With my divorce finalized, I have come to realize that the relationship with theEx has not only legally changed, but is ripe for a complete overhauling of the rules of engagement. While the rules have slowly been changing since I made the momentous step of walking out of our marital home and it has been difficult to create a sense of my complete independence from the role I played for so long.

The relationship with theEx was abusive. Verbally and emotionally theEx would use guilt and threats to subdue me and make me feel as small and unimportant as he could. Whenever I tried to create a boundary he would push through and stomp out my efforts. While most people would think that it would be easier to get away from someone who was “just” emotionally and verbally abusive than someone who hit you that’s not true.

 The was weakened boundaries for myself. Since standing up for myself, making my own decisions and trusting MYSELF were often triggers for abuse from theEx (because control was important to him) I avoided those behaviours. He could control me, and he wanted to keep that control, and anything the questioned his control/authority caused him to REMIND me who “kept” me (same with the Stalker) using care and money as a reason and induce feelings that I would have to stay.

When I broke loose and started looking at things clearly for the first time it was pretty obvious to me that I needed to decide FOR ME what was and was not acceptable. I needed to have boundaries so I could become the person I was meant to be.

I Needed to Build a Sanctuary of ME

I had to come to a place in my life where I felt safe to explore myself.

That might sound strange to some people, but the effort of avoiding negative emotions from things around me had stopped me from really finding out who I was. I hadn’t had space of my own, previously, where I felt I was free to unfurl my wings…

The first thing I did was to realize that I needed both PHYSICAL and EMOTIONAL space I needed time to make my home my OWN space. I wanted to sleep by myself, I wanted to do my own podcast by myself, I wanted to worship alone, I wanted to cook for myself, I wanted to parent my children alone, I wanted to watch tv, do needlework, read, write, blog, bathe…I wanted to taste life and EXPERIENCE things without having to please someone else or SHARE every single experience with someone.

I (started to) disentangle myself from a toxic relationship. Some of the elements of control and guilt and verbal abuse that I experienced in past relationships were violently waving red flags:

• being made to feel “selfish” or guilty via email for not agreeing to what the other wanted
• being made to feel pressured to share/hide my spirituality
• finding “gifts” on my doorstep intended to woo/buy/guilt me into response
• text messages/emails threatening me if I didn’t respond immediately
• attacks for my blog/diary/journals

While it was hard to leave theEx, realizing that the Stalker was just as bad wasn’t as hard. Part of realizing what I wanted in my life necessitated cutting out what I didn’t want, no matter what the other person wanted. Realizing that things were heading down a road I no longer wanted to walk, I choose to walk away. Saying that, the cutting of ties was harder than just saying that I was done. All told, I had to screen email, change locks, change my phone number and resist reacting to the threats, pleas, angry outbursts, drunk texts/calls, and viscious attacks on my blog for 6 months before I felt I could let down my guard and feel SAFE again.

 I went through a massive decluttering. I threw away/recycled/donated/gifted items that were in my home that no longer spoke of who I was. I was no longer Mrs. TheEx, after all. I was no longer bound by his rules for asthetic and status objects!

 I made room in my space for ME. I cleaned. I reflected. I enjoyed. I created sacred space for myself to shine through.

I modified my living arrangements to fit my lifestyle. The biggest thing I did was stop renting and make the jump to purchasing my own townhouse. Yes, I gave up savings, but it gave me a way out of an insecure and increasingly unlivable situation with my upstairs neighbors and a deadbeat landlord. Which lead to…

 Making lifestyle changes to fit the person I was becoming. For the first time in my life I started to really think about what I wanted my life too look like — present, near future, distant future — and I started to create a plan to get there. That meant having to make hard decisions in my life– what things I valued the most, what financial goals I wanted to meet, what interpersonal goals I wanted, what kind of relationship did I want to have with my family/kids/friends/partner/self — and start to make the necessary changes.

