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???

I am starting to panic

No, seriously, I’m not sure if I can “get ‘er done” and get everything moved.  It feels like there is SO much to do and I don’t know if I can get it all completed in time.

This is the first time I will be moving on my own with minimal help.

The first time without a “partner” to assist in packing and cleaning and arranging things (although I did all the logistics)

The first time without family assistance

The first time I need to deal with 2 homes at once – moving stuff out , doing repairs, and cleaning the old place while painting and setting up a new place.

The first time I will OWN a place on my own

And I haven’t even started packing

You heard me, I haven’t started packing yet.

I intended to do a bunch of it this past weekend… but things didn’t work out that way. Friday found me exhausted from being kept awake late by the neighbors and then woken up AGAIN by same neighbors at 4am when they decided to turn their music UP… I was a walking zombie Friday at work.

Added to that, the stress seemed to finally catch up with me and I ended up with the beginning of a UTI. I plain didn’t feel like trying to find boxes and drag everything out and pack it up.

And then I had to run out to the Scout camp on Saturday night to go to campfire for my BoyChild because his father had only agreed to let BoyChild GO if he didn’t have to do anything other than drop him off and pick him up (and BoyChild wanted to go and for some reason hoped his father would care enough to come and participate with all the other parents at the campfire event… he doesn’t know his father very well, does he?). So in order to not make BoyChild feel like no one cared about him, I trucked my sorry (and SORE) ass out in the snow to the middle of nowhere to be there for my kid.

That’s how I roll, yo!

And Sunday… well… I wanted to REST because I hadn’t slept well and I hadn’t felt well…. I just wanted downtime.

I should have booked myself off from all other obligations and found boxes and packed. But I didn’t.

So I have to find a way to find boxes between my full time job, evening activities and obligations, housework, and parenting this week. Which I am thinking won’t be easy to do because this week I have something each evening – Scouts, Dance,  counseling appointment, support group, kids – so unless boxes fall from the sky or I purchase banker boxes I will have to wait until the weekend to start packing…

And that’s not ALL I have to do, I still have to:

• Change my address for all my accounts and things
• Get my satellite service moved
• Get internet hooked up in my house
• Choose paint colours
• Figure out when people can bring deliveries
• Disassemble things which can’t fit out the doors of the old place
• Fix doors and paint issues in the old place

And OMG taxes need to be done… and things need to be dealt with.

I don’t feel qualified to do this stuff on my own. I don’t feel like I should be solitary, but I am. I feel like I need family,  I need care and love and being part of a group that will actually work with me. Sometimes, in the dead of night, I realize that I am truly alone in a world that is dark and scary. Where I thought I would have someone to have and to hold, I have cats who only want to be fed or to trip me in the dark.

I am glad to be single right now, don’t get me wrong. The alternatives would be theEx (abusive and distant), the Stalker (hoarder and clingy, also live the cycle of abuse), or Reg (totally tuned out of life), and I am happier without any of them. I am happier without being told what to do or think or say or be or eat or feel. I am happier doing my crafty things and being active (when its not too cold out) than sitting around gaining weight and watching tv. I am happier spending my time and energy on my children, rather than on being the perfect little wifey . I am happy with my mild clutter and clean spaces rather than facing the potential of dealing with a hoarder on a daily basis.

I look forward to having a home of my own and having MY tastes and style front and center. I want to explore who I am and what I am, and have that show in my space.

But sometimes, late at night, I wish I had someone to hug. I wish I had someone to help haul crap with me.  I wish that there was someone out there who could accept me for me…

I wish it didn’t feel “too late” for a 35 year old mother of 2… sometimes its just 2am inside my mind.

In the light of day I know it will all be okay. Not because I am stronger than I think (I am) or because there will be something magical that happens to pull it off at the last minute (there might be)… but because it has to be.

I just can’t seem to slow down time to give me more space …

So… here we are at the end of the week.

Let’s recap how this week went:

The Bad Stuff

Officially breaking off my relationship with R.
 SOOO much harder than I expected, given that I was pretty much “girding my loins” (snicker) to do just this for the last few weeks as I realized that we
1) viewed our relationship very differently,
2) were going in pretty much OPPOSITE directions, and
3) I was almost CERTAIN that R had been seeking out another relationship behind my back for a few months and I DIDN’T CARE.

But losing the “girlfriend” status also meant being officially “single” again, which is something that I am not entirely comfortable being.  AND… all the things that he had agreed to help me with for my move, not gonna happen.

Anxiety, Nightmares and living in a situation that constantly triggers me.  
Like many people who have overcome abusive situations, I have things that can trigger anxiety in me. One of my BIGGEST triggers is being around MALE people who are under the influence of something (drugs or alcohol)… especially if I don’t KNOW the men in question. So imagine how hard it is for someone like me to live in a house where the people living ABOVE me party almost EVERY night!  Yes, my upstairs neighbors have friends over almost EVERY night and they always drink. The drunks like to invade common areas – the hallway between our suites, the laundry room, the back yard – and play ‘games’ such as writing rude things on my car, deflating my tires, and trying to open the door to my suite. I don’t know these people at all, and I don’t appreciate feeling like someone is going to walk in on me at any time, so my level of anxiety has been SUPER high lately, leading to panic attacks, headaches, and nightmares.

