A time to weep

To everything there is a season, and today it is my time to mourn, weep, and rend.

We're finalizing all of the paperwork, making sure we haven't missed anything, and Bryan has been so sharp and rude to me (and if I'm honest, I'm also feeling particularly vulnerable and susceptible so his usual barbs hurt more than usual) that this morning before work I shed a few tears.  I'm trying so hard to be gracious and compassionate, and it looks sometimes as if he's not trying at all, and it still hurts.

After all this time, it still hurts.

The child in me wants to say, "But aren't I being good?" even though the woman in me knows that such pleading will get me nowhere, and that my own sense of self is the only reassurance I should be seeking.

Today, I am allowing myself to feel the sting.  Today, it hurts.  Yes, I'm crafting a brilliant life, filled with love, joy, peace, integrity, friendship, nature, health....but today, I'm facing down the failure of my marriage.

Today is the last full day of my married life.  Today is the last full day that I carry this name.

Today is not a day to remind myself that the marriage wasn't a failure if it brought forth my glorious daughter.  Today is a day to mourn.

*****

Tomorrow I'm going running (yes, I've kept it up since November, and I'm getting stronger daily - I work out a minimum of four times per week now, often six times per week, once with a trainer and the rest mixing up running, yoga, small weights, etc.) and I intend to go faster, farther, harder than I've gone yet.  Usually I run and chat with my friends, but tomorrow I'm going to run ahead of them with my headset on and pound the pavement and listen to loud girl-power anthems.  I'll finish the run with "I will survive," an anthem of break-ups and cancer survivorship.

Then, I'm putting on my new outfit and getting it done.  I bought some fabulous, fabulous shoes and a knockout dress - one that makes me look like my body is nearly flawless (!) with curves in all the right places, but is still ladylike.  I will work a few hours in the morning, and then walk a few blocks to the courthouse to meet my friends, and complete the deal.  Tomorrow, I intend to be strong, powerful, feminine, and optimistic.  Tomorrow, I will be born again.

But today, I mourn.

*****

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

 

Thank you for your kind thoughts, prayers, light, and support.  It's a hard day.  I didn't want it to be hard any more, but there is no way around it.  Can't go over it, can't go under it, have to go through it.  Deep breaths...

Doormats

I am a feisty, sassy, in control, independent, strong woman.

That is why I am more surprised than anyone that I turned into such a doormat during my marriage.



I feared Bryan's temper - the way he would freeze me out, or yell at me, whenever I displeased him.  I didn't have to insult him to make him angry: I would just say, "Are you sure we can afford that?" or "Please don't speak to me in such an angry tone," and he'd go into his lizard brain, angry and cold, and over time I took on more and more behaviors to avoid provoking those responses.  I was the stereotypical frog in boiling water: when I first got in, the temperature wasn't too bad, and by the time I realized that it was boiling, I was nearly cooked.  In this way, I stopped saying, "That is not okay with me," as often as I should have, and I found myself in a marriage that was so broken that the only way to fix it was to get out.

I'm awake now.  My eyes are wide open, and I LOVE that I have my sassy streak back.  Not sassy in a "don't you talk to your mother that way!" kind of way, but in a playful, feisty, strong, in control way.  I love rediscovering my sassy self, whether it's reigniting my career, going on an adventurous road trip with my daughter, or just finding the courage to say, "My life is worth it, and I won't live like that any more," in response to my unhealthy marriage.

But in the midst of a divorce, I'm finding that it's still possible to fall into the old ways, and it's troubling.

Bryan has been borrowing my car.  Without asking.  He's been bringing Katherine to my house, without asking, and inviting her friends over here, and eating my food.  While I was gone, he slept in the guest room for a few days, saying that his place was too hot.

We had discussed the childcare schedule repeatedly, and he has repeatedly forgotten, and then acted like it was an inconvenience to him to watch his own child. (Need I remind you that he is being paid to sit on the bench?  And that I am working full time, and yet we're arranging childcare left and right, patching together a summer schedule?!)  When I came home from vacation, he acted as if he was shocked that he was on duty for 24 hours, even though he hadn't seen his child in 10 days.  What's worse than that is that when I tried to gently remind him of our conversations about the schedule, he was snarky and rude in response, and when I said, "I don't think Katherine needs to hear this, could we talk about it later?" he was rude again.



Okay, so he's rude.  This is no surprise, and I don't want to waste my life thinking about it any more.  But what I do need to figure out is this: how do I avoid nasty fights (especially in front of our daughter!) while sticking to my guns?  It is NOT okay for him to spend time in my house without me.  Our agreement is that if Katherine forgets something, she can come over here with him to pick it up, but NOT hang out here.  And do I really have to say "get out of my fridge!" and "stay away from my car!" again?!

I can't imagine what he would do if I went over to his place to hang out.  I don't know why I'd even consider it, and yet he keeps coming here....even to sleep here when I was gone.

But I hate the fighting.  And I hate it worst of all when it's in front of Katherine, who doesn't deserve that in her life.

My current plan is to document this stuff and then bring it up in front of the mediator.  At close to $300/hour that is a very expensive plan, but I can't think of a better one. 




