Maybell XXXVI: Moving Day

[Maybell]

When I look back on the last three years, my entire life was in a state of flux. Constantly. No ground beneath my feet. Then the bomb went off in the marriage and the bottom really fell out. Everything I thought I was, everything I thought my life was, all gone. My whole identity as a wife, as a mother, my place in the world, all blown away.

When I look back at 2015 I'm amazed at my transformation. I've moved into a home I love. I'm learning to be patient and to appreciate that although I no longer move mountains in a single day, I do still manage to move mountains. I've FINALLY found the mentors and guidance that I needed to figure out the relationship with D12 and I'm seeing that slowly bloom. I'm figuring out what I have to offer as an employee and to realize that it's OK to be proud of my strengths and accepting of my limitations. I will ultimately figure out the childcare thing and the secret to maintaining my friendships outside my home, even though I'm not there yet.

I do think it's right and proper that I should be angry with Mr. Fantastic. He did a LOT of damage in a short period of time and it's only recently that I've had the space to settle into understanding the full extent of how that damage impacted me. I've been so worried about my living situation, about keeping the kids near their school, about how to manage the situation at work, and worrying about whether or not I could handle all this new responsibility along with the old responsibility that I think I was just feeling fury in reaction to all the fear and uncertainty I was living through.

Every single thing I thought I knew about myself has changed in only two years. I am settling into a place that I intend to be long-term and now I have the luxury of feeling everything I feel without the overlay of fundamental uncertainty. I know I'll be OK. Now I can look back and say, hey! that was wrong. And that was terrible. And we should have dealt with those things very differently.

But I think at the end of the day, Mr. Fantastic was cowardly, selfish, and sleazy. There is NO excuse for cheating. He had an obligation to turn towards the marriage at all times, and he chose rather to turn away, to join Tinder, to take me for granted, to move me and the kids around like baggage, and then to abandon us when he finally got caught. NOTHING I did could have changed that because it was in his character to make those choices. I'm angry with him now, for being that kind of person and still constantly trying to gaslight me into thinking he's not in the face of all the evidence. I'm also pretty angry with myself, for falling for it, for trusting myself and my kids to someone with that character, for valuing myself so little that I could permit that to happen and then beg for more.

I don't want to be angry with him anymore. I do not know how to overcome it except to let time pass. I don't like him. I no longer find him charming or attractive in any way. I don't think he'll regret his actions ever (though a LOT of people have told me he will in 20 or 30 years; by then the damage will have been compounded and who cares? It will be mostly self-pity at that point, and not true remorse). I don't want a person like that in my life and I'm a little frustrated that he's going to be, and that he keeps trying to get a little closer in. I am sure I'm right that he just wants the appearance of amity to make him feel less terrible; he's said enough to suggest it. I resent that he's still so self-absorbed that he could want to get that from me on top of everything else.

I hope time heals some of this. I hope the mechanics of my life settle down enough that that can happen. I've been through enough. I want peace.