The last 3 years I have been wandering, lost, in an unknown place. I shook off the chains of my marriage, I left an abusive situation, and I gained my freedom. But in a lot of ways I wasn’t READY for the freedom I gained, and the sudden freedom really messed with my mind.

Where I was….

TheEx monitored me 24 hours a day. I was used to being watched and scrutinized and was fearful of talking to coworkers, fearful of phone calls and emails, and fearful of making plans. For years I knew that my husband would call me at work, randomly, and hope to catch me away from my desk, which he assumed meant that I was engaging in adulterous activities – so I did my very best to be at my desk at work 90% of the time (this was one of a number of undisclosed reasons that I was “let go” from that job without disciplinary action). I knew that every phone call I received at home was checked (or listened in on), that he checked my online diary, personal diary, daytimer, email accounts, snail mail, and cell phone records. My in-laws babysat and for years and reported on all my comings and goings (my FIL was just the same with my MIL). I lived in a cage where anything I did or said or anyone I talked to would result in insults and anger and more monitoring…

You’d think that being free after being so constrained would be a joyful thing. But I was not used to having freedom.

Living In FEAR…

For an entire year after I walked out I was on constant alert for danger.

After I left the ex, I didn’t leave my parents house for 6 weeks. I didn’t phone anyone. I didn’t go to any events. I lived with my parents, so my life was work and home, home and work. I was afraid to leave my parents’ house in case they were mad at me for not being there with them. After a while I would hide out in the city on the weekends after I dropped the kids off for his visitation – but I was afraid to go out with anyone or do anything where I could be seen.

I was so afraid of the freedom I had gained, I handed my life over to the next bad idea – the Stalker – even though I knew that I was not ready for another relationship. At first I was happy, I belonged to someone and I had boundaries given to me. There were expectations at first, then suggestions, then pleadings, and then commands. He would spiral through the cycle of abuse in one email, only to back track and blame his language on me and how much I meant to him in the next. When I pulled away, he desperately clutched, using all means including my spiritual beliefs to prove to me that he was the man I was destined for.

It took a great deal of strength, but I gained freedom from Stalker too…

Comfort in being ALONE…

By this time I was comfortable with being alone in my home. I was still afraid to leave my home after work or on weekends, and I didn’t regularly answer my phone or check my email… slowly slowly I could feel myself uncurl from the compressed constraints that I had lived within. Slowly I started to look up, to dream, to seek more, to explore.

I continued to be lost. I looked to friends to tell me what to do. I looked to Reg to tell me. I looked to coworkers. I looked to advice bloggers and relationship experts and my therapist and my children… I wanted to do it RIGHT this time, but I didn’t know what RIGHT was!!

I went from having my life mapped out for me (get a degree, get a husband, have children, get a job, buy a house, work 30 years, retire…) to having no map. I went from knowing what was expected of me to having no expectations for my future.

With an awed suddenness I went from having a life which was narrowly defined and constrained, to having every possibility opened to me…

And with it a terrible paralysis has developed.

Where I find myself NOW…

I have been spinning in circles looking at everything at once, wanting it ALL and knowing that inevitably it is impossible to do so. I am struck with the feeling of being both 36 and also 18 – I have responsibilities placed on me by society and yet I also have so many possible plans and desires that I don’t know what I “want to do when I grow up”…

Such was my previous life that I am not sure what my talents are, what my passions are, what I want out of life. I feel lost in a fog of “who am I” that occasionally lifts but doesn’t completely clear up. The path I am walking is unseen, unclear, and unsure… Several times I have lost my footing, turned or lost confidence in the steps ahead…

But this too is a natural part of life.

My formerly secure identity – X’s wife, BoyChild and GirlChild’s mother, employee of Y – have all been shaken or destroyed. I am standing in front of the mirror of my own consciousness, trying to see the future I no longer have, and trying to divine a path I have not yet committed to.

My grief is tangible to me, but invisible to most. I do not know who I am meant to be. I do not know HOW to find the answers. I do not know where to turn… other than inside myself.

Now is the time to trust in my heart and start to listen to my own intuition instead of deciding on the basis of what others judge to be the best path for me to take.  Now is the time for me to explore my self, my desires, and learn from my past mistakes. Now is the time to define, for myself, what is “success”, what is worthy of sacrifice and what burdens are best laid down…

I trust that I am the only one who can find my Path and my SELF. And right now that means exploring and discovering what fits ME and not listening to what fits someone else…

I wanted to update on Friday, I really did… but it just wasn’t to be.

