Maybe She Isn't Evil

[RDS]

It’s been over 2 months since I last posted and I just went over my 8 month BD date. A lot has happened since I last posted.

As I posted in November we had a date at the local fair and we had a great time. It was the next day when things went sour between us and I realized then about the most I can expect out of our R is a good friendship. The day after the fair date I finally got the official temporary spousal support and it was worse than I thought. I won’t rehash it but it was mainly the amount of taxes I’m required to pay on things. I called my wife to discuss it and she could not see my side of the argument. She even screamed at me to quit yelling at her and one of the reason she left me because I always yelled at her and she was finally free of that.

I was numb on the other end of the line because the one thing I was not doing was yelling at her. I was making a concerted effort to talk to her in a calm voice and if what I was doing was being interpreted as me yelling then there is no real hope. There would be no point in trying to discuss anything we disagreed with because she will accuse me of screaming or yelling at her. Even my D said I never really raised my voice to my W because we never communicated as it was. I was condescending and spiteful towards her but it had been years since I raised my voice.

During the argument, I broke and destroyed about every DB principle. I almost crossed the line and begged her to come back. Thankfully I didn’t go that far. I did tell her I was not really interested in being her friend. I wanted us to be a loving married couple again. I told her I was working on me to be a better person and one of the reasons was because I wanted to be a better person so she could fall in love with me again. I don’t remember exactly what her reaction was. I do remember I was as despondent as I’ve been in a long time when I got off the phone.

A couple of days later we were talking again. We had sold our house (it was once our dream home) and I had an apartment leased. I had to travel out of town for 3 weeks just after I moved into the new place. My W said she would collect my mail while I was away and move my truck around the apartment complex to make it look like I was living there normally. It was an inconvenience for her as I moved 20 minutes further away from the house so I was about an hour round trip for her to do that. The day we cleaned our house and left the house for the final time she came by my apartment and made me a large pot of chili as I moved the last few things into the apartment. While I was away she commented on how nice I made the place.

Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went. The apartment complex had a Thanksgiving luncheon and my cousin invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner. I carved three turkeys that day. I guess I looked like someone who knew how to carve a turkey. Christmas I traveled to Texas to visit with my daughter. I had a great time. It was bittersweet because even in our darkest hours I still enjoyed spending Christmas with my W. My W called on Christmas day and we spoke about 15 minutes and she kept telling me how happy she was knowing my D and I were spending Christmas together and we weren’t going to be lonely. I didn’t ask if she was lonely or not. Part of me cared but a large part of me did not. I got my W a couple of nice things for Christmas (my D gently requested I do that) and my W got me one small gift and another “goody” bag of treats.

On New Year’s Day my W prepared a traditional Southern dinner of collard greens, blackeye peas w/rice, and cornbread. I almost told her I didn’t want it since the last New Year’s dinner didn’t bring me good luck (the traditional dinner is supposed to bring good luck). I kept my mouth shut and gladly accepted her food.

The biggest news is I got another job which gives me about a 25 percent pay increase. I’m going back into a stressful environment I left in 2015 but I think my mind is back into the groove now. Being away from the job position for over a year and getting away from the toxic environment of my M has hopefully cleared my mind where I can think straight again. My W doesn’t know I have the new job that pays more. All she knows is I lost my last job (I left my old job for the new job) and I am now working on a temporary basis.

Sadly, not once has she expressed any interest with helping me with the spousal support payments. If she offered to help I was going to decline and tell her I planned on paying the payments the court ordered me to do somehow, but she didn’t offer. I was not surprised. I try not to dwell on it but sometimes it creeps into my mind about how she is fully able to get a much better job where I don’t have to support her, but the way the system is set up I’m required to support her for years to come. The excitement of getting a better job is tempered by the knowledge my W will probably get a bigger slice of the pie even though when she left me I was making X amount of $$ and a few months later I get a better position paying more and the courts will decide she is still entitled to the extra money.

I must relocate to another state when my apartment lease expires. I know when that happens it will probably be the final nail in our M’s coffin. My W loves it here and she has lots of friends she won’t be willing to give up to go back to a M that is near dead anyway. Where I’ll be moving to is a place we lived at before 20 years ago. We loved it then and we were so sad when we had to move. I traveled there during the first week of my new job and visited the various places we lived and naturally it brought back many memories. The memories were of happy times which makes the present so hurtful.

It’s getting easier to think of my life as a single guy. It’s a small step but I’m finding it easier to say I’m separated and heading for a divorce. Thinking of the future where I’m not married anymore doesn’t frighten me the way it once did. I’m also not as sad. Now when I talk to my wife on the phone or see her on the rare occasions my heart doesn’t do backflips anymore. I’m starting to see her as a person I still care for but not someone who can break my heart any longer. Don’t get me wrong, if she wanted to get the M back up and running I would strongly consider it. Before if it came up I would have jumped through rings of fire to make it happen. Now I will put thought into it.

Long post, but therapeutic.