~Divorce Sucks~
Now that I am divorcing my husband my life is more of a mess than it was when we were together. Hard to understand, I know but I never imagined he would go from our home into another with no stop in between and no care for the affect it has on our kids. He argues about who gets what piece of furniture, who will pay what bill and who the kids will be with and when. Honestly, I want to be fair to him on all fronts. I don't want him to walk out with less than me or feel like he has been taken advantage of but he doesn't seem to have the same feelings. Its like he can't wait to screw me hard to the wall. The fact is that K and I never argued a whole lot in the 13 years we were married. We didn't not argue either. We just kinda existed day to day, he working two jobs and giving all his extra time to volunteer at the fire department and I was trying to be a good Mom, fight my depression and find my way. A Mom who worked sporadically depending on whether or not K was around to be with the kids so I could give my time and effort to a job, I had only the stay-at-home-Mom and wife label at times. When he was happy K would say that he respected what I did but when he wanted to hurt me he would say I was useless and "all" I did was stay home with the kids from the day they were born. I loved to work and I tried to always have an income even if it was just a few hundred dollars a month selling Avon, but whenever I worked K would get frustrated with me not being home, change his entire career so that I had to be home or drop the kids off to work with me. I gave up everything to be a Mom and wife yet it was never enough for him.
Now I am going day to day getting up at 6am just so K, who refuses to let them stay here with me monday thru friday, can drop the kids off here for 15 minutes while they wait for the school bus. (He comes this way anyway because his job is here by the way but he will say always that he goes out of his way to bring them so they can go to a school that I make them attend selfishly) Because I am trying to be an understanding ex-wife to be, I have allowed K to take the kids on a very sporadic and messy schedule. A schedule, by the way, that is completely based on his girlfriends work schedule. Monday after school through Wednesday after school I have them and then Saturday to Sunday night I have them again. Yet I also have them every morning from 630 is to 7am as K drops them off here to take the bus to school as I mentioned. Then every day after school I have them until about 4pm when I drop them off to his place. Why do I not just have them Monday through Friday since they go to school here where I live, where they have always gone since almost kindergarten? Good question. I have requested that we rework the schedule because its too much on the kids to wake up there at his house, be driven here, get on a bus to school (which is a half hour from here to their school....Either way they would go to school that far away because its the school that K and I planned for them even before we lived in this town and its in our district and oh, small detail, its where all their friends for the past 10 years go.) Then after coming home after school they get back in my car to go back to his house....It makes no sense to me why they have to go through so much stress and traveling when if they were here they could just wake up and go to school. Period. But this is where K would tell you I am selfish. If I wasn't such a selfish mother I would pull them out of their present school and put them into a whole new one near K. All the changes in my kids lives I really want to keep them in the place where they can be with the friends they have known for over 10 plus years. If I wasn't such a "selfish" woman I would pull them out of there and allow K. to put them into the city school near his place.(By the way, he is moving again so I don't even know where "near his place" will be in a week or month). While the schools up near him have their own offerings, the school where they go is among other things, a college prep school with high scores in testing and, most importantly it is the one place that hasn't changed for them in all the things that have.
My kids have endured so many changes in the past 3 or so years. Their Papa Dale had several strokes back 3 ago. He became forgetful and changed a whole lot. We, (k, me and the kids) moved into my parents home to help them with finances and to do things around the house. After almost 2 years when Nana and Papa's health improved and the house was getting to small, we moved a street away. It was soon after that their Papa Dale had another stroke, recovered physically but mentally became very confused. He left Nana Chris after 35 happy years of marriage to be with a woman he met at the Psych ward. Because of what the strokes did to his memory and cognitive reasoning, I couldn't leave the kids alone with him. Then one day we found Mom in her truck passed out. She never woke up. I took care of Dad by taking over his bills and other things and then took over the burial of my Mother with the help of her siblings. The one job I fought K to stay in took a back seat to my loss and depression with Mom's death... K wanted to make a huge career change which made it difficult for me to remain there at the place where I worked. I then went into a 2 year long depression. I became an agoraphobic and could not leave the house for the entire 2 years. I found my way onto face book where I felt a connection to people both near and far. These friends, old and new, gave me hope and support to venture outside more often. K and I then decided that our marriage, which I had always felt lonely and more like a single mother than two parents, ended. We decided we would live here until I got on my feet but K went and met someone and within 2 weeks moved in with her.
Through all that loneliness in the past year when K was still "here" but never home, I made a few very close friends. One of them was Jesse. He made me feel like there was hope and like I had a place in this world. For the first time in many years he assured me that I could work and be a Mom and that no one should get in the way of that. At this point K was telling me that I was and always had been useless because I didn't work the entire time we were together. K was reasoning that because I wasn't working the day we separated that I should have nothing that we accumulated in our marriage. At first he was fine with the idea of me taking our kids out of the state if I decided to move. But when he got into his new relationship he suddenly wanted to "keep" the kids if I went. Of course I went no where. How could I leave my kids? Through 13 years of loneliness in this marriage they were everything to me. They were what kept me believing that things would someday get better.
