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....
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