Life is kicking my butt

[qt4x11]

Drove home after group therapy, got the house ready - we’re selling it and there was a showing last night so I had to be out of the house. I had to drive to the suburbs to pick up my kids for their weekly overnight anyway. Drove another hour - 2 hours total - to pick them up and bring them home. I’m doing so much driving these days, now that I have to go to this ‘outpatient program’ every day, and now that I’m driving to pick up my kids all the time. It was a sunny day yesterday, but at the same time I was driving through a torrential downpour. Made the surrounding landscape look surreal and dreamlike.

I thought about how we used to just spend all our time secluded in our old neighborhood - which is a sequestered and upper class area of the city. Lots of parks and expenses hi rises. Lots of young families. Now to pick up my kids I’m driving through some of the shadiest areas of the city to get there. Places I’d never visit. Where they live now is nice, but not nearly as nice as where we used to live. Everything really has changed. I picked them up and kissed them and hugged them, took them out to eat and did a little homework with them before snuggling them to sleep.

I was thinking of my wife referring to me now as ‘m***f***er’. Before I used to think - how could she do this? In order for me to divorce someone I would have to really despise that person. And no matter what happened I could never despise the mother of my children. Well, looks like her feelings for me are extremely negative and contemptuous. It’s safe to say that she hates me, blames me for ruining her life and probably considers me to be emotionally abusive. I think back to the sweetness of our early years - meeting for the first time, how wonderful that was, the birth of our kids, supporting each others through parents death and major life changes. How did that pure and innocent love sour and turn into this hatred? I don’t understand it. Other than, she is pumping herself up, and likely her friends are pumping herself up - and she needs this hatred in order to get through this divorce and do what she feels is right for herself.

Nowadays when I think of our relationship has devolved into hatred and paranoia and fear - I turn my thoughts away from all the negativity of the present and I choose to think of the early sweet times. When we loved and supported each other, we understood each other and gave each other unconditional support. It makes me cry every time, but it’s a ‘healing’ sadness if that makes any sense. I feel gratitude for the gifts she brought into my life, regardless of what is going on with us right now. Those sweet times will always be a part of me, maybe one day I’ll be able to remember them and not feel all this pain, and just be happy for the memories.