...and so we are all in agreement that being the first girl to sleep with a guy after his divorce is just like being the first girl to give a guy a blow-job.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
They're actually at sort of good ages to deal with this type of thing being highly self-involved teenagers. I would say they both basically ignored his plea for sympathy with an adolescent attitude of "Whatever."
I don't doubt they have "handled" it especially since they have had to live with it all along. Just because you learn to handle or cope with something doesn't mean it doesn't affect you and especially later in life or in other ways.
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
You think that postcard pissed you off. Just wait for the day when he starts asking your kids to lend him money.
Just a heads up.
He'a a putz, and you are just now realizing everything you put up with for so long... and your brain is unable to compute the enormity of it... hence, the numbness. Kind of like when Windows spontaneously shuts down. "I just can't take it anymore!"
But. As they say in my part of the country... "it is far better to be pissed off, than to be pissed on."
You think that postcard pissed you off. Just wait for the day when he starts asking your kids to lend him money.
Well, word is he's living off his older sister at the moment which means that he is really living off her wealthy third husband. I think I might have mentioned that my 2bxFIL offered to rent me a house he owns at cost. It was hilarious (to me) to witness his reaction when I turned down his offer. I may not come out of this mess with my FICO intact but at least I'll still have my stubborn pride and rose-colored glasses. Better naked in the cabbage patch than strait-jacketed in the rose garden.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
He definitely has always had that "I'm a charming 3 year old who just did something bad but you know you can't get mad at me because I'm so cute and helpless" thing working for him. Of course, he also has the "I'm a 3 year old who will whine continuously and sulk in the corner until you give me attention" thing too. Unfortunately for me, both of these used to work on me. Now the first makes me want to puke and the second makes me think that infanticide might be a good option if the infant who behaves that way is 43.
I wonder how much of his poses stem from the fact that he's pretty. He reminds me a bit of a spoiled petulant Lord Alfred in that Oscar Wilde movie. Not only the toddler-esque supposed-to-be roguish charm, but something almost ... effeminate. *ponders elusive taste on her tongue*
You're absolutely sure he's been playing for the right team all those years? I'm only half joking.
I wonder how much of his poses stem from the fact that he's pretty. He reminds me a bit of a spoiled petulant Lord Alfred in that Oscar Wilde movie. Not only the toddler-esque supposed-to-be roguish charm, but something almost ... effeminate. *ponders elusive taste on her tongue*
You're absolutely sure he's been playing for the right team all those years? I'm only half joking.
Well, that was my working theory for several months around the 4th year of our marriage but I really don't think so. The evidence in favor of that theory was that he would go out at night and hangout at coffee shops and discuss philosophy with another pretty man and leave me home unf*cked with two babies. Really I think they were both just posers who liked the fact that they looked pretty together in public (my 2bx all pale haunted Van Gogh redhead and his friend all dark haunted angel with curls with their cuffs folded just so and their boy knapsack "purses" crossing their trenchcoats (okay, I have to take a break to puke a little in my mouth here)) Also, the woman he went out with before me was pretty much, to but it crudely, a "fag hag." Also, it often seemed to me that he would get "crushes" on other men sometimes.
However, I did spy on his private porn habits at one low point in my existence and found zero evidence for any male body object orientation. Plus, despite all his complaints about my physical being, I could tell that he was erotically object-oriented towards me during sex. Also, my sister dated a man for a while who came out later and she knew somebody else this happened to too. She said that the sexual pattern of behavior with a guy who is really gay is that they can be very loving and touching and sensual and they don't generally or initially have ED but they lose their erection easily throughout any erotic interaction with a woman. My 2bx never had erectile dysfunctions.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
However, I did spy on his private porn habits at one low point in my existence and found zero evidence for any male body object orientation. Plus, despite all his complaints about my physical being, I could tell that he was erotically object-oriented towards me during sex. Also, my sister dated a man for a while who came out later and she knew somebody else this happened to too. She said that the sexual pattern of behavior with a guy who is really gay is that they can be very loving and touching and sensual and they don't generally or initially have ED but they lose their erection easily throughout any erotic interaction with a woman. My 2bx never had erectile dysfunctions.
