A Decade Ago...

The year that was the greatest turning point in my life was 2003.  Everything monumental happened that year, everything that shaped my life into what it is today.  2002 had been a rough year.  I truly started to wake up to the realities of my first marriage's decline, and had to open my eyes to see things were not good.  W's drug use was growing, his abuse was more frequent and turning somewhat violent, his friends were starting to back away from him, and his voluntary unemployment was increasing.  Now I can look back and say, it was all caused by his own self-hate.  But at the time, I didn't understand that concept. After booking several appointments with marriage counselors- and always canceling because he refused to go- I had to admit defeat finally.  No matter what I did, nothing was going to change our relationship and make it better, because W was not going to change or get the help he needed.

So in 2003 I gave up.  At the start of that year, I just took a deep breath and told myself, to hell with him it was time to start worrying about ME and taking care of myself.  I wasn't really sure where the marriage was going to go.  I had no more energy left to get behind the two of us and try to keep pushing us along the uphill road we were on.  He had never made the effort at all.  I only had enough oomph in my reserve tank to barely drag myself along.  I vowed that in 2003, I was going to stop being the one always trying to make it work, always making plans for us, always finding ways to keep us together as a couple.  I was going to sit back and see if he even noticed I was pulling away from him and if he did, was he going to do anything about it to try and win me back into the marriage. The answer didn't surprise me.  He didn't notice any of the changes in me, or he did and he just didn't care.  Everything that happened in 2003, I would say to myself, okay this is it, I'm done, this is the final straw for me.  But I would keep plugging along, hopeful.

The crap started out early in the year.  I had already booked a vacation for us months before, a cabin in the mountains for a week.  He spent the entire time getting high, as he did every normal day, only something as trivial as a job was not interrupting him that week.  On the return drive he realized he left his baggie at the cabin, when we were two states away and almost home.  He spent the rest of the trip alternating between screaming profanities while beating on the steering wheel, and bawling his eyes out.  This was my husband, who could barely grunt words of civility to me at home, but he was now crying real heartbreaking tears over a lost bag of pot.  And I was trapped in a car with this overly emotional lunatic. Unbelievable.  No wonder when I asked him to choose between me or his drugs, he would not give up his drugs.  He obviously was more addicted to the weed than he was his wife.  And loved it more than he did me.

2003 is also the year many of my health issues started.  I've always had asthma and I keep it in control with medication, but one night around midnight I woke up with an asthma attack so severe, my inhaler wasn't helping.  I was gulping for air.  When I tried to get W to take me to the hospital, he went berserk because I woke him up, and he bluntly suggested I either call 911 or drive myself to the ER.  (He finally got up and took me to the hospital but continued to bitch at me the entire time, and complained because he would be "tired" the next day at work.)  Okay, another asshole point for him.  My shit list was just starting to grow. Not long after that, I had a kidney stone, but at the time I just knew I had awful pains in my side.  My doctor sent me to the hospital for tests and a CT scan. Surprisingly W took me that time, although it was not with love and concern that he sat with me while I waited for results.  He just kept watching the clock and griping as it got later and later in the evening and he was still there with me.

That summer, I started to have chest pains and sharp back pains- I will say this was a pain unlike anything I'd ever had in my entire life.  The first time it happened was late at night, and remembering the asthma incident, I quietly slipped into the living room and sat on the couch by myself, convinced I was having a heart attack and not knowing what to do.  After awhile the pain subsided, but the attacks grew in frequency and pain level.  The worst attack happened while I was grocery shopping, and I had to walk away from a full cart and leave the store.  Then I started running high fevers, and was throwing up bile one morning.  It finally dawned on me what was happening, and I asked W to take me to the hospital.  He insisted he had to get to work- this from the man who preferred to sit at home and smoke and collect unemployment checks that he used to buy more pot while I paid all the bills.  I drove myself to the walk-in clinic near our house.  Sure enough, it was my gallbladder.  They told me to get to the ER as soon as possible.  Even though I was sitting at the hospital again, W couldn't be bothered to be there with me.

