Love....is relative.

As I mentioned in my previous post, talking to my friend has really made me think and look more honestly at my past relationship with STBX.  And even the relationship, if you can call it that, with my baby's daddy.  I married both of these men.  Wouldn't it make sense that, at the time, I was in love with them? And i started to think....what does it even mean, to be in love. And i honestly think if you asked 100 people that very question, you would get 100 different answers. Even further than that, I think if we ask ourselves, we could come up with at least ten different answers. And still further, I think our definition of love must change as we get older.

When I was 18, I thought I was in love. He was so perfect. He made me laugh and I could see me spending the rest of my life with him when he wrote me sappy love poems and letters.  About six months ago, my bff and I pulled out those letters and poems and laughed until we peed at how silly they were! And they were silly! And i don't know if they were silly because we know now what we didn't know then, or if it was just silly altogether. Regardless, my definition of love has obviously evolved. 

When I was 21, I got knocked up by the cutest guy that i just thought I was so in love with! I can honestly say I never saw us growing old together. I was so low on self esteem I was just proud that he ever wanted me. And it never occurred to me at the time, that him calling me at 9 p.m. on a weeknight, when nothing better had panned out for the night, didn't mean that he loved me. It meant he wanted someone to stroke his ego and pay for his beer & pizza and eventually, after he was drunk, have sex with him (which he would usually pass out during, so I'm not sure how we ever conceived one child, much less twins.....) But we got married (because he said it was a sign that we were having twins that we should be together.) I would hold on so tightly to the few good times we had and sweep the majority of the bad times under the rug.  His behaviour was no different in the end than it was in the beginning so I don't know at what point I stopped loving him, except that maybe I never loved him at all, other than I would any other human being. Love equaled tricking myself into thinking that he wanted me and making myself believe that was love. We divorced exactly two years after we married. Today, I loathe him. 

And now....the STBX.  I had a crush on him in high school, so there was history. But I don't know, in retrospect, if I LOVED him. Because there again, what does love mean? He filled all the requirements and standards I had created from the last ex...(job, money, stability). He put me in an apartment, gave me a car and got me out of my mom & dad's house. He took me to DisneyWorld for our honeymoon and on a disney cruise w/o the kids.  He gave me everything I wanted, in the beginning, materialistically. But when his temper flared, even the first time, I immediately remember wishing I was living with my parents, with the fireplace going and my kids running around their house. I found a letter I had written him barely a year after we were married telling him I thought we'd made a mistake and I couldn't believe he had hurt me that way.  If found another letter about a year later where he had apparently forced me to have sex with him. And I remember, vividly, when things would happen like this, or his temper would flare, and all I could think about was getting out, going back home to my parents' house and feeling safe. On the other hand, when things were good, when we travelled, when we didn't have all the kids and the bank account had money in it, I just KNEW we were going to live together forever.  Is that love? When the chips were down, I wanted out. That makes me selfish, I think, and possibly shallow. I wonder now, could I have cut him out and replaced him with anyone else with money, humor and decent sexual ability? Was it HIM that i 'loved' or his circumstance? My bff said something one time that I remember to this day. . . . she was with someone, possibly married, i can't remember and she said "i know i don't love him because if he was mangled in a car accident and rendered helpless and in a wheelchair, i would stay out only out of guilt, and i would hate him for it."  I would have felt the same way a year in, or ten years in. So did I love him? Or were we in some sort of "contract" to live together and raise children?  He did nice things, plenty of times, but usually only to make up for some gigantic blunder in personality or temper. It was not all bad, but I don't think it was all love either. 

When i open a crayon box, and pull out a blue crayon, and show it to another person, and say "What color is that?"  They reply "blue" but how do i know, that the shade they perceive as blue, is the same shade I perceive as blue. What if their blue is pink, and vice versa?  Looking at something and making your determinations as to the content and context of such situation....it's all perspective. Love is perspective. Perspective is relative. Therefore, love is relative.

About a friend....