I wanted to leave K many times. That was not a secret even to him. Yet he always talked me into staying. Between his begging me to stay and the reasoning in my own mind that I should stay until the kids at least graduated high school, I stayed that long. Yet when K saw that even a friend could make me happier than him, he stopped fighting me.
He also stopped being realistic. Now I deal with this crazy schedule for seeing the kids, I am still holding onto a lot of his possessions until he gets around to coming to get them, I am waiting on him finally going to a 2-day meeting that keeps us from finally divorcing, I pay for all the kids school clothes and all their needs and I also have had to pay all K and my bills all on my own with my meager income because K says he has no money after paying his own bills. Why don't I tell K to stick it and take the kids monday thru friday? Why don't I put my foot down? Because whenever I do he threatens to turn off the electricity to the house me and the kids are living in or to discontinue my car insurance. And the only reason the two bills are still in his name??? Because when he left they were already in his name and in order to put them in my OWN name I have to pay for all of my and his portion of the bills that we had from before. I have already paid for his portion of the electricity, telephone, internet, cable, and bank payments. I had to or else I would have nothing. I am working on paying down the other bills so that I can get out from underneath his control completely. When he finally takes the damn class he is mandated to take (I already took it 4 months ago) I will be able to go to court and bring all the proof of what he owes. It won't be pretty.
The arguments over what he wants from this house are as stupid as his argument that I should pay ALL our past due bills too. K reasons that because he ONLY wants the tv or the couch ( and he already took my daughters bed, TV, furniture and so on) that he should just get it. He doesn't see that he has abandoned all his stuff here because he doesn't have the time or care to come get it. The garage is packed full of all his crap including a boat and all the accessories but I am supposed to just endure the mess and inconvenience until he feels like coming and getting it. Also, Jess and I have had to clean up the garage (K's space and the mess is all his I assure you) from top to bottom, arrange all K's stuff in one half of the space, and take care of all the mess and details he left. K will not take away his belongings forget about his garbage. He expects us to pay for and get rid of all of his broken and forgotten garbage, get the house back to where the landlord left it to us in 2 years ago and so on. All this while he goes on with his new life and takes no responsibility for his mess. He "can't" pay for anything...school pictures? My daughters glasses? Clothes and backpacks and accessories for school? I paid for it all. Even though he makes 4 times the amount that I do ( and I would make more if it wasn't for me having to give up yet another career job because he didn't want me to work). I am so happy to be free of him but while I got what I wanted for me I never realized that we would make the kids so unhappy.Now he is with a woman with 5 kids of her and she has her own rules and no care at all to meld the two families slowly together and make compromises. Its been explained to me by K that its her way or no way. As you can plainly see, when she makes K unhappy he then calls me and unloads all his anger and stress on ME. I honestly want him to be happy and to be with someone who makes him the best person he can be. If he is happy he will make the kids happy too. But by his own account he is miserable. He swears all the time, talks very negatively and doesn't seem at all happy. That makes the kids sad and me even sadder...Its hard to say this but I cannot let my guilt lead me any longer. Its guilt of leaving him that kept me with him unhappily for so many years.
Now I am going day to day getting up at 6am just so K, who refuses to let them stay here with me monday thru friday, can drop the kids off here for 15 minutes while they wait for the school bus. (He comes this way anyway because his job is here by the way but he will say always that he goes out of his way to bring them so they can go to a school that I make them attend selfishly) Because I am trying to be an understanding ex-wife to be, I have allowed K to take the kids on a very sporadic and messy schedule. A schedule, by the way, that is completely based on his girlfriends work schedule. Monday after school through Wednesday after school I have them and then Saturday to Sunday night I have them again. Yet I also have them every morning from 630 is to 7am as K drops them off here to take the bus to school as I mentioned. Then every day after school I have them until about 4pm when I drop them off to his place. Why do I not just have them Monday through Friday since they go to school here where I live, where they have always gone since almost kindergarten? Good question. I have requested that we rework the schedule because its too much on the kids to wake up there at his house, be driven here, get on a bus to school (which is a half hour from here to their school....Either way they would go to school that far away because its the school that K and I planned for them even before we lived in this town and its in our district and oh, small detail, its where all their friends for the past 10 years go.) Then after coming home after school they get back in my car to go back to his house....It makes no sense to me why they have to go through so much stress and traveling when if they were here they could just wake up and go to school. Period. But this is where K would tell you I am selfish. If I wasn't such a selfish mother I would pull them out of their present school and put them into a whole new one near K. All the changes in my kids lives I really want to keep them in the place where they can be with the friends they have known for over 10 plus years. If I wasn't such a "selfish" woman I would pull them out of there and allow K. to put them into the city school near his place.(By the way, he is moving again so I don't even know where "near his place" will be in a week or month). While the schools up near him have their own offerings, the school where they go is among other things, a college prep school with high scores in testing and, most importantly it is the one place that hasn't changed for them in all the things that have.