I bow to your superior knowledge of him and the subject matter. But there's something odd there I can't quite put my finger on.
Or perhaps what irritates me is just a myriad of tiny little echoes in a vast empty chamber. Occam's razor, and all that.
I bow to your superior knowledge of him and the subject matter. But there's something odd there I can't quite put my finger on.
Well, here are a couple things that stick with me. I met my 2bx when we were both working at a campus party store. We were casual friends who hung out in the same large social circle for over a year before we started seeing each other. Anyway, there was this really sexually aggressive guy who worked at the same party store and he was always hitting on me ( I once lodged a complaint with the 30-something guy who ran the store along the lines of "____ grabbed my *ss behind the counter. Do you think that is appropriate?" Of course, being the never-to-be-taken-seriously person that I am, the response I got was "I'll talk to him." with a subtext of "and we'll laugh our *sses off.") When this macho-to-the-point-of-obnoxious guy found out I was dating my 2bx his response was sort of like "Well, if that's what you like, I can see why you didn't go for me."
Another thing. Years later my 2bx and I worked for the same company but at different locations. I had a good friend co-worker who was one of the world's biggest natural flirts and very attractive. She actually had a brief affair with a guy who is probably one of the Top 20 most eligible bachelors on the planet. One day she spent some time interacting with my 2bx. We were talking later and she said "Your H is kind of weird." which is not exactly an appropriate thing to say to a friend but I knew just why she felt that way. She was baffled because he was resistant to her social flirtation. Actually, my 2bx was sometimes rude when women flirted with him because he found such behavior so annoying. In a way I think he viewed it as competitive behavior. It kind of goes along with the fact that I think most people think I'm kind of funny but my 2bx rarely did because he had to be the funny one. I always had to be the straight guy in our relationship.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
The annoying, childish, poor me postcard is what makes D difficult even though your children are older and better able to handle it. My ex is full of this kind of that kind of behavior. He "shares" his financial woes, inability to sustain a R, inability to sustain a job etc... with the kids incessantly. All the while he declares his undying, overwhelming, all encompassing (subtext: better than Mom's) love for them and uses the woes as excuses not to see them, not to pay child support (my children don't know that their Dad rarely pays his support and that it has been repeatedly reduced to an absolutely ridiculous level). Even if the kids are older you wonder how they feel just sharing the gene pool with a man who behaves that way, you wonder if they will someday use his weakness as a way to excuse poor behavior or inaction (as in, "guess I'm just like Dad), you wonder if they will judge themselves unworthy of good things, a happy marriage etc...due to all of that. So far my children seem able to compartmentalize their thinking on things. They separate his inaction from the fact that he does love them. They separate the D from their right to enjoy a good R with their Stepdad (my pre-pubescent 10 yo D has a more difficult time - she compares an idealized Dad to my DH a lot).
BTW - quit getting me hot with all this sexual banter. It isn't good for me. I am a middle aged, suburban Mom who works at a hippie, liberal non-profit for Gawds sake!
As for your Dh's orientation- it doesn't seem "other oriented" - it is narscissistic. He might have experimented with a man at some point if only to see what reflected him in a light he liked. KWIM?
Also, I must have written about this before but when we were amicably splitting up my H had just gone through a phase of watching lots of foreign films. He told me that he had considered having a sort of European arrangement with me where I could have lovers but we could stay married but had decided that he was too American. During this convo, he said something like "Of course, I will probably never be in a relationship again (sigh)". I looked over at him and said something like "Oh, you're pretty cute. I'm sure it will happen." and for just a moment he flashed me his "coy/cute" look and this might seem kind of unbelievable but that might have been the first time that it dawned on my consciousness that he actually acted that way purposefully. So that is why it now makes me pukey when he does it.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
