Friday, January 2, 2015
Welcome 2015!
In one fell swoop, my mental self-assuredness has entrenched itself. My tears (and there were lots of them) last night in bed have been replaced with a calmness and, I have to unabashedly admit, satisfaction.
Let me back up a bit.
The children spent a good day with their father on the 31st. They were gone for 12 hours. I admit to being nervous as the hours ticked away and darkness fell. Undeservedly so because I know that their father, after five months of not seeing his children, would make the absolute most of their time together.
The children returned home, to me, with smiles on their faces. They did have a good day together.
I was informed that there was a new lady in his life. A lady who he seems to be shacking up with.
My initial reaction was “I’m not the least bit surprised at that!”
The children voiced their thoughts that they were happy to know that Dad was not alone. The last time they had seen each other there was definiteness loneliness/shock/depression hanging about.
I have sat on this knowledge for two days now. Turning it over in my mind. Gauging how I am feeling with this news. I have been most unsettled with no tangible way to explain why.
So yesterday afternoon, I enjoyed an amazing 2 ½ hour speed-walk through the forest trails with my youngest son and a girlfriend and her son (the boys being only months apart in age). It was lovely.
I told her of the new living arrangement. She was not surprised either. But as we talked it out, and I divulged more of my “skeletons” to her, I remained unsettled about the whole thing. I know my marriage is over and I know my life continues on without him. That’s a given.
Perhaps it was a surprise that it was he who first found someone else. And so quickly too. Maybe that’s it: the speed with which he has set up shop again. Perhaps I expected a bit more suffering; a bit more solitude; a bit more desperation; a bit more of a sign that I had truly torn his world apart and ripped out his heart. I am not trying to be vindictive. But, I guess I do want him to experience some sense of desperation, in some comparable degree, to what he made me feel over the years. Tit for tat, so to speak.
And that was exactly it. I was thinking he hadn’t suffered enough before moving on. Had I meant that little to him that he could quickly turn around and find another “bunny” for his side?
So these thoughts, and sheer exhaustion again, caused me to have a heart-wrenching, but silent, cry in my bedroom behind closed doors last night while the children went about their evening in the apartment, oblivious to what I was experiencing.
The cry felt good. It came from deep down. It was pure grief for all sorts of reasons.
Yet again, this morning, I felt unsettled. What is it that is nagging me? What is it that I have not yet correctly defined?
Leave it to a girlfriend to say the right thing to me and have everything make sense.
I called my walking buddy to chat about plans for the weekend. I told her about how I was thinking he basically hadn’t suffered enough in my eyes. She then revealed to me bits of what the two boys had been talking about in relation to the visit. The general view was that he had never seen Dad like that before … totally clean.
And then it all made sense to me:
I HAD caused great rupture in his life. Enough rupture that he has abandoned everything that defined him. He has stopped drinking, he is doing yoga (!?), he is barely cooking on the boat (the kids said it smelt funny, and I said, well, the smell of cooking food is no longer there). My take on it is that he has run to the first person who can offer some form of comfort for him because his life has been terribly and irreversibly ruptured.
I did have an impact. My leaving had an impact. It did matter to him that I left. And because of that, he has cleaned himself up. The elements of our relationship with which I could no longer love, he has changed (or some of the elements, at least).
He did hear what I said on that last day.
He did listen after all.
I did cause him to change. I did have some amount of power / influence over him.
And that’s where the calmness comes from. That yes, after 20-odd years together, and after years of having endured his criticism and disapproval (along with times of great love), I was able to cause him to seriously think about the person he has become.
And there is great satisfaction on my part to know that I was able to get that point across to him.
In other words, I had the last word.
That telephone conversation with my girlfriend was a couple of hours ago. And I know for certain that I am feeling much more settled. I suppose everyone wants to know that they have had an impact. That they left some sort of mark on another person. I guess I was unsure of what, if any, mark I would leave on my husband. I now know that I did leave a mark. That his life has been drastically altered because I am no longer in it. It may be terrible of me to feel such things, but I don’t feel terrible at all. I don’t feel mean. Simply gratified that I did matter to him. Enough for him to take the steps to improve.
So it is dinner tonight with two other families, children included. Dinner with the two ladies who were the first people we knew when we moved to this town back in 1994. Two ladies who have admitted to watching us from the background, over the years, wondering how, and if, to intervene.
Well, we will all sit around the same table tonight, laughter and wine flowing and me with a peaceful mind.
Happy New Year, Everyone.
Here is to an absolutely fabulous 2015.
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