Coming and Going

That is exactly where I’m at right now, as of the last two days. I haven’t got a bloody clue what the hell is going on in my head at the moment. It’s driving me completely mental!

Since I last wrote, I’ve been on one of the biggest rollercoaster rides that I’ve ever been on emotionally. I thought some of the other stuff that I’ve felt in the past was pretty horrible, this has been a completely different set of emotions, one’s that I don’t think I’ve experienced before. For the first time in a long time I actually had a brief notion of taking enough sleeping pills to not wake up from. Not that I’ve got enough to do that, but I thought about going to the doctor, getting a new prescription and just going for it. I have to say, that scared the absolute hell out of me. Some days have been fine, I’ve gone through just doing what I’ve been doing for the last few months, no problem. Other days I’m a complete and total wreck. I’ve had a couple of total meltdowns, where I have absolutely cried my eyes out, I’ve screamed and yelled, stomped my feet, banged my fists on the door, I even made myself physically sick at one point. I’ve barely eaten in days, actually it’s probably been longer than that. I noticed the other day that I think I’ve lost too much weight. For me, to notice that is a big thing. I probably border on having anorexia thanks to my mother and when I think I’m looking too thin then I’m probably looking very very thin.

My kids are so sick of seeing me like this. They are actually angry at me for it. I don’t blame them really. I can’t shut up about it all. About The Husband (I’m going to have to come up with a new name) and Triple C. It’s bordering on an obsession in a way. I’ve been stalking her Facebook, at least four or five times a day. She’s blocked my account so I can’t even find her if I try and search (don’t know why though, I’ve not once contacted her, not in anyway at all) so I’ve been using a fake account to do it. I keep looking at her photo and wondering if she’s pretty than I am, she’s certainly taller, her hair is straight and he could run his fingers through it, which is something he always said he liked doing, mine you can’t. Is her body nicer than mine, I bet it is, she’s 25 and only had one child, I’m in my thirties and had four. That alone is enough to make me cry. I keep imagining the two of them together and it makes me sick. It physically hurts me. He is still claiming that they are just friends, nothing is going on. She’s updated her Facebook bio, “Who needs LOVE when you have an amazing FRIEND…” (yes the capitals are actually there) as if she’s trying to make sure that everyone knows they are just ‘friends’. Can you blame my children for wanting me to just shut the hell up? I want me to just shut the hell up. I wake up and promise myself that I won’t do it today, I won’t say anything and then something stupid happens to remind me or something and I can’t help it, I’m blabbing all over the place. It’s pathetic.

In the midst of all this, I’ve signed up to a couple of those stupid online dating sites. Not because I’m really looking for dates or whatever, I just need some friends so I can have something to do and that way I’m not sitting around my house all the time just constantly dwelling on things. I got a lot more responses than I anticipated. A lot more. I ended up thoroughly confused. There were guys who wanted to be friends, guys who immediately wanted to meet for ‘fun times’, there were girls who wanted me to catch up with them and their boyfriend/husband (which I don’t mind, to be honest and one of them I did…hehehe), there are young guys, like 23 and 25 year olds telling me how hot I am and how they want to hook up. They’re giving me their numbers and constantly messaging me on these sites about when we can catch up. It’s flattering, I have to say, some of these younger guys are hot! But really, wouldn’t it just be very wrong for me to sleep with a 25 year old? Seriously. I did meet up with one guy though and he was really nice. There weren’t any crude sexual innuendos exchanged at all. I’m still contemplating how I want to proceed with this person though, so for the moment, I’m just leaving it alone.