Setting Boundaries

Building the boundaries (for me) was a process of getting to a space and time when I was able to be secure enough in my environment to start working not just to survive but to thrive as a person. Realizing, for the first time, that my life didn’t need to be lived to please or appease another person, that I could make my own decisions without having to justify or ask permission, was a truly NEW experience for me.

I feel like a new person.

I have started to change my relationship with my (now finally truely EX) ex-husband. I would like to say that I have become an expert on setting boundaries with him and maintaining them. I would be lying if I told you that.

Like all people who are used to getting their own way, setting boundaries with theEx has had the unfortunate effect of causing theEx to… well… to throw “temper tantrums” and exhibit bullying, abusive behaviour. And, just as his past behaviour would scare me into bowing to his demands or appeasing him, I have often felt the express “need” to give in to his demands, felt guilty, felt like a shitty mother, worried about my abilities to “make it”, and accepted blame for actions that were not MINE.

I have sometimes FAILED to stand up to him and defend my boundaries. I have continually taken on responsibility for his feelings, his reactions, and his needs, at the detriment of my OWN feelings, needs, or rights. Little by little I am unpacking the words he uses, the feelings that are evoked, and what my rights REALLY are. Little by little I am building stronger boundaries with him. Little by little I am gaining personal space and letting go of the fears that gave him control over me in the past.

I am standing firm.

 My relationship with theEx has to change. And that means that his role in my life has to change:

• I will no longer be afraid of him, since he no longer holds any power over me. While I was married to him I was economically tied to him (and his spending habits), but now I am financially free from his BS. The most he can threaten to do is take me to court for not “cooperating” with him the way he wants me to… and at the worst they will charge me money and uphold the status quo because I am a good parent (albeit strict) and a healthy person
• I will no longer accept responsibility for his financial fuckery. It is a well known fact amoungst the people who know theEx that he spends money faster than he earns it. But his spending now has nothing to do with me. NOTHING. His legal expenses are his problem and I am not going to remediate his costs (I can’t trust him enough to deal with him without legal assistance) or negotiate to keep his costs low at my expense. His child support payments are the MINIMUM required by the courts… I have never asked for more than was legally owed.
• I will no longer allow the guilt or blame. I realize that theEx exercised control over me by making me feel “not good enough” because it made him more secure knowing that I was insecure, and the easiest way to make me insecure was to make me question if I was being good enough by making me feel guilt for something I haven’t done or blame for something I supposedly HAD done.
• I will no longer accept control from outside me. I will no longer worry about meeting arbitrary demands and deadlines. Since there is nothing he can really do to me if I fail to live up to his expectations, I will make the conscious effort to put a stop to his expectation that I will drop everythign to answer his calls or respond to his emails immediately. Unless someone is sick, injured or dying there is no reason he should expect me to jump to respond to his demands. Again, he has nothing he can do, other than throw a temper tantrum.
• I will not allow him to corner me. I will not enter his home, I will not invite him into mine. We have no real reason to socialize together, and I have nothing I want to “talk” to him about that desperately, and its usually a code for wanting to pressure me into some sort of clandestine agreement when HE says it…

I imagine my personal sanctuary being fortified by my “rules” — I build a door by not letting him have power over me, I create a peephole when I view but don’t respond to his “urgency” via phone or email, I create myself a piggy bank when I control only MY spending issues and stop enabling his, I create a fence when I keep him out of my home, and I create a MOAT (full of karmasharks) when I take away his power to use guilt and blame…

What do you see when you create boundaries to keep toxic people out of your life?

I’ve been silent lately.

Not sure how to proceed with things, what to say, what to keep to myself. I remind myself, a personal mantra, that I have a right to keep things to myself until I am ready to let them go into the world. I have the right to my silences. I have the right to sit in contemplation. I have the right to make space my own.

The month’s theme seems to be creating my own space.  I have been working towards the internal and external aspects of making my life my OWN. I have been examining my clutter – physical objects, emotional baggage, social expectations, mental patterns, spiritual concepts – and trying to let go of the things that are holding me back from a more authentic life. It has been about taking stock and making plans and examining dreams and revising what the worldspace I have created for myself.