So here I will start again…

Things that just SUCKED ASS last week:

My Ex Husband

As per usual I got a lot of stress from my (now OFFICIALLY) Ex-Husband in the form of emails. While he doesn’t necessarily have the cahones to confront me in person, I often get email missives in which he basically threatens to financially destroy my life (or that his financial downfall, because of ME, will cause me financial destruction) if I don’t do what he wants me to do.

Currently he is freaking out about the child support that he owes for 2009 and what exactly constitutes “income”. The email read in such a way that if I don’t agree to his personal valuation of the situation he and his lawyer will argue that the originally AGREED TO amount of income, the amount in the officially signed and SEALED COURT ORDER, will be disputed by him and he will make me pay back whatever amount it was that he paid me in 2009.

Now, I am not sure I want to battle this out in court… I mean, if I battle it out what, really, will I win other than his “financial ruin” and a huge temper tantrum and MAYBE a max of $5000 in back support that I will have to have him garnished to actually ever see – An ulcer? Migraines?

I have to tell you that I am TIRED… DEAD TIRED… of having him think that because he has money and I don’t that he can decide everything for US. There is no “US” anymore. There is ME and there is HIM… and we share the kids ONLY because I can’t get a lawyer to seriously look at pursuing custody in my province.

Right now I am all for making him sweat because I am not answering his emails or bowing to his pressure to do things HIS way. I know for one that he can’t take back the original amount that was agreed upon in the court order of support because it was MUTALLY agreed on. But more than that, I have more immediate concerns in my life right now.

My Car

In the last few weeks my car hasn’t been running all that well, and, because I no longer have savings to draw on if something screws up, I have been avoiding taking it into a mechanic. I haven’t had positive experiences with mechanics, as a single woman, and I dread taking my car in on my own knowing that it means that I am at the mercy of someone who KNOWS they have me over a barrel. So I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to get my male coworkers to help me with finding a trustworthy mechanic to look my car over.

I have been worrying because something is wrong and I absolutely rely on my car. Without a car I can’t get to and from work (there is no public transportation to the town my job is in), getting groceries, picking up my kids, getting them to and from the babysitter/school…

Right now, I don’t have a safety net in my life … so I do for myself. But that means that if my car was incapacitated I don’t have help to get myself back in order easily. That’s a bit scary.

Noodle/Reg and his father changed out my spark plugs this weekend, and I got a coworker to change out the “ignition wires” and things are working a BIT better but a reported “clunk” sound that I can’t replicate, the fact that my “check engine” light is still on, and there seems to be some lingering hesitation when shifting has me concerned.  Just to have the “check engine” light off will cost me $60… with the potential of them finding a bevy of other faults with the vehicle that will cost me dearly…

 I can’t afford to spend TOO much fixing it, but I can’t afford to not have a car OR to get a new one right now. So the not knowing what is wrong has me worried.

My car is a much more IMMEDIATE need than dealing with theEx.

  The Good things

The BoyFriend

I have to confess that when I first agreed to try things again with Reg I was skeptical. The first go round ended silently, with sighs of relief and regret. But the 4 months break we had really seems to have clarified what direction I am going in my life – and what I want to work towards. I am seeing changes in my life – I have my own home, I’m making my own decisions for the first time in my life – and I like that, I don’t want to start living only for another person again.

At the same time, a good relationship, hope for the dream of a family life again someday (although not too soon), is something I want in my life as well.

I don’t want to jinx anything… I am well aware that this go-round is in the early stages, and I am aware that it was just about this time (~10 weeks)  into the first go-round that the sudden changes started to happen between Reg and I.  I am not deluded into believing (yet) that things might have permanently corrected themselves.  But I am hopeful at the way things are going… the communication is now there, we have discussed hopes, plans and dreams, we’ve gone on dates, and just focused talking and loving each other.

There is hope.

It’s been times and times and times better so far than it was before the break, which makes me believe that the break was necessary for any hope of this working out.

The Home

I love my home. Yes, the additional costs involved in home ownership (I have condo fees and property taxes on top of my mortgage payments) make it equal a bit more than I was paying at the other place… but I’m not paying as much in utilities and I don’t have the constant stress of bad neighbors, a bad neighborhood, sudden 20% increases in rent, or dealing with an absentee landlord.