The other night, though, after my completely animalistic display of hurt and jealousy and who knows what else was going on in my head (turns out I’ve got a bruise on my hand now from bashing it on things) I went back on the dating site hoping to just chat to random people and hopefully take my mind off of how crap everything was. I decided to that I was going to get rid of all the idiots that were contacting me and trying to have some dirty talk marathon so they could wank. Not long before I was thinking of getting off a guy requested to contact me. I read his profile and I liked it. Most of the profiles were complete rubbish, his I liked. It said that he was studying at uni, he worked as a policeman, it seemed quite honest. So I accepted and continued chatting with the few other people I was talking too. Then he started talking to me, saying hi, how was my day. I didn’t tell him I’d had a completely crap day, I simply said it was okay. He immediately knew that something was wrong. I told him it was fine, no point getting into it, I mean really, who goes on a dating site to hear someone piss and moan about their life? Apparently he does. He kept asking me to tell him about it, so I did. I told him he’d want to run a mile in the other direction but he asked…He didn’t run and he didn’t go all weird. He told me about his separation from his wife seven years ago, he talked to me about all sorts of different things and by the end of it, I was so much happier I can’t even describe. I decided that I would give this guy my number. I don’t know why I felt okay doing it, I just did.

The next morning, he texted me and asked if I was okay and was I having a better day. Up until that point it had been okay but when I read that text I immediately started to smile. It was the sweetest thing that anyone has said to me in a while (except you Sb ). From there we spent pretty much the whole day just chatting away. In the afternoon he wanted to know if we could catch up for coffee. That isn’t easy for me to do in general but The Little Prince was going swimming and The Princess was at a friends place. Completely spare of the moment, I told him I’d meet him right now at our local shopping centre at a cafe. He agreed and I freaked out! I got there and hid in a store near the cafe until I was sure he was there and who he said he was, that it wasn’t some stupid prank. We spent an hour and a half just talking and laughing, it was brilliant. The conversation wasn’t stilted at all, it was nice. Since then, he’s been texting me everyday, I’ve only texted him a couple of times. Either he really does want to be friends, with maybe some extras or he’s just after the extras and is trying really hard to get them. I hope it’s the former.

It’s the only thing that has kept me happy the last few days. I’m so glad now that I got bored and upset enough to sign up there. I’d probably be tearing my hair out now if I hadn’t.

What Have I Done?

I’m  actually not sure what the hell has happened but the last three days or so have been complete hell. I woke up this morning and wondered if maybe I’m feeling a hundred times worse because I’m due to get my period soon, I’m just not sure but whatever it is, I’m feeling things that I never expected to feel in a million years and I don’t know what to do with it. I can’t squash it down like I’ve done so many times before, I can’t talk to anyone about them, I don’t have anyone, I can’t blurt it all over Facebook because that would just be stupid, I could write it in my Mood Journal (which it turns out I haven’t used in two years) but it’s not the same as sitting here, seeing the words appear almost as quickly as I think them. There is also the small possibility that someone will read this and maybe have a suggestion for me as to what the hell is going on with me.

If you’ve been reading the last few weeks/months, you’ll know that The Husband and I are no longer together. It was through my doing, I asked him to move out. He did, about three months ago. Things have improved dramatically since he’s been gone. The two youngest children are much happier, I do shopping every single week, things are getting paid properly, like The Little Prince’s school stuff for next year. At Christmas I was able to get them decent gifts without having to spend three or four months fighting and stressing about the entire thing. Miss Independent is able to come over much more than ever before, she isn’t waiting for her dad to say something mean or nasty or rude or disgusting, she isn’t waiting for the moment when he starts a fight with her. The Bean Pole has taken the entire thing particularly hard though it seemed recently as if things were improving for him, he seemed happier again and he was talking to me more and more, like he had done before they moved out.

Then I found out that he’d made a new ‘friend’. It turned out he’s had this friend a lot longer than he made it sound like he did when he initially told me about it. Triple C and he it turns out have been friends since fairly soon after he moved out. They exchanged phone numbers and agreed to catch up. Except for the fact that The Husband always looks like he’s flirting when he’s being friendly with other girls, I guess it was all above board at that point. Then she decided to split up with her boyfriend of 11 years who had apparently been abusing her both physically and verbally for most of that 11 years. Whether this is true or not I have no idea. Given that The Husband was abusive in the an emotional and possibly financial way for a good 15 years I find it rather ironic that he’s oh so very sympathetic with Triple C over her plight.