My life is about making ME happy. For years and years and years I have been led to believe that it was selfish of me to live my life to make me happy. No, I was put on this earth to serve a PURPOSE. That PURPOSE was intimately related to this amorphous god-type being in the sky. The messages I got were that I was to grow up to complete school, get a husband, have kids, be a housewife, mother, keep a house, cook, clean… and likely work full time outside of the house on top of it all. I was to give up the “foolish” things that I loved that wouldn’t fit into the world I was being told to want — I was supposed to WANT a man who could “take care of me”, 2 kids, to spend all day being someone’s assistant and all night taking care of my family… I wasn’t supposed to work on MYSELF because the message that I got was that I wasn’t as important as the roles I was to play.

I WAS MISERABLE.

And I don’t want to be that way anymore.

Yes, the roles I play are important, but they aren’t more important than me being HAPPY. It is important to be a good parent, but can a miserably unhappy or tuned out parent be a truly GOOD parent? Yes, its great to be a good employee, but how productive am I when I am unhappy at work? What kind of friend am I if I am depressed or stressed or worried or if I simply do not know how I feel about things?

I am still unpacking the contents of my soul, looking at the things that make me happy.  It’s a personal process, not really one that is easily shared. I pull something out… examine it, try it on for size, adjust it, and move around looking at how it fits me – not only the ME I am now but the ME I am becoming the ME I want to become – and I don’t really WANT to be influenced by another’s perception of what is right for ME no matter how much they care about me.  It’s been slow going mostly because I haven’t had enough pieces of time to spend alone – sometimes I have the kids, sometimes I have social obligations, sometimes I have family obligations, sometimes friends want time, sometimes I don’t feel ready – and so I have been putting things off.

And so I am going through the focus on me, rather than focusing on what makes someone else (whether that someone else is theEx, the kids, a friend, a man, family, work… ) happy.

It’s hard to go against my internal grain, though and it has been a process of one step forward and 2 steps back.

In January I decided to make changes and live for myself.  I had made a huge, TERRIFYING, set of leaps to change my life. I paid off debt and got a mortgage for my own home.  At the same time I became single, which also helped me focus more on my finances (I no longer hosted extra people in my home every weekend, I no longer had to make long distance phone calls, I no longer had to have a fancy cable package, I no longer bought movies). I took the opportunity to try and change some of the situation that had made me miserable, I started deciding how to make my life the way I wanted, not the way someone else wanted for me.

I’m sticking to it. Even with things changing (aren’t they always?) I am standing firm on making my life and my home MINE… its an affirmation of what I want, and my promise to myself to discover what it is that I want for me.  

It’s NOT selfish to make your life YOURS… and to follow your dreams.

It seems this week is all about taking a break from things that no longer enrich you, or which you actively DISLIKE doing. For this week’s wishcasting Wednesday, Jamie Ridler asked “What do you wish to take a break from?” and  for  Zen Thursday, Goddess (and hopefully now MAMA GODDESS!!!) Leonie asked the Zen Goddesses to make a list of 5 things that we don’t like doing and stop doing one of them. Because these are so similar I decided that I will deal with them together.

What do I wish to take a break from?

I want a break from feeling guilty about how my ex is “surviving” with the burden of child support – and because I now know how much he actually made (and let me tell you, the number is approximately FOUR TIMES what I made) last year, I really can’t see myself feeling sorry for him. Yes, I am asking for ADDITIONAL child support for the year… but I’m ONLY asking for what the court and HE agreed to – the TABLE amount of support  OFFSET based on our ACTUAL incomes. I’m asking for a ONE TIME ADJUSTMENT because he earned 50% more income than he estimated. I’m enforcing the agreement that we entered into, which was that we would review and revise the payments based on the actual income rather than the estimated income.

