Emotional roller coaster doesn’t even begin to describe how I”ve been feeling today. I started the day weepy and had a full-on meltdown by noon (just before I had to meet a vendor for a lunchtime meeting – how handy!) and now I’m back to calm.
Bryan can’t move out quite yet. Well, technically, he could – you know, if I was willing to throw him out on the street, penniless (not to be confused with penis-less, which had been contemplated in months’ past). He’s not working right now and his unemployment is being challenged by his employer, so it’s going to be a good month or so before he has income again. We agreed he would stay here until he was working again (assumably, April) or until his best friend (also in the process of divorcing) moved into a new house sans his wife.
It all made sense yesterday, but by noon today, well… notsomuch.
It is hard enough to separate yourself from your best friend of ten years, your spouse and your lover (who doesn’t want to separate) – harder even when they are never more than ten feet away from you at any given time. I waffle between giving in and not following through to raving lunatic consumed with anger. Which would all be just fine in the safe space of my own home if he wasn’t here to witness it all. For some reason I feel like I have to stay calm and emotionless when he is around me.
I don’t want his judgment.
So, I have to maintain my collective calm at work, I have to maintain my collective calm at home. My drive to and from work is no more than 30 minutes total and that isn’t near enough time for me to run through all these awful emotions without someone’s watchful eye.
I feel like I’m suffocating already – and it’s only been 24 hours.
So… I had a meltdown. I yelled, I cried, I screamed, I begged and pleaded with him to find any other solution – anywhere to stay so I could just breathe for a while. He yelled, he cried, he screamed, he begged and he pleaded for me to not do this – to not kick him out, to not end the marriage.
I calmed down and changed my mind about him having to leave right now. He’ll change his mind about not wanting to end the marriage by tomorrow. It is how we operate these days – neither of us knows exactly what we want or how we do this. As soon as I let my guard down a little, he’ll say something to completely cut me to the core. My heart will harden a bit more and he’ll have an epiphany – a complete flash of brilliance about the man he wants to be – that should give me hope, but most likely doesn’t anymore.
We just can’t get on the same page. Well, unless that page is ambivalence. We’ve both done that together, very well, for too long.
So, I took a bit of time out tonight to partake in some retail therapy and dinner with a friend (the same friend who recently miscarried). We walked like zombies through the mall and eventually made our way to a coney for dinner. Our waitress was slow to show up, but eventually made her way to our table.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I forgot I had a new table. It’s my pregnancy brain!”
And then the couple at the table across from us leaned over the table towards each other and started hugging.
My friend and I just looked at each other, neither of us able to comprehend why the universe deems it necessary to remind us at every turn of what we both recently lost… and then burst into laughter.
The universe is a stupid place.
Strange, indeed!
The universe can be such an evil bitch sometimes. But I agree with you and your friend — what else could you do at that point but laugh?
Hang in there, girl. And seriously, the soon-to-be-ex does need to find somewhere else to stay, immediately. You cannot begin the process of letting go of someone until they actually go away. He is not your responsibility. He is a grown man. What would he do if he was unemployed and your help was not available? Whatever it is, he needs to go do it.
(Note: My thoughts probably stem from the fact that I’ve dealt with too many helpless fucked up mama’s boys who did not seem to understand that sometimes you actually have to do things for yourself.)