Soaring Solo 2010

[Gardener]

Long journalling...

So last night, the final 3-way telephone conversation w/mediator. Pretty much in agreement. I email mediator and stbx afterward to summarize.
stbx emails this morning with some last minute considerations. Reasonable ones.

I called her. We discussed calmly and decently. For the second time in a week, she suddenly sounds like her again, the one whose been alien-AWOL for 14 months. Go figure.

And the one who last Sunday was suddenly crying to me on the phone about never meaning "to cause all this strife, all this destruction, all this!" Listens to me calmly as I close our conversation by saying,

"This was unnecessary.
I was changeable.
You were changeable.
We were improvable.'

To which she replies - get this - that she agrees with me and launches into a regret of "letting so many resentments build up unnecessarily toward the end but I never learned how to voice my opinions, my expectations."

I replied with, "As you know, StepD and I have never discussed our situation. We, did however do so once, in a brief series of three emails after the baby was born. In the second email, I mentioned how, after such a great summer of '08, The Bomb, for me came out of the blue.

In the third and final email, StepD responded to the out-of-the-blue claim with, "I do know that Mom clearly and regularly communicated unhappiness and concern over your relationship over a long, extended period of time."

Mrs. G. fell silent at that and I said to her, "I resisted the temptation to email back to StepD the first thought that popped into my head when I read that: 'Not to me she didn't!' (Mrs.G), I wish you had told me!"

To which Mrs. G responds,"So do I. I wish I had, too."

WTF? Four days til court date and she's being reasonable, owning her part (finally) and expressing remorse? I repeat: WTF?

So I later emailed her:

Subject: Our final email.

(Mrs. G),

I just said,

"I was changeable.
You were changeable.
We were improvable."

You agreed.

You said you harbored resentments that you never gave voice to, that you were never taught to give voice to.

I agreed.

And I admitted to the exact same thing, adding that I realize now that my resentments toward you were really misdirected resentments against myself: resentment for accepting the unacceptable, for not voicing it, for fearing the conflict that voicing them would have precipitated.

We never - or very rarely - fought. We should have. I read two separate authors this year who said that never fighting is their number one indicator of eventual divorce. Who knew?

And yet, Wednesday we divorce. You and I. (Mrs. G) and G!. Divorce.

"Pride hears its voices and fear wins again
And another cruel ending calls."

You have needlessly destroyed everything. Everything.

Goodbye, (Mrs. G).

Gardener"

WTF?