I scheduled my surgery to remove the gallbladder a few days later and that morning, W dropped me off at the hospital.  Yes, I said dropped me off.  He stayed only the few minutes it took them to get me settled in a room, then he left.  I'd never had surgery before, never even had an IV before, but I was just there alone and trying not to be afraid, waiting to be rolled into the operating room.  Late that afternoon, when I came out of recovery and was put in my own room, he wasn't there and didn't show up for hours.  He said he met a friend for lunch and they were at a sports bar, and he lost track of time.  Really?  What kind of husband dumps his wife at the hospital to undergo surgery, and simply forgets about her while he's shooting pool and drinking beer?  My ex was that kind of husband.  Friends came by my house all week long to drop off casseroles and to check on me, because they knew that while I recovered at home, I was not being taken care of.  And they were right.

And a month later, when a routine mammogram discovered a lump in my breast, he could not even bother to accompany me to my biopsy and more than that, he did not come with me the day I went to get my results (negative thankfully).  Friends begged to come with me to my appointments, but I put up a brave front and brushed aside their offers, thinking my husband would finally be worried into caring about me. My mother had survived breast cancer a few years prior to that, but I can still remember the days before I got my results- me sitting in my little bedroom crying uncontrollably and W, just on the other side of the wall, would sit there and watch TV, ignoring me like a callous toad.  I say "my" little bedroom because W and I had already stopped sleeping together in the same bed by then.  I don't remember when or why it happened, it was just sort of a mutual decision.  On the few nights he did come sleep in our bed, we had separate comforters so that we didn't have to touch, even on accident.  And in the middle of the night if he rolled over towards me, I can remember kicking him. Hard. Yes, really.

After I got my results, I didn't even call him to let him know it was negative.  I had just received some of the most important news of my life, and I was there alone.  In the parking lot, sitting in my car with the phone in my hand, I knew he didn't care and I wasn't going to waste the energy giving him the news.  That night at home, he didn't even ask how the appointment had gone.  At that moment, not only did my lightbulb come on, it exploded.  I hated him.  I could not be married to him anymore.  I could not, and would not, spend the rest of my life with this man.  At that time, I was only 36, I had a LONG life ahead of me.  The idea of being with W for another 40 or so years, made me want to vomit.  He didn't deserve me.  I didn't deserve to be treated that way by anyone.  I wanted someone who was going to love me and want to be with me.  If I didn't get out of the marriage and get on with my life soon, I was afraid I never would.

I felt I was still young enough for a second chance, and in 2003 I had been working all year long on myself and I'd lost 80 pounds.  I was starting to reach out to new friends, starting to enjoy normal routines like coffee out with girlfriends.  I was finally making a salary I could live on, alone if need be.  Instead of always worrying about "our" house, I started spending some of my money on new clothes finally.  I felt vibrant and alive, and once I mentally made the commitment to dump my toxic partner, I felt optimistic for the first time in a very long time.  I just didn't know what to do as far as correcting the mistake that was my marriage. I would literally pray that W would be the one to leave me, and make it easier on me, but it never happened.

We had been together eleven years at this point, and this was the first time either of us had suffered any major illness.  He'd never had to step up to the plate for me before, and he had multiple chances in 2003 to come to my side, be my hero, show me he cared.  At the time of my breast lump my parents, who lived 700 miles away, had us drive down to meet them in a town that was almost halfway, so they could gift W with a fairly new pickup truck (they had just bought a newer one and decided to "help" us out- and wouldn't you know it that selfish jerk bitched because we had to drive part of the way to go get it instead of my parents driving the 1400 miles roundtrip to just drop it at our door).  At lunch that day my mom repeatedly asked me what was wrong with me, she could see how I was barely tolerating being at the same table as W.  I lied and told her I was just still stressed out about the biopsy and the impending results.

