Hope and heartache

[ClingingToHope]

The D train is picking up speed. Had the girls tonight. Took them to PetSmart. While they were playing with cats W called. She talked for a while about D10, who all of a sudden is getting Ds and Fs on assignments. Things had been going great and now she's backsliding.

When that was over I asked her about my options for a tooth implant. She said I should check whether my company has a flex plan option. I said I thought I was staying on her insurance next year and she said once the D is final they kick me off and that should be mid-year.

I asked if she was filing soon and she said yes. To my credit, it's the first time I've held up when she began talking D, I asked her if she'd looked into collaborative divorce. It's new in Illinois. Both sides hire attorneys but sign an agreement that all four will work out agreements fair to both sides.

It's less damaging than a contested divorce and more fair than a do-it-yourself divorce since both sides have attorneys to consult.

She didn't anything about it. She said she wanted to just split everything up 50/50 and be done with it. I said it's a little more complicated than that. The big thing being her pension is worth at least $30,000 more than my IRA and I'd want a share of that.

She thought I couldn't have the money until she retired. I told her an attorney said there is a motion we could file to pull money out of pension funds in special cases such as divorce.

I was very business like. Not friendly but not mean. I told her she was going to end up having to pay a fairly large chunk to divorce me when you figured in all of the debt I'm paying on that she ran up.

We said our goodbyes and hung up and I've been going to pieces ever since.

I am going to hate every single step of this. I've hated every step so far. I've called everyone I could -- somewhat at the expense of the girls who have been wondering what's wrong.

The D train is staring me in the face and yet I cling to strands of hope. During our conversation, she told me about Saturday night. She went to a local bar with an old friend who has gone through two divorces -- cheating on both husbands -- and she said two of my friends were mean to her and two were nice.

The people she is hanging out with are all divorced and I'm sure telling her how great it is. I have to remember I've only been out of the house five months. The first two months I lived with a friend and couldn't keep the girls so she was always with them. So really it's just been three months and six weekends that she could act "single" and head out with friends and get drunk without worrying about a husband at home.

And it was two weeks ago I crumbled when talking about the holidays, allowing her to throw the "I never loved you" line at me again.

One of the people I called was my sister and I asked her if she noticed if Bev didn't love me. She said it appeared as if Bev loved me too much. That she was too wrapped up in what I said or felt.

I don't believe that she never loved me. That being said, there were some weird things early on, shudders when I touched her on nights where she wasn't in the mood, that felt strange. But I've always chalked that up to her promiscuous teen years where she was with a lot of guys because she didn't have confidence that her personality could keep a guy, she thought she had to put out.

She has a lot of issues she needs to work on. Instead, she's pinning her unhappiness on me. I know this. I know my only chance is to detach and GAL and just get on with things.

But tonight, after this talk, it is just sooooo hard. Of course, sleeping pill is starting to kick in. Thank God for pharmaceuticals.