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Posts Tagged ‘hurt’

Long, rough road to travel

16 Mar

I had absolutely no idea how long it had been since I posted here last and I have to admit I am more than a little shocked by how much time has passed. I started this blog in a rather desperate hope and attempt to deal with everything that was going on in my life. I was completely lost and generally felt completely isolated. I have absolutely no family in my area and while I do have friends they all have their own lives, with their own problems and I didn’t want to ask them to deal with my problems in addition to theirs.

My son was quite young when everything happened and I had been a full time stay at home mother his whole life. While I had worked full time prior to his birth his father and I had decided that not only did we not want him to essentially be raised by a daycare, but that financially speaking daycare wasn’t worth is since it would take more money than anything I could bring in for him to be in daycare 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. It is a decision that means more to me now than I had ever thought it would. It has been a very long and generally difficult road to get to where I am today. I have struggled through more bad days than good, but I have made it through. The journey continues, one day at a time, although to be honest there are days where I honestly feel like I need to take it one minute at a time in order to get through.

Here is a bit of what has been going on since I last posted.

  • My son has recently, officially, become a teenager. Something that neither of us were really prepared for to be honest. While I have tried dating since my unwanted divorce and was even in a relationship for a period of time it is still just my son and I against the world. He remains the center of my entire universe and my reason for everything. I have shared custody, but because he spends more than 50% of his time with me I have majority custody and primary placement. My son doesn’t seem to enjoy visiting his father, but he still goes. Over these past years being without my son has become both easier and more difficult. I no longer spend the time that I am at home without him hiding in my bedroom (something that I used to do while my son was gone, leaving only to go to work, make something to eat, use the bathroom and so on – it was something that made the time he was gone a bit easier to deal with), but I definitely do not feel as social when he is gone. I will occasionally get together with a friend while he is gone, but for the most part I tend to keep to myself when not at work.
  • As I alluded to in the previous paragraph, I have tried dating off and on since the divorce and was in a relationship for a while, but it didn’t last and all the other attempts to find someone have been failures. It’s extremely frustrating that every time I have tried dating that the same thing happens. I state upfront that I am a single mom and that my son comes first, especially considering that I do not have any family in the area to help me with anything. I state that I am looking for a serious, committed relationship and have no interest in playing games. That I want to find and build a deep, emotional connection with someone and that I do not want to rush into a relationship. Every time I find someone who says they are looking for the same thing and that they understand they will start making things sexual long before I am ready for it. (At the fastest this has happened within 30 minutes of us chatting and at longest within 2 days of starting to chat.) When I tell them that I am not ready for that they get upset, often insulting and stop communicating. At this point I have pretty much given up on trying to date for the foreseeable future. I don’t discount the possibility that I will find someone, but I’m not going to be making a concerted effort again any time soon.
  • My ex has stopped paying me alimony and so I have lost quite a bit of income that I used to be able to rely on for paying rent, bills and so on. He still pays child support, but that is all that he is paying and as a result money is always about ten times tighter than it was and it was already really tight. With my work schedule being built around when my son is in school I am not able to work full time and with not making much more than minimum wage, despite being with my employer for about ten years, most months there is serious concern about whether or not I am going to be able to pay my rent. I have tried repeatedly to get rental assistance and have never been able to because they say that I make too much money and/or they don’t have the funding. I honestly don’t know how much longer I am going to be able to do this without having to find a second job. I am more than willing to work two jobs, it is something that I did for years prior to Covid, but I can’t go back to the work schedule that I had when I was working two jobs. I would work twelve consecutive days, have two days off, my Saturday and Sunday with my son, and then start the next twelve days of work. That kind of schedule would be very difficult to be able to maintain and honestly should not, in my opinion, be necessary, but of course only time will tell what will have to happen on the work front. I have been trying to find another job for almost eight months now, with no success. I honestly have never had so much trouble finding a job, let alone getting an interview before and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I also don’t know what I am going to do if I can’t find another job soon.
  • I have been struggling with some mild depression and a fair amount of anxiety, specifically social anxiety. As a result I have not kept up on some of the things that I used to regularly do, including chores around the apartment. I have recently been able to make some serious strides in being able to get things back on track, but I still have a long way to go and with the potential for various family and friends visiting this Spring and Summer I am fast running out of time to get back on top of things. I have thought about starting to take Sertraline again as it has been helpful to me in the past, but I don’t have health insurance right now and have no idea how I would be able to afford that medication on top of everything else. As it is I have been struggling to be able to afford the migraine medicine that I absolutely have to have to be able to deal with a migraine attack when I get them.