And by Christmas in 2003, my parents came to visit and both realized there was something seriously wrong with us.  They pretended not to notice the patches in the drywall, where I had hastily tried to cover up the many holes caused by W's fist as he came at me angrily about one perceived slight or another.  He would corner me and punch the wall right beside my head, as if to prove he could easily beat me up but was showing his benevolence by tearing up our house instead. Christmas morning, before going out into the living room to open presents with my folks, I calmly but firmly told W I wanted a divorce and I wanted him out of the house.  I know, a crappy holiday gift to give him, but with my family's presence I felt stronger and felt sure that I was making the right decision for myself and for my future.

And when W told me he didn't realize there were any problems with our marriage and he was shocked to hear that I was unhappy (why hadn't I ever bothered to say something to him about my misery, he demanded to know, instead of "blindsiding" him with this sudden news), I knew I had made the right choice.  If that man thought we had a happy marriage and our relationship was wonderful, then I definitely had no business whatsoever being married to him any longer.

So much more on this story and the year 2003, but I'll save it for another post.

MISS GEE

(The sunny view from my little front porch back in those dark days.)

11.44 - By Unknown 0

Shadows

I am upset with myself over my last post.  I really just wanted to talk about my art and how I felt about it, and how it was going.  But instead I once again let feelings about my ex W, creep into the conversation.  And I don't know why.  I know I started this blog so I could hash out all the things kept deep in my brain and heart, but why do so many of my posts turn into me dissecting the corpse of my first marriage.  I realize that a lot of who I am today and how I look at myself, are lingering feelings from that time period.  Do not get me wrong.  There are no lingering feelings for him, at all.  None.  For a long time, I hated him. Now I feel nothing at all. Sometimes I'm curious enough to Google him, but nothing relevant ever comes up.  On the search pages, his last listed address was our old house, and he moved out of there in 2004.  Apparently he has his own business back in our old town, but it's a very generic website that has his name but no other info.  For all I know, he could be remarried with kids and a beautiful wife, lovely home, expensive sports car.  He may have kicked the drugs and gotten his life together. He was a miserable abusive jackass and addict when we were married, but people change, people turn over new leaves every day.

I don't know why I dwell on him or our marriage.  I don't have a lot of experience with divorce in my family. Other than one uncle, I'm the only person on either side who has been divorced.  Seriously.  Out of all the parents' siblings, my cousins, etc., no one has been divorced.  I guess that speaks highly of my family tree.  And maybe that's why it makes me feel super low that here I am, that one branch with the rotten apple hanging on it.  But that was in the past, and obviously I've moved on and my life with J is amazing and almost magical now.  Divorce is still a stigma though.  I don't like thinking of J as my "second" husband.  Yet I don't hide the fact that I've been married and divorced before.  I should call J my "forever" husband I suppose.

J understands, I hope.  I am actually wife #3 for him.  Yes, it's true.  He was twice divorced when I met him, which should have sent up red flags but I was already so in love, I didn't care.  Even today, ten years later, I don't even give it a second thought.  The first time J was married, he was very young, barely out of his teens. She was his first girlfriend, and they rushed into marriage, he said not because he loved her but because he thought it was expected of him.  It lasted about a year- she cheated on him, he left, they divorced.  The second time he was still young, in his 20's, he said he was at a very low point in his life and one day he ran into a girl he used to date.  He said he was so deeply lonely that they went to dinner, he got incredibly drunk, and asked her to run off and marry him.  Needless to say, that marriage lasted slightly longer than the blink of an eye- she ran up his credit cards, left him, and he had to file bankruptcy.  By the time I met J in his mid-30's, he had been divorced for probably a decade and was just coming out of a relationship of 2 years (which for him was long term) with another woman who cheated on him then dumped him for the other guy.  J was damaged goods when our paths crossed, for certain.  He had his guard up, and although he was wonderful to me from the very beginning, it took a long time for me to break down that barrier.

