I'm Floored!

Dig me! I put a new floor down in my bedroom this week. Is it perfect? Nope. Am I in love with it? YES! I am ridiculously proud of myself for getting this accomplished, and so well at that. It was yet another one of Mr. Hate's "I will get to it" items, and although we lived here for 12 years, it remained just industrial grade plywood with scraps of mismatched carpet stuck to it. Feh. I figured I would just live with it, but slowly I realized that I needed something....nicer. As I grow into this house, my home now, I need it to reflect ME. What I love, what the kids and I want to see. This once was my marriage bed, and now it's just mine. So I needed to take ownership of the space. I must admit, the freedom to choose what I wanted to have in here was intoxicating. No arguments in the Home Depot aisle, no snide comments about my taste. Just me. Mine to choose, mine to install, mine to live with, no matter the outcome.

After 20 years of always hearing what I did wrong, how I had disappointed, I did this work, and it is good. It was quite challenging in places, and I needed One's help more than once, especially to move the furniture, but I stuck it out, and I am totally in love with how it looks. Warm, shiny, and smooth. I still have a few spots under the register to finish, and finish them I will. And it won't take 12 years either.

I didn't spend a whole lot of time listening to the little grumpy thought gnomes that kept popping up to screech at me, either. This is MAJOR, and I feel the strain of flexing new muscles. (I also feel the agonized strain of stretching my old muscles as well, and my knees look like Monica Lewinski's). I am learning a new way to talk to myself, to believe in myself, and to trust the decisions I make.

The fact that my children saw me doing this project is critical. They need to believe in me too. Perhaps some day they will remember me doing this, and feel encouraged to face their own tough projects. They even helped, some. Third looked on with admiration as I used the jigsaw, hammered the pieces into place; saw my pleasure with my job well done. I want my children to learn to be pleased when they have done something well. I want them to feel pride at their accomplishments, and to be brave enough to try something outside of what they think they can do.

And I will tell them they did it well. I hope they believe it.

I Met My Husband's Boyfriend Today....

There are some sentences you just can't imagine you would ever have to type, in your entire life.

Today's blog post title serves as an excellent example.

I knew it would happen eventually. It had to. And really, it's high time. But still. Meeting his boyfriend was easily one of the most surreal moments in my life. And yes, Mr. Hate is my ex-husband, but still, people.

I met his boyfriend.

It went pretty well, and I am quite proud of how I handled myself in the exchange. It was in a public place (restaurant, I was dropping Third off), the fry were all there, etc. I showed my children a truly excellent example of class, decorum and openness, and I could actually SEE them taking a breath and realizing the moment they have been anxious about passed and we all survived. Second caught my eye for a just a tick as I was leaving, and I swear, I saw something like pride in her eyes, and the definite sparkle of a shared laugh. She connected with me there for just a tiny moment, she GOT it, acknowledged it to me, and I will remember her look for a long time. And it was also hella awkward, but survivable, and even as it was happening I was thinking out what I would tell my girlfriends, but most of all it was....sad.

Because here's the thing. He seems like a nice guy. Really. He's good looking, well spoken, and appears to be a kind person. I can totally see the attraction. I think we would get along very well. And maybe we will. I don't quite see how, but life, as I have learned ad nauseum, has a way of altering paths faster than I can keep up with. He seems like someone I could (and would) have been friends with, if things had been different.

And there I go, arguing with reality again. Things aren't different. Mr. Hate handled things the way he did, and because of his choices, events will unfold in a much different way than if he had been honest and respectful. But he wasn't, and the energy I spend mourning what wasn't serves no one.

But hey - this is my blog post, so indulge me for a minute.

We could have been friends, the three of us. I easily have that much love and compassion in me. I could have sat at the table last night with them and celebrated One's upcoming birthday. I could have gone over to their house, we could be sharing some of the bigger household tools and things we both need occasionally (like the rototiller, log splitter, etc.). The children could relax, seeing that their parents might not be married anymore, but that there is still love there, just a different sort. But that reality would require Mr. Hate to be someone entirely other than who he is. Entirely. Be so much more than who he is. And he is not.

Oh, how I feel sorry for Boyfriend. He has such a road ahead of him. I wish I could warn him:

Look out! Everything that ever goes wrong will be your fault. Always. Every major decision Mr. Hate makes will be unilateral, you will never be included, and "Larry the therapist told me to" will be his excuse for every choice he makes that turns out poorly. He will never be accountable for anything. He will blame you for every one of his illnesses, his sleepless nights; every time something he has breaks, he will ask you pointedly if you used it. He will never let you in, not really. He will dismiss every idea you ever have, and insist his way is better, even when you can see it is not. He will flash money around to impress you and your friends (oh, and enjoy the free health insurance, btw, and ta for that, asshole), but when it comes down to brass tacks, Boyfriend, you will never, ever come first. Ever. And it will whittle away at your soul. You will begin to doubt yourself. You will decide it is easier to acquiesce and keep the peace than speak your truth and have to endure another fight. You have to be diminished, you see, to justify his size.

And that is a sad thing, isn't it? Because you seem like a nice man. You have been good to my children, and nothing else in this life could commend you more to me than that. And you are in for a world of heartbreak, because you are living with a shadow, not a whole man.

