Whirlwind of Hurt 4

[Twofeet]

This is a long one.

So this week W basically put off most of her packing until Thurs. and Fri. She had some late meetings (5 and 6 pm is late for her work) and had to drive from the city to our home in rush our traffic. Needless to say when you don't eat properly, or take care of yourself you lack energy. She would come home looking like she had been beat up. She looks like her weight loss has plateaued. It takes proper rest, diet, and exercise to lose weight in a healthy consistent manner. It is very concerning, but she doesn't want my advice anymore. It just hurts to see her fall apart. She still weighs more than I do, hasn't weighed less than me since the birth of our first child. This was never and issue for me as much as it was for her. I always have seen the woman I loved and married. I just have always wanted her to be healthy and happy at whatever weight she chose to be, and she knows this. Anyway, it hurts to see a loved one struggle.

She took Thurs and Fri off to pack. Her moods all week suxed big time. Irritable, pissy, trying to start fights, then the roller coaster would get happy, cheerful, etc. She wanted half the camping stuff, but she let me keep my choice of stuff because my newer gear is built out towards ultralight hiking and camping. She wanted some packs, a bag, and a tent, camp mattress, etc. It hurt my heart pretty bad and I had to say something. I said all these years of marriage I would beg you to go hiking and camping with me and now that we are going separate ways you want to start doing these activities. W said that we had kids so it wasn't doable. I told wife we could have done it with kids and I begged you to go before we had kids, it doesn't feel good to see you wanting to do these activities now that you are solo, its just really disappointing. W said I will give you that, I am sorry for that, I will own up to that. She said she doubts she will do any camping, her idea of camping is in an RV. She said maybe someday she would do hikes with gal pal and her H.

W wanted to save on movers expense so she would pack up things and move stuff once she had a car load of boxes. Thursday night after work I had a gut feeling some things were missing in the garage. It just looked like something was off. I just couldn't put my thumb on it and I asked wife what she was moving over I got "oh nothing, just the stuff I get to take." I was also supposed to come home for lunch on Thurs to help her with some heavy stuff, but she wasn't there. It was aggravating, but I just made lunch and went back to work. That night W threw another fit because I was going to stay home when the movers were there. She had the same fit Friday morning, I tried to talk to her, but she used more of the "you don't get it" stonewalling. I just told her if she wants to communicate with me like and adult I will listen, but if she can't explain to me why she feels I don't get it then I probably will never get it.

Thursday night I had a big event I was invited to in the city, so I took my sister as my plus one. I saw a married woman from my industry at the event who has a lot of pull in the statewide level of my industry. We had small talk then she said she heard I was getting divorced. I asked her how she knew and she said it was her business to know things. I am not sure how she knows. I can count on hand the amount of people who know whats going on from my side of the fence. She said I met your W this spring she seemed great whats wrong with her? I just said it was very unexpected, out of the blue, W bought a house and is moving into it this weekend. I will have my kids 50/50 so I am focusing on their needs, doing whats best for them and being their rock. The woman was very surprised by my positive outlook and that I wasn't going to mud sling. I just said it take 2 to M and only 1 to D so I don't have a choice I have to move forward and take of myself and my kids. She said that I am a very handsome and successful man, and that I will have zero problems finding women to date. She just told me to be good and don't get into trouble. I am not sure what that means, but I said I am a good guy and good father, I wont get into trouble. I felt very flattered by her compliments, she is an attractive successful woman so it felt like it was coming from authority. Even though I am not ready I asked my sister what the dating world was like. My sister said she did the online dating such as tinder, bumble, etc. She said she didn't really like it, and there is a lot of garbage out there. Her fiancee has said he had his own set of problematic experiences with online dating. They both preferred to meet people through friends or meetup groups. I told sister that even though I am from here I don't have a lot of friends left here. I left my social group back in the state I moved from so I have been starting over and its been slow. I do have a couple people here who were friends with W and I. W burned those bridges hard when she decided to dump them as friends years ago. Fortunately I have contacted them and they are willing to reconnect with me. I have just been waiting until W moved out.

