"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.
–Margaret Overton, Good in a Crisis: A Memoir