Readers, do you have advice?  Please do not advise me to speak using "I statements" and using positive language; please do not advise me to use non-inflammatory language and stick to only the facts; please do not advise me to have these conversations in email so that it's non-emotional in tone and there is a record of who said what.  I'm way ahead of you there, I'm doing that, but still I need to confirm things, and still we need to communicate, and still, these exchanges continue to be a bit ugly.  I could understand why Bryan would get upset with me if my conversations went "You asshole, we talked about this seven times last week, can't you get it through your thick head that you agreed to take Katherine tomorrow while I'm at work?" but I do not understand why when I say, "I have you down for taking Katherine tomorrow, does that still work?" he instantly gets defensive and short with me, acts like we've never had the conversation and that I'm suddenly imposing on him (never mind that it's HIS daughter too!). I don't want to get in fights....


I'm not a doormat.  I'm Wonder Woman.  Really.

But I don't just want to take it, either.  Being a doormat doesn't suit me.  I do NOT wish his dirty feet upon me.  And he can't act like he lives here and he's not granted a free pass to bail on his daughter just by saying "Well, I forgot" whenever he feels like it.

So - during divorce, how do you keep it out of mediation or litigation, and encourage civil conversations?  How do you deal with an ex's amnesia regarding agreements?  How do I point out "here is the email thread where you agreed to all of this!" without adding fuel to the fire?

How do you stay out of the doormat pose? 

Am I alone in this?  I'd love to hear what you have to say - thanks.

Nesting

I am a nester.  My home is truly my sanctuary, and no matter how much I like flitting around in the big wide world, I'm always glad to come home.  At the end of an adventure - be that travel or simply a workday - I love walking up my front steps and coming into the familiar that is my home nest.

Which means that things have been a bit taxing lately.


I have a rather large desire for calm in my life.  Given that life is usually more chaotic than calm - deadlines! school projects! sickness! - I have always carved out time to come home and just "be" in my home.  Out in the world, people blow smoke as I walk down the street, and there are car horns, and there is so much rushing about, but in my own small sanctuary there are dishes lined up neatly in the cupboard and a pretty quilt on the bed and that little piece of art that I just love so much, and these small things add up to an oasis that I depend upon to keep my sanity.

Splitting up our house and its oasis-qualities is messing with my sanity.

Right now, things are in piles.  There is giant pile in the basement of kitchen items ready for Bryan to pack.  There are stacks of framed pictures.  There's an extra dresser, picked up for a song from Craigslist, halfway blocking a hallway.  There are half empty cupboards in spots.

Not cozy.  Not Zen.  Not an oasis.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day dealing with beds.  Bryan loves the style of "our" bedset, and since I don't, and I don't really want to sleep in "our" bed, he's taking it.  This, however, leaves me bedless.  And Katherine needs beds in both homes, and so needed a second bed.

A lot of problems can be solved by throwing money at them.  I can not tell you how much I have longed to go online, point and click, and then have somebody show up at my door with my desired items - including beds - in hand.  No such luck.

Instead, I've been hunting around Craigslist for suitable items.  Katherine requested bunkbeds, and though this doubles the cost (double mattresses, double bedding) of getting her a bed, and though I don't particularly relish climbing a ladder to change her sheets or read her stories, I recognized this as an opportunity to give her what she most desires, a positive outcome of the divorce (in her mind; she's wanted bunkbeds for ages but I kept telling her she had a perfectly good bed) in a sea of negative changes, and I agreed to it.  It turns out that bunkbeds are the most popular item ever on Craigslist, and I've spent a week sending messages to listings and not even hearing back because they're gone within minutes.

But finally, a friend of a friend came through - they had bunkbeds they were selling.  I enlisted my parents' help, and their truck, for hauling the beds.  And since I had them, I scrambled to find a bedframe/headboard on Craigslist for myself.  I couldn't bear used mattresses, so then we had to figure out cheap solutions to that problem.

Yesterday, my father and I disassembled beds and piled them in the basement next to the other piles.  I dealt with the under-bed dust bunnies.  I learned how to build bunkbeds.  I discovered that the bedframe I'd just purchased for myself was incomplete, and then spent some time spinning in circles trying to fix it. (Not fixed.  My boxspring is currently sitting on the floor, and last night I just hoped that the headboard didn't fall on top of me, because it's just leaning against the wall.)  And then I spent more money, because Katherine needed an extra set of bedding for the extra bed, involving heading out again to go to a handful of stores.

My nest has been a wreck from all of this chaos.  The basement looks like a cyclone has gone through it.

And my dishwasher broke, and suddenly I'm hand washing everything.

And there appears to be a leak by the chimney.

I am not managing this well.  I'm tired, and grumpy, and I want to have a tantrum.  Make it right!  Fix it!  Give me back my order and calm!

Bryan moves out in two weeks.  A month from now, we'll both have calm, because I will run around getting things done to make it happen.  I will keep reorganizing cupboards, I will collect hand-me-downs from friends to fill in the gaps, I will spend money buying necessities where there are no hand-me-downs.  By mid-July, it will be orderly again.  In a time of life that is chaotic, I cling to my small bits of order to keep me afloat, and I'm craving mid-July.

Praying I can hold on that long!


PS  Adding to my nesting troubles is the fact that ever since the great tree issue, my neighbors haven't spoken to me.  The city announced that even if I wanted one they would not grant a permit to remove the trees, and now the neighbors studiously avoid looking in my direction.  Not sure what I'm going to do about this, but it does make it awkward when we're all in our yards!  I'm very glad to keep my trees - ah, looking up to admire them now - but not happy about continued neighbor drama, even of the stony silent variety.