But J is over all of it, it's as though none of those other women ever existed, like they never hurt him.  All he sees is me.  He doesn't talk about them, and I would bet money that he doesn't even think about them.  Which is why I think it's hard for him to comprehend how I still get bogged down mentally and emotionally, and feel trapped in all the old labels- stupid, fat, worthless, lazy- that W placed on me.  J thinks I'm wonderful- smart, funny, pretty, kind.  Those are the only labels that should matter.  W hated his mother, barely spoke to her.  J adores his mom, we visit his parents as often as possible.  So the old cliche about how a man treats his mother is how he will treat his wife, is true.  W showed me as much disdain as he did his mom and two sisters.  J would do anything in the world for his mother and two sisters and three nieces. Amazing that two men raised in a family of women, would learn to treat them so differently.  Both men had parents that were still married, both men had hard-working fathers.  I am not sure why J continued on that path of goodness and love and warmth, and why W splintered off to the point that he would tell me repeatedly, "All women are whores.  You, my mother, my sisters, my niece.  All women."

The one difference that I know of, is that W's father was horribly and openly promiscuous throughout the entire marriage.  When W was small, his father would leave him in the car while he went to "visit" the other ladies in his life.  Later on when W was an adult, his father was still carrying on with other women, and his mother turned a blind eye to it.  Obviously W had a skewed vision when it came to women- the ones his father cheated with, and his mother who chose not to stand up and put a stop to it.  Of course, W told me all of this after we were already separated and weeks away from our date in divorce court.  Perhaps if he had bothered to share this with me sometime during our 13-year relationship, it's something we could have gotten him counseling for.  He so very much needed it.  On the other hand, J's parents have a strong marriage and they are very deeply devoted to their church, their community, and above all else, family. J had a strict upbringing, had to work hard on their farm alongside his sisters, and lived nextdoor to his grandmother.  He sees women as tender partners, not the enemy.  Even though his previous "partners" all cheated on him, used him, abandoned him- he could have hardened his heart against the female race.  Yet he still continues to be a loving man.

The mere fact that W hated all women so much, should be enough to lighten my burden.  It wasn't me, it wasn't anything at all about me.  It wouldn't have mattered who his wife was at that time, he would have treated her as roughly as he treated me.  He would have dismissed her feelings, belittled and degraded her, he would have continued to crush her spirit, the same way he did me.  Whatever anger he felt for his father's many mistresses, or his meek mother, he was taking it out on me.  No matter what I did, it wouldn't have changed him or his actions. W was my past, never more to speak one single ugly word to me. I've got to let it go.  He can't define me anymore.

I have an amazing father- supportive and caring and attentive- so I have a great role model for the perfect husband and marriage.  Meeting J was that light bulb moment for me.  I didn't have to stay trapped in a cold, hellish life with W.  I could be in a normal relationship.  Someone out there did find me attractive.  Here was a man who listened to me, respected me, wanted to be with me, didn't argue with me constantly. He called me by sweet nicknames and not "you fucking bitch".  Here was someone who wanted to lift me up, not push me down.  This man would take care of me, hold me, find joy with me, and want to be with me always.  Someone who actually appreciated me for being me.

Here was a man who epitomized the word love.  I am so eternally grateful that I found him.

MISS GEE

07.22 - By Unknown 0

Hallmark Memories

I divorced my first husband over a coffee cup.  Well, basically.

The coffee cup, which I still have and use today, was just a symbol of all the reasons I divorced him.  But, it remains a strong memory for me, and a lesson learned.  It was just a plain coffee cup, one I bought at a Hallmark store back before W and I were even married.  It came with a matching mug mat and two cookie cutters.  I bought it because it was cute, and decorated in Fall colors, which I can't resist.  I'm not a huge coffee drinker,  normally one large mug every morning. Sometimes two in the winter.  W and I had a cabinet shelf filled with coffee cups- ones we bought as souvenirs, ones family members had given as gifts, holiday mugs, the small and useless cups that come with a set of dishes.  But, this cup was my favorite, the one I used every day.  In fact, it was the only one I ever used.  Most normal people would recognize that and respect it.  But not W.  If W got into the kitchen before I did, he would invariably grab this cup, instead of picking one of the dozen other cups sitting right there.

