After the Storm...

[Treasur]

Morning musings. Sun coming up here, looks like it's going to be a nice day. I can hear the sea and the gulls from my desk.

Where am I? Yesterday the sorrow of seeing my mother, how frail and pathetic and lost she is, was heartbreaking. We use that word but most of us know that feeling when it physically hurts to feel such sorrow. I've had a lot of sorrow in the last couple of years. She pulled out a photograph she wanted to show me, one of her and my father at our wedding. I'm not sure why she wanted me to see it but it was like a punch in the chest. My parents looked beautiful and it was such a joyful loving day. When I see her, when I have to deal with the rubble of my previous life or their's, it leaves me with a thin emotional skin for a couple of days. I think one loss triggers feelings about all three of them. Understandable, but I am tired of sorrow.

I know what love feels like, the warm easy delight of it, that feeling of coming home. My family was like that. That was my M until something changed in/for my H. Now, it's like torture. I had often wished I could run away too! No one healthy wants love to be like that; it is a twisted version of love, I think, or just the grief that comes with loss. I have no idea what changed my H because he has never given me the chance to listen. I'll probably never know. I think the hardest part for me to understand is not the A or even that he decided he wanted a life without me. Those things are sad, but they happen, and it is his life. The bit of this process that has been bewildering is how someone who shared your life for twenty years seems to have no empathy or want to deal with the end of your relationship efficiently and calmly. A lot of my H's behaviour makes no sense, even from his own self-interest, and that has been difficult to adjust to. So, I may have contributed to weakening our M but the destructive lunacy of how we part ways? No, none of that has been about me or created by me.

Practicalities? With the odd flip-flop about every 3-4 months, my STBXH has done nothing to show that he wants to reconnect, or wants to make the process easier or has any interest in the effect on me. Whatever is going on that is driving his actions, it is only about him. I am invisible to him, I think, a non-person. Because he filed 7 months ago and then refused to engage in the legal process he started - who knows why - my only remaining legal option is to take him to Court in a few days time. That will press the button on about 12 months and £20k worth of legal warfare which is far from ideal. What I want is for this painful crazy time to end for me, but my H has prevented any other sensible option as we've gone along. I don't have the money and I'm worried about that, but I trust I'll figure it out. There is a chance that, faced with the tough prospect of the Court route, my STBXH will change his behaviour and give me the financial settlement we need to draw things to a close. I'm sure his L will be pushing him to do that because he doesn't have the money either and the Court process seems designed to encourage it because it builds in 4 months before the first hearing. Tbh though, even though I am NC with him now, I can sort of feel his anger in the ether so it is just as possible that he will want to keep avoiding reality or fight. Time will tell. I just want this to end. I'm tired of the lunacy.

So, my life? I am grateful for the M I had and love the H I knew. I miss him, but I do it as if he were dead. The L process is probably going to be a bit of a nightmare, but going to Court means I can put it to one side of my life for a couple of months at least. Dealing with my mother's affairs is also a bit of a nightmare but I allocate specific time slots to deal with it to try to keep that on the edge of my life too. Seeing my mother is always going to be distressing and I don't know how much longer she has to live. The legal/paperwork stuff of both the divorce and her guardianship probably will need to be 20-30% of my time for the next few months. Sigh. It's a sad truth that my life would be lighter and easier if my mother died and my STBXH was my XH. My STBXH has emailed me twice since Monday. I have not read the emails. No point. Either it will be spew, which I don't need to see, or word blah which means nothing. I am just waiting to see what action is forthcoming via his L communicating with mine. My boundary is a simple one about lies and respect, and my STBXH can clearly see the consequences for him if he chooses to look. Not my circus or monkeys. Besides I'm pretty busy with my own circus - and I don't have an OW to coo at me or a psychiatrist to mirror me in my self-righteousness or ADs to numb the feelings. (Personal 2018 resolution is a year without Ls though!)

So, my focus is on what I build with the remaining 70% of my time and energy. Only three priorities really - money, my own business and happy GAL stuff. Given the route to here, I've done well to keep my sanity (close-run thing now and then!) and to not let this crush my spirit completely. I guess the advantage of dementia/MLC crazy is that it makes it so obvious that you didn't cause it because it's so obvious that nothing you do or say gets past either. I will probably always be left unable to explain or understand what happened around me that changed my life circumstances, but that doesn't change how it is. Progress? I'm not broken any more. I don't feel the same crumpling shock and pain, although I'm angrier about the unfairness of the situation than I was. I don't know what the future holds but I know there is one and it will have good and bad things in it. In a funny way, detachment has made me feel a bit detached from outcomes generally really, not just about my M/D. All I can do is the best I can with the best intentions for myself and others.

I guess my future posts will be more about my progress on these three things, while I try to stop the dragons of lawyers, lunacy and financial instability eating my energy and optimism!