I can no longer feel guilty for his poor spending and debt habits. I can no longer allow him to make excuses why he shouldn’t have to live up to his end of our contract, and be taken to task for every little thing by him. We DIVIDED the “marital” debts that he racked up after I left him when I didn’t have access to the accounts AND I had written agreement that they were 100% his. I was STILL required to take and absorb his spending there – EQUALLY, but with THREE TIMES LESS INCOME! I have pulled myself out of the hole my marriage to him and this divorce process had put me in. I have recovered, and I make a LOT less than he does. I can’t continue to “subsidize” him by forgiving his debts for him forever – we agreed with our lawyers and entered into a contract and I will NOT feel guilty for enforcing my RIGHTS for my children.

I am taking a break from feeling RESPONSIBLE for the issues of my EX!

I am also wishing to take a break from the “dating” thing.  I went from theEx to the Stalker to online dating.  These were all experiences I had to go through to get where I am now, to understand what it is that I am and what I need in my life. And I know this for sure: I do not want to jump back into the dating scene right now…

It’s not that I don’t want to eventually have another relationship, or that I don’t want to ever marry again. But I realized that I need to really look at what it is that I want out of this – is it to go out and have fun? Meet new people? Find a mate? Just have sex? – and outline my dating rules for MYSELF. After dating the Noodle, giving up other opportunities to focus on someone who basically stomped all over what he said he wanted, what I stated I wanted, and decided it was all just casual (ie, a sexual  relationship) I know I could do better, and that I want BETTER. I

I am taking a break from MINDLESSLY DATING…

And 5 Things that I do that I don’t LIKE doing!

1. Eating/feeding my kids fast food. I admit, I have been falling back on fast food services the nights that we are running on empty. Monday nights are the worst because I have 15 minutes after I pick up the kids to feed them and get to our Monday night activity meetings, and finding a way to feed them before the meeting has been a struggle.
2. Scouts Canada leadership duties. I admit that I did volunteer to be a leader for my daughter’s Beaver Colony. I also admit that I wasn’t aware of just how much the group (which is a new area) would expect from me beyond my leadership duties. It has devolved from an enjoyable way to spend time with my children, to an anxiety producing obligation. Every week the area commissioner, ScouterP, corners me to let me know that she thinks I need to be more involved, do more, volunteer more, and train more. The thing is that I have OTHER activities and interests beyond Scouts Canada, and unlike the other leaders, I am a single parent trying to work full time and juggle her OWN interests, her children’s activities/interests, a house, a spiritual practice, and the needs of a family WITHOUT a partner to pick up the slack when I am expected to drop everything and attend just one more meeting!!! I understand that ScouterP was able to “do it all” but I’m not freaking SuperWoman here… and I don’t wanna be.
3. Obsessive cleaning. I hate the feeling that any time I have some down time I have to be cleaning my house, keeping things looking “presentable”. My home is clean ENOUGH. I maintain the cleanliness on a weekly basis – the dishes are done and the kitchen is cleaned up on an ongoing basis, laundry is done weekly, the trash is set out (although I am still catching up on the recycling as I unpack boxes)… the bathroom is cleaned weekly. The idea that I have to continuously be washing and wiping and tidying up after everyone else? ARGH!
4. Listening to what “EVERYONE” says. I have always been the “GOOD GIRL”, and that usually means that I do what is expected for GOOD girls to do. I was studious in school. I dated nice boys. I went to university and graduated. I found a suitable boy. I got married. I had children. Even in my divorce I have been a “good” girl, not asking too much, not being too bitchy, not rubbing his face in his failures while he does just that to me. But sometimes I think that I missed out on learning who I was by never rebelling against the norms. I have liked the way certain things look (piercings, tattoos) but I have been afraid to modify myself because I worry if I will be accepted. I have hidden my spirituality and scrubbed it from my home so as not to offend. When the Noodle didn’t approve of drinking socially, I stopped even sipping wine at meals!!
5. Yelling at my kids. I don’t like it, and I am trying very hard to unlearn these behaviours and find new ways that work within me. I don’t pretend, like so many people, that I have all the answers… but as the Mama I have the answers for ME and MY family. Changing the way I look at discipline and parenting, and getting OTHER people to respect my wishes, has been a struggle. I’m still working on it.