As I said, it has been a long and difficult road, but somehow I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Each day is filled with learning something new about being a parent, how to deal with my ex, how to keep moving forward and/or how to find something, even something small, to make the day just a little better. It’s not a perfect world and so many of the things that I would like to be able to wish for will never happen, but I do my best to make the best of what each day presents me with. Before I am ready for it I’ll find out what tomorrow holds, but I will deal with that when I get there.

 
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Posted in General, Wonders & Ramblings

 

Done But Not Gone, Finished But Not Over

29 Sep

As you might imagine from the title of this entry earlier this month my divorce was finalized and as a result this month has been particularly difficult and emotional for me. In some ways that doesn’t surprise me, I mean after all my marriage and the longest relationship of my life has just been buried six feet under. On the other hand this has been in the process for quite some time so it really should be old hat by now and no big deal.

I am sure I have said this before, but it is still true — Understanding why I feel the way I do and actually feeling that way are two different things. It’s actually kind of upsetting and almost makes me feel broken. Broken in a way that the divorce never could, of course none of that really matters or makes any difference.

I am not really sure what I should be writing about regarding the finalization of my divorce, but after such a long gap between  entries and with finalization feeling like such a milestone in this whole process (it has been my single largest source of stress since filing the papers just over a year and a half ago) I really feel like I should be writing about it. I imagine that some people would be writing things about how much they hate or despise the person putting them through this or saying ‘I wish’ this/’I wish’ that, but honestly, despite everything I don’t hate him (yet, I also have to be honest and admit there is the potential that I will in the future) but what I do hate is saying the phrase ‘I wish’. My ability to understand these things and more is in no way useful to me, at least not that I have found.

Despite the fact that I stopped wearing my wedding ring not long after all this started I am still not used to being without it and since the divorce has been finalized my awareness of it’s absence has been renewed. (Ok, that sentence ended up being a little more convoluted than I originally intended, but I don’t really know a better way to say it. Sorry.) I’ll be going along and all of the sudden out of the corner of my eye I will notice that the ring is gone and have a micro-second freak out or I’ll notice that the weight from the ring is gone. It was a simple ring, nothing elaborate or large but the kind of simple elegance that I love and appreciate.

I guess maybe what makes this all so difficult is knowing that even though the divorce is over I will still have to see, talk to and try to work with my ex on an extremely regular basis because of our son. These encounters give him extremely regular chances to add insult to injury, which he does and seems to delight in. (Sometimes I think it may be his only hobby these days — finding ways to upset and torment me.) It also makes it it more difficult for me to come to terms with and move on because just as I start to get into my routine and feel some semblance of normality it’s time for my son’s visitation with his father which throws my world out of balance all over again. It’s a never ending cycle, at least for the time being. My inability to tell the future means that I have to acknowledge the possibility that the cycle will end and I will wake up to find that, in fact, I have moved on. Until such time all I can say is this — My marriage is done, but my ex is not gone and my marriage may be finished, but my life is not over.

 
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Posted in Wonders & Ramblings

 

Struggling in Iowa

12 Aug

Struggling Reader in Iowa,

Recently someone that we both know, we’ll call her Ms. D, told me that you have been going through a tough time right now. While I know how little this helps I am sorry to hear that you have been struggling. As I understand it you have been reading my blog, so you probably know by now that I am someone who hates the cliches and platitudes that we so frequently hear as we are trying to adjust to this MASSIVE change in our lives, even so I want you to know that you are not alone and that I can completely empathize with the struggle you are going through.

Am I correct in understanding that you are also adjusting to becoming a single mother? I don’t know about you, but it is an adjustment that I never thought I would have to make in my life. I have only one child and the adjustment to being a single mom has been tricky in ways that I both anticipated and don’t think I ever could have anticipated. Through it all my son has been my driving force. He has been my anchor and my greatest, and at times my only source of comfort. I imagine that most women going through situations similar to ours feel much the same way. How can they not?

I don’t know how much of my blog you have read, but I sincerely hope that it has helped you in some way. If in no other way I hope that at the very least it has helped you feel less alone and isolated, which are feelings that I have been struggling with myself. I do not know everything and I am still going through the process myself, but if there is anything that I can do to help I will.