Yes, it does mean I have to be a lot more frugal, that’s for sure. I have a goal of consolidating the remainder of my debt and getting out of debt within the next 2 years so I can get some things I really want – a real bed (with mattress) and dresser for myself, a couch for my living room, finishing my basement (potentially into a spare bedroom/rumpus room). 

This summer I think I will be cutting back my cable and internet to basics (high speed light internet, basic cable) and potentially getting rid of my VoIP home phone as well… I need to find room in my budget to get myself some new clothes and allow myself the freedom to do activities (yoga, Nia, Tae Kwon Do) without grinding into debt to do it. I am tired of constantly worrying about expenses while wasting money on things I don’t need/use or overspending on things that I don’t really need. I am going to have to decide what it is that my kids will be involved in during the summer – theEx wants all sorts of things to be half paid for by me knowing I can’t afford as much as him— while balancing family outings and my own summer travels.

I need to learn to budget and organize and be MINDFUL and PRESENT with things – buy less foods that will be wasted, smaller meals, cheaper meals, bulk buying and doing once a month cooking/freezer stocking (OAMC). I have cut back on spending on myself, on meals out, and on unnecessary things for the kids and house and am working on being happy with what we do have.

Having my own place is just so much better than renting ever was, and I am glad for that. So greatful that I am going to make sure I keep moving forward and making things better all the time.

Dance

This year I took the plunge and did something I have wanted to do for a VERY long time… I enrolled in an adult beginner Irish Dance class. While I haven’t done any dance for over 20 years (the last class I took I was 15) this was something I wanted to do and I did it.

We’re embarking on our 2010 recital (Friday, June 11 in Saskatoon… be there (laugh)) and I’m pretty excited. Girl Child’s beginner class will be performing that night as well… so it’s a family affair.  I hope that at least my parents will come this time, if only for GirlChild…  I’d like to get a picture of us together in our dance uniforms.

If at all possible I want to continue taking Irish dance next year. Heck, I gotta at least PERFECT one of the beginner jigs

• Light jig (almost!)
• Single jig (halfway?)
• Slip jig (hahahaha)

So what were your sucktastic and great things last week?

 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’m having a hard time writing lately. Things are feeling… hard… right now. I am distracted, trying to keep so many “balls in the air” in so many aspects of my life.

It’s hard to talk about things, even here, because I know that my words will be judged.  I appreciate people READING/Listening to my words, but there are some times when I do not necessarily need the FEEDBACK on my decisions, just the support that I am doing things the way I need to do them.

That being said… I have things that I want to get off my mind that don’t necessarily need the judgment of minds outside me (although support is okay, I don’t necessarily need “shoes” thrown (to use a Havi-Brook-ism) right now)…

1. Divorce

Amazingly enough, the order of divorce has FINALLY been signed by a judge, meaning that I will legally be no longer married (according to the Government of Canada) 31 days from that date. For those keeping track, the divorce judgment was issued April 15, 2010, and so I will be legally divorced as of May 16, 2010.

I don’t know how to feel about it.  My emotions are all over the place with the finality of the ending of my marriage.  I am:

• Relieved that this part is over
• Frustrated with the way things were handled
• Upset that I failed
• Happy that I made it through, relatively unscathed
• Annoyed that theEx continues to try and muddy the issues and play games with support
• Intimidated by theEx with regards to his constant badgering me to see how he’s the one presenting things “fairly” while I am being greedy
• Disappointment with the “death” of a life I wanted – married with kids and a home
• Realization that I am better off (emotionally, spiritually, financially, physically, socially) without theEx
• Unsure
• Self-loathing because I feel that he might be right in labeling me “greedy” for asking the lawyers to review the support documents rather than (yet again) agreeing with what he wants and sees as “fair”
• Proud of standing up to him and his bullying
• Afraid of the debt from enforcing my child support order
• Disappointed in theEx for trying to bully me out of support for our kids, when he makes THREE TIMES what I do
• Afraid. Afraid that I have been wrong. Afraid that the ex is right and that my asserting my NOW COURT GIVEN RIGHTS is “greedy” or “selfish” or will cause issues later on
• Virtuous. I did things right. I didn’t play dirty. I got out without bankrupting myself, and I asked for LESS THAN I was due from theEx and STILL made it through.
• ANGRY that even though I make 50-75% LESS than theEx he feels the need to constantly tell me that he can’t “live” on what he earns if he is required to pay support
• Guilt that he is “struggling” and feels that it is MY fault that he isn’t able to make his ends meet
• Frustration that I feel angry and guilty and a bit superior to him when he could definitely live within his means, rather than try to force me to give in and let him pay less and less…

