Moving On Rather Slowly

[may22]

Thanks, Alison. This is hard. It would be so much easier if he didn't live here and we didn't spend 24 hours a day together w/COVID.

I had a rough morning. Didn't get much sleep last night and still feel totally drained from emotion over Hamilton (I can't believe how much it affected me) and the conversation where I told H he could take the kids on the trip. Trying to plan an outdoor get together with one of my closest friends, ended up bailing yesterday for a variety of reasons (including H--and me too to be honest, but I blamed it on H to my friend because I just felt like it-- being concerned about social distancing measures as the virus is on the rise again in our area) but locked in something for Sunday that we'd been talking about with our girls for a couple of weeks. She texted me this morning to say hey, needed to let me know that she'd also been talking about this same excursion with three other families, two of whom are being totally terrible at social distancing, wanted to let me know in case H was uncomfortable.

I just felt so sad. All I wanted was the semi-normalcy of hanging out with my friend and the kids and to feel like there were people who were there for me, even when I am not yet ready to talk about this big thing that is tearing my life apart. And now I feel (I know this is just emotion speaking, it isn't really true, but it is how I feel right now) that I don't have that outlet, that H and I are going to be in this lonely, angry, sad capsule staring at each other until one person blinks or there is a vaccine. H said apparently our MC is totally full up, has all these new clients emerging from the lockdown.

And, I can't imagine disappointing my kids who have been talking about this excursion for weeks now. I think we'll go and just try to keep socially distanced-- it is outdoors-- but I'm disappointed in my friend and in the whole country, right now. She's a total social butterfly and it is who she is, and I usually love her for it. But I'm just frustrated right now.

H ordered a bunch of books on Amazon for trip planning. They came today. He showed them to me and I said, cool.

H knew I was feeling sad about my friend and hugged me. He asked me if I was conflating the thing with my friend with the other stuff going on, if I was worried that my friends wouldn't be there for me if we split. I acknowledged. He said you know that isn't true, you have good friends that will always be there for you. I'm the one without any good friends in this city. I said, I always thought you were my best friend. (I know not DBing.) He said, I'm here. Right now, I'm here.

Then he decided to morph into a philosophical discussion of marriage, there have to be so many things going right for an M to work, good friends, sexual intimacy, good roommates, social partners, good co-parents, etc. And then one thing goes wrong and society tells us we have to get rid of all of it. I said, I don't want to talk about this and walked away. (Honestly, the "societal norms" argument makes me so frustrated, I just can't hear it anymore.) He got angry... it isn't cool for you to just walk away from me and brush me off, I understand you have boundaries but that hand wave is rude (OK, probably true, I did do a dismissive wave with my hand in the air). Then he said you're making the choice to throw away all those other things. That is on you. I said, F you, H. and walked away. He then left to go help a friend move.

Guess saying F you and walking away isn't really DB-ing. I very much feel like it is my own business how friendly I choose to be with him after we split and I refuse to be his crutch for not making a decision. Yet in those moments I'm kind of stuck still-- I don't have a good answer that isn't either controlling or a lie. Is it just a calm "I understand you see it that way" and disengaging?