My kids have endured so many changes in the past 3 or so years. Their Papa Dale had several strokes back 3 ago. He became forgetful and changed a whole lot. We, (k, me and the kids) moved into my parents home to help them with finances and to do things around the house. After almost 2 years when Nana and Papa's health improved and the house was getting to small, we moved a street away. It was soon after that their Papa Dale had another stroke, recovered physically but mentally became very confused. He left Nana Chris after 35 happy years of marriage to be with a woman he met at the Psych ward. Because of what the strokes did to his memory and cognitive reasoning, I couldn't leave the kids alone with him. Then one day we found Mom in her truck passed out. She never woke up. I took care of Dad by taking over his bills and other things and then took over the burial of my Mother with the help of her siblings. The one job I fought K to stay in took a back seat to my loss and depression with Mom's death... K wanted to make a huge career change which made it difficult for me to remain there at the place where I worked. I then went into a 2 year long depression. I became an agoraphobic and could not leave the house for the entire 2 years. I found my way onto face book where I felt a connection to people both near and far. These friends, old and new, gave me hope and support to venture outside more often. K and I then decided that our marriage, which I had always felt lonely and more like a single mother than two parents, ended. We decided we would live here until I got on my feet but K went and met someone and within 2 weeks moved in with her.
Through all that loneliness in the past year when K was still "here" but never home, I made a few very close friends. One of them was Jesse. He made me feel like there was hope and like I had a place in this world. For the first time in many years he assured me that I could work and be a Mom and that no one should get in the way of that. At this point K was telling me that I was and always had been useless because I didn't work the entire time we were together. K was reasoning that because I wasn't working the day we separated that I should have nothing that we accumulated in our marriage. At first he was fine with the idea of me taking our kids out of the state if I decided to move. But when he got into his new relationship he suddenly wanted to "keep" the kids if I went. Of course I went no where. How could I leave my kids? Through 13 years of loneliness in this marriage they were everything to me. They were what kept me believing that things would someday get better.
I wanted to leave K many times. That was not a secret even to him. Yet he always talked me into staying. Between his begging me to stay and the reasoning in my own mind that I should stay until the kids at least graduated high school, I stayed that long. Yet when K saw that even a friend could make me happier than him, he stopped fighting me.
He also stopped being realistic. Now I deal with this crazy schedule for seeing the kids, I am still holding onto a lot of his possessions until he gets around to coming to get them, I am waiting on him finally going to a 2-day meeting that keeps us from finally divorcing, I pay for all the kids school clothes and all their needs and I also have had to pay all K and my bills all on my own with my meager income because K says he has no money after paying his own bills. Why don't I tell K to stick it and take the kids monday thru friday? Why don't I put my foot down? Because whenever I do he threatens to turn off the electricity to the house me and the kids are living in or to discontinue my car insurance. And the only reason the two bills are still in his name??? Because when he left they were already in his name and in order to put them in my OWN name I have to pay for all of my and his portion of the bills that we had from before. I have already paid for his portion of the electricity, telephone, internet, cable, and bank payments. I had to or else I would have nothing. I am working on paying down the other bills so that I can get out from underneath his control completely. When he finally takes the damn class he is mandated to take (I already took it 4 months ago) I will be able to go to court and bring all the proof of what he owes. It won't be pretty.
The arguments over what he wants from this house are as stupid as his argument that I should pay ALL our past due bills too. K reasons that because he ONLY wants the tv or the couch ( and he already took my daughters bed, TV, furniture and so on) that he should just get it. He doesn't see that he has abandoned all his stuff here because he doesn't have the time or care to come get it. The garage is packed full of all his crap including a boat and all the accessories but I am supposed to just endure the mess and inconvenience until he feels like coming and getting it. Also, Jess and I have had to clean up the garage (K's space and the mess is all his I assure you) from top to bottom, arrange all K's stuff in one half of the space, and take care of all the mess and details he left. K will not take away his belongings forget about his garbage. He expects us to pay for and get rid of all of his broken and forgotten garbage, get the house back to where the landlord left it to us in 2 years ago and so on. All this while he goes on with his new life and takes no responsibility for his mess. He "can't" pay for anything...school pictures? My daughters glasses? Clothes and backpacks and accessories for school? I paid for it all. Even though he makes 4 times the amount that I do ( and I would make more if it wasn't for me having to give up yet another career job because he didn't want me to work). I am so happy to be free of him but while I got what I wanted for me I never realized that we would make the kids so unhappy.Now he is with a woman with 5 kids of her and she has her own rules and no care at all to meld the two families slowly together and make compromises. Its been explained to me by K that its her way or no way. As you can plainly see, when she makes K unhappy he then calls me and unloads all his anger and stress on ME. I honestly want him to be happy and to be with someone who makes him the best person he can be. If he is happy he will make the kids happy too. But by his own account he is miserable. He swears all the time, talks very negatively and doesn't seem at all happy. That makes the kids sad and me even sadder...Its hard to say this but I cannot let my guilt lead me any longer. Its guilt of leaving him that kept me with him unhappily for so many years.
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