Mediation, and missing my mom
Well, we made it through Christmas and it was great. I thought, well this is going to be another first that’s going to really be hard, but it wasn’t. I had my daughters and grandchild there and my son and his wife showed up later and there was so much, just happiness! STBX reached out a few days before Christmas to tell me that he had gifts for our grandchild and he was dropping them off with extended family and said I could do whatever I wanted with them but he hoped I didn’t withhold them from the child. I just replied I wasn’t withholding anything. My kids still are no contact with him. Two have him blocked from everything.
Mediation is coming up this week. STBX is asking for half of everything and has inflated what he thinks the values are for the inventory of the house. And on his financial report he turned in, he shows that he has more outgoing than income. My favorite part was his claim that he spends $300 per month in gas…he doesn’t have a vehicle. He drives a company truck and gets fuel for free. Whatever. I hope this money that my lawyer is getting is going to be well worth it in the coming weeks.
I’m just stressed, and even though in my head I knew it was going to be a fight, I didn’t think he’d actually stoop low enough to want the gifts he gave me or the vehicles we gave to the kids, or that he’d try to take the house which would put his kids out as well. I guess since they won’t talk to him, this is his response to that.
I wish my mom was here. She died in an auto accident 24 years ago, but you know, it’s still your mom, and sometimes you just need your momma. I miss her every day, but I really wish I could curl up next to her on the couch, and put my head in her lap like when I was a child, and let her play with my hair and scratch my head while I talk to her. I’ve been so much better but I guess I’m just really stressed about this mediation and I’m just riding this roller coaster of emotions.
9 comments posted: Saturday, January 7th, 2023
Counseling improvements
I am so thankful for counseling. I was never one who was a disbeliever in it, but I was so lost and in such a terrible place when I started counseling, I just didn’t see how it would help.
Last week I surprised myself with the realization that it didn’t just help, it REALLY is helping me! And I had to laugh at myself!
This is what happened: last week my sister got into quite a vicious argument with her grown daughter and was sitting at a local park crying over the fight. So I went to talk to her. Her daughter told my sister that she (my sister) would have to change her ways otherwise no man would ever want her. (My sister is a widow).
So I was just listening and letting her work it out, when she asked me how I would have handled it if someone said that to me, and didn’t I want to be in another relationship? I just laughed. I said that one, I’m not anywhere near starting another relationship, and two, that I never ever wanted my happiness to depend on another person and that I never wanted to sacrifice my SELF to keep someone happy or keep them with me. It just hit me like an aha moment!
Then I just stopped. I didn’t even realize that was what I was feeling so long ago. I mean I knew I was putting up with a ton of shit from him and I was terrified of being without him, but it wasn’t RIGHT THERE in my head! I had to laugh and I cried because the woman I was then didn’t see that I deserved so much more than he was giving me and I didn’t know my own value. I mean of course I knew realistically, but to feel it deep down?
So therapy is valuable; it’s been hard, and scary, and enlightening. But I’m so thankful for these weekly sessions that have more than anything, helped me clarify my thinking. I know there are sorrows ahead in the ending of my marriage, because we were married so long. But it’s not the end of my future and life is already so much better without him. I can just see it now and that makes me happy.
Divorce wise: he’s still a dick. Mediation is set for next month, and I’m hoping he wants to just get this shit settled since he’s already shopping for engagement rings for the whore. On Amazon. Whatever, maybe it will usher this along faster.
2 comments posted: Monday, December 12th, 2022
I filed and now his counter petition
Well, I found a good lawyer who was recommended to me by a few friends of mine who work in the legal field, and I filed the petition for divorce. Reason for divorce? That one’s easy: he committed adultery.
I got his counter petition back and I am not the least bit surprised at his response. He denied my petition and countered with requesting a divorce on the grounds of discord of personality that would prevent reconciliation of the marriage parties. AND even though he doesn’t want the house and told me I could have it and everything in it, NOW he wants equal distribution of the assets. (Here is where the sarcastic part of me is rolling her eyes and saying, omg he lied? Unbelievable!)
So, I’m in the middle of gathering all the items my attorney needs for discovery, and I guess mediation is next? I don’t know. I know that I am ready for this show to get on the road. I just want to be rid of him and be free of this marriage. I’m still seeing my therapist and trying to keep in prayer. I’m just so mad now it’s hard to pray, because a lot of my prayers will start to turn to prayers for bad things to happen to him. My counselor says that’s a normal way to feel now. I’ll be working on ambivalence too. I’m trying not to feel anything for him so he doesn’t take up any head space, but it’s a work in progress.
Things I am thankful for: I have a great job and friends there that are wonderful. I have a house that while needing a ton of work, it’s sturdy and warm in the winter and cool in the summer. If I have to sell it, well then I guess it will be a good reason for a new start. My sisters and parents are so supportive and loving. My children. My children are the greatest reasons to be thankful. Amidst all of this fuckery, they have clung together and clung to me. I love them with my entire being and I know they love me too.