2. CHILD SUPPORT ISSUE

There is a question of outstanding child support for 2009 on the table.  It shouldn’t be a shock to him, but he is trying to control the situation outside of talking to the lawyers. This is simply something he is struggling with, and getting DESPERATE trying to get me to agree with his interpretation of “fair”.

Most conversations go like this:

X: I had to wait to file taxes. I needed to be sure I had the money.

Me: I just need the forms.

X: I will get the forms when they come. But you DO see how it is unfair to have my income viewed at $X this year? They are counting it TWICE!! That’s not fair.

Me: I am not going to offer an opinion on that right now.

X: but it isn’t FAIR! 

Me: I do not know the tax and support laws/guides for this. Ask your lawyer, she’ll know.

X: But she charges me for every 2 min phone call! I can’t AFFORD that! But you can SEE its not fair this way! I can TELL Lawyer that my income is $Y and your income as $T and she will tell us what should have been paid.

Me: I am not agreeing or disagreeing. I don’t know the rules and I do not feel comfortable agreeing with you on this.

X:You’re being GREEDY!!! I have to live too you know…(much blah blah whining and email abuse about how I’m ruining him inserted here)

The funny part of this is that theEx makes THREE times what I make in a year. THREE TIMES. I don’t feel sorry for him. I don’t AGREE with him. I don’t DISAGREE with him, for the record.

I agreed to have it reviewed and dealt with… by SOMEONE ELSE, someone NOT theEx, someone who KNOWS about these things, is to look at both sets of documents and give us the answer…

I want to be protected.

3. LOVE LIFE

I haven’t wanted to write about this because I had enough of the negative reactions from people when I mentioned that I had been contacted by the Noodle.   And even worse when I mentioned that I RESPONDED to him

I got reactions that ranged from supportive but cautious to outright hostile about the Noodle. While I respect that things did not necessarily go very well between the Noodle and I, the ending was pretty much a letting go and stepping back away, not a blow out fight.  Responding to the message on FaceBook, then chatting on MSN, and talking on the phone??? Those were 100% my choices to make and didn’t affect anyone other than me and my children, and, those people are MY responsibility and no one else’s.

While there was perhaps a grain of trying to protect me from hurt, the vehemence of the proclamation that even talking to the Noodle again was “stupid” and that he was just going to “use” me again was a little disconcerting to me. Yes, the relationship went off the rails pretty early on – mostly due to lack of communication, stress of divorces (both of us were completing divorce processes), and child rearing pressures … but in the end only I know what I want and do not want in my life…

I wrote truly about the previous part of the relationship. The last day I saw him was January 1. The last time I talked to him was January 5 when I called to wish him a happy birthday. We drifted apart via MSN on January 12, and he had made it clear that he just hadn’t been interested in fighting for a future.

So I was shocked to hear from him 3 weeks ago. At first I wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted, but I was willing to listen, I was open to at least a friendship. I wasn’t about to pretend that nothing happened, I wasn’t able to just ignore the fact that I had felt very isolated and alone and unwanted in the relationship for most of the time we were “together”. I couldn’t ignore the things I had done wrong, but I couldn’t brush aside the lack of willingness to care and nurture a relationship on his side either.

In the end I decided, FOR MYSELF, to give the relationship another shot. There are changes in the way things are going to go – I am not hosting weekends at my place, we’re not getting the kids together yet, the focus (whether anyone else agrees or not) is on the Noodle and I (not on our lives as single parents) and we’re communicating regularly. And even though people would rather I just stay single and focus only on my kids and my cats, I know that my life path isn’t necessarily going to follow the “approved” path that everyone ELSE wants for me…

So… there you have it: My divorce has been signed and I will be officially, legally single again as of May 16^th, I am still avoiding agreeing with theEx on back support issues, and I am once again dating the Noodle…

Any questions???