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Archive for September, 2014

Have your cake & eat it too

27 Sep

Ex,

There is SO much that I have wanted to say to you for so long, but a great deal of it is full of anger, hurt and is in no way helpful to the situation you have put us in that I feel it is inappropriate to express them, but for one of the things that is mostly just full of confusion I can’t be quiet about any longer.

You have repeatedly told me that you hate the fact that I have expressed my emotions regarding the situation in front of my son. Hell you have even gone so far as to accuse me of emotionally abusing my son because I have cried in front of him and have even threatened to report me to Child Protective Services for emotional abuse. However, today when you were picking my son up for his visit I tried smiling while talking and saying goodbye to my son in an effort to provide him with support and encouragement. Instead of accepting what I was trying to do (or at the VERY least) keeping your mouth shut, you were apparently compelled to make a comment about the fact that I was enjoying the fact that my son was holding on to me like his life depended on it and unwilling to acknowledge you. Beyond the fact that you have no one but yourself to blame for your relationship, or lack thereof, with my son such comments, particularly in front of him are highly inappropriate.

It would not surprise me to learn that you want me to be enjoying how strained your relationship is with my son. I can imagine that it would make hating me, which you seem to be putting so much energy into, easier. The truth is that I am not happy. I am not happy about anything and that includes not being happy about the fact that my son doesn’t get all excited about seeing you. There are a lot of reasons for this and since you will most likely never read this or get this far if you do come across this post by meer happenstance I will not go into them. I can say this though — IF either one of us is capable of truly finding enjoyment with my son showing favoritism to them and shunning the other than it will be you.

I know you. I know you better than you want me to. I know you better than you know yourself and so feel confident in saying that your reasoning behind the comments that you made today (as well as many of the others that you make) is to cause the most amount of pain you can with as little effort as possible all while allowing yourself to feel justified in making the comments. You imagine you are being attacked so you are allowed to strike back. While some of this is subconscious and based on the way that you “learned” to fight while growing up the rest is you just trying to make yourself feel better at the expense of someone else. Someone that you know you can seriously wound. Classic bully. One of these days, if I am very lucky, you will learn that your attempts to blame me for your failures as a husband and father were nothing more than your attempts to not feel guilty. You’ll realize that it was not the fact that my son preferred to breastfeed rather than eat from a bottle (so that you could feed him) that prevented you from being able to bond with him. You’ll realize that it wasn’t my occasionally crying in front of my son because of how hurt or upset I was that made you look like an asshole in his eyes. Instead you will realize that it was the way that you verbally degraded me in front of him, the way that you choked me while I was holding him, they way that you repeatedly, and in front of my son, would say that you did not believe him to be your son and that you did not want to be a father any more, the way you immediately turn on someone when you don’t get what you want the moment that you want it or that you always obsess over any imagined slight so that when you get angry enough you can say that you have justification for systematically erasing them from your life. You’ll realize that YOU were the one who prevented the development of any real bond with him. You’ll realize that you can not refuse to do the work because you already believe that your attempts will fail and then turn around and blame others for that failure when it comes. You’ll realize that your failures are yours alone, that your attempts to convince yourself that the fault lies with others is hypocritical, at best. You’ll realize that you can not have your cake and eat it too.

 
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Posted in Letters to Ex

 

Far From Over

26 Sep

Me, Myself and I,

This has been one of the most emotional and difficult week for me. I have struggled and am still struggling with all of it. So much, too much going on to process and I don’t have the foggiest where to even begin with trying to figure it out.

I got and started a new job this week. I have gotten a job as a food preparer at a daycare center. The position only requires that I work 4 days a week and most of the time I will only be working for 3 to 3 1/2 hours a day. My son will be able to go with me on the days that I work and I will be able to pay a discounted rate for the time that he is at the daycare. It is as close to ideal as I could possibly get, at least for the time being, but I still can’t help but have unbelievably mixed feelings over it. I do worry about whether or not my cooking skills (which are good, but nowhere near professional), but if I’m being honest my biggest adjustment to the job is that it will be taking away from my already rapidly diminishing time with my son. I also have to say that the ONLY reason I applied for and accepted the job was because I am essentially being forced (by circumstances) to accept it.

My son, who is going to be 3 1/2 years old a week from today, and I were not seeing eye to eye on something and he was expressing his frustration by saying that he didn’t need me, or something similar to that and suddenly I had this vision of a similar moment in the future where, in a moment of frustration my son telling me that he was going to leave and move in with his father. I believe that this is an inevitability and that it will at some point happen. I do not want it to and I fear it, but I can’t live in fear and have it affect my ability to be his mother. I generally try not to think too far ahead when it comes to my son right now because I have so much else to process in the here and now, but I can not and will not deny that this is something that has been weighing heavily on my mind for longer than just this past week. There is no way to completely prepare myself for the pain that I will experience if/when my son says such a thing to me will cause, but I have to somehow find a way to prepare as much as possible because I do not want to respond in anger and say something hurtful that I will regret for the rest of my life. I would never forgive myself.