Friday I dropped kids off to school and went to work. I just didn't feel right so I told boss I needed to take the day off to help wife finish packing. I got home and helped W the heavy lifting, and tried organizing things as basically the house is getting trashed in the move out process. I discovered W has taken all the family xmas decorations/ornaments, family pictures, baby pictures, and pre-kids photos. I still feel like she has taken other things I don't know about yet as well. When I confronted her she said she will bring back the ornaments to divide up when she has time. She said that she had digital copies of all the pictures and she will give me copies on my external hd which she apparently took as well. Now I know this is only half truth since we have a lot of pics that we don't have digital copies of. This is a battle I am going to have to fight another day unfortunately. She was pretty cranky Fri unless I was helping her then she was nice..... go figure. She also spent the night at her new home Friday night as her and her Mom were cleaning the whole home top to bottom Friday before the move. It upset the kids a bit. My S3 threw a huge fit when he saw that W have pulled out his mattress and bagged it (she is taking all the kids mattress and I am keeping the frames). I had him sleep in my bed and I had a blow up mattress for D5 & D8 to share which they think is fun. I said many prayers that night and slept really poorly, I just felt ill.

Sat rolls in and W shows up early to pick up kids to take them to her sisters house for the day. Wife is being super happy and cheery, I do my best to stay upbeat and at the worst just neutral, I don't show any negative emotions. Movers show up when she gets back. W tells them she is divorcing me and they say tis the season, because they have been doing two divorce moves a day all week. Wow! Movers are good guys and do a good job. After W and movers leave I just sit in my chair and let it all sink in. I just keep thinking I feel gutted. I have errands I need to run because I need to buy some things for the house, but the motivation to get up is hard because of the big gaping wound in my chest. W still has to come back sometime to pick up some things she didn't have time to pack and my parents call and invite me to lunch, but in that moment in time I had little motivation to do anything.

Later as I am getting ready and about to pull out of the driveway W pulls up. I tell W she is supposed to call before she shows up, I have things I need to do today. W apologizes and says she is so busy and hectic she forgot to call. She wants to go through the house with me and grab the last bit of things she left. I agree so we can get this over with. She takes "her dog" and I keep "my dog." I have a work trip planned for Dec. and she offers to watch my dog and wants me to return the favor with her dog. I say I will think about it. It makes logistic sense and they are both family dogs and she will miss my dog as she gets teary eyed when she talks about him. She neglects her dog and so he gets annoying and he needs obedience training, (he isn't quite a year old), I was on him since early August. I will miss him as well. Anyway, I am just not sure how I feel about relying on her or how this works for basically going dark on her. Anyway when it was time for her to go she just starts breaking down crying. She reaches for me so I wrap her in my arms and she buries her face in my chest are starts sobbing uncontrollably and saying how sorry she is over and over. At this point I can't hold back and I am crying as well. I hold her and tell her I am sorry how things turned out. She says she will miss me and I tell her I will miss her too. We stayed in each others arms for a while until she stop crying. She went to get a tissue then she came back out, both of us teary eyed and we hugged and kissed goodbye. For a brief moment I saw my W of old, just briefly. Typing this and thinking about it makes me tear up. I am not sure what her motivations where for doing that, but I feel like it was the guilt for hurting me, and breaking up our family as a big motivation. Hopefully, she isn't doing this because she thinks she is at the point of no return. I will never know.

She later picked up the kids from her sisters house and they were tired and hungry. S3 was throwing a huge fit so wife grabbed them some McD for dinner and was dropping them off at my house (weird saying my house). I had gone to lunch with parents and was running errands and hadn't gotten home yet. W was falling apart with S3 temper, I know because D8 would send me recorded messages over the phone of S3 interactions with W. At this point W called frazzled and I let her know I was omw and that she could just use the garage code to get into the house. (I took the keys and the garage openers back). When I got there she was back to her usually post-bd unfriendly self, and was in a hurry to get out the door to go buy some house items, and grocery shop. Her attitude could have been a function of being stressed out from dealing with the kids and their fits.

As of last night and this morning D5 is keeps going back and forth on whether her parents are D or not. She keeps telling me we cant be D, then she says we are D and that's a sin and mommy sinned. I just tell her that her mommy and I love her very much and we will always care for her. S3 doesn't get what is going on, and keeps asking me for mommy, where is mommy, when is mommy coming home. I called W this morning so he could video call her. D5 called W as well. D8 has been just keeping to herself, but all 3 kids have been a little temperamental. I am not sure if we are going to do any GAL today or just stay at home and let the dust settle. I am just really thankful that even though I only get to see them 50% of the time (knowing W I think it will be more than 50%), we still get to be together. I love my kids, they are the one of the best things I have ever done.

Me? Well I feel pretty heartbroken, W left her wedding and engagement rings here, and it was hard looking at them sitting next to my wedding ring. I have lost my partner and now I am going to carry on alone. Believe it or not, I am a 37 year old man who now for the first time in his life will be living on his own. I went from the childhood home to the married home without the transition to the bachelor life after the childhood home. Between that and having never dated anyone but my W, I am not really starting over as much as I am starting for the first time.