I have a friend who is going through something terribly similar to my situation.  Funny thing is, he is on the opposite side, as in, the role of my STBX, for all intents and purposes, would be played by him.  He got angry, he busted down the door (all too familiar)....she kicked him out and now he's coping with the possibility of divorce, at her request of course. (That's where we differ--I SHOULD have asked for divorce, but I didn't.. . .however, i digress...) Regardless, he is making me take a second look at my situation as I talk to him and try to reason and justify some things. And it's not easy for me to admit that I was wrong about anything. But I'm sitting her pointing out everything that his wife is doing/has done. . . and ... it's me to some extent. Maybe not all the craziness, but for instance.... he said "she told me that i'm such an asshole, something is missing and she can't want me or love me anymore"......And i had to remember myself saying the VERY SAME THING!  I had tried to explain on more than one occasion to my STBX this very concept.  We started out, I thought, so very much in love. But I think love is relative and that is an entirely separate entry altogether.  Even if you assume it was love. . . you live your life with this person, day in and day out.  You laugh, you talk, you argue, you have sex. . . That's a three to one ratio there: laugh, talk, sex..... (3) and argue (1).  Well the considerably unfair statistic here is that you can do a million good things and completely erase it with one terrible thing.  I don't know if men are wired that way or not. But women are. call it unfair, call it a double standard, whatever you feel like you need to label it. But it's the truth. Well, a million may be an exaggeration, but you get what I mean.  And STBX could be "good" for days, even weeks on end......Then a blow up about the step son...or money....or the dog....or any little thing and he would lose it, yell, scream, throw, etc... and that hurt, or disrespect, or whatever black mark it may be, would chip away at my soul. . . . A heartfelt apology could repair the chip, but nothing could ever make it whole again. The damage was done. Well after a decade of chipping away at my soul, I didn't love him anymore.  My divorce was a relief in a sense.  And he was the bad guy, which made it all the easier for me to accept the happiness (difficult as it was to muddle through initially).  No, I wasn't perfect and I'm sure I did my share of chipping. He does not love me anymore either.  So are we even?  It's never even. The song says "when a heart breaks no it don't break even...."  At this point, it is not about pointing fingers. What's done is done.  My soul is chipped, my heart is ever so slightly jaded and my emotions lead me to consistently wait for the other shoe to drop. . . . My friend has a huge task on his hands. Do you stay, for the children, in a relationship that you know neither of you will be happy in, and stick it out? Or do you walk away, start a separate life with your children, and at the very least be able to let them see you happy?  Well, it depends on how much soul you have left.... at what point do you realize that neither of you barely have any soul left to save.... he's the only person who knows that.

I'm a liar....

Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration.  Maybe...delusional? Or self-serving? Perhaps just, creating part of an alternate reality, not necessarily an ENTIRE alternate reality (like STBX).... but insomuch as I have reread the last few blogs and by God I MEANT them at the time. . . . I probably still mean them, at the core.  I still believe it is okay to have a band-aid. Physical wounds require bandaids, and I believe emotional wounds require them just as well. I guess where I failed was "he started as a band-aid and somewhere along the way amid laughing, talking, cuddling and orgasms, I lost control of the situation only to wake up one day and realize somehow, we'd passed the band-aid stage altogether and i had no idea..." Yeah, well...apparently I let the laughing, talking, cuddling and orgasms cloud my inner sense of self....Because here i sit, in too deep, pretending, as i JUST said in a recent blog, to plug along and deal with bridges as they appear.  Cut to : Bridge.  i got a text today telling me that a job he'd been trying to get since October might actually be coming through. If so, he'll be moving about 2 1/2 hours away.  I got that text. My heart sank. And then.... my mind went reeling.... I've already, in my mind, got his apartment in Alabama, we don't talk anymore and he's sleeping with someone else. .. . in my mind.  I'm thinking about the lack of band-aid that he does still supply, when needed, such as my upcoming court date with STBX.  He (New Boyfriend) forces some sort of emotion out of me.  When i get home, and he's there, I force myself to deal with whatever it is before I have to see him.  And if I don't, he makes me talk about it. 

That's good. It really is. But I'm off on a tangent again.  I'm trying to explain that I have gotten in too deep and now he may be leaving and I doubt we are strong enough to sustain a long distance relationship. . . and i damn well will not be moving with him. I'm just...sick about it. And I have enough to be sick about.  He's supposed to be the good thing in my life. And yes, I know I'm being selfish and unsupportive within myself. But I've managed to maintain an outward supportive appearance.  When the time comes, if it ever does, I can show my ass.  I guess I should take my own advice, and I quote:   The day you realize you might need a bandaid to fix your bandaid is the day you need to grab a cigarette, a brownie or two, maybe even an entire bottle of wine and head onto the back porch to relax for a while. Bandaids only work temporarily. When they start becoming a permanent fixture, you better take inventory and be sure you're ready for the long haul. Otherwise, rip that motherfucker off and toss it in the trash..." 

But I don't want to. I'm not ready to. Doesn't it at least mean something that I REALIZE what i'm doing. I REALIZE that if I keep on I'm just going to end up needing an entire goddamned box of bandaids, one after the other? And if I REALIZE it...then when it happens, when i get my heart completely broken, AGAIN, which I KNEW was going to happen, I can't really bitch about it, can i? Well....I can, but you all do not have to read it. . . So my new advice:  When applying a band-aid, don't fucking listen to me. . . . . 