I am actually working on changing all of these things. Immediately, though, I am working on saying “NO” more to the requests of ScouterP and NOT feeling guilty for doing so. After all, when I agree to yet ANOTHER night taken for meetings and training and planning and volunteer activities they are asking me to give up things that are much more valuable to me: Time with my kids, nutritious meals, reading, helping with homework, activities that enrich MY life. I do not have infinite capacity in my life – when I say YES to yet another day long forced volunteer event I am, in effect, saying NO to family time with my children (when I have them) or saying NO to activities that *I* very much look forward to on my off time. I should be able to say “NO” without guilt or remorse and have it be accepted, and if they don’t accept that I just can’t attend something then it is THEIR problem, not mine.

I will be practicing this this week – they have planned day long events for Saturday as well as Sunday, with the regular meetings on Monday and a committee meeting on Wednesday. I have already decided that I will NOT be attending the committee meeting – I promised GirlChild to take her to a beginner scrapbook class that night and I do NOT intend to break my word.

I am seriously considering resigning from my leadership role next year. While I enjoy the activity and believe in the organization, it should not rule my entire life. Between regular Monday night meetings, monthly committee and regional meetings, training meetings, campouts, weekend activities, volunTOLD events, and other expected activities/contributions, it has been made clear to me that I am not doing ENOUGH for them. I realize that I want to add activities to MY life – Tae Kwon Do, Yoga, Nia, Bellydance –  and feeling like I am not “allowed” to pick up anything more if I can’t contribute ENOUGH to this is ridiculous.

I missed doing a Check-in last week because, well… things were crazy (and I was crazy exhausted because my neighbors woke me up SUPER early (4am) and I wasn’t well (UTI))… anyway here I am again…

The Bad Stuff

Still Exhausted

Just plain exhausted.  It seems that no matter how early I go to bed at night (I try to be in bed by 10pm, which is “early” since I get home from whatever activity I had that night at 8:30pm or 9:30pm and then I usually need to wash dishes and sweep floors and do some housekeeping) I don’t seem to be able to get a RESTFUL sleep.  With my anxiety over everything right now, and worrying that at any minute something unexpected will catch me off guard, I tend to wake up 4-6 times during the night.

Too Much to do

While I know I will get it done (I really have no choice with this) I am also keenly aware that this time I am completely on my own.  This is the first time in my life that I haven’t had either a partner OR family to help me move. And its freaking SCARY, because I feel like I am leaping out there and risking everything without any support. And I know that even when I was married I didn’t have support. And I know that I didn’t have support from R at all. But it FEELS different not having anyone at the end of the day… you know?

I just HAVE to get everything out of the old place in order to clean the place completely for the landlord. I might not like the way he treated me, or the fact that he never did any upkeep of the property once he left, but it is basic respect to leave the place clean…

I will do what I can to get it done. That’s all I can do.

Hard times in my head

I have been attending a group for women who have been involved in domestic violence situations AND have started seeing a counselor as well this week. This has been bringing up a lot of feelings that I had stuffed down for so long. I have been feeling LESS safe in my suite, with the partying going on over my head at all hours of the night, strangers coming and going and slamming doors, and having to call the police several times a week to get the neighbors above me to turn their music down so it doesn’t rattle the windows and pictures. I have been remembering all sorts of nastiness with theEx, theStalker, and ColdBlood that I thought that I had forgotten – outbursts, feelings of intimidation, fearful feelings – and it hasn’t really made it easy for me to deal with a lot of the things that I have going on in my life.  I have it on good authority, though, that I am, in fact, NOT crazy to have felt that these men treated my badly and that I DO have the right to have distanced myself from them.

Still… I think it’s gonna take time.

