the truth in a condom

As I've mentioned I don't have a washer or dryer. I've been using a laundry mat.  Well, Yesterday evening the ex needed me to watch the kids on his day at his house (he had to leave with them first thing in the morning which is why they didn't just stay with me) and he offered to let me do my laundry there as a thank you. Super sweet of him! So after he left I went to start my laundry and there, in the bottom of the washer, was a purple wrapper.  I knew instantly what I was looking at. A CONDOM!  We haven't lived together in months, sure I figured he was sleeping with other people by now, the kids have even called him at night and he's told them he was at a friends house so I knew...but I didn't know until I saw that condom.  and it hit me like a fist to the gut.  This was really my life.  This man was no longer my husband (well legally he is for a little bit longer...). The book slammed shut on the past decade of my life.  My marriage was completely over, done, dead.  The truth was in the condom sitting at the bottom of the washer.  

Friday night out? No thanks, none for me....

It's a Friday night - my FOURTH weekend with the kids. One of the perks I had been looking forward to when my husband and I seperated was the thought of some free weekends - for girl time or being lazy or rediculously long bubble baths or chores or......eventually a date or two....but that doesn't seem to be the case. I keep ending up with the kids.  It makes me mad - especially knowing that the ex is going out almost every night.  And then I feel guilty about being mad about having time with my kids because I really do like being with them. And then I get three seperate invites to go out and have to decline them all and I'm mad again - but madder this time because if he just had them when he was suppose to I wouldn't feel bad about being mad about having my kids with me.  I'm trying to let it go. I really am but it is hard when his actions have such obvious consequenses.  I keep getting advice like "this is your time" and "now you can do what YOU want" and "go out! have fun! make sure you aren't just sitting at home!!!"  Do none of these well meaning people realize that I HAVE KIDS?!?!?!    OK, we are talking about normal people here, who, probably assume that like normal people would my ex and I are trading off weekends.  But my ex isn't normal (hince the "ex" part of this).  He is trying to make me pay for leaving him. Well, right now, at 11:40 on a Friday night, it feels like I am paying for leaving him.

"new" bed.......

When I moved out we split our belongings in half, this ended up meaning I didn’t have a bed. “Our” bed had been a king size, dark cherry, huge leather head board, pillow top piece of heaven. It was thousands of dollars and we had it delivered and set up for us. Suddenly I was sleeping on a couch. After two months, little sleep and a very sore back I had finally saved a few hundred to buy a bed. I went from store to store and quickly learned that I couldn’t even get a mattress, box spring and frame at sale price – I simply didn’t have enough money. And so I did something that wouldn’t even have occurred to me a year ago. I went on Craigs List. I scanned a bunch of adds, my skin crawling as I read. Then I saw an add that I thought might be worth looking into. An older woman was selling the bed out of her guest bedroom, she said it was never used. Asking price? $200. I called her and she seemed very nice. We set up a time for me to come look at/pick up the bed. The first thing I noticed was that I was driving into a part of the inner city that did not….well, look nice. I almost turned around right then but my aching back wouldn’t let me; the thought of actually sleeping comfortably kept me moving. Her house was clean (thank goodness) but also looked like a dozen projects had been started and not one of them completed. Even more skeptical now I climbed the stairs to the guest bedroom. The bed showed no obvious signs of use – and I inspected it CAREFULLY, so I decided to take it. Now is when it dawns on me that I had to figure out how to get it down the stairs out the door and onto the roof of my SUV…….uhhhmmmmm……..She has a friend, she tells me, who will help. She goes downstairs and a few minutes later returns with a very large aftican -american man who isn’t speaking but is grunting A LOT. He and I get the bed down the stairs and onto/into my vehicle (thank goodness I thought to bring rope). As we are tying the last knots he gives me his phone number. He wants me to call him when I get home so he can come over and “help me with the bed” yikes!!! I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Almost immediately after starting the hour drive home I realize that there is no way I can drive on the freeway. The mattress is lifting off the car and I can feel the added drag, I can also see it slipping off the back of the vehicle. Cars are angrily flying past me. I am madly looking for an exit I recognize so I can get on back streets to get home. By the time I slowly pull up to my house it is dark and I am tired. But now I needed to get this bed off of my car! I must have looked ridiculous trying to untie the mattress and dragging the box-spring and frame out of the back and up the steps. A little neighborhood boy eventually saw me and helped me get the mattress from the curb into my entryway. If he hadn’t, that thing would have looked worn before it even got in my front door! Once I was finally in the house though I still had my work cut out for me. Mindful of where exactly I had purchased my new bed I had bought a bacteria and virus disinfectant spray which I emptied onto the mattress. I had also purchased a bottle of spray promising to kill all manner of lice, flea, larva and any other unwanted tiny life form. I dampened the mattress with that as well. Once it was feeling dry again I covered it in a deodorizing vacuum powder, let that sit and then I vacuumed that mattress like my life depended on it – ‘cause let’s face it – it might have. 