I would ask him repeatedly, please don't use this one coffee cup, this is the one I always use, there were plenty of others for him to choose from.  But a few days later, as I would go to get my morning coffee, I would find he had already absconded with my mug.  At first I thought he was just careless about his choice, insensitive at the most.  Then one day it dawned on me- this was a power struggle.  This was a way of him showing his control over me.  He was 100% purposefully using the one coffee cup I asked him not to use.  Finally, he started telling me I was a selfish bitch for not letting him use this particular cup.  I told him he was being an asshole for not using any of the other ones.  One day, after he had poured his coffee into the cup, I can remember grabbing it off the counter angrily, dumping out the contents, and taking it away from him.  I am still shocked that this little cup never got broken over the years of our arguing over it.

I think I had been with W for at least 10 years before I realized everything he did, everything he said, was some form of control over me.  I was used to the put downs and name calling, the insults that made me feel as worthless as dirt.  I had accepted the fact that I'd given up all the things that had made me happy and whole as a single girl- like my writing and my art- all for him.  I was uncomfortable with his insistence that he did not want my family visiting, but I ignored him on that issue, and it caused huge fights.  There were weekends where my parents would come just for a lunch out on a Sunday, and he would leave the house so he didn't have to spend time with them.  I would lie to cover for his absence and my embarrassment- he had to work, he had to help a friend with a project. As much as he hated spending time with my parents, he hated seeing his own even more.  When we moved two states away, and would go back home for a visit, he wouldn't even let his parents know he was in town because they "will want to see me", he always said.  Eventually, going home was a journey of one- me alone on a jet plane because he said he never wanted to go back there again.  I guess he thought if HE wasn't going to go back home, I wouldn't either, but I had no qualms about vacationing without him.

The classic signs of control were always there- insulting me and crushing my self-esteem, making me feel as though I was lucky that at least he wanted to be with me, trying to alienate me from friends and family, completely ignoring me sexually, not ever depositing his paycheck into our bank account (instead he would "give" me a little cash to pay the bills with- in all those years I never once saw a check or even knew what he made), always insisting that everything was always my fault, telling me how stupid I was.  And I can't believe I fell for it, or allowed it to happen for so long.  I know, there are no victims only volunteers, right?  I am still trying to recover from the pummeling my self-esteem took over a decade ago.  I still have trouble believing I am good enough, or smart, or pretty.  That I'm not lazy, not undeserving, not unlovable.  And sadly, J has to suffer for what W put me through.  He doesn't understand why I haven't let it all go by this point in my life, why I haven't gotten over it.  I fear that how W treated me in my 20's, is still defining who I am in my 40's.  J is a polar opposite of W in every way possible, but I am still me, and I still have some of those troubling thoughts in my head, about how I view myself and how I think others view me.

I think that's one reason I'm struggling right now with my unemployment, even though it was by choice.  By not working, by not bringing home a paycheck, I am starting to float on a sense of worthlessness again.  I have no purpose, I serve no purpose, what is the meaning of my daily existence?  J would be incredibly hurt to hear me talk about myself like that, so I keep those thoughts buried.  I don't know what it's going to take, for me to be at peace with who I am and what I do. With my decision to quit my job.  Our decision.  J's support and understanding is the only comfort I find in it all.  I still go to bed at night, thinking about what reports I need to run in the morning, what vendors I need to work out a contract with for a certain customer.  It's silly I know.

Funny, I started off this post about how W used to control me and dictate how I felt about myself, and I've gotten terribly off track. Maybe that is all still part of it now, and maybe not.  I don't know why I even waste a single thought about a man I haven't seen in 8 years, who fills me with disgust and shame, but he pops up in my head all too regularly.  I feel as though I haven't yet overcome that part of my life, I haven't moved on mentally.  Maybe I've always had self-esteem issues and just didn't realize it until W so blatantly smacked me in the face with it.  J does everything in his power to keep my chin up, keep me going, take interest in my plans and hopes, support my desires.  Make me feel desired.  But some days it's just not enough- what he gives me externally doesn't penetrate the loathing I feel for myself on the inside.  I try not to let him see that though, I'm good at smiling at him and letting him know how much I love him for all that he does.