It ain't over....

Til the judge says it is. I just wanted to remind myself of that. This divorce is not over. And while i know that, i don't think I was embracing that, if you will. I know things are uncertain and that things will all come to fruition eventually. Meanwhile, I'm plugging along, not celebrating Valentines Day and being okay with it. . . However, something happened that I feel I must make note of. Initially, I was thinking about an earlier post regarding the NB (new boyfriend.)  I remember discussing via email with my bff the onset of the, at the time superficial, relationship with NB.  And she said, after giving me a pageful of warnings and signs and possible scenarios  to watch out for, that he may be here for a reason, or for a season.  Thoughtful wording, I felt.  But she is no newcomer to eloquent wordings. She is the single best writer I know and why she has not published a book yet it BEYOND me! But I digress. For a reason, or for a season.  I would have bet money on the latter (for my bff, that means the last one...) And in an effort to be honest with myself, let's all just assume that is still a very real possibility. But last night, I realized for the very first time, maybe there is a reason as well. No, not just the band-aid, or even a relationship cast that you wear over your broken heart much like you would a broken wrist or foot....I learned something from each past relationship I was in.  Maybe this guy is here to teach me, unknowingly of course, to learn to deal with things day by day.  We have always been very honest with one another about the possible outcomes of this "situation."  He can't make any guarantees and quite honestly neither can I.  I have my limits and my standards.  As my bff suggests, a point at which i would look around and say "okay, this crossed the line. I'm out!"  But in doing so, I'm learning that I can't worry about what might happen six months from now. Or what happened six months ago.  I used to think that realism was the key to preventing heartbreak.  But now I think I've learned that no amount of realism is going to soften the blow.  Heartbreaks are all or nothing.  Some may hurt worse, hurt less, hurt longer or cut deeper. . . But it's still a heartbreak. So do you live your life sheltered and protected, never opening yourself up for the possibility of a good time much less, dare i say it, love? Or do you shake off the memories and pain of the ex, and forge ahead chalking it up to experience? I can wish and regret away my day today only to end up with more regret later.  Or I can enjoy being with this man, have the fun and accept the attention that I deserve and cross bridges as I come to them, rather than trying to scout ahead. I think I choose the latter.

Happy Fucking Valentines Day.....

My boyfriend doesn't celebrate Valentines Day. Period. No questions, no discussions, no coercion. He just... doesn't. And he told me this up front. I admit for a while I was really thinking he was just fucking with me, and that he would at least acknowledge it. The closer it got to today, the more aware I became that he was not kidding. Not joking. Not even the least bit. And at some point along the way, I was mad. I was thinking " I don't give a rat's ass if you celebrate Valentines Day.... I DO!!!!" .... and then.... something changed. And I can't pin point it.  And I'm not making excuses for him, because anyone who knows me knows that if it was really important, I'd say "Gotdammit, i don't give a fuck if you celebrate it or not. Buy my gotdamned candy and flowers and have them at my house on Sunday with a fucking smile on your face!!!!" .... But his argument, which I didn't buy at first, was " i don't need someone to tell me when to buy you flowers and candy. I do that because it's saturday. Or tuesday. Or when the fuck ever."  Sounds like a true man excuse. But then the most amazing thing happened..... his ACTIONS.... matched his words.... And way before Valentines Day... and right before Valentines Day... flowers...because it's Saturday. Or because he was thinking about me . . . .(yuck, gross, bleck, i know, i know....) But the point is.... I was married to STBX for NINE years.... and he did Valentines Day right... ONCE. I don't even think we were married yet. It was the Valentines Day we were dating and he sent me a dozen roses. . . . Yes, several Valentines Days I got cards, that were purchased solely out of obligation (and i know this because they were purchased ON valentines day when everything had already been picked over. . ..and my Valentines Day card said something like "you're a swell person. Happy Valentines Day." Person was scratched out and WIFE 'appropriately' substituted.  SO waiting til the last minute on an obligatory holiday is way worse, to me, than not celebrating it at all. I was talking to my best friend earlier at which point I told her i was boycotting facebook all day. If i see one more status that says "Happy Valentines Day to the love of my life and the man of my dreams" blah blah blah. .. . . As she said, it should have said "Happy Val Day to the man who cheats on me and belittles me in front of our beautiful children."  Last night we cooked dinner, watched a movie and had really great sex. This morning, we had really great sex, cooked breakfast together and now we're watching a movie.  He knows it's Valentines Day. He's being really sweet.  So i don't have roses today. But in a week or two, when all these other bitches' roses have wilted and are in the incinerator, i'll have nice fresh ones on my table....or desk.... just because it's Saturday. And maybe because for once, someone thinks that I deserve flowers all year round, not just on February 14. . . .