Once all that was done I put it all together, put on my brand new sheets and very cautiously climbed in. I thought for a minute about how safe my new bed may or may not be but I admit, it felt so good to be in a real bed again that it wasn’t long after that that I was fast asleep and I didn’t move again until my alarm went off. I awoke pain free and actually rested! I haven’t discovered a mysterious rash or bug bite or any other horror. I don’t think about where my bed came from anymore. I’m just incredibly proud of myself. I have a bed!

My Saturday Hangout

I had to go to the laundry mat today.   Since the separation this has been a regular stop for me but the first time was pretty terrifying.  Now I feel like an old pro.  I saw another woman standing there looking confused and I walked up and explained everything to her.
       "You know" she told me conspiratorially, "this is my first time in a laundry mat!"
I had to laugh, and I told her how new I was to it.  It's amazing how quick we adapt to our new norm.
There I am folding my pretty, frilly panties from another life time next to the sweaty guy in a football polo and the little old lady old enough to be my grandma's grandma (ok, that may be stretching it - but old). She is dressed in a black floral print skirt that comes to her ankles and a bright orange short sleeve sweater belted tightly over her too tiny waist. How she can wear that in the heat of the laundry room on a warm summer afternoon I have no idea. Yeah, this is how I spend my Saturday afternoons now, kids sitting on plastic chairs playing games. Me, leaning a hip on a machine, sweat dripping between my breasts, counting quarters to see how many minutes of drier time I can purchase today.....

 

Life flipped over

Who do you get mad at when your life flips upside down and it is because you INTENTIONALLY flipped it????  I guess I'm mad I felt the need to flip it.  I posted a question on my profile that says, if you aren't where you want to be what are you going to do about it.  I meant that and I took it to heart.  I asked my husband of ten years for a divorce.  So THAT means that I am working again after being a stay at home mom since 2002, I've got my own place and I'm paying bills for the first time EVER.  I had to deal with dead hopes, broken dreams, and having to re-define family - because I refused to think of my children and I as a broken family. 
Oh yeah.....I also turned 30 alone.  ouch.
So, yeah, I'm angry. I had my dream house, I had no money worries, I had the time to be the type of mother I wanted to be. And I walked away from that. because, honestly, I was miserable.  You can't change somebody no matter how hard you try - and boy did I try to change my husband.  He resented me for it (rightly so) and he felt de-masculinized by it (definitely not my intent).  He would go along with my way of doing things for a bit but eventually his real self would slip out. I, thinking we were in agreement on how do do things, would get very upset with these slights.  I figured either he was being lazy (partially true) or didn't care about me/us/kids or that he had lied about agreeing (true).  Either way I took it hard and personally.  I would remind him (and I really tried to do this nicely) of what "our" way was.  As much as this makes me sound like a bitch I'm really not. Everyone has a way they want to run their lives.    I wanted my husband and I to be on the same page with these things. Not too terrible, right? That's a reasonable expectation.  Problem was, he would agree with me and I 'd think he meant it.  He wouldn't argue or ask for us to do things differently so when he went against tradition (so to speak) it was incredibly disruptive to our family life.  It didn't help that his temper was rarely in his control (now I know where some of that anger was coming from) but he never said why he was angry; he just lashed out. I would try to appease him by always looking my best, having the house in order and a nice dinner cooked. Compromising to "his way" whenever I felt like it wasn't a huge deal (type of music we listened to, places we went, what we bought, how I dressed, what we ate.....)I felt like he had me on a leash and I couldn't make my own choices about the simple things in life. So with none of our morals, values, beliefs or ideals lining up and the constant fighting everyone wondered why I never left.  The thing was, I thought he was changing for "the better". But he wasn't; Turns out I had him on a leash too - a very short leash - and I didn't even know it.  So can I really blame the man for cheating repeatedly, yelling, calling me names and putting me down?  No, I really can't.  And now that I know what I was doing wrong can't I just fix it? Not in this marriage. there is too much damage, too much hurt on both sides. But beyond all of that the reality is, once I "unhooked his leash" and allowed him to be himself for a change it turns out I REALLY don't like his way of doing things. And once I struggled out of my collar and lost my leash he HATES mine.
So here I am, starting over. New town, new friends, new "home" until our lease is up....And now I get to figure out who I really am..minus the pressures of trying to keep him happy and in check at the same time and minus the "likes" I had acquired from him that were never really mine.  So, yeah, It's exciting and fun and scary and depressing all at the same time....