After this breakup, which had nothing to do with any feelings she or he might have had for one another apparently, she was scared to stay in her own home so she would go and stay at The Husbands house, in his bed, with the door open and The Bean Pole in another room feeling very angry, upset and I would guess betrayed by his father. The reason I was told about all this was because it turns out that Triple C’s ex-boyfriends family live very, very close to me. A few in my street, a few more in the houses directly behind me. The Little Prince was friends with one of their children. He was concerned that they might come around and cause some trouble for me and The Little Prince.

At first I wasn’t bothered by the situation. I was annoyed that he’d done something stupid that could potentially cause me and the children problems but other than that I didn’t think much of it. I don’t know why, it might have been because when he told me I had a person waiting in their car to see me and there was something else going on and I was completely distracted. I don’t think I really thought about it much until I saw The Bean Pole and he started to talk about the situation and about how bothered by it all he was, how he didn’t like her and didn’t want to get to know her at all, despite her buying him things and trying to be all friendly. He just wanted her to go away and he couldn’t understand why his dad would be doing this so soon after separating from his wife of 20 years, the woman who is his mother. Despite everything his dad was telling him, he didn’t believe that nothing was going on, that they were just friends. I think it all came to a head for The Bean Pole when she wanted the two of them to attend a bbq at Triple C’s family home, with her entire family, an apparently very important and intimate event that only those considered family were invited to. The Bean Pole flatly refused to attend. There was nothing that was going to make him go, nothing. He ended up spending almost three days here, going home for one night and then coming back again, all to avoid having to be with his dad and more than likely Triple C.

After I heard this I started to get very annoyed. Then when I found out that The Husband had taken her to meet his mother and step father on more than one occasion, that it seems like whenever The Bean Pole is here with me The Husband is off spending his time with her and now that it turns out that on Christmas Day, he spent a significant amount of time with her rather than taking time to spend some of the day with his children, I’ve become beyond angry. He’s lying about all this stuff too. The kids have asked him, I asked him what he did Christmas Day and he said fishing, that was it. He tells The Princess last night that he spent some of it with her too. He told her this when he took her for a drive last night to talk to her about his new ‘friend’, about how maybe she’d like to meet her. Needless to say The Princess said she doesn’t want to met her, she doesn’t ever want to meet and she doesn’t like her, well not her personally, but what she’s doing.

He’s told me she makes him happy, she makes him smile, they are just friends. He has me in his phone as ‘the stone cold bitch’ or something similar and he’s got her listed as something along the lines of ‘sweet thing who makes me smile and happy’ or some other fucking shit. He’s not sleeping with this girl though. While The Bean Pole was with me, he thought it would be a good idea to take her to spend the evening at his mother’s house, while she was completely drunk and making a total fool of herself. But he’s not sleeping with her. He’s got her sleeping in his bed, according to him, one of them is above the blankets and the door is open. But he’s not sleeping with her. She spends most of a day sitting on his bed with him, while he sleeps. He’s not sleeping with her though. She’s desperately trying to make friends with The Bean Pole and The Husband it would now appear wants the other children to make friends with her too. Though none of this is because he’s sleeping with her. He’s heard her telling her father that she’s hoping for something more and it doesn’t look like he’s told her that isn’t going to happen, in fact he told The Princess that  maybe something will happen, he’s not sure. But he’s not fucking sleeping with her.

The Princess told him last night, during their ‘chat’ that everything he’s doing suggests that he’s hanging out with a girlfriend, that’s he’s introducing her to his family in a way that seems to be saying ‘meet my new girlfriend’, he’s not telling anyone the truth about her which suggests that there has to be more to the friendship than just being a friend if it requires lying about. The Princess told him that no matter what he tells people, that she really is just a friend, that they get along well and laugh together (grrrr) everything he’s doing contradicts the words he’s using. I think she told him too that it seems like he mustn’t have meant all the things he said about me – I love your mum so much, it’s killing me that this is happening, I want to kill myself – was a complete and utter load of bullshit. If that was all the case then how in fuck’s name has he managed to hook up with some girl in less than a month of not living with us all. I think it also bothers the girls that she’s 25 years old. Their dad is 37 years old. To them that is too much of an age gap, she’s closer in age to Miss Independent than she is to him.

