Separated, Divorced and Single!

[built4speed]

I've only had threads here, so it doesn't seem right to move to another forum. Perhaps I'll stay here one more cycle.

My old thread

I went to her (my old) house to gather some more of my stuff. I have now cleared out all rooms on the first floor except one closet with some coats. I finished getting the rest of my stuff out of my office, and got some pictures that were in the entry way. W did not handle it well at all. Virtually everything in my office was mine, but she was negotiating to keep some of the pictures. We had agreed previously on one she could keep and she wanted others, but I would not agree. I'm already at a huge disadvantage being the one moving. I have to get "permission" to even get the small portion of "our" stuff I am getting. She inspected every single item I was taking. Then as I was leaving, I took two pictures we got in Ireland and left the other six, per our previous agreement. She was pissed, and started yelling at me as I was leaving and slammed the front door as I left. Whatever.

I try not to let that stuff bother me anymore. It clearly is her issue, as we had already decided who got what, and I am just doing what we agreed upon.

Later, she called. She apologized and started telling me how unhappy she is, how tired she is, how much work it is being alone, she's lonely, and basically miserable, and asking how I felt. I said I am not happy at all about the D. She asked if I felt I had any contribution to the D. I said that I had done many things wrong, and took responsibility for those, but that the real cause of the D was her refusing to lift one finger to try to fix it, and that I blame her for that. It was not said in a mean way, just matter of factly saying what I felt.

She expained (for the millionth time) that she just couldn't get any space from me, and (now it got weird) that I had people checking up on her. I know enough that arguing points like this is a no-win, so I just let her go. (the subplot here is that as we progressed though the end of our marriage, she made it clear we might be done and I panicked, so I did everything she asked: changed behaviors she didn't like, started individual counceling, worked off the honey-do list, and stopped pressuring for sex. Through all this she did nothing. The fifth thing she asked was me moving out, and by then I said I needed to see some motion on her part towards me before I would do anything else. So she uses the "space" excuse as her reason we needed to D becasue I wouldn't agree to "give her space". So, though technically true, she had already decided to end it and needed something I wouldn't do as her excuse, and it ended up being "moving out". It might just as well been "not going to counseling". You get the picture).

So just as I'm beginning to get curious as to where she is going with this, she says, "I know your dad was bugging the phones." See, the great thing about not being married to her anymore is this: I don't have to listen to this type of nonsense anymore. So I just said, "I have to go" and hung up the phone. With paranoia, there is no way to prove she is wrong, so the arguments never end, but guess what: they do now!

She called back in a minute and I just let it go to voicemail. She can be paranoid, but just not to me.

The freedom is hard to describe.