Maybe She Isn't Evil

[RDS]

Tomorrow will by the one-year “anniversary” of the BD.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year. The date means a lot for obvious reasons, but in this State it means more because we can legally be divorced now. For many months I was petrified of this date but now I’m accepting of the possibilities. The first 6 months crept along slowly as I operated in a fog, but the last 6 months have whizzed by. It’s amazing the difference in the perception of time.

Last year my W and I were in the depths of a very unhappy M, but even in my darkest hour I never thought my W would leave me after nearly 33 years of being together. I was just like every other LBS and in many ways, I was worse because I knew the M was in deep trouble but still surprised when I came home and discovered she left. It was my ego of knowing my W loved me with all my heart that kept me from believing she would do something so drastic.

She showed me.

Last year on this date my daughter had just received her Master’s degree and for a few hours I didn’t think of the misery of my M. My wife had stayed home because she was worried about her(our) dog. At least that is what I as led to believe when in actuality she used the few days I was in Texas to move out of our house. My D and I shopped for Mother’s day gifts and I didn’t have the heart to get anything. I didn’t care anymore. My D wasn’t able to give my W her gift for a few months after that and even now My D says it’s going to be a long time before she gets a Mother's Day gift from her.

I’m in a much better place now than I was then and that’s putting it mildly. Up until a few months ago, my sadness/normal mode was something like 70 percent sad and 30 percent “okay” (with a few sprinkles of happiness). Now, the ratio is probably 80 percent “okay” and 20 percent sad. I still have moments of happy sprinkled in. I still get sad and unfortunately, it almost gets crippling with the depression it brings. Knowing my D loves me as only a D can love her dad and me loving her, even more, keeps things in perspective no matter how deep in pain I get. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have my D, even if she lives 5 states over.

My W and I still communicated and it’s still friendly. We just don’t talk nearly as much or as often. Every month since December the amount of calls and the duration has decreased. Hell, I went almost 4 months without seeing her and the only reason I got to see her is my D flew in from TX to see me and her friends. She grudgingly saw her mother because it was the “right” thing to do. My W brought her(our) dog over for my D to see for a couple of days and the following weekend I watched her(our) dog. Now that’s done I don’t see me seeing my W for a long time. I am moving out of state in a month and I expect to see her then but after that, it may be months or even years.

My W has moved on. On that, there is no denying. I think I’ve done a pretty good job detaching as I rarely think of her or what she is doing. I get sad because like most here I grieve from what was lost and of a future that won’t happen, but actually thinking about her and missing her; I don’t.

I know she has moved on because when I finally told her I was moving to another state she treated the news as blasé as you could and only mentioned it in passing once since I told her. Her(our) dog was very sick and needed to be put down and it was angering me my W would not do it. When I watched the dog last weekend it was all I could not to take the dog to the vet and have it done myself. I couldn’t do that because I knew my W would be crushed if I did that and she wasn’t there to be with the dog. I’ve since learned she has put the dog down a couple of days ago. She didn’t bother telling me. It didn’t matter the dog was part of our lives for 12 years (the dog was 15). My W had the dog euthanized without letting me know.

It is what it is.

More to write later. At least we don’t have to go to mediation. We were able to work that out between us saving us money on L fees.