Family Party

We went to his brother's house yesterday for a party. It was pretty good since only the siblings and an aunt from out of town (the reason for the party) were there. I had a long talk with his SIL about the situation at home. She kept interrupting me to tell me how bad it was to live with the MIL - as if I didnt know that. I wasnt sure if that was just self-absorption under her current situation of living with the MIL or if she didnt want to hear what I had to say. I decided it was the first since I persisted and she became involved in my story.

She was very supportive. She couldnt believe what he said about our youngest. It hurts me even to think about it but I cant stand the thought of everyone believing this big facade he wears - Mr Nice Guy - she even told me in the beginning that staying with him wouldnt be too bad because he is a kind person. I had to enlighten her on that.

I dont know what I had hoped to gain by telling her except its a relief not to have to pretend. I wouldnt respond anymore to his pretense of caring that he pulls at parties - here, have some of this food, and other little things - a thousand words more than he ever says at home to me. Or the kids.

Hairy situation

Yesterday my eldest went to Homecoming with his girlfriend.As usual, his father was totally uninvolved. When my eldest came home with his girlfriend so I could take pics, he took fifteen min to come into the room to greet her. And, when he finally did, he was wearing only shorts.


Picture this without a shirt on.

His fat hairy chest and man-boobs preceeding him. No pride at all. He said it was okay because last time she came here our son said it was fine to greet her without a shirt on.

It was disgusting.

I had to tell him not to do that in the future. I've known his brother for 20 years and I have yet to see him without a shirt on. Unless you are at the beach or pool, there is no reason for that. Its disrespectful.

Advice

I had lunch yesterday with my friend to discuss her ideas as to my predicament.

One piece of advice was the same as Mother's: stay together as long as you can take it or until you can graduate.

Her suggested strategy was I view him as a housemate. We dont sleep together or have any life together outside of forced visits to his family when it comes up - which fortunately isnt often. So instead of viewing it as "hanging in there", she said view it as a necessary arrangement I've made to keep my house and finances together for the sake of the kids. It actually seems the same - except he doesnt have any responsiblities at home like a housemate probably would.


So I'm going to combine that with Mother's advice that I just act however I feel.

If I want to be friendly, I am. If I dont care, I dont care. And, yesterday, I avoided a trap - he was heavily engaged in conversation with someone about ratings. I was going to ask him afterwards what it meant to him but decided not to. I cant control it and I just have to sit back and go wherever it takes me. No use making myself aggravated by wasting an entire afternoon listening to him for two hours whine and moan and observe how unfair ratings are.


I'm learning!

Stupid!

Squander not time for that is the stuff life is made of.

He LOVES to talk about the state of our marriage. I have learned to avoid these conversations but was inadvertantly sucked up in one on Sunday. He wasted TWO hours of my time. He brought up the car again and how we wont move closer to his work and how I wouldnt move when he wanted to go to various and sundry jobs out-of-state and how he has "his reasons" for not talking to anyone at family parties. And how he thought I would learn to live with his parents peacefully when he ignored my demand they leave even though we had spent two years trying to learn to live with his parents peacefully and 16 years later we still cant live with them peacefully.

Amazing

Both that I got sucked up into it
and
that he feels this way.

And he thinks that acknowledging that he was entirely at fault in the ruin of our marriage means that we move on from here.

Still amazing me

Sunday, he moved our oldest's car out to the street because it was blocking him. An hour later, I went upstairs and saw cars going around it - he had parked it in the middle of the lane roughly three feet from the curb. I had to run out and move it before we got a ticket.

I'm amazed, after all these years, he still can find new outrageous things to do.

Thick or ???

I asked him yesterday morning when he gets rated. Yesterday afternoon, while I was preparing dinner (he came home early), he wanted to know why I wanted to know about the time he gets rated. I told him I just wanted to know since it seemed it was done in August/September other times. He pointed out I was never interested in that before. Which is true. And he is not as out of it as he seems.

He must realize that things are not going to get better. No one is that thick. I cant understand why he doesnt end it himself.


Mother thinks he is content to stay this way because it doesnt require anything of him. But she thinks he will be much happier once we cut the cord.

**** long sigh ****

I've decided to wait until he gets rated at work. This way he'll have a month or so to act up and not have it affect us too much. I'll just have to wait. I have more than myself to consider.


I'll see to this in November.

Aaaaarrrrrgh!

I've had it! I can no longer bear living this lie. I want to be free to have a new relationship. I'm sick of being almost 50 yrs old and sleeping with my two kids. (He wont even trade beds with me tho the girls are getting rather large for us all to fit in a full size bed.) I'm tired of being alone all the time. There is no loneliness like being with someone and still being alone. I want things settled. I dont want to deal with his temper tantrums and interference. I'm tired of talking about the future in the abstract. I want a relationship where the other person actually likes me, is happy to see me and wants to be with me. I'm anxious to move on and try my luck elsewhere. And being alone is better than this.

Its time to take action. I can not last two more years. And I've had a recent change of heart re: my schooling and now we might be looking at three years. I simply cannot do it. I made an appt with his/my therapist to see how to best handle this.

Entering the waters

I saw a friend yesterday who has recently gone through a divorce. Her immediate advice:

Try to stick it out until you are done with school.

I am going to call her to get together next week to see how I should handle this. She told me she made tons of mistakes and didnt plan well. One thing I know. She is always struggling financially. She told me "Prepare to be poor."

