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Upon speaking to Rick regarding his encounter with my ex at the ex’s pastor’s house on Saturday we realized that my ex’s wife was also there.  Our conversation went something like this

Me – was his wife there? (referring to my ex’s wife)

Rick – no I don’t think so, there was this old lady there and I asked the pastor if it was his wife and he said no

Me – Did she have a mushroom styled hair do and gray hair?

Rick – yes

Me – that’s his wife

A few minutes went by as we ate dinner

Rick – He’s so stupid.  He left you for that old hag?

I was thinking the other day that I rarely blog, and that mostly I am pushed to emotionally blog whenever something is going on with my ex.  I attribute this to my inability to write when I am blissful and happy.  I have always done most of my writing when in the bouts of a deep depression or hardship. 

I wrote the following email to a friend of mine and I realized that I’ve been struggling with this for quite some time.  99% of the time I am happy go lucky and peaceful and then something having to do with my ex creeps in and those old ghosts serve to haunt me and make me into someone that I really don’t feel I am anymore. It’s as if I’m beating myself up for having ill thoughts at all and yet I understand.  It’s a constant struggle.  My email to a good friend best explains this struggle I believe.

Email excerpt:
I worry sometimes that my hatred towards my ex is unhealthy however I find that his hard times are like stress relief for me.  I find them to be humorous because of the same things.  He used to tell me I would be nothing if he left.  He once told a mutual friend, “If I left her she would lie down and die on the kitchen floor because she wouldn’t know what to do.”  That mutual friend told me these words as we were divorcing.

I have 4.5 more classes to complete to earn my college degree.  He’s the one who has a dying life that no amount of CPR will help at the moment. 

Karma.  I believe in it. 

I try very hard to be respectful of the people around me.  I even struggle with how a “good” person should be reacting to their ex-husbands antics. I mean I often find myself feeling bad about my happiness at his sake.  I mean I recover quickly but I am not a person that finds joy in other people’s downfalls because I have experienced my own.

I finally realized that it’s not his downfall that pleases me….it is his fall from his high horse (a high horse only he believes exists) that pleases me.  If he was a decent person and we had just not worked out as husband and wife I wouldn’t feel this way.  It is because he used me, abused me, hurt me and stepped on me for years all trying to destroy me just so he could play good guy by trying to build me back up.

When Rick said, “he’s so stupid he left you for that ugly hag”  I said “yes that ugly hag who’s a teller at a bank for maybe $9.50/hr, a woman with no goals or aspirations except to be a home wrecker and hurt other people.”

I think most of my glee is also largely directed at her.  She knew me and she saw what he did to me and she lied and cheated to get him.  She deserves every stolen check, bounced check, mortgage late fee/statement and bond payment she gets.  I often find myself daydreaming of wicked things that should happen to her.

I then spend several minutes meditating trying to be a better person than that. I struggle with this hatred and desire to be a good person…truly I do.  It’s a hard thing to explain.  End email excerpt.

Having shared this, I must also state that I do struggle.  I struggle because I feel so damned blessed with my life and all that it has become. I struggle because half of me wish’s him well and then the other half remembers.  That half that can’t forget the unanswered phone calls, the escape routes in the early morning hours as he rushed off to fuck his whore, leaving me to feel worthless and unloved.  And yes, I cheated back, I lied back, I became someone I hated and wanted to kill (thoughts of suicide were constant for the last few years I was married largely because of this).  I try try try so hard to forget.

But the notion that he lies to his own pastor and has never come clean with anyone about exactly what happened and what he did, these things are disheartening.  So often while I laugh (because what can I do if not laugh?), I am also in disbelief that anyone could continue on such a bad path.  I honestly wish he would change for everyone’s sake.

But her…..I can’t help but tell myself it was her who watched me suffer when he took off for 21 days with my son to another state to shack up with his first affair.  It was her who bought me a battery for my car while he was doing this.

She deserves it…because she saw it first hand in my pain. 

People don’t cheat because the “other woman” or the “other man” is better looking, younger, hotter, richer, etc.  They cheat because they are not fulfilled people.   My ex is still not fulfilled (as evidenced by his own willful lying to his own pastor).  It’s not that I think she’s a hag, it’s more than I’m befuddled by her having known and then expecting that she could change him or for her he would be a different man. Zebra’s don’t’ change their stripes.