So while I’m gearing up for what I’m sure it going to be a fight, I’m going to remind myself I’m ok, and I’m going to keep being ok.
(And if maybe he falls in front of a train or gets eaten by a lion? I mean, I wouldn’t cry!)
4 comments posted: Sunday, November 6th, 2022
Cookies
Ok, stbxh didn’t contact me on my birthday, which made me sad. I know he’s a loser, and I know I wouldn’t take him back in a New York minute. But I was still sad because we were together so long. I guess that’s another issue I’ll be discussing with my therapist.
Monday morning, the day AFTER my birthday, a text pops in from loser, "Happy Birthday." Nope, I was just mad. I thought to myself, "No contact, because I’m not doing that."
Today. I get to work, and pick up my mail and deliveries to take back to my office. Do you know what I found? A Happy Birthday box of gourmet cookies. No note inside. But with his phone number on the shipping label.
Did I open any of those cookies? Heck no. I can’t send them back because the company has a no return policy. I think I’m going to ship them to his new address with his girlfriend with a note that says, These are for your whore. Ok, maybe no note.
Why? Just why? He’s supposed to be happy with her. We haven’t talked to him so why even freaking bother? My daughters say it’s because they still won’t talk to him and he’s trying to play nice and butter me up so I will smooth the way for him to start seeing them. Yeah, right. I see pigs are flying outside my window as we speak while hell is freezing over.
Whatever. I just want to start the ending of this.
6 comments posted: Wednesday, September 21st, 2022
First sighting
I saw stbxh. I haven’t laid eyes on him since July 9th and I saw him. When he moved out, it was to his girlfriend’s apartment 2 hours away. I live in a fairly small town, so I wasn’t worried about running into either of them at the local stores.
I knew he was in town, because he visited my daughter and grandchild. I was in the parking lot of a restaurant waiting for my lunch to be brought out, and I looked up and he was walking right in front of my car. I just looked at him with my mouth open. He was RIGHT THERE! He just gave me a little half smile and a lifted-hand wave and kept walking. He didn’t stop. I just sat there for a few seconds, then hopped out of the car. I was going to try to catch him leaving. I don’t even know what I was going to say. I just felt relief and happiness and I just wanted to touch his hand or his face. But he took the back exit out of the parking lot so he wouldn’t come by me. And he was gone again.
33 years together and I didn’t warrant a hi, I hope you’re okay. He walked past me like I was trash on the road. He was wearing a shirt that I bought him, and all I wanted to do was hold his hand with mine, and listen to him talk.
11 comments posted: Saturday, August 6th, 2022
He left
It’s been a long while from the first confrontation and now. I found his affair back in January and confronted him then. Since then, he said he’d stop the affair several times, but he never did. He just took it underground and kept finding ways to hide it. I’d track him going to her and confront him with it, he’d apologize, and then he’d wait a few weeks or so and then see her again. Always would talk to her.
He saw her on our anniversary, he saw her on Valentine’s Day. He left me the first time for 2 days on Mother’s Day weekend. I found out later through a recording that he went to her. When he came back he agreed to go to counseling and I thought, finally! A breakthrough. He even told the counselor that he broke up with AP that weekend.
But that didn’t happen. And a few weeks later around the end of may I saw him going to her house on my phone. I called him and told him that I knew what he was doing and we needed to meet up and talk about what was going to happen and why he was continuing to lie. We met up near her apartment and he apologized. I told him if he wanted to be with her, then go, but I deserved so much more than having to police someone who told me they loved me, but continued to lie and cheat. He cried. He said he didn’t want a divorce and wanted to love me and stay married to me. So I told him he had to cut the crap: he needed to get into counseling to figure his shit out, I needed access to everything and he needed to call her right then and tell her it was over. He wouldn’t so I did and he hung the phone up when she said, "Hey baby what’s wrong?" So we fought and when we got home he started packing.
I got so scared. I thought, "This is it. This is when it really happens." And I cried and begged him to stay. He’s my person. I couldn’t stand to let him go. So he stayed and of course continued the affair. And I took it. I was so scared to be alone. I’ve been with him since we were 17. I’m 50 now and I just can’t see life without him.
I listened to some of their conversations before this weekend and he was staying because he wanted access to our grandchild. Our grown children are furious with him and 2 won’t even talk to him and he was playing nice staying with me until he could figure out a way to soften up our daughter into letting him and AP with her baby.
Well, I guess he finally didn’t care enough that I knew and he went to see her last Friday. And basically ignored me when he got home. He got up Saturday morning and said I’m going to work, and I told him that he didn’t have to lie, and that I knew AP moved her rv close to our town so he could be called away to work on weekends. He still left and when he came back, I asked him what he was doing: staying or leaving. He said leaving. At first I was so mad at him! But then I got hysterical. Crying and everything. And he still left.
So that’s it so far. I’m separated and headed for a divorce. I’m crying at work and at home and I feel like I’m dying. All over a piece of shit I’m still stupid for loving.
11 comments posted: Tuesday, July 12th, 2022
