New Year, New Life (19 months)

[adinva]

I'm not sure if I'm DBing anymore, or treading water, moving forward or moving on. I don't know what you call what I'm doing. I guess I'm more responding to what presents from day to day than DOING something at all.

My last thread was Answering Tough Questions: http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2306851&page=2

I am content in my home without H. I know he needed to move out, but I'm sad that he needed to, and I wish we could have brought our marriage back better and stronger without his needing to. I still think sometimes this all will come back together, but I don't know when or how.

I know some things haven't changed at all.

I turned down my own H - twice - for New Year's Eve. I had plans, and my plans were to stay away from H and his stinkin friend and have a good time. Turned out my S14 had a big party with dozens of teens and I cooked and cooked. I fed the whole army of em with a $3.50 bag of potatoes and a couple of boxes of brownie mix, and a giant mac n cheese.

I made myself my famous wine coolers, and had my parents over to try them. They seem good but my dad shared the news that Mom's cancer is back and she'll have her spleen removed next week. My mom's Alzheimer's is kind of a gift because she's living in the moment more than she ever did. Her life was always consumed with regrets and fears, and now, if she feels content at the moment, she's good. End of life is not fun but we are doing OK with it I think.

I had invited friends and my sister over but none of that worked out, so I played my music in the kitchen and danced and drank alone and had fun. It was what I wanted to do.

H texted that his friend had way too much food and I could have some, and I declined.

H started moving out 12/16 and has all of his clothes, guitars, bike, and whatnot at his friend's house. I've been going through the storage area and separating out H's stuff so it'll be easier for him to locate and move it when he has his own place. He never sleeps at our house anymore, and he texts when he plans to come over. It settled down pretty quickly and I no longer gasp at the empty half of our closet.

Things that changed include my feeling about my responsibilities at home. I've noticed EVERYTHING takes A LOT longer being a single homeowner. There is constantly laundry, dishes, clean-ups, and whatnot, that used to be shared and is now mine to do. The kids do have chores too, and that has added full responsibility for riding them to do their chores onto my plate as well.

I'm realizing I like my house better when it's organized, and I feel going doing it for me. I've cleaned out a ton of stuff to get ready for the holiday parties and company, and am trying to stay on top of it to keep it that way. So I plan an extra hour or so into my time to get up and out of the house. I'll see a sock on my way downstairs, and a dish on my way upstairs, and I'm trying to slow down, stop being in such a rush, and take care of stuff as I see it.

I'm realizing that I felt suffocated by H's presence. My room wasn't mine because it had a racing bike in the way between my bed and my dresser. Things I thought were pretty were crammed behind things my H thought were important. My room wasn't my haven but a storage place for ugly piles of stuff that wasn't mine. I'm changing all that. I have a beautiful nice bath area and I'm not storing 3 feet of hand towels and washcloths there, that was H's idea not mine. I have new sheets and a satin pillowcase and my nice antique dresser, and I like my space and feel like it is mine.

My home is void of bickering, petty complaints, nagging, and yelling. My kids are getting along better, and I enjoy seeing them and they seem to enjoy being around me. My H was a black hole of unpleasantness and he is gone and I am glad. (Sad but glad.)

So, what hasn't changed? H came over with a wonderful gift of a Starbucks coffee this morning, and we sat in the kitchen while I cooked for the army still sleeping in the basement. S12 appeared and the VERY first thing H said to him was..."there's a black sock on the stairs, why did you put it on the stairs? I just bought you socks and you're already leaving them all over the house, where is the other one, go pick that one up and stop leaving your stuff all over the house." Boo. I said "Happy new year, S12!"

I can't change H, and I don't want to take on the responsibility to, but I actually don't like him. I don't.

Also, I can't speak to him correctly still. It's so frustrating, and I KNOW he doesn't talk to other people this way. When we were sitting in the kitchen we were filling each other in on our NYE activities, and I told him, "S12 came home from his friend's overnight party last night; he got hurt."

H said in his disgusted voice, "What? He came home and got hurt here?" Now, duh. H was constantly criticizing me for not being understandable, but he always took the most unlikely possible interpretation of what I said and then acted like I was stupid, and here he is for less than 10 minutes back in my house doing it again.

I said, "No, he got hurt at the party and that is why he came home; and he was upset and mad about what happened so he decided not to go back for the rest of the party." As I was saying this, I started internally editing what the story would include, because I was remembering that when H found out what happened he would get mad...at S12. And criticize him. Because what happened was S12 was lying on the floor under a beanbag chair and a kid jumped onto it. When S12 got mad about that more kids jumped on it to show him that it wouldn't have hurt him. But S12 has a sore back a lot of the time, and this did hurt him and he was mad about the roughhousing, so he left. H would criticize him for this and say it was his own fault, so I left a lot of the details out.

So...I haven't gotten better at talking to him, in the moment, without planning and rehearsing my new relationship skills. They're just not solidified yet, and I do better with a lot of people, just not apparently with H when I have a hangover and not enough sleep.

I was disappointed that within such a short period of time I would already be feeling anxious and annoyed by my H.

H took the day off yesterday (use-or-lose vacation) to let me focus on work, and he is at our house again today doing the same thing, and that is nice. We haven't figured out the kid issues yet.

H has no place right now to be a parent to kids, so he comes to our house to do it and I leave. S14 refuses to go to H's friend's house and says none of his friends are allowed over there either. S12 goes but says it is boring there. So they stay at our house where they have their stuff and their friends, and H comes to visit. It is not what I hope for the future.

I need to get to work on the separation agreement. H gave it to me 11/29 and I have been formulating my response ever since. I had to get a loan approval before I write into the counter proposal that I'll be buying him out of the house completely. A lot of other financial details will need to change as a result of that.

I haven't told him yet that the date of separation will be changing from his fabricated one to the real one that was over a year later. I haven't asked him to take charge of the kids for a couple days at a time instead of visiting them a couple of times a week. There's a lot of negotiation that still needs to be done. I don't know yet if I'm going to be poor or scraping by or OK in the coming year. I went ahead and spent reasonably on Christmas anyway without thinking about that, and I'm not looking forward to analyzing my position now but it needs to be done. Gotta face the music.

I have a mongo garage sale in the works and expect to make some money off the old stuff I've been finding in the basement.

I have been so thankful for this place and my friends here, and recommend DB to all the struggling couple that I'm learning are all around me as I go through this.

I wish I knew if I was still DBing, whatever that means. I like myself, I like my life, I hope my H might become a positive part of it someday, and I still don't want to be divorced. But I'm just kind of out of tactics. I am just, BEING.