J and I have our own coffee cup collection that represents our travels together, but my cherished little Autumn leaf cup is still there, front and center.  Some days I use it, some days I don't- I just grab a mug.  If J happens to pull it off the shelf for his Sunday morning cup while we read the paper together, I don't even give it any thought.  It's no longer "my" coffee cup- it's ours.

MISS GEE

13.18 - By Unknown 0

Happy Un-Anniversary

It was 20 years ago, March 1993, that I met W.  Today I still question my judgment when I think about getting involved with him.  When I divorced him there was no second guessing that decision.  The last time I saw W, was in my rear view mirror as I drove away from the court house, a single woman with my maiden name back.  I know that sounds terribly cliché, but it's true.  He would call me from time to time after that, for what reasons I don't understand- most of the time it was to brag about the woman he had started to date, as though I would be jealous.  But once his calls turned into angry threats on my life (I’ll burn your house down while you sleep bitch!) I got an unlisted number.  That was the end of my contact with him.

W was wrong for me from day one, but I just didn’t see it at the time.  I met him when I was a temp at an office in my hometown, and he made little impression on me when we were introduced.  A few weeks later he hired me to do some personal paperwork for him, which led to our first date just days later.  A few weeks after that, we were living together.  It was a terrible decision, I really barely knew him at all outside a few dates that somehow always ended up at a hotel.  I was living with my parents, he was living with his parents an hour away.  I can vaguely remember the discussion about us moving in with each other, it was not romantic at all, except that we were on the beach watching a sunset.  He said it would be cheaper and more convenient for him, if we just got an apartment together.  Yes, doesn’t that just sweep a young girl off her feet?  Nonetheless, I fell for it.  (His marriage proposal was the two of us leaving the mall with my engagement ring- which my parents loaned him the money for and he never paid them back- and he threw the box at me and said here you go.)

Because he lived two counties away and commuted to my hometown for the job, I was the one who got the apartment, and on the day I moved in he was nowhere to be found.  My family and friends moved me into my very first place.  W showed up two days later, with some clothes and books, and that was it.  He claimed he had been sick in bed with a toothache and that’s why he wasn’t there on moving day.  Strange that he never bothered to call to let me know.  Of course later on, I found out he had been a few hundred miles away partying with college friends and was drunk as hell, sleeping it off.  This should have been the light bulb moment for me right away, but I ignored the signs.

My parents were very disappointed and unhappy that I was going to be living with a guy I had just met.  My mom and sister hated him from day one and never changed their opinion during all the years we were married, my father wanted to give him a chance to prove he was a good man for his daughter.  But, I was in my twenties, out of college, working full time for the government at this point.  My younger sister had shacked up before me, but by then she was married to the man and still is to this day.  I was supposed to be the sensible oldest child and not do stupid or crazy things, and I think it hurt my father more than he let on.  Lesson learned, father does know best.

W and I did get married not long afterwards, but I am shocked we even made it through the first year of our relationship.  I suffered traumas that I won’t even post here anonymously, because of him.  No one but J knows 100% of the awful story- too terrible and painful to even tell a sister or best girlfriend.  And I had to grow up, quickly.  I wasn’t sheltered or naïve before I met W, but I had never known anyone like him before.  A misogynistic, egomaniacal drug addict.  I did know about his drug addiction even before we moved in together, and it’s something I managed to hide from my family and friends the entire 13 years I was with him.  I did not know he was such a hateful, abusive asshole though.  No one knew about any of this until I had filed for divorce, when I realized I didn’t care about “protecting” him anymore.  My family was shocked when I announced we were splitting up, my girlfriends all said it was about friggin’ time I kicked him out.  My mom said I never loved him, I was just looking for an excuse to get out from under my parents’ roof, and quite frankly that was the truth.

It was so bad at the end, every day I prayed he would come home to announce he had been having an affair and was leaving me for the other woman, and I would shriek “Thank God!” I would finally be rid of him.  But he was predictable in that when he wasn’t at work he was sitting on the living room couch stoned and watching cartoons.  The short time when we were dating, our intimate life was good.  Not long after we married, sex became a once or twice a year ordeal, with me begging and him so uninterested in anything but pot, that he couldn’t even “finish”.  Makes me cringe to think about that now.  The part where I actually begged that creep for sex, not the part about him rolling over in the middle of it saying he was too tired to keep going.