Haven’t been doing the journaling/tarot thing

I sorta dropped the ball this past weekend when the UTI and exhaustion caught me off guard, and the stress took over when I got LESS done than I wanted to (because of the feeling of ICK)… and the overwhelm took over when I got overscheduled and realized that I had only 3 weeks left. What that has meant is that I seemed to have dropped the 5 minute journaling/tarot card pull from my daily routine.  And I have realized I have felt… um… less grounded lately too. Although that COULD be that there is a deadline  or two or three bearing down on me right now…

I think maybe cutting the reading before bed by 5-10 minutes and putting this back into my routine might not be a bad idea.

The GOOD Stuff

Almost FREE

Although the stress is likely to do me in this next 3 weeks… I am almost free from the daily stress and pressure of living in a shared dwelling with people who do not know how to respect differences and needs of others. Maybe it’s wrong of me to expect them to have some sort of idea of how to respectfully SHARE space and do things like:

• Clean up after their dog when she messes in the laundry room
• Clean up the yard after she deposits dog-logs all over EVERYTHING
• Not leave garbage on the back step where their dog will rip it open and SHRED it all over the yard
• Remove their laundry from the laundry room when they are done
• Turn their music down when asked politely, or by 11pm as per the general noise ordinance
• NOT slam the doors when they go in and out
• NOT allow their friends to try to get into my suite (or not DARE their friends to do that)
• NOT smoke drugs (or actually ANYTHING) in the house

Anyway… it’s just a matter of DAYS before I get away from having to live with them and they become someone ELSE’s problem.

ALMOST DIVORCED!

After 2.5 years away from theEx, I have FINALLY signed the affidavit for dissolution of marriage. According to the MoronLawyer, now it goes to HIS lawyer and then to the Court of Queen’s Bench. Depending on how busy the courts are, and how many holidays fall in the middle of the process, it could be anywhere from 4-6 more weeks before I am finally granted the certificate of divorce.

It was an expensive milestone, but I needed to be free from ties to him.

My own STYLE

With my own home comes the ability to decorate in my OWN style. Sure it will be a while before I will be able to afford to replace my living room furniture, but over time I will be making my new home MINE.

This is the first time in my life that I will have a space that I don’t need to get permission to do what I want to my own space. I don’t have to be accountable to my parents, a boyfriend, a husband or a landlord!! I can (and will) paint the walls whatever colour I want. I can put down whatever kinds of rugs I want! I can hang up my needlework and my degrees. I get to decide what I want to do, and I get to make it happen… WITHOUT ANYONE ELSE SAYING I CAN’T!

I can (and will) put up an altar. I can do a house blessing. I don’t have to account for ANYONE if I want bright colours or dark colours or even WHITE all over the place. It will be MY place.

It’s the first part of my independence!

Making my friend Sunil come to visit

Yes, I totally intend to make my friend Sunil visit… and help paint things garish colours (and likely help pack a few things, and do a house blessing ) and you know why? Because I have a house!! And because he totally needs to visit and celebrate with me! HOUSE!! YAY!! DIVORCE (almost)!! YAY!! BEING SINGLE !! YAY!!!

Yes, I like to make up events to make Sunil visit – like throwing myself a baby shower when I had GirlChild and throwing myself a birthday party when I turned 35 – maybe its kinda sad that I throw so many parties FOR myself??

 Whatever.

Being SINGLE and LOVING it!!

It has been about 3 weeks since the breakup with R and I feel like I have really blossomed as a single woman.  Other times when I was single I was looking for ways to get into another relationship. Yes, there are certain benefits to being in a relationship (*ahem* you know what they are… but also having someone to lift heavy stuff for you or get things off the top of things is good… and killing big bugs), but I am starting to realize that I am fine alone.

I am actually LESS lonely now than I was when I was with R. And that is how I know that the relationship wasn’t really meant to go any farther than it did.

More amazing to me is that I am not really that interested in trolling more dating websites and trying to find “Mr Right” through online chat sessions. Not right now, anyway. I might go back to wanting to find someone to go on dates with or talk to on the phone, or to share special events with… but that’s a someday kinda thing. Because when I seek again I will be looking for someone who gets ME and who will treat me RIGHT and not just whomever will take me without too much whining complaints.

