I'll be shopping for dishes at Target, too! Wait, we don't have Target here in VT. Well, Kohls or whatever.
The regular dishes are a set from his mom, so I am going to offer them to him.
My dad came thru with an offer of some $, so I will use that for cheap furnishing so things aren't sitting on the floor.
I will be right there with you, LFA, this weekend packing and purging, in our parallel universe. My idea is to move all of his stuff, and the "our" stuff, to the garage. I WILL not have OW and the friend who enabled the affair coming in to help move stuff. And I can only imagine that's the only friends he has to help. So in the garage we can debate who gets what.
So--yes--pack and purge. And you and I both take a trip to Target type places. Maybe even the consignment/reuse shop. It is chic to have mix/match stuff.
I'm so glad you got out this weekend to hear music, and chat with a member of the opposite sex. Baby steps! remembering how it is to chat, and laugh, and maybe flirt a bit. Open up that fun and sexy part of your heart again.
The money stuff sure is hard. I don't know the fair way to divide up the joint bank account. I know my instinct is to do whatever is "easy" even if it hurts me financially in the short term. I just don't want his final memories of me to be "money grubbing" and--it hurts to say this--but as a Jew, the thought that a Christian might possibly think of me as "money grubbing" just resonates on a whole nother painful level. Genetic memory sort of thing.
Talk to your lawyer about all the financial stuff. Then you are getting objective advice, that separates your bad guilty feelings from the actual fairness of dividing up the assets of a marriage. Let the L tell you the right thing to do for YOU--and do that. Guilt feelings be damned. He walked out on you, right? with nary a word or a chance to work things thru?
My heart is with you on having to be aware of his comings/goings. It is asking nearly the impossible for you to detach under those circumstances. But you can ACT as if.
Hey, it is entirely possible for me to make a trip to NYC at the end of May. My sister has an apartment there, and a good friend's mother has a brownstone in the West Village. If you think you want to hit the big city, I would be happy to make plans to join you. I do so want to talk with you IRL.
Target is fine. New dishes are fun. New glasses, new wine glasses. Things you like in patterns you like. Imagine someone else having wine in the new wine glasses. Do you have a girlfriend or sister to go with you? Remember the excitement of outfitting a new apartment after college? Try to feel that again!
Well, I'm off to write the "dividing things up" email to X. Jeezum crow, wish me luck.