The best part of our relationship was when I decided to end it, and told him to move out, and I was filing for divorce.  We’d had those stupid fights where I would scream at him to pack his shit and get out, and he would sit there and laugh at me.  But this time, it was for real.  I joke today and tell people about my “divorce diet”, and how it was the easiest way to get rid of 185 pounds of ugly unwanted fat.  Everyone laughs.   It was a rough time though, he took four months to finally move out and that was after I got an attorney to show him how serious I was.  Then he tried to blackmail me for alimony, seriously (that is a long story).  My dad offered him a lump sum of money to just leave me alone, but he was greedy and refused.  The state we lived in required us to be separated for an entire year before we could even file for divorce.  I asked him for a divorce in December 2003, and it did not happen until May 2005.  Sadly we had to have constant contact with each other throughout the separation- the only legal rule for separation was that we were not allowed to spend a night together under the same roof (even if it was spent not speaking and sitting in different rooms)- the "year" would start all over again if that happened.  Such antiquated bullshit, I can't even believe it was the 21st century.

There is a lot more to tell, like the stalking episodes, stealing my diary, the insanely disgusting and perverted letters he sent me while we were separated.  I know if you read my last post, you are doing the math.  I was with W for 13 years, but I’ve been with J for 10, yet I only met W 20 years ago.  Math doesn’t add up, does it?

And that story is for another day…my happy chapters.

MISS GEE

17.15 - By Unknown 0

Grudges

Today was one of my mad at the world days.  I have them sometimes.  Okay, often. I just wake up pissed off and go to bed pissed off, and the rest of the day I am just pissed off!  At absolutely every little thing.  Not sure where all that anger comes from, but on the days when I'm just super ticked, I start dwelling on my ex-husband W.

Mind you, I haven't even seen W since spring of 2005.  But damn it, I'm still mad at the man, for the 13 years of my life I wasted with him (and yes, I'm mad at myself for it too!).  He only did two things right- made us move away to R, which is where I met J.  And he got me a puppy our first Christmas together- my boy passed away the year we were separated.  I don't like to think about my Lab too much, because I still get sad.  He came to us as we started our life together, and he left us as that life together ended.  Fate is wicked and cruel sometimes.

W was a jackass, and apparently everyone- girlfriends and family- knew it but never told me.  I had to learn the hard way, over the years.  Everyone else hated him the minute they met him, and even worse, made fun of him behind my back. Now I look at that time and say, yep, he was a complete jerk and frankly, I'm not sure if I ever even loved him at all.  Now that I'm with J, I know what real love is like. And what I had with W, was off by a country mile.

W was a great guy when I met him in our early 20's, or so I thought.  I think I was just too immature to see the big picture.  I thought he was ambitious, going places, smart, a hard worker, sweet.  I thought I had hit the jackpot, he was husband material and would be my partner and take care of me/us.  Turns out he was just a drug addict who screwed up his life and tried to take me down with him, and at the end decided it was okay to be abusive, unemployed, and high all the time.  That was what HE wanted out of life.

I don't know how other people are, but I have a perverse obsession about what he is doing now, and mostly I just fantasize about his downfall and wish him misery.  I know, that is bad karma, but I don't care.

Every once in awhile I will Google his name, to see what turns up. Unfortunately, our names are still linked together in a lot of places- his name shows up on my grandmother's online obituary which makes my skin crawl.  If you Google his name, it also brings up my old married name, which equally creeps me out.  I will forever be listed as his spouse out there in cyberspace.  I keep hoping I will run across his mug shot, but it looks like he has (possibly) straightened out his life and is running his own business, back in the town where we used to live.

I know I'll blog a lot more about him, because I think a lot of the issues that I have now at almost 46, are due to all the crap I went through with him at 26.  And I can't seem to get over it or let it go.  Not sure why.

MISS GEE

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