alright, so here i am again, up way later than i really should be, unable to convince myself to sleep, because once again, there is no one but me in my bed. i'm really getting sick of this living alone thing. get this... i'm so desperate for company, i asked my ex out to dinner! this is not necessarily a surprising thing, its an amicable split, and we're better friends now than we ever were. so i suppose here is where i give the intimate details of my previous marriage and why it ended... although, i know my ex reads this blog... so i'm reluctant to say too much. eh fuk it. its not like any of it would be a shock to him... i mean, i'm not going to say anything here that he hasnt already heard.
okay, so i met my ex just after i graduated high school... where? oh well thats the fun part. in a chat room! yes yes, i know, incredibly geeky and nerdy of me right? well you know, i've always been pretty much of a shy awkward introvert, so meeting people in chat rooms is just about the only way i meet people except through work or school. anyway... so we went out for a couple months... and by going out, i mean i spent the weekend with him at his parents house just about every weekend. i loved him. i still do actually. but unfortunately, it wasnt the right kind of love i guess. he asked me to marry him, and me being the delusional barely adult that i was, said yes, because i thought that this was as good as it was going to be, because i didn't know anything about love, or relationships thanx to my dysfunctional divorced parents and their messed up families, because i was deathly afraid of being alone, and i thought that marrying someone i loved would fix that.
before we actually got married though, i got pregnant. well, that will happen when one is young, and stupid, and thinks they're going to be spending the rest of their life with someone. we didnt get married then either, but we did move in together, and have our baby, and play house for almost a year. then of course, shit happened, and being young and stupid and poor on top of it, we moved into his parents house, whereupon we did actually get married. we stayed there way too long. way way too long. and love eventually turned into resentment. i blamed him for where i was, for how things were, for my own misconceptions. we fought. and fought. and fought. until the fighting spilled over into fighting with his family too, and i finally got a job, and we moved out.
it was great while we were both working, and had a place of our own. blissful almost. we never saw eachother, and therefore, didnt fight. i found my niche at work, and stayed happy there, loving my job, loving that it meant i didnt have to see my husband during the day. i gloried in the fact that i was only working part time, and i was making just as much, if not more, than he was. i gloried in the fact that i was becoming self sufficient. and then he shattered the little bit of trust i had in him, and told me that he'd lied to me, that he'd hidden something from me, that when we were first going out, he'd read my journal. i know, that doesnt sound like a huge deal right? well, to me it was. i am an extremely private person. my feelings are my feelings, and i dont typically share them with anyone. (this blog is a huge exception to that particular rule... but then, i've been breaking that rule a lot lately. long story, meant for another post at another time). my journal was the only place i felt safe putting all those stray thoughts and feelings that i couldnt share anywhere else. it was my outlet, my sanctuary. and he shattered that. he took that outlet from me, stole my sanctuary and defiled it, and had the gall to question me about what i'd written... to me, it was tantamount to rape. (yes that is a very strong word. i know it. i used it on purpose. if y'all have a problem with it, thats your problem, keep it to yourself). i didnt feel safe anymore. i couldnt trust him anymore. and i couldnt write anymore.
then he lost his job. and i went to work full time, in the same job, still loving it. he stayed home with our son, and played housewife for a while. and that was okay too, for a while... until i started to wonder why, if he was playing housewife, the dishes didnt get done, and the laundry didnt get washed, and the toys didnt get picked up... all the while, my job was getting more and more intense, more and more stressful, and i still had to come home and cook dinner, and take care of the bills, and push him to do the things that (i felt) he would do on his own if he really gave a shit about me. mainly, get a job. i started to feel used. and i suppose, to a degree, i was. but only because i let myself be. so we fought some more. and some more. and some more. and we stopped sleeping together. and then we stopped talking much at all. and it was like living alone... except, i wasnt alone... and that just made it worse.
i felt neglected, unappreciated, unloved, unwanted, and used. and i started to realize that i didnt really need him. nor did i really want him anymore either. i realized i had settled, out of fear, out of a desire to have someone take care of me. but i could take care of myself. i was taking care of him! not the other way round.
pretty soon things were just so bad, so distant, so lacking, that i asked for a divorce... which he reluctantly agreed to. he still loved me, he said. but i didnt believe that. not one bit. so i pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and made him agree. well... a couple months after that, i did the whole getting scared of being alone thing again, and changed my mind... asked for an open relationship for a while instead, because neither of us was giving eachother what we needed... and he agreed to that, again, reluctantly. but after a while, he found a girlfriend. and everything was good... for a while. until he spent valentines day weekend with her... and decided that now he wanted a divorce.
i was tired of fighting. i was tired of hurting. i was tired, of everything. i wasnt afraid of being alone anymore, i had guy friends, plenty of them. and they all treated me better than he did. so i agreed... he filed papers, a friend of ours served me with them, and immediately my ex and i stopped fighting. the pressure was off. we werent stuck with eachother for the rest of our lives. it was okay if we disagreed, because we were going our separate ways. and it was okay with me that he didnt do the stuff he was supposed to do, because i didnt have to put up with it much longer, and knowing that, i could deal with it for another little while.
so now i'm just waiting for those last few pieces of paper with the cusody agreements and financial dissolutions to be signed... and it will all be over. done with. finished. i'm happy with that. we get along great now. we talk, about just about everything, my boyfriend, his girlfriend (or lack thereof at the moment), our son... especially our son... and i've been able to see all the mistakes we made for what they were, and see him for what he really is, and not blame him anymore. we were never really meant to be anything more than friends... i can see that now, and we're both better for my realization. i love him, and always will, but as a friend. someone who i've been through some of the worst moments of my existance with, someone who i've shared some of the best moments of my existance with. he really is a good guy at heart. a great one even. and a wonderful dad. i dont think anyone could ask for a better dad actually. i wish my dad had been as attentive, and caring, and loving to me as my ex is to our son. my ex just wasnt the right guy for me. i needed what he couldnt give me. and he needed what i couldnt give him. no matter how much either of us wanted to give those things to the other.
so that is the readers digest version of my failed marriage. a happy ending, even if its not the generally preferred one. and one that has taught me a lot about myself, and allowed me the insight i need to avoid making the same stupid mistakes twice.
i am lonely... yes... miserably so... (previously mentioned boyfriend is deployed in iraq)...but maybe its only transient. maybe, if i let myself get used to it, i might end up liking myself, and liking being by myself.
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