If you could really get to know me, what would you do with what you see? I am not a malicious, histrionic, unstable shrew of a woman at all. Perhaps, as you and I spent time together, you would see who it is that has been evil, who has lied, who is at fault for the children refusing to spend weekends with their dad. If you got to know me, the truths you think you know would shift, and you would find yourself asking yourself some pretty tough questions, and having to look at that meal ticket of yours in a whole new light. So really, when you think about it, Mr. Hate had some pretty good reasons for making sure we didn't meet for a long time, didn't he? If you and I got to know each other you would eventually realize that your boyfriend is full of shit. And then what, Boyfriend?

If I was your friend, I could tell you all this. You would see it for yourself.

And, oh, what temptation resides in THAT dear readers! I need to be so, so careful here. I am working so hard to become more than I was, to become the woman I know inside I am. There is no place in my new life for vengeance, for onslaughts, for underhanded devious excellence designed only to throw the flaws of others into focus. I am striving each and every day for authenticity and absolute truth. For me to be ever-so-calculatingly excellent in front of Boyfriend, just to show him what a liar his boyfriend is, is wicked tempting. And totally beneath me. They have their own path to walk, and my attentions are much better served elsewhere. If they live happily ever after spending all the money they can get their hands on it needs never concern me. I have my own house, my own ducks to keep in a row, my own gardens to tend, metaphysical and otherwise.

But it is a conundrum. Because I *am* working hard at all those things, and I am getting stronger and so much braver and raising some pretty excellent young people, and making the house my own, and yeah, not every day is Anne of Green Gables worthy, but on the whole, I am living a life I am increasingly proud of. And if I spend any time with Boyfriend, he will see that. And somewhere in his mind, a little voice might stop and say "huh. This doesn't jibe with what he said...."

Boyfriend, you're standing knee deep in gasoline. And you just met your match.

Secrets and Lies

Quick back story: Several months after Mr. Hate moved into his palace of shame (the house he bought behind my back, with all the money in the brokerage account) I found out, through the children, that he had acquired a roommate. I asked him then what the relationship was between himself and this man, and he said "Just friends." I asked him this repeatedly. My lawyer asked him- twice. The weekend before we went to court for the last time I looked him right in the eye and asked him to tell me the truth. "I was your best friend for 20 years" I said. "I would like to hear the truth from you."

He looked me right in the eye and said he and Roomie were just friends.

I asked him again, last Sunday night, after something One said that made me uncomfortable. "No!" he said.

He lied.

He took the kids out for dinner on Tuesday, and I went over a friend's house to drop off some dresses I had hemmed for her, and to hang out a bit. And when I got home, the children told me he told them over dinner that he and Roomie were more than just friends. "Dad's GAY!" they chorused, thinking it all very funny.

I felt as if ice water was being dumped on me. What kind of a chicken shit coward makes his children proclaim the news that he was too ashamed to say? What kind of a man uses his children in that way? I could have freaked out. I could have been in a rage. I could have seriously unhinged, and they would have taken that heat. And he let them. I have no words vehement enough to express how I felt.

And let me make this point very clear: my issue is NOT with him being homosexual. There is absolutely, positively nothing wrong with being homosexual.

I have huge issues with cowards and liars, however.

Rule number one of the divorce handbook says: "The children are never to be used as messengers. " and yet he does just that, again and again. And no matter what anyone says, he keeps right on doing it.

In that moment I wanted.....Oh, I wanted.....I don't know what. I wanted to make sure the kids were okay. And they were! Third looked at me with giant, troubled eyes and said "Mom, it's worse than you think. Dad smokes!" and I laughed a little, then. I have done a really, really, really good job raising these kids. They think it is worse to smoke than be gay. And they are right. It is.

They think it's HILARIOUS. One said "oh, please! With all the chrome in that house? Totally gay!" A little stereotypical, but basically well adjusted. And I feel glad about that. I really do. Growing up, we had one girl in school who's dad was known to be gay, and the scars across her wrists will serve as a lifelong testament to what her childhood was like. That will not be my children's experience, and for that I am grateful that we live when we do, and where we do. If my people had settled Texas or Nebraska this would be a much different story. But we live here in liberal Massachusetts, where this just won't be a very big deal. At best a curiosity, at worst, a predictor of how ignorant others are. Nothing for my kids to lose sleep over, anyway.

But I have lost sleep. I sent him an email with no body text, just a subject line "Explain yourself, please." No response. He did phone later in the week, to speak with the kids, and it did not go well. I told him we needed to have a conversation, and he refused. It seems we are NEVER going to discuss it. Ever. But I have some legitimate questions. How long? Was everything we had a lie? Was my health ever compromised? Was it happening when I asked him to tell me the truth? How is it that he looked at me and lied? If he knew this was his situation, why make the divorce so acrimonious?

If he had come to me years ago and told me, I would have been hurt, sure, but I also would have been his biggest ally. I could have been his friend on this path. We could have told the kids, together, could have worked out an equitable settlement for both of us, could have come up with a parenting plan that suited all of us. Instead, there has been anger, secrets, and lies. My older sister was shocked. Not that he was gay, but because he is such an incredible asshole, and continues to be so.

I am supposed to parent with this person for the next 60 years, and I cannot believe a word that comes out of his mouth. What do I do with that? What do I do with the dark, dark feeling that my whole life has been a lie? I remember at my wedding, how no one could believe a girl liked me had landed a guy like him. Handsome, wealthy, that whole European thing going on, so charming and sophisticated, and clearly going places. What was a guy like him ever doing with a girl like me?

Well, now I know. It was all a lie. A girl like me could never land a guy like him.

Not really.