I don’t want to give you unsolicited advice, however, if you will permit me I would like to say that I know just how easy it is to be hard on yourself while trying to navigate through everything that this nightmare involves. It seems like it is almost a default response, but please don’t allow yourself, or anyone else for that matter, make you feel like you are wrong in how you are processing this. There is no specific time table that you must adhere to and then you have to be ok and ready to move on. You are in the process of grieving. You have suffered a loss that is significant and the length of time that you need to process and adjust to that loss will be different from the amount of time that someone else might need. Do your best to give yourself a break. If you ever feel like you want or need to talk to someone I am more than willing to listen.

You are not alone.

 
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Posted in Letters to Everyone Else

 

Where is my Peeta?

27 Feb

Let me make one thing perfectly clear I am NOT anywhere close to even being in the same universe as even remotely considering starting to date again. More simply stated — I am not ready or interested in dating again any time soon. That being said I still can’t help wondering “Where is my Peeta?”

I am a fan of the Hunger Games books, as well as the movies, although I was a fan of the books first. I am not what some people would consider to be a die hard fan of the books, but I do feel a certain attachment and connection to them. I became a fan of the books not long after my son was born, but before having my personal universe shattered. I knew that things were not 100% perfect (because that would have been naive), but thought I had someone who would fight with me and for me (like Peeta for Katniss). I was wrong.

In addition to the all the things that I have lost as a result of this unwanted divorce I have lost my friend and someone that I could turn to for support and encouragement, which has left an almost insurmountable hole in my support network.It’s not anything new for me to say that I have only a few friends (99% of them women) and of them there are barely a handful that I would consider to be someone that I can truly confide in. All of my friends and family have been (to the best of their abilities) supportive, but there continues to be something missing. Something that I worry I may never get back, especially because I have less than zero interest in dating. The (non-romantic) kind of support and encouragement that comes from a person of the opposite gender. I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s just something about a different point of view, a different way to handling a problem or situation — I don’t know — and my confusion is only exacerbated by the fact that my STBX really wasn’t as supportive as he should have been or thought he was (and I am not the only person who has been on the receiving end of his “support” or “encouragement” so I know that statement is not just sour grapes). Even so I still find myself wanting to have some kind of (non-romantic) connection with a friend of the male gender.

This realization, one that I have actually been aware of and trying to process for many months, just raises so many more questions for me. Questions that I find difficult to express. Questions that I do not have the time or mental or emotional energy for and questions that just lead to more questions.

To my girl friends out there both new and old (Sweeite, Kamria, Ona, Victoria, S.C., Sheik, Jess and Lori) know that your love, support, encouragement and most of all patience have been invaluable to me. I could not have made it through this without you. You are all irreplaceable in my life and while I believe that you will all understand what it is that I am trying to express I sincerely hope that you will not take offense.

To any men out there who are reading this — I don’t know how to say what I want to say. I want to be your friend, but please don’t waste my time if you do not sincerely want to be my friend. I’m struggling and in need of support, but that does not mean that I am blind to what is going on around me. I am not perfect and am sure that I will fail to be a good friend on more than one occasion and when I do it won’t be because I don’t care about you, your life or what you are going through, but because I am human and hurting. It won’t be easy for me to trust you despite the fact that I want to, so if I am a weird combination of distant and friendly it is not you or anything that you have done. I am not asking for anything more than a friend, someone that I can talk to, confide in, someone who feels comfortable confiding in me, someone that I can be myself with and know that they will accept and like me for who I am faults and all.

Maybe I am asking too much too soon from the universe, Maybe my current longing for a male friend is indicative of some broken part of me. Maybe it’s nothing more than an idle, desperate fantasy and maybe it is nothing at all. Whatever the reason behind the question, as perplexing, maddening and potentially ridiculous as it is I can’t shake it off and I can’t help but wonder — Where is my Peeta?

 
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Posted in Wonders & Ramblings

 

Don’t Be Mine

15 Feb

It was 15 years ago this weekend, more specifically Valentine’s Day, that my STBX proposed to me. We had been together just over a year at that point and I had really been hoping that he would propose but had not necessarily expected him to ask me on Valentine’s Day. So this weekend has been REALLY difficult for me. Adding to the general difficulty of the weekend I was stuck at work and am without my reason for living (my son) this weekend. (I know that some people would not understand it or would maybe even say that I am being overly dramatic, but the truth is that when my son is not with me my heart is missing. So this Valentine’s Day I was left feeling unwanted, unloved and missing my heart and reason.) I know that somehow I will get through this because it isn’t the first Valentine’s Day since the nightmare began and I have made it through every other difficult day I have encountered so far, but I don’t know how. Honestly I don’t know how I have made it this far of with this much sanity still in tact.