I think her ex makes the same as mine. Probably a little less. But he plays a lot of games with the money. I dont think mine is the type to hold back checks, etc. - he's more the type to get automatic withdrawal. But we'll see.

I told my oldest I'm done. He also advised me to finish up school. He said I've waited so long, why not wait another two years?

Had it!

At the end of it!

I decided I just cannot live this way, no matter what the benefits. And, legally, I can keep enough of the benefits coming - my only benefits in this relationship are financial - until I finish up my two years.

First, I cant live with someone who can say that about our youngest. Second, MI really opened my eyes. I was able to observe all sorts of caring relationships between husbands/wives, and boyfriends/girlfriends. I got to have, in my face, the fact that I am unloved and unable to find another because of my current tie.

I called his/my therapist and am meeting with her in a little more than a week to discuss how to best proceed.

Vente Mens

I have to use my mental powers to transcend his existence.

MI

was a blast! I got a full taste of how good life is when I do not have to interact with the S.O. for a couple of days consecutively. I didnt return his two phone calls - one about the IPOD and one to touch base. Told him I didnt have coverage. We swam and boated and hiked. Played with the dogs. Road golf carts and drove scooters. Ate out. Just had a wonderful time with my family.


How sweet it is!

Never Again

I thought that being involved in my school would help me to make it through whats left of the two years. In fact, I have even less than that because I can tell him to leave the summer before I work (assuming I have a contract to teach.) So, in reality, we are talking, say, 21 or even 20 months. I thought it would be easy. I never expected yesterday to happen. I quite upset me though I didnt show him.

From now on, if he is still home when I'm home for the afternoon, I'll just zip on by, buy my lunch somewhere, and head to the library. If I must, I'll stop by and pick up some of my school books and leave right away. Lunch at home and a short movie is not worth getting upset and getting crabby with my kids and having a huge headache. I let his actions ruin my Friday and there is no reason to do that.

Looking to Lunch

I had to enter this before I leave for MI. Kids are all asnooze. I have some work to do but am going to get this in before I get started on the day.

I love Fridays. I have one class and nothing else. I can come home, have a nice lunch, watch 30 min of a movie and have a leisurely tea and dessert before starting my studying. Yesterday, I came home and to my horror his car was still in the driveway.

Well, I figured if he had died overnite I would have a great deal of difficulty keeping up with next week's classes. And if he had a massive stroke I would have to check on him in the hospital. Another inconvenience.

Instead, he was sitting at the table, working when I walked in. Minor relief on my part. He told me he had eaten a late breakfast - the smell of toast was in the air. So I proceeded to make my lunch and head into the front room to watch "Sudden Fear".

Five minutes into my sacred time, he enters the front room and sits down in a chair. He starts to talk to me AGAIN about how when you try too hard, and it dont work out, things are just not meant to work out. Because of the examples he brought up (one of which absolutely infuriated me), I knew he wasnt talking about our marriage. Which is too bad as it is my belief that if he ends it, he will not quit his job which is the only reason I'm still here. He tells me how no matter what job he works at it just doesnt work out. I reminded him I've heard this a thousand times. He tells me how everything is not working out - our marriage, his work, his relationship with the kids, and then launches into an example that infuriated me. He told me that our struggle to have kids after the first due to secondary infertility was another bust because our youngest had a stroke in utero and is a very mild hemiplegiac. Now, very mild means she plays soccer, can swim, is in the top of her class cognitively, and has to do regular therapy. In other words, no problem except therapy takes any time and none of it takes his time.

Anyway, he tried to tie this to "someone is trying to tell me something." Tho what they would be trying to tell him is beyond me since its his entire life. I told him I think the issue is not whether someone is trying to tell him something but rather since all areas of his life are in failure mode, he, himself, is a problem.


So he ignores this and tells me we couldnt afford it if he changes jobs. I, being what I am but controlling my "get involved" instincts and thinking that if this is satisfactory I might end up playing another version of "Imminent Financial Disaster", told him that he should look at the budget, figure out what we need (since its already done but not totalled for essentials, and decide how low a job he could take. It goes from there. But I refuse to get involved - tho I was considerate and shut off the tv at the beginning.

He starts to rant about how I should know that figure, how he is sure many essentials are missing from the budget, etc. I remind him I sent him the budget via email three months ago - he did try to say he has been working 18 hr days for the past month but it was THREE months ago. That we went through the budget for one month and missed one month and everythign seemed to be there. He got up and stalked off telling me that we simply cant communicate.

So then he is sitting in the family room and I am explaining to him about how the budget has all the essentials, how I know, etc. He doesnt look up from his phone. So I ask him if he is listening. He said he is ignoring me. Amazing. I have never done that.

Cant Wait!

This is my last blog entry until next week. We (the girls and I) are heading out to MI with Mother and YB's family for three days and two nites of fun in the sun at YB's cottage.

No housework. No responsiblity for feeding my horde. Fun with people I both love and like. Get to miss a party with the worst of the bores in his family on Saturday. And best of all..

No SO!


Who could ask for more?

School Days

We had Curriculum Night yesterday for our middle child.
He was miffed I didnt tell him about it. Actually, I didnt even think to tell him since he has been totally involved with work. So I told him about the youngest's Curriculum Night which is next week. He was going to go except he had to feel free to take phone calls from work and leave to shout at people over the phone out in the school playground. Well, since that means he potentially will miss the information (not to mention shaming us with his public behavior of not caring where he is when work calls) he had to admit he cant go.

And since this would have applied to last nite's meeting, it didnt matter whether he knew about it or not.