As for me. I am ropeable. I am upset. I am jealous. I am hurt. I feel betrayed. I feel like a fool. I feel like he’s been lying to me, that he’s just been waiting for the opportunity to find someone new. I feel confused. I can’t work out why the fuck he couldn’t ever be this way towards me. Why couldn’t he just care about me that much. Why are her problems so fucking important, why does he need to help her so much. Why when I had problems did he turn them around so they were all about how I was hurting him. Why did it seem like when I had real problems he thought they were stupid, that he was just showing me pity, not real, honest and genuine concern. Why can he do this with someone else so fucking easily. Just fucking why?

I spent my New Years Eve babysitting my granddaughter while Miss Independent went to an amazing concert and half that entire night I spent crying somewhere where nobody could see me. When we finally got home around 1am I spent the next hour in room sobbing, great big wracking sobs. I buried my face in my bed so the kids wouldn’t hear me and I just cried so fucking hard. My stomach hurt, my head hurt, my eyes hurt, I just ached so badly. When he first left I spent that first month feeling like I was constantly on the verge of tears. Since he left I’ve not slept through he night except for the very first night on my own. I wake up anywhere between two to five times a night. I’m always dreading but looking forward to The Husband texting or calling me. He thinks I’ve been jumping with happiness. I didn’t want to tell him how I was really feeling. I didn’t want him to know how much I was really hurting. I didn’t want to make him feel bad. It’s not that I haven’t been happy, I have but it’s not like the day he moved out I just suddenly became deliriously happy and didn’t care at all about him not being here anymore. I don’t love him the same way that I did, that is the truth but it’s not like I don’t love or care about him at all.

If it was me doing this, it would be a completely different story. He would be so angry, he’d be telling how unfair it is on the children, he’d probably tell me that he just knew I go out and slut around because that’s what I’ve always wanted to do. He would be terrible. It’s okay for him though, it’s just fucking dandy.

It seems that I care/love him much more than I thought I did. I had considered the possibility of him finding someone else and I thought I would be fine with it all. I really did. I’m completely thrown by how I’m feeling. I wouldn’t have thought it for a single second. I’ve had people tell me that I should start looking for someone new and the thought just makes me go cold. I don’t want to. It would just be wrong. After being with The Husband for 20 years to them go and start looking for someone new within the space of a few months, it seems like it’s completely disrespecting that 20 years, disrespecting our children. It’s just wrong. I can’t work out how on earth he’s able to justify all this to himself. I think he’s been waiting a very long time for the opportunity to flirt with someone and then actually take it to the next level. Fuck, even just saying that makes my chest hurt and my stomach tighten. What the hell is wrong with me?

Friday Fill-In’s (31/12/2011)

1. Wait, wait I don’t understand what’s happening, you say one thing but your doing another.

2. Apparently if I was doing the exact same thing, it is a little different.

3. In addition, I would like you to get rid of her. I would like to know that your sad and that you miss me/us just like I miss you. It’s what I wanted, sure, but it doesn’t mean for a single second that it doesn’t hurt.

4. Swearing way too much is the way we do it here!

5. At the end of the year, I like to think of all the things I could be doing, would like to do, wish I could do but end up doing none of.

6. Being completely over things is one of the things I'm looking forward to in 2012.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to doing absolutely nothing, tomorrow my plans include babysitting my granddaughter and feeling sorry for myself because the first new years eve in 20 years that I’ll spending alone is going to be spent babysitting while I think about The Husband and whether he’s out having a great time, with his new ‘friend’ and wondering why the fuck we couldn’t have done stuff new years instead of always sitting at home or watching fireworks from a car park because he didn’t want to do anything, ever and Sunday, I want to crawl into a whole and die!

Friday Fill-In’s

Examination

Things have been fairly quiet lately.

Actually, they’ve been very quiet.

Once the issue with what The Husband felt he was ‘entitled’ to was sorted out – me telling him what was going to happen, regardless of what he thought – things have been running quite smoothly.

