about what is my big-happy-family.  We have two homes.  We are a "WE".  His kids come to me and ask me things and tell me things and genuinely like to be around me.  They want to ride in my car or stay at my house, even without their dad.  My kids feel the same about Sinatra.  We are all so comfortable around each other, the weekends at home together or trips we take big or small, are full of laughter and play and yes, sometimes anger, but no one is afraid it will all fall apart.

I'm not.  Not anymore.  It's only going to strengthen and become more real.  We have new driver's licenses,  and new cars, and sports competitions, and high school graduations, and colleges to look forward to together.

Once our nests are empty?  It will be our time.

I pick LOVE. 


Peace and Love