I realized that it was one year ago this past week that my S2BX started sleeping his way out of our marriage and only told me about it because someone else threatened to tell me if he did not do so first. I can not believe that I have been in hell and living in this nightmare for 12 months. How is it that 12 months have already gone by?!? This is no easier now than it was when it all began. As a matter of fact it is getting more difficult in some ways. How am I ever going to recover from this if one year later I am in as much pain as I was at the start?

This week may be ending, but my struggle, pain, fear, heartbreak, anger, etc are far from over. I think it is unlikely that they end anytime soon, if they end at all.

 
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Posted in Letters to Self

 

‘I wish…’

14 Sep

I try not to say ‘I wish…’ anymore. Hell, I try not to even think it. I know it’s a harmless thought, but lately it just pisses me off. What is the point?!?!? Sure, somewhere (don’t ask me where though) it has been said that it is important for us to have a healthy imagination and to have dreams and wishes, but what point does it serve? Motivation? Inspiration? As a coping mechanism? Anyone who is going through, or has gone through, what I am currently going through would most likely tell you that an ‘I wish…’ statement isn’t even worth the breath you used to express it. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make what you are going through any easier. It doesn’t help you to forget. It doesn’t really do anything.

Recently I was asked the question ‘If you knew that you could not fail, what would you do?’. All of the other people took a long time searching for some deep and meaningful answer, but with in seconds I knew that my response was far less lofty. My response? Play the lottery. As many as I could. Sure that probably sounds like I am being incredibly shallow and selfish to anyone who doesn’t know me or my situation, which is fine by me, think what you want, but the truth is that was my honest and sincere answer. As I was (sort of) listening to everyone else’s answers I wanted to say, even just to myself, that I wished something like that could happen. That I wished I could find or receive a lottery ticket that would end up being worth a decent sum. I wanted to wish that I could experience a single day where everything that I did was a resounding success, but knew that such a wish would mean nothing.

Anyone who knows me personally will tell you that while I am not a religious person that I am not wholly without some belief. I believe that there is some kind of higher power, but I also believe (at least for the time being) that whatever or whoever that higher power is it is nothing more than an asshole. My recent view of ‘I wish…’ statements just reaffirms that current belief. In my mind a wish is kind of like a small prayer. Think about it, whether you are wishing on a shooting star, a birthday candle, a loose eyelash before blowing it off your finger tip, you are stating something that you want and sending it out into the universe in hopes that you will get your desire. Isn’t that similar to a prayer, in it’s most basic form? So, if a wish is a small prayer and you make a wish and that wish is never fulfilled (because 99.999999999999999% of the time they aren’t) then don’t you feel just a little bit like you have been ignored and snubbed? Even just a little? Think about it and be honest.

I am sure that I can imagine most of the arguments that this thought process could conjure up and I am tempted to preemptively state my responses to those arguments, but to be honest I am really tired of always looking at everything from everyone else’s point of view and focusing solely on my point for fear of offending someone, but I’m not going to do that this time. It would be wonderful to feel like there is an all-knowing entity or force out there that loves and cares about me, but I don’t. Wishing won’t change that. Wishing won’t change what I am going through. Wishing won’t make what I am going through any easier. Wishing won’t change how I am feeling or get me through the grief process any faster and wishing definitely and without a doubt will not help me get those things that I REALLY want no matter how hard or how many times I might wish for them.

So, what am I left with? Nothing more than I had before, except for possibly feeling a little more empty and deflated than before I made the wish and, believe it or not, a wish. I wish that, at least for the time being, the concept of and hope for wishes to be real and to mean something would go away. Stop sprinkling salt on my already painful wounds and allow me to suffer in silence, in my own head if nowhere else.

 
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Posted in Wonders & Ramblings

 

Briefest of Thank Yous

01 Sep

Ona

I know that you are going through a difficult time right now and despite the fact that you may never read this I wanted to take a moment to tell you that you have been in my thoughts today knowing what a difficult day it has been for you. I hope you know, I mean truly know that I am here for you in any way that I can possibly be.

I do not want to want to disregard or belittle the grief that you are currently facing, but I do also want to take this moment to tell you that I appreciate your friendship, support, encouragement, advice and willingness to listen to me when I feel the need to purge myself (and especially when I do so inadvertently). Those things have meant so much to me and I will never be able to thank you enough or repay for everything that you have done for me. Though we may not be of the same blood you are my family. I can only hope that you feel the same.

I hope my taking this briefest of moments during your time of sadness to express my appreciation for you (and everything you have done for me) has not been an intrusion. Thank you, beyond words. Sorry for your loss.

 
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Posted in Moment of Appreciation