99% of the time I smile, I laugh, I plan my future and the future Rick and I have to look forward to.  99% of the time I regret nothing because my path brought me here.  But 1% of the time I struggle with making the something before work in the something that is now….and overcoming the hatred and anger and disbelief.  His wrong doings are not mine to bear, and yet because we have a son together…I always feel as though I must apologize for the wickedness that he is. I always wish he was someone better, because he is my son’s father and no matter how much I change, grow and work on being better than my sometimes hatred….I know that I will never change his father.

I should probably spend more time writing about how Rick put the mirror on my dresser for me.  Or about how I found a big box of awesome Halloween decorations on my patio that I forgot about.  Or maybe about the Health class that I’m learning so much from.  Or I could speak about my awesome relationship with my co-workers.  Or about how my friend Greg moved to Germany to be with his girlfriend Isabelle. (Talk about a love story!) Or I could write about how he called me today to say hello less than a week after being gone.  I might even mention that I’m reading Oprah’s latest book pick. “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski and I could tell you just how awesome the book is and I’m only on page 77 and I don’t want it to end. I could tell you how I’m planning to decorate my bathroom or about some great blog’s I’m now reading. I even got my book that www.kristyk.org put together and how cool it is.  I should just maybe concentrate on the good things because they far outweigh the lingering frustrations I will always have because of my baby daddy.
 

I remember his first birthday morning.  I cried.  I didn’t sob.  I cried, because my baby would never technically be a baby again.

His first day at pre-school I got really choked up but managed to shed only a few stray tears.  My toddler was a’goin to school and he would never be a mere playing like a fool toddler again. (ohh how I fondly remember how he would ask me for a hog gog every day after pre-school)  A “hog gog” being a hot dog from this awesome place, Sheetz, in PA. 

His first day of kindergarten happened when we moved to Florida.  He was nearly 6 when he started school and he was all blue eyes and smiles and his backpack was twice the size of him it seemed.  I cried that day too.  A new state to live in, a new school to go to, and he took it all in stride.

I’ve cried many other moments and days since then.

But today he called me saying “Mom, Dad says that YOU have my birth certificate, and I need it so I can go to the DMV and file for my permit tomorrow.”

I will drive home tonight and take it over to his Dad’s house tonight and drop it in the mailbox because my baby needs it.

After I cry…just a few tears….or more. My baby took his written test and passed the first go around.  My baby….*sob* My baby is old enough to drive a car.

There will always be a part of me that cares.  I wish I could just hate him all the way already.  Why do I care?  I don’t care because of myself…I care because we have this amazing articulate beautiful child together and that child deserves better than a Daddy that gets arrested at his own home by two cops that come with a warrant.

And the new charge is?

“OBTAINING PROPERTY IN RETURN FOR W/L CHECK”

Yes I care what his father does, because I wish he didn’t do this stuff….god how I wish he didn’t do this stupid stuff.

He bailed out within 4 hours and by that time I had left work early to retrieve my son.  I could see the worry on my son’s face.  This is what happens when you love someone who is maddening and has a criminal mind.  I realize it’s probably due to his not having a job and him trying to pay a bill he can’t afford, but in the big scheme of things when you write a bad check to pay for something you don’t have the money for it doesn’t help things, it exasperates them.

At the same time I’m human and I hope this is all driving his new wife fucking batty.  And therein lies the place where I can’t ever seem to be the bigger person because I think she deserves every bit of the hassle he gives her.  But I’m sad because Keith doesn’t.

It’s mind numbing.  The entire thing just stresses me out too much when I think too hard about it.  Watching him do these things to his own life (my ex that is) still sucks because it’s my son he hurts.  You can get a divorce, move on with your life…but you can’t get rid of the baby daddy.  I told Keith it’s impossible for me to entirely not care…because without his father I would not have him….so there’s some secret place somewhere so deep that just wants him to get his shit together and be a good person.  And that feeling just reminds me of how much it sucks to want to believe in someone that will always dissapoint you.

Yesterday I took my son shopping for school clothes.  He bought “skinny jeans” at a women’s store.  There was a woman waiting for her daughter to try on the same pants.  She asked me “Are you actually going to let your SON buy women’s jeans?”  I glanced over at her and said, “Yes, and then later I’m going to buy him some female lingerie too!”  She got up and moved away from me.  I felt better when she left.

 
Some people have some major hang ups.  I don’t care what my son wears, how he dyes his hair or whether or not people greet us as “Hello ladies” (as many of them did yesterday because he has prettier hair than I do.)  I just want him to know he’s loved and accepted by Mom.