I am happy to be alone right now. I can make a mess doing my scrapbooking thing if I want to. I can spend hours doing needlework WITHOUT having to watch football. I can try out new recipes. I can WRITE. I can explore my spirituality. I can learn to love the ME that is ME.

And I am gonna give MYSELF and MY KIDS a special valentine’s day – I’m gonna make chocolate pancakes with strawberries (for them, because, dudes I can’t do chocolate before NOON) and maybe we’ll go see a movie after dance class (well… after SUPPER after dance class, because I don’t want to fill them up with junk ALL day)…  I am hoping we get some packing and cleaning done as well… but I think that this is something WE need to do as a family.

I know that when I do start to seek love again I will have a MUCH different attitude about how I want to be treated and a MUCH lower threshold for “men behaving badly”…

CHANGE IS GOOD

I think if I keep saying this to myself I might come to believe it (laugh). But I know that this time it is true… this change will be for the better and the stress will be totally worth it, if I can just keep it together for another few weeks.  

I will be getting my OWN internet (connection) and a home phone (part of a deal to try it out for 3 months) and that will be different. I haven’t had a home phone system for 2.5 years… and I have gotten used to not being able to call anyone outside of my city. And to have a (sorta) phone line for even 3 months with UNLIMITED long distance will feel SO good! I can CALL people and not worry that my cell bill will be astronomical… Don’t know if I will KEEP it though.

Part of the plan is also a free 3 month trial of cable tv. Which is odd because I am also keeping my satellite tv system (rather than paying $200 to cancel it with a month remaining) and a PVR rental system. I have 3 months to see which system I prefer, satellite or cable, and then cancel the other… and make any changes to my existing internet and phone systems as well…  

But I will need a phone handset AND a wireless router.

Oh, and curtains

That is all

Some days are hard

 Last week, knowing my current relationship was in the toilet, realizing that I would have to have “the talk” I found my stomach in knots and my self esteem tanking. I was avoiding his calls, I was not at all interested in talking to him online or in person, and I was finding myself RELIEVED that he had found something better to do than waste my time by deciding that he and his daughters would come and stay with me.  I was soundly in denial about how BADLY this relationship went and why I allowed it to continue on for SO freaking LONG…

Last week, I was feeling alone and unwanted… and more than a bit scared to admit to myself that  I wanted OUT of my relationship. I am a 35 year old single mother! I work full time hours! I volunteer ! I take classes! I write! I am a great person!! Why was I so afraid to start over and try to find someone worth my time, energy, and my warm generous nature?

Last week I was GLAD that R “manned up” and told me he didn’t want to see me anymore (not in so many words, mind you it was more like “we’ve been drifting and… you know where this is going”) after me asking him, after me asking him for 6 months just to be honest with me about whether he was still interested or not. For the record, I knew that he lost interest in me almost the day he first said “I love you” to me… his actions spoke of neglect and fear from that point on, making me feel confused and insecure.  But he would never tell me that he wasn’t interested in a relationship anymore.

A week ago I found relief in the fact that R finally admitted that to him this had been “casual”… and that the feelings that I had been denying for so long had been RIGHT if I had only listened to them a year ago!

Still the hard won out that night, the feeling of relief was washed away by the sting of FINALLY knowing the truth of the situation. I felt lied to. I felt deceived. I felt… USED. I felt like once more I had allowed a man to walk all over me for acceptance and companionship. And to realize that, in reality, I had not gotten even the most basic companionship with R, he had only stayed with me for what he thought he could get out of me:

• he gave things only grudgingly out of obligation
• In a year we went on maybe 4 dates, tops.  
• I was a hotel and daycare centre for him.
• He rarely contributed.
• He rarely showed any thought about my feelings.
• He freely took from me and never gave in return

Why did I stay with someone who used me as a hotel and daycare service? Who only called when he wanted me to do something for him? Who never complimented me? Who ignored me constantly? Who never once did something nice for me, just to let me know they cared??? What the HELL was I thinking?