Uncertainty

Big surprise: i don't do well with uncertainty. I don't like things to be "up in the air." I like to have a plan. I like to know what's going on, what's happening, what the deal is. The big joke with my parents is that I could never enjoy what what happening at any given moment because i was so worried about what was going to happen next. We're at lunch, where are we going after this? We're at Six Flags. What are we going to do when we leave? I would like to argue that is an exaggeration, but doubtful. It's probably right on target. And right now, uncertainty is abound!

My divorce: when will it be final?  What will I get?  Will he pay for the car?  What will the judge say?  How will I plan for my finances until I know the answer to these (and many other) questions?  What will I wear to court? What will he be wearing?  Will he look nice? Has he lost weight? Will his girlfriend be there? All excellent questions that are floating in my brain constantly.

The guy I'm seeing: (yes, i admitted it.)  Is he happy? What are we doing? Should we label this? What's going to happen? He's at my house certainly. He does all the right things certainly. But everytime he walks out the door, a small part of me wonders if he's coming back. No, we don't talk about it. No we don't label it. Should we? He's not divorced yet and neither am i!?!?! So in a sense, it's easier to let uncertain dogs lie.... And that is just what I have decided to do. I really like him, and I care for him,. And we have the BEST time together. I'll admit--he started as a band-aid and somewhere along the way amid laughing, talking, cuddling and orgasms, I lost control of the situation only to wake up one day and realize somehow, we'd passed the band-aid stage altogether and i had no idea. . . .That being said, I have no idea what that means, where it's going or even where I want it to go beyond this moment.  And it's safe and uncertain all in the same moment. I can't even comprehend how that could be.
School--will i get accepted as a doctoral candidate? How tough is it going to be? Will I be able to balance work, school, family, friends, etc...Un-fucking-certainty.
I get it, there are no guarantees. I was married more than once, promised to love til death do we part.  Maybe til death do we part is an emotional death, a spiritual death, the death of the union of the two people getting married, i don't know. Because all my exes are alive and kicking (unfortunately in some cases).There is no guarantee we will wake up the next morning, nor any guarantee we will live to see bedtime each night. That is enough to drive me crazy.  There is no guarantee ones significant other isn't going to cheat, lie, steal, murder... No guarantee that, no matter how hard you try, your children will grow up to be strong, willful independent intelligent young men and women who will make a difference in the world.
All of this may explain my intermittent  meltdowns. Between my children becoming full-fledged teenage boys, their father, my soon to be ex, my job, school, and my family, it's no wonder.... but  what bothers me more than what is on the surface, is the crystal ball.  It should be easy to let go of something so obviously out of my hands, and I really do try. But I get caught up  in it all and i honestly have to remind myself, it is what it is, and worrying isn't going to change a damn thing. . . .

Bandaids .....

We've all used band-aids to cover a small scratch, a gaping wound or even a burn, a bite, a rash. . . . as a child your mom would put a band aid on the boo boo and it was suddenly all better.  Well as we grow older, our definition of what constitutes a band-aid changes. Gone are the Hello Kitty (for most) and Spiderman band-aids. Adult band-aids come in a variety of shapes, sizes, textures and forms. Each band-aid is specific to each injury, if you will, much like the Johnson & Johnson--you have the original strip, the small circular one, the huge rectangular one and the one that looks like an "H". Well in adulthood you have the band-aids that come in six packs, or have four legs: band-aids that are for one night or six months. Chocolate band-aids, plastic band-aids....  Any plight of misery and misfortune, a break up, loss of a job, family member or a bad episode of Ugly Betty is good reason for a band-aid. (Show me a half naked man holding a double vodka sour with a lime twist in one hand, a bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough in the other and the latest bestseller on the bedside table and I'll show you one quick recovery!) 

The point is....we've all used these adult band-aids. They are meant to hold things together temporarily. I've said before, the relationship didn't last forever, neither will the heartbreak.   The day you realize you might need a bandaid to fix your bandaid is the day you need to grab a cigarette, a brownie or two, maybe even an entire bottle of wine and head onto the back porch to relax for a while. Bandaids only work temporarily. When they start becoming a permanent fixture, you better take inventory and be sure you're ready for the long haul. Otherwise, rip that motherfucker off and toss it in the trash.

The Weekend In Review.....

