Me and Midlife Wife and Midlife II

[CT1118]

I just got done with two weeks of mid-terms, 4 papers (finished two tonight), and some training for the Red Cross, which I am particularly excited to join as a disaster first-responder, but the training is excessive - it should be though. On top of that I opened two new buildings at work, hired two new people, and negotiated a 0% loan to consolidate the massive amount of credit debit incurred by my M which is all in my name (I will say she pays what I ask her too, which is half). As well, I was up late last night completing an hour long lecture for a conference which I delivered today to a 150 person audience - that at least released some dopamine for me and I did awesome, which I usually do. Not being conceited, just extremely talented at public speaking, no shame in knowing what you are good at.

In brief, I cannot really give full background on my sitch as it involves my son and medical issues. He was diagnosed with an LD I also have, it is genetic, and it is good this was caught early. Spouse was very upset and told me she had been crying for 48hours and asked if I could send her information on it. OK. So the next day I sent some of the info I had on my hard drive. She is against medicine (won't even take aspirin), so in one sentence I told her that an LD can make an individual feel very lonely and like a disappointment and that medication changed my life. That I felt horrible our son had inherited this (not in a fault way), but it was manageable. She had mentioned something about loving our son and she would only be ok if he was. I had written that love would not conquer this, but it could put fuel in the tank, however, this was going to require work from all of us. My total response really was only about 5-6 sentences, minus the data files.

I got back a response about how I could never disappoint but the idea of feeling loss between her or I was intolerable. She said she would always love me but could not be what I needed, went into stuff about spending her time with a "daft" person (her AP, he got upgraded, last time I received an email like this she called him 'bullsht'. He may wish to high -5 himself if he knew this) And anyway, it went about she doesn't want to hurt me but she will cause me pain because she is a horrible person and all in all, it was identical not only to the other 4 or 5 emails I have received from her in the past 8 months which said damn near identical things and followed, in some places, word for word spew from an MLC that I have either read here or read elsewhere. Each time I received one of these, the circumstance on my end were totally different in terms of anything I may have said which prompted.

So, I don't think I am going to say anything. I don't really want to. Not as a defense, I just don't really care to, don't feel any need to. I am not sure I am really looking for advice, but always open to it. I am not sure how long I have known this, but this is all really my choice at this point. From what she wrote, not explicitly, but she actually thinks that if she just showed up my door and said take me back, that I would. And truth be told, I did feel a minor tug to combat that one, as I would not do something like that without more signs of healing than wanting me. However, my exchanges her in the late summer led me to spend my past 4 weeks with IC discussing control and the 'need' to feel justified. So, I dismissed that feeling pretty quickly and it was gone.

My relief really came from reading that note she sent and thinking about how it made me feel. I would guess on some deep unconscious level I may have wanted a hard test of my feelings. I believe I passed, at least from my criteria. I just felt no need to fix or control her, no need to defend myself (had she been in my face yelling, yup that is a boundary I defend by stopping it, but this was email and I don't know if it would have been yelling in person), no need to explain my motivations.

I am taking my son to his first hockey game tomorrow night. I don't have him on Halloween which is unfortunate, so I will also take him to some city costume event for kids in the morning when she drops him off. I am going to finish this six pack now, which I am drinking not out of reflection or sadness, but out of the fact that I want them and I wish to not think about anything regarding school or work or my sitch - just the Sopranos, which is a show I never saw when it was on and am just now getting to enjoy it.