I excused his thoughtless behavior over and over – he was stressed about his ex-wife wanting custody of HER children back; he was stressed because he didn’t have as much money as he wanted to have; he was stressed because he wasn’t getting child support; he was stressed because he was going through a hard divorce; he was stressed because his daughters are horribly behaved – and I took his word that he never meant to be thoughtless it just never occurred to him to that he was not doing right by me.

Until the night he told me that, this whole fucking year of my life HE considered our relationship “just casual”…

 I didn’t MISS him, because there hadn’t been anything to miss!

There was remarkably LITTLE change in my life. There were no mementos to throw away. There was no jewelry or trinkets to remind me that R had shared this period of my life and very few pictures of us together. And I knew that he had even LESS to remember me by! I felt that he had missed out on a great person, but that neither of us was in the ideal situation to create a relationship on our own.

He had given all indications that he wanted to be left alone… and now he would be.

I had heard it from his friends, I had witnessed it in the way he acted to his friends, his children and to me. I just refused to acknowledge it.  Didn’t matter who the person was, he didn’t want to deal with anyone other than himself. He preferred to spend huge swaths of time tuned out watch tv or sleep while his kids were gods-only-knew where doing gods-only-knew what, and he was perfectly happy to do that no matter what anyone else thought about it.

 That night that all the turmoil, all the fight, all the RESPECT I had for this man whom I thought was “doing the best he could given the stress he was under”  just washed away and I saw just how little RESPECT he had granted to ME.

 And I sat in the dark, and I thought about these things. I thought about how I had seen the relationship and how I had tried to be there for not only R but his children. I thought about all the times I reached out to help him, but he didn’t return the favour. I thought about how often I asked for just the bare minimum, but that was too much. And I thought about all that I had given up (financially, physically, emotionally) to build a relationship with someone who saw me pretty much as a “place to stay and girl to fuck” and nothing more.

The realizations POURED out of me, the bitterness I had held back within myself for so long;  I was ANGRY about how I was treated!!!  And GODDAMMIT, I DESERVED TO FEEL ANGRY!! For once, not really caring about how other people would label my feelings, I felt ANGRY at R, I felt USED, I was BITTER, I believed I DESERVED BETTER!!

All the feelings that “good girls” don’t admit to coursed through me and out, cleansing me of this relationship.

Within 24 hours I realized how LUCKY I was. I took his numbers off my phone. I deleted him from my MSN. I took “I’m in a relationship” off FaceBook. And I still wasn’t sad.

 By Friday I was feeling like a NEW PERSON.

I dropped my kids off with theEx for his two weeks and I went out and bought myself a bottle of white wine. I came home and I cooked myself a meal that I wanted to try, with new ingredients and a bunch of new flavours. I poured myself a nice glass of cold white wine, put in a movie *I* wanted to watch, and ate my supper.  I made myself a cup of tea, ran a bath, and read a book. I wore my favourite pj’s, I watched another movie, wrote in my journal and chatted with a few friends. I went to bed when I wanted to, feeling SO happy with my life! I got up and had a shower and PUT ON MAKEUP!! I went out and purchased things for my new home. I went out for lunch and socializing with a writing group. I did my needlework. I took care of myself.

 I DID MY OWN THING

 For the first time in a year I wasn’t thinking about R or if he would call or when I would see him again, I knew he was out of my life! I didn’t care if he would disapprove of me drinking, because he no longer had the privilege of having an opinion in my life. I acknowledged my bitterness and anger about the way he handled my heart, but vowed only to be more aware and cautious “next time” I put myself out there.

 I spent time being HAPPY with myself, indulging MYSELF with the things that made my happy:

• My favourite movies
• Writing
• Reading
• Needlework
• Having a bath
• A cup of tea/ a glass of wine
• A tarot reading