For those of you that have read us since the beginning of this blog know that I am a divorced mother of two. Jen and I have been together for four plus years. Next week I will be turning forty five and as I have gotten older, and yes, wiser, I’ve learned a few things about myself. First off, according to Jennifer I have no filter on my mouth. True, I believe that if I’m going to say something to someone or about someone it should be the truth. Jens always telling me “FILTER!” or my kids are like “mom, that’s not very nice”. Well it may not be filtered and it may not be very nice but for sure it’s the truth. So yes, sometimes the truth hurts but better to be honest than sugar coat.
Moving on. I’ve always been honest with my kids about why their father and I ended up divorcing. He wasn’t happy, and if you’re not happy ya gotta go. So he went. For any of you that have been through a breakup or ended a relationship know that you kinda go through all of these emotions. It’s funny, I always think of it as an AA meeting, not that I’ve ever been to one, but apparently there are all these steps that you go thru, denial, anger, and acceptance. Wait, maybe it’s not AA but death. Oh well. Either way you look at it, it’s the end of something. Now you can either accept it and move on and be grateful for what’s left or wallow in self pity for what was lost. I chose to move on. There was nothing that I could do about the past but I certainly could do something about the future.
My ex husband is not a bad guy. He has this niceness about him, something that drew me to him in the first place. We met in 1992. I was a store manager and we had a mutual friend that I had gone to high school with but we didn’t know each other. My friend called and said he had a friend that had just gotten out of the service and needed a job. I said ok, send him over. He was this skinny kid with a crew cut, very well mannered and polite. I had been dating someone else at the time for almost two years. But as I got to know this kid the more I realized he had a lot of potential and for anyone that has read this blog knows, I love a good project. And I think that’s what I saw him as, a project. So as we worked together and got to know each other better I came to realize that one day that was the kind of guy I wanted. Little did I know.
My relationship with the guy that I had been dating had begun to falter and I was very unhappy. By now, I’ve already begun to have feelings for my ex, who was eyeing up dating a friend of mine that also worked with us. So what do I do? I purposely fix up my friend with my ex so I can get him off the market and still kinda hang out with him and my friend because that’s what we would do. Work together all day, hang out together all night. So my devious little plan begins to work. I start the breakup process with my boyfriend so by the time I’m done with it my ex and my friend will have run their course and he will be mine for the taking. Jen hates when I say this but I always get what I want. So my little plan goes off without a hitch. And yes, I know it was a shitty thing to do to my friend, but I wanted him.
I can remember asking him one day what he wanted out of life. “Everything”, he said. I said I can give you everything and he said ok, let’s try this. So we began dating and after four months we were living together, engaged after eight months and married a year and a half later.
Long story short, gave him everything, still wasn’t happy, divorced after ten years. We will be divorced six years this coming September. He is remarried with a new baby and believe it or not, I couldn’t be happier for him. Yes, happy for my ex husband and his new life. See, along with this age you come to realized that there’s nothing more counterproductive than anger over things you can’t change. My ex husband and I have a friendly relationship. I think at times we get along better now than we ever did before. But it took a long time to get to this point. Like I said earlier, you go though all these emotions and you blame yourself for failing at the biggest thing you may ever do in your life…to promise to love and cherish someone til death do you part. Epic fail….and trust me, I haven’t failed at many things that I have attempted in my life so far. But I blew this, and yes I take a lot of the blame for the failure of my marriage. My husband was unhappy and looking back, I don’t blame him. Our marriage had turned into a finely tuned machine. We were team mates not life mates. We fell out of love and he was the one brave enough to say he wanted out. I’m sure I was unhappy but didn’t even realize it. I always say it’s hard to see the big picture when you’re standing in it. Once I stepped out of it I could look at it with clear eyes and vision, seeing all the imperfections and flaws that I had seemingly glassed over in hopes of not failing.
As I said, he’s a good guy. He has pissed me off a few times since then. Things that he would never question me on, he will sometimes give me slack about. The thing is I know it’s not coming from him but the new wife. I know this guy; I spent twelve years of my life with him. Since the day he left I have respected his life, never interfering like crazy ex wives do. He has always had access to our girls, seeing them every other weekend and a week during the summer. He’s a good dad for the most part. I say for the most part because he has done some shitty things to our oldest as far as reading text messages and infiltrating her blog site where she would go to vent but I know he only did it because he has her best interest at heart. He has this new little daughter that I relish seeing when he picks up or drops off our two on the weekends he has them. I actually give him a hard time when he doesn’t bring her. I love babies and she looks just like my youngest with big blue eyes and that strawberry blond hair. I look at her and I feel this calmness come over me, knowing that she is a part of my children and they are a part of me, of him and I. Jen doesn’t understand how it doesn’t bother me that he’s moved on and not only moved on but has another family now. Why should it bother me, he has his life, I have mine. I have two beautiful, smart, funny daughters. My oldest recently told me that she has always respected the fact that since her father left I have never interfered in his life. She forgets he has never interfered in mine.
I think sometimes I’ve become the person that my ex wanted all along….minus the gay part, lol. I’m not as rigid as I once was; I relish my time with Jen doing the silliest things. I think maybe that was all he wanted. But I lost my way and in the end we lost us. Jen has definitely made me realize that I’m entitled to have a life and be happy. We went for dinner the other night and all she wanted to do afterwards was drive down to this little area and stare at the skyline of nyc. Fifteen years ago I would have argued that that was a ridiculous waste of time. Now, it’s the small things that I remember, I take time to just sit in silence with the girl that I love and just be. No words need to be spoken, just a moment frozen it time to reflex on how far I’ve come.
ps sorry for the font size...my eyes have gone to shit!
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