I am thinking that most of it is the summer and the uncertainty and lack of routine that goes on for everyone in the summer time… 

That being said… this past weekend I took the opportunity to get away with Reg for a child free period of time. 

It has been THREE months since we had a date night, and that night I invited my friend C to hang out with us since I thought she was going to move away in the summer. 

I have to confess… I was starting to doubt my relationship with Reg these past few weeks, and this weekend away was starting to feel like this was a last chance to see if there was any point in continuing to see him.

It’s not that I don’t love him. I do. It’s not that I don’t think he loves me. Because I feel how much he loves me when we are together. The problem, for me, is that with the kids around and us both stressed and living apart (not just in distance, but the fact that we don’t really talk, type or email/text between visits) and that there isn’t time or energy to just be together as a couple. But the lack of communication between us has bothered me for a long time (since February when we stopped spending time chatting on MSN at night) and it has gotten SO much worse since he has been on vacation (being an educational assistant he  works during the school year, so as of the end of June he’s been on vacation). When he was working he used to text me every morning to say he loved me… and he hasn’t texted me in the morning SINCE the end of June. 

I really really MISS getting little text messages. It really made me feel special, it made me feel like he was really THINKING of me, like he was missing me. 

And the silence since then has really been HARD on me. Added to the fact that he doesn’t chat with me online anymore (I loved that, I’m totally an “You’ve got Mail” sorta girl, in that I LOVE getting email and chat online with my boy) and he rarely phones me. He’s gotten SO much better, he usually calls once a week… but with my phone STILL not always receiving calls when I am at home, I do end up missing calls more often than not (but the phone company is not really all that interested in solving my issue either, so I am working on work arounds to getting a landline (which would double my bill, and which I would rarely use))

We’ve both been going through a lot with our ex’s this summer… he’s been forced to start the custody process, I’m still fighting to get my divorce process STARTED (and find out WHERE my lawyer went, AGAIN) and he’s reacted by really closing off on me. I have been really trying to respect the fact that he doesn’t want to talk about what’s going on, or the fact that its going slow… and I don’t push, just hope that he’ll eventually feel comfortable enough to talk to me about what’s going on. 

So, with having no time alone and not feeling like I have a special place in his life lately, I had really started to wonder if I was wasting BOTH our time staying with him. If he was not interested in being with me (and I’m not talking about wanting to push and have a life with him — I know that there is no way that we will be able to live together for the foreseeable future — just not interested in being open and connected to me as a person) maybe we would both be better moving on. I know he’s not the kind to really show anything, and if I said that I was thinking that we weren’t working out he’d likely just walk away without so much as a fight or any show of emotion… somehow that hurts a bit… but I KNOW that I mean something to him. 

This weekend was really good… we’ve been so closed off from each other for the last 2 or 3 months and although he never really talked about his stuff, I really felt a lot closer to him. He cares about me, I see it in the little things he does for me, and the things he does to help me out, the things he lets me do on my own (even when he would do it better), the time he spends with me, the way he kisses me… the little kisses on the forehead or head, the way he runs his hand across my arm to let me know he’s there… all the things that have been hard to do with the stress and the kids and the running around trying to make sure everyone is happy…

It was great… We went had time to talk about our lives and laugh and have FUN without having the stress of chasing kids, stopping fights, dishes, meal planning, tears and tantrums, or having to rush to do something else. We went out for meals together, we went to shows together, we spent time cuddling together, we shopped together, and we had adult time to just relax and be. And while I had a little bit of anxiety, at first, with the idea of getting away together after feeling so shut out from his life lately, I think that mostly I am starting to see things more clearly:

 

He loves me, he really really does, and he shows me that in a lot of really meaningful little ways all the time. He has tried to keep in touch with me, given our circumstances and my lack of reception, and the effort he has made always makes me feel cared about. He’s just a bit more of a private person, and so if I want to know what is going on with him I have to ask him and make him realize that I care about HIS life too.

 

This summer Reg has gone out of his way to help me many times — he has spent time visiting me and the kids with his kids, he has stayed in my apartment (with his girls) to look after my place and my cats while I took my kids to Toronto,  he has always been there for me to call when I needed him, he came with me to Edmonton this weekend not only to get away and reconnect, but also to help me move stuff from Ikea, and I have no doubt at all that he will be right there willing to help me assemble my shelves from Ikea.

 

And things are good for what they are… I guess for now I will stop dreaming about a real future and just be happy with a real NOW with someone who is good for me and loves me…

 

 

• Reality TV is not REAL like it or not the situations that they create on these game shows are formulated to cause as much conflict between the contestants as possible
• Its entertainment. As much as people like to talk about who was wrong, the fact of the matter is that it was FORMULATED to get ratings.
• Men are not naturally that romantic without assistance. Its way easier to be romantic when you have a tv studio and crew, budget, designer, and writer designing dates for you. Its UNREALISTIC to expect real life dates to be that romantic, because its just not possible for the average person to do on their own. Shows like this feed on the romantic notions that women love and yearn for, but realize that they will never really get.
• If you want a rose, buy it yourself. Always better than bitterly yearning and never getting it from somoene else. I have found (and I admit I’m not the most romantically experienced person either) that when you meet your own needs, when you get yourself flowers or jewelry on your OWN, guys tend to pick up on those cues (“ah ha, THOSE are her favourites!”) and the rate of flowers increases. And if it doesn’t send a hint, well… now you have pretty flowers!!