I had hoped that working this weekend would help to distract me from the fact that it isn’t just another weekend where I am required to allow my son to visit my STBX and to a certain degree it worked, but there was more than enough time for my mind to be able to wander and get lost. (It doesn’t take long for almost 16 years of memories to start haunting me, especially when it is quiet.) Now that I am at home I am not doing much better. A little bit, but I think that is because of two simple things. 1) I am able to have the TV on to either watch or just have something on in the background and 2) I am writing about what I am going through, which has always been rather therapeutic for me. I am struggling a bit to express what I am going through because I am trying to keep things vague, but also because the emotions are so jumbled that they can be hard to sift through, especially when I am really wanting to get them out.

Part of me has felt rather pathetic this weekend for a variety of reasons both due to internal and external sources. I feel pathetic because I know that I am not the only one who is struggling through Valentine’s Day, but I am only able to think about my struggle. I feel pathetic because I am more than 16 months into this process and emotionally feel no closer to dealing with this. All I want to do is get to a point where I can be indifferent to my STBX’s bullying, insults, threats, hypocrisy and everything else that he throws at me. I feel pathetic because I can’t hate the one man in the world that I have real legitimate cause to hate. I don’t think that hating people is a good thing, but I can’t help but wonder if there is something wrong with me because I can not actually hate the one person that it would be understandable for me to hate.

A very good friend of mine was able to come over last night and we “celebrated” in a very unconventional way. We had plenty of chocolate, but it was enjoyed as we watched a couple of bloody, horror movies. What can I say? We felt like honoring the Valentine’s Day Massacre rather than the lovey-dovey take on the day. It was nice to be able to spend some time with her because we are both busy and don’t get to spend as much time together as we would like to do.

My life will never be the same as a result of this divorce. Specific days, such as Valentine’s Day will never be the same either and I expect that it will be many years before I am able to even consider celebrating Valentine’s Day in any kind conventional way, IF I ever reach that point again. Until I do get to that point I am just hoping to be look at Valentine’s Day as just any other day of the week. Right now that is the best that I can hope for.

 
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Posted in Letters to Self

 

I hate people!

19 Apr

Rest of the world,

I am hurting, I am angry and honestly my general hate of all people has increased tenfold. I don’t owe any of you any explanations, but I will, at least this one time provide you with a very brief explanation. I do not like people. Individuals are ok (which we will not get into right now because that is NOT what this is about) but I do not like people in general. Explanation over. Don’t like it? Then you can stop reading right now.

Somehow, everyday, I have to find a way to get up, take care of my young son, once a week he has swim class, run errands, cook, clean, do laundry AND somehow still find a way to come to terms with the death of my marriage and everything that involves. Most of the time my day is so full of just trying to be there for my son and not letting the hurt and the anger that have nothing to do with him be directed at him that I have no emotional energy for anything else. Those are the ‘good’ days. On the bad days I have had very little to no sleep the night before and as a result have even LESS emotional energy. Then there are the ‘REALLY bad days’ where I’ve had little to no sleep the night before AND randomly throughout the day thoughts will pop into my head. Sometimes they are just thoughts that have become habit over the years, like being at the grocery store and seeing something that I know my (unfortunately soon to be) ex-husband liked or would regularly ask for and the thought of “I should get that for him” will enter my head only to be followed by thoughts where I remember that he’s gone and I’ll never be buying things for him again and the pain of it all comes crashing down on me again. Other times I’ll be in the same grocery store and another type of thought will pop into my head. Something that is more along the lines of the fact that he is already and actively sharing what used to be my bed with another woman will be what pops into my head, which just causes almost MORE pain than I can bear. Being in public where I’m surrounded by a bunch of people who I don’t know and don’t want to know only makes all of these instances worse. Being around people who I like and actually want to be around is hardly bearable in all of this, so why on Earth would I ever to be around anyone I don’t know?!?

So here is a quick summary for you — If I don’t know you, I don’t want to. If I don’t know you it’s safe to assume that I don’t like you. If I know you and don’t already like you, that’s not going to change. If I don’t like you just leave me alone and stay out of my way. I have a VERY finite amount of patience and emotional energy and control. You have about a 20 in 7 billion chance of being one of the extremely few people I happen to think is worth using that limited amount of energy with, so please don’t waste my time and I’ll try not to run you over.

I really hate people.

 
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Posted in Letters to Everyone Else