We’re all back volunteering with the organisation we helped to develop last year. It’s now running ‘for real’, it’s not just a test anymore. It’s actually very exciting. I think I’m going to enjoy it a lot more this time because I won’t have the stress of what is going on in my own personal life to worry about, I’ll be able to focus a bit better on the family I’m trying to help.

Having things be so quiet has been a little disconcerting for me. Having The Husband loose his shit at least once a week at me has become something that I’ve gotten used to, that I expect. It’s certainly not something that I wasn’t anticipating when I asked him to move out.

The quiet though…I’ve been waiting for something big to happen. For him to come out with something that he has been saving up, something not before mentioned, which he can throw in my face and make me look like a total fool and feel like a complete idiot.

It hasn’t happened though (touch wood).

Yesterday I think I may have found out why.

He came to pick up The Bean Pole who had decided for the first time to spend two nights in a row at our house. It was amazing! I loved having him home again. I’ve really missed his humour and his intelligence. I haven’t missed the way that he manages to set off The Little Prince like a fire cracker in a matter of minutes and I’m left having to try and calm him down, that I could do without completely.

While The Bean Pole is getting his things together, The Husband asks me how he’s been, if he’s alright, if he’s said anything to me. I’m wondering what the hell he’s on about, why would he not be fine? What on earth could he possibly have to say to me that either of us should be concerned about?

The Bean Pole is concerned because it would appear that his father has developed a more personal relationship with a woman whom he’s known for a while now from her having worked in our local supermarket and he being the sort of person who will talk to anyone, especially women.

It would seem that this woman, let’s call her The Check Out Chick or Triple C for short (can someone please remember that for me because I’ll probably forget), has recently broken up with her long time boyfriend and his family (I’m pretty sure it’s his family) are of the opinion that The Husband had something to do with that break-up.

Apparently, she is quite upset by the entire situation and The Husband has been a great friend to her and her child during their difficult time. In fact, she’s very concerned that her ex-boyfriend is going to do something terrible, like smash her windows and frighten her and her child, so due to this fear, she’s been ringing The Husband and asking to stay at his house.

The Husband is currently living with his brother (a weed smoking, bullshiting dero) and a guy called Dumbo (not his real name and also a weed smoking dero, he doesn’t bullshit like the Brother does though). Both of these poor excuses for human beings are creepy to say the least. Being around them is not a comfortable experience for a woman. Triple C, needless to say is not comfortable staying there but not uncomfortable enough to just not do it. The Husbands brilliant solution to this obviously difficult problem is for her to sleep in his bed. The door stays open so that nobody thinks anything is going on though. I don’t know whether they both sleep under the quilt or one sleeps on top, though it doesn’t really matter does it.

There are two potential problems for The Husband and Triple C in their budding friendship. The first is the ex-boyfriends family, like I mentioned. They are not happy and when they aren’t happy people often end up hurt. Some of these relatives live around the corner from me. Actually, a whole bunch of these relatives live around here. In fact, The Little Prince has developed a friendship with one of the children of these people. This could present some problems for me and my son though I’m fairly confident that nothing will happen in that area.

The second problem is that The Bean Pole is apparently very unhappy with this new friendship. He doesn’t like her staying over and I don’t think he likes his dad having anything to do with her. I’m not even sure if he likes her personally. His not liking her has caused an offshoot problem.

Boxing Day. The Husband has been invited to attend their family BBQ. According to him this is a big deal because it’s very rare that anyone who isn’t family gets invited and an invitation is seen as a token of acceptance. It’s incredibly important. I gather that The Husband want’s to attend, The Bean Pole however does not. He seriously does not want to go. I offered to have him spend the day here if The Husband really wanted to go. No, The Husband says that he needs to understand that there are things in life that he might not want to do but that he’s just going to have to do.

Why he told me all this I have no idea, now that I think about it. He didn’t want me to have The Bean Pole here and there isn’t anything I can do about the family that has developed a grudge against him. I think he was trying to claim that it was to warn me to be careful when it comes to the family around the corner, with their son being all friendly with our son. I honestly can’t see their being a problem their though. About the most they would probably do is stop their son playing with our son. They certainly aren’t going to bash the hell out of an 11 year old.