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  • Sometimes it is okay to put myself first in a situation. I stayed in a relationship that wasn’t working for what I wanted in my life, because I
    • felt I owed the other for helping me and being my friend
    • didn’t want to hurt the other person
    • didn’t want to lose the friendship even though I wanted to lose the “relationship” part of it (and really NEEDED to spend some time separating myself and readying for who I want to be)
    • didn’t know how to put myself first
  • It is not a failure to quit something that, after concerted effort, is just not working for you. It is actually more of a failure to give up and accept things rather than cut your losses and be willing to start over again with something that might be right. Never be afraid to say, “this isn’t working” and find a way to make it work, or start again with something that WILL work
  • I am not afraid of being alone. I am more afraid of being pressed into being something that I don’t want because of the impression that I’m not willing to try to move on with my life. Hey, I don’t NEED a man to move on with my life. I am sure that I will move on that way eventually, but its not critcal to my happiness.
  • Sometimes there is not a “win/win” situation. Sometimes I cannot afford to give what another person says or thinks THEY need because it is diametrically opposed to what I need in the situation. I need to take care of myself, not the other, to ensure that I am healthy enough to take care of my children and the other responsibilities in my life.

 

In the end of the “break up” phase of the relationship I was, indeed, feeling like I was being made to choose between what I knew that I needed for my own psychological well being and what my friend needed to make him feel “okay” with the situation at hand. I needed time alone, without communicating with him via chat, not going out exclusively with him, and not sitting around discussing what we had been, what we could have been, what I meant to him, or what had caused the essential breakdown in the relationship — all things that he seemed to be desperately needing in order to feel like he had a handle on things. And in the end I did what I needed to do (and I am not going to feel guilty for doing so) and I cut back the talks and chats and texts and emails and visits, and I hermitted myself in my own mind and home and just dealt with the fallout in my OWN life. 

• I really need to get out of the house more… both on weeks that I have the kids and weeks that I do not. In that vein I have been making attempts to find classes, groups, events, activities that will bring me closer to the social butterfly that I once was. But, either Saskatoon is a pit of nothingness (can’t find any support groups for divorcees, single parents, newly single people, etc that aren’t solely focused on “dating” and, more insidiously “hooking up” (by which I am taking them to mean the “no strings attached casual “adult” relations…. um… ick) and more just on getting to know other humans of BOTH genders in this city) or I am just not having a good time finding things.
  • previously I had been a member of a group called “knit and knatter”, for people who liked to knit… but there was some fall out with that group (and my friend G) and due to the strain in the relationship between G and B, G left the group, never to hear from the very people who she had previously been so close to up until this point — not even ONCE. I’m not really sure that the fall out had anything at all to do with me, really, but I do worry that my association with G will make me unwelcome at the group… and really, what is to say that they are good friends if they can just cut out someone that used to be a part of the group like that and basically say “good riddence” to a former friend?
  • I have joined a gym… but I haven’t found a time that works when I have the kids (and I had been sick for 2 weeks JUST after I joined). I am committing myself to emailing them again and trying to find another trainer who might be more willing to help me set up a training plan, then going at least 3 times (hopefully 4) next week. Once I get more used to going to the gym I think I will try to fit one time per week that I have the kids in as well.
  • I have been trying to find something that I can do that will get me out and with other adult type people — without the push to get involved in sleezy one-night stands with people who think that that is what “mature adults” do (um… that’s what horny men who don’t really want relationships do, not what mature adults do) — but I’m not sure what or where to find such things.
  • Yes, I am going to try the online dating thing. Why not? I mean, I am single, and no matter how much it will hurt my friend the purple elephant in the corner, I want to experience life as a single adult, which will mean dating. So why not? I would like to go out, have a little fun… But I’m not playing the “hookup” game…
• The weeks I have the kids I will spend more time with them, and less time worrying about the rest of the world. I can try to do yoga or meditation in the evenings with dvds… be creative… and just spend my energy on being the best mother i can be (so the school stops calling me about how F’d up my kid is… as if I don’t know that he has attention issues and has been “scarred” by attending 4 schools in 4 years).
• I will try to write more consistently. At least 2 times a week here… maybe on OD (until the subscription ends again and then I’ll consider what I want to do with it). I will start to do weekly status reports… because, as one of my favourite new blogs (The Fluent Self) states “Traditions are Important”. As I agree with that statement, I want to start creating new traditions, online and in real life.
• I will try to get a podcast out once a month. So far I have failed at that… oh well… c’est la vie.