GENERAL ACK stuff

Divorce STILL not done
Yep, I am still waiting on my lawyer to finish this up. I am to sign the official affidavit on Monday, though. Then theEx has to sign it and it goes to the court. Or at least that is what I was told the last time. This is ack-some because:

1. theEx has been allowed to continue to intimidate me and use money to control me through out this process, with my lawyer doing nothing to stop it other than to say “document it” (I have been, thanks, you didn’t TAKE my documentation!!)
2. I want to pay off the debt that my lawyer has caused, but I only want to have to do it ONCE so I am waiting on final billing, which won’t happen until the divorce papers come back.
3. I can see theEx trying to play douche-bag games with me over child support, since he’s trying to do it NOW, and forcing me to incur MORE legal debt

So, yeah, ACK.

MOVING STUFF
Like I said before, R had agreed to help me do a few things around my current place to help me get ready to move, and they aren’t really things I know how to do on my own. And I don’t own necessary TOOLS to do these things either. So, between having to hire someone to help me repair a doorframe, and likely having to beg more people to help me paint and move big heavy things, this move is looking a little more stressful than it was before.

I have SO much to pack and declutter, I have to pick out colours for rooms, I have to pick out a washer/dryer set and a few pieces of furniture I don’t have… just a list of a bunch of stuff…

Kids going to their Fathers for 2 weeks
 While this DOES give me time to get some cleaning, decluttering and packing done, I really HATE when they are with him. Since he’s an abusive, self-centred person I can’t imagine him as a very good father (he wasn’t involved when we were together), and he’s on the shared custody kick only to punish me and to minimize the amount of child support he pays. He also refuses to let them call me when they are there, which makes the ache that they are gone worse…

The GOOD STUFF

The Being Single Again
Yes, the being single again is part of the un-joyous suck part of this week… but it is also a HUGE RELIEF. Since I had become aware that things were not good with R (about a month ago) there were a lot of things that I realized I needed to decide FOR MYSELF.  Being with R meant:

• Not being able to go out for a nice meal that wasn’t a hamburger or pizza (the only 2 meals the man eats)
• Becoming a teetotaler  – I’m not a big drinker, but having the OPTION once in a while without being made to feel like I was clubbing baby seals would have been nice
• Being stressed about disciplinary issues with his kids – whether  it was my children feeling ignored or his kids hitting or R threatening the children with spankings, there was a lot of stress surrounding the parental roles
• Never having a mature relationship

Being single again means being MYSELF for ME, and learning to be me instead of trying to impress some man. Maybe I’m late to the party, but I finally figured it out : If I have to pretend to be someone else to have a man like me, then he’s not someone I want to be with.

Being single means not having to think about what someone ELSE might need in my house. Being single means I can play MY music and do my writing and MY hobbies and not have to worry about entertaining someone else all the time.  It means making MYSELF feel good about things and not always second guessing what someone else wants.

Good Bye “R”… have a good life…

New Practices!!

• Yoga! I have been checking out yoga videos from the library and trying them out. I still haven’t found consistent time to do them, and I am working on that, but I’m trying. Even my cat is getting into yoga!
• Reading before bed! For the last few years reading was a luxury for vacations without the kids. But now that the kids are getting older, there seems to be a lot more time for reading. I bought a $6 lamp from Walmart a few weeks ago, and since then I have reinstated the reading before going to sleep ritual that I had practiced for most of my life (but left behind when I left theEx).
• Nightly Tarot draw! Okay, so there are times, especially this week, when I have forgotten to pull a card, but since January 1 I have been pulling one to three cards from my deck and reading up on the symbols and meanings. Interestingly enough the last card I pulled (Weds night) was the Death card!! If you know about the Tarot, and Paganism, you know that this isn’t necessarily a bad omen… and it really spoke about what I needed right then.
• Soulful awareness! I am starting to slow down and really think about what resonates with me – from what I want to eat to what I want to read to what colours to choose for my new home, being aware of how things affect me and the effects they have on energy around me is really profound.
• Journaling! Not as much as I want, but I’m getting better with at least writing down 5 to 6 lines per night. Someday I will want to know how I felt about this period in my life, and how I got to be so spiritually aware…
• Meditation! Every night before I go to sleep I have been using guided meditations to oven myself to self-love and balancing my chakras!
• Trying new recipes! The weeks that I don’t have the kids (and some that I do) I try out new recipes that I think *I* will like! Being sick of burgers, chicken fingers, and other “kid” foods, I have started to try new tastes and flavours!

Realizing that I am NOT alone
For years I had lived the belief that theEx had every right, as a husband, to treat me the way he did, and that it was my PERCEPTION of the normal husband role that caused me to fail in our marriage. I had several counselors through my marriage (including my marriage counselor) and after assure me that what I went through was abusive, that even though theEx will tell everyone in the universe that I was a horrible wife, mother, and woman, the truth of the matter is that I had every right to decide that enough abuse was enough and to walk away instead of induring it.

To that end I found a group in the city that provides a support group for women who have gone through ALL KINDS of domestic violence. While it is sad to note that there are that many of us living this way, it is nice to know that I am not crazy, that I’m not just a whiner for leaving someone who controlled and ignored the needs of his family.

It’s also nice to know that there are bloggy people out there who care about someone they have never met! When I posted about feeling alone the night that my relationship officially dissolved, I got quite a few people mention the blog community. While I am still very new, and I don’t have much reach, it is nice to know that there are SOME people out there. And then when I was feeling low, I got assistance from a Twitter pal: @Fabeku, who shared with me some wonderful and healing sacred sound recordings that I can’t wait to try out tonight!!

Tonight I am going to make the most of the fact that I have the night off  (even though I miss the kids). I am going to clean my kitchen, then make myself a lovely chickpea and greens stir fry with couscous for supper,  maybe I’ll pick up a nice white wine and have a glass, light a candle, and have a bath…

Have a good weekend… whoever you are out there!!!