There was no need for me to know any of this.

I thought about it all quite deeply after he left. I’ve been thinking about it off an on since he told me Wednesday afternoon. I’ve been wondering what feelings I should be having and where they are. I don’t feel jealous. I’m not angry per se. I’m not upset. I don’t feel overly sad.

What I do feel is empty. I feel like I should be jealous. Like I should be angry and upset.

I’m angry that he’s such a fucking hypocrite. He has been giving me untold grief since May that I’ve ruined his life, I’ve torn his heart out and shit all over it (his words, not mine), that I’ve broken our family, that he loves me more than anything, that his entire life is devoted to me and the children, he’s never loved anyone so completely as me etc. etc. Yet, within the space of three months he’s already developed what appears to be an incredibly close relationship with Triple C.

I can’t say with any authority that anything intimate is taking place between them and frankly I don’t care. The point is the friendship is far enough along that he’s sharing his bed with her. He’s had friends of the opposite sex like this before. Maybe not necessarily sharing the bed (except for Cherry, whom we both slept with) but close friendships nonetheless. I’ve always been fairly tolerant of them. The older I got the less angry and jealous I got. I felt that he was entitled to be friends with whomever he chose. As long as that friendship didn’t have an overly negative impact on the rest of the family then I didn’t mind. Unfortunately his compass doesn’t work very well and he rarely notices when his actions are having a detrimental effect on anyone else. If I were to have a guy with whom I was close friends with right now, he would completely freak out. Miss Independent told a woman, who mentioned that she thinks I will have found my ‘Mr Right’ by this time next year, that it wouldn’t be possible for that to happen, her dad would kill him. When this woman laughed, she said, “No, I’m being serious, he will kill him.” She’s right, he’s told me that, he’s told the children that and given his unpredictable nature, I can’t say with any certainty that he won’t. He’s a hypocrite, a complete and total fucking hypocrite.

I’m sad that I don’t feel any of the emotions that I thought, despite all my protestations otherwise, that I would feel. Jealousy, regret, disappointment. I don’t feel any of those. I sat on the end of my bed tonight and I thought of all the years that we were together, our children, how much I loved him and now, he’s talking about another woman only three months after leaving our home and I feel nothing. I feel sad that I don’t feel sad.

You know what I do think about though, this is pathetic but it’s the truth…I wonder if she’s better looking than I am. Does she have better hair, is her face freckle free, does she have a better body, one without that bit of extra skin from having four children and four caesarean sections, are her boobs full and perky unlike mine which have sustained four children somewhere in the order of five or six years total, his voice light and clear, does she smile and laugh like I hadn’t around him for such a long time, can she make him smile and laugh, genuine smiles and genuine laughter, like I don’t think he’s done for a long time, is she or is she going to sleep with him, love him in a way that I’ve not for a while or possibly ever. That’s what I’ve been thinking about, that is what is truly bothering me. The fact that those things bother me bothers me because it doesn’t bother me because I’m jealous or I care, it’s purely selfish. I don’t want him to have better, I want him to always remember what he had and how he lost it. How he took it for granted. I want him to always compare every other woman to me and to always find them wanting.

And after 24 hours of careful examination, of just letting my feelings flow and then pulling them out to study each one on it’s own merit, putting it back in and looking at them all in their entirety, I’ve discovered that the overwhelming emotions I have are spite and selfishness. Twenty years and it’s reduced to this.

I hate saying , writing or thinking it, it actually makes me cringe but it would appear that the right decision has been made.

Wordless Wednesday #12

This is a very rare occurrence for me – I’m actually posting pictures that I’ve taken, not downloaded one’s from the Interwebz. I’m going to try and do this more often from now on. I won’t be including anything that is personally identifying but I’ll try and make them my own pictures.

The first is the lamp in my room. I love my lamps, I’d wanted one’s just like it for a very long time.

The second, is pretty self-explanatory I think.

Wordless Wednesday