So i read my last post....before writing this one.  Mediation was a total waste of time, just like I thought it would be and he was a total asshole, just like i thought he would be.  I wanted one thing and one thing only (for him to pay for my car payment) and even though I gave him the house and everything else, he still couldn't do that.  So after two and a half hours my lawyer (a/k/a my boss), stood up and said "Okay, tell him we'll see him in court." And with that, we left.  My boss did linger at the courthouse and did, again, run into STBX.  He said STBX needed a haircut. Again. Of course he does. I'm no longer there to tell him these things and apparently whatever trollop he's whoring around with doesn't have the wherewithal to tell him either. And that would mean they are a match made in heaven. Good for him. I left and called one of my friends and was telling her all about it.  She interrupted me at one point and said "I really expected you to be more upset." I wasn't. I didn't see him, granted, but he was literally, right there. I heard his voice. It didn't make me want to cry. It made me want to smother him and slit his throat simultaneously. I felt that was progress. . . . 

I guess right now you're proud of me, as I was of myself? Well.......

Saturday after my laptop finally bit the dust, I unpacked and set up the desktop I had bought back in August.  I had (thankfully) transferred all pics and music from said RIP laptop to an external hard drive. So I spent Saturday evening transferring music to the desktop.  Sunday, feeling IT accomplished, I remembered the external hard drive that STBX had given me post separation. The content? All docs and music from our "family" desktop.  I hooked it up (after many failed attempts in the past) and sure enough, it worked just fine. I started transferring THAT music over as well. I was going to have the most fully stocked music library ever! So as I am waiting for music to download/transfer/whatever, i notice the documents on there as well. I start clicking. THIS WAS A MISTAKE. The first thing I clicked was titled "Love Letter."  Okay, really? Shouldn't I have known better? ? ? ? ? Who was I kidding? It was a letter from 2001 that he had typed at about 5 in the morning.  He loved me, couldn't believe he'd found me, couldn't wait to live the rest of his life with me.  He would never let anything come between us.  He would take care of me and love me forever. 

Bullshit.

It has been a long time since I cried about him.  But I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. My cheeks felt hot. But I couldn't stop reading those words, in black and white, in front of me.  The problem wasn't reading the letter itself, but that I could, very much so, remember when i read that letter for the first time.  It was an overwhelming memory that took me by surprise and shook me to my core. I read it twice, the tears dripping down my face and falling onto my shirt. I finally stood up, surveyed the possibility of a smooth escape, and went out the back door. It was cold but sunny outside.  My children were engrossed in their video game and my boyfriend (luckily) was taking a nap.  I sat on those steps and I cried and cried and cried, sobbing into my own hands, feeling the breath escape me. I cried like I probably have needed to cry for some time. And after a while, I could hear the familiar sounds of my backyard over my own sniffles and sobs.  The sun was shining and it was warm on my face.  There were birds eating under the trees and squirrels chasing each other down by the storage house. And I took a moment to realize that I wasn't sitting there wishing all of this away (my yard and my house mean a LOT to me...) I was merely grieving those past feelings. It was 2001; that's a LONG time ago.  It's been a LONG time since I felt that close to him, and reading that letter may have been the first time I really had really remembered that part of us. . . . There was a time I felt that he loved me and a time I was positive I loved him.  There was a time when i truly felt, even foolishly naively, that he thought he was lucky to have me and appreciated me.  And remembering that made me suddenly and unwillingly deal with the divorce in a whole new perspective. I didn't like it. I didn't want to feel that way. I certainly did NOT want to shed a single tear for him.  But I did. And in the end, it felt good.  I may cry again. My best friend told me early on, "if you need to cry, then cry. The more you cry now, the less you will later."  Well I'm all for that.  If that is one less tear that falls over him in the long run, then all the better.  I've already wasted too much time on him.  As far as my mini-meltdown goes, I got caught by my children.  They are forever tracking me down and found me on the back porch, wiping away tears.  They sat down, one on each side of me. One put his arm around me, the other kissed my cheek.  We talked for a minute about what I had found and how it made me feel. I explained that it didn't  change anything. I was happy overall and I was certainly happy with our new life together, the three of us.  But I was sad.  They seemed to understand.  They sat there with me until I had pulled myself together, and they walked into the house behind me, as if to be sure I didn't relapse.  It was all very sweet. And I realized at that moment that these two 14 year olds had a more firm grasp on reality than the39 yr old STBX.  So no matter how you look at it, I really did get the best end of the deal.  I am happy.  I hate the uncertainty of my situation at this moment, but over all I am happy.  And no words outta his mouth at mediation, and no words in a letter from 9 years ago is going to change that.