Maybell XXXV: Almost There

[Bob723]

Maybell, I was just stopping by to see if you had any updates today. How are you feeling?

I think about your sitch often. Do you realize how far you've come? I agree with Lisa, you are so strong.

Please keep up the good work and reach out to us if you need our advice or simply to vent.

{{{{Maybell}}}}

[Maybell]

I had a really nice afternoon today with loving and supportive friends. Came home and STBX was there dropping off the kids. He's on his way to Europe so I won't have a break again for three more weeks.

My life feels so heavy right now. I'm meeting with my lawyer tomorrow and just scared of how this will all play out in the short term. Every time STBX remits a draft agreement he sends me long emails about how anxious he is that he's not going to have as much money as he wants, and then I have to fight this battle in myself between caring about his well-being and fighting for mine and the kids'. Thank goodness I have a zealous attorney. He gets very indignant when I worry about STBX. But then I have my work absences to worry about and hat stresses me out so much. I need balance in all this and I don't think I'll be finding it soon.

I know in my head that if he were worried about my and the kids' well-being we wouldn't be fighting over money. He's just begging for my sympathy and freaking out about the cost of all this to himself. When I can remember that I feel stronger.

I'm not going to lie, that review last week has really taken the wind out of my sails. I felt confident and well-supported and like I was moving forward with power and purpose. I don't think much has truly changed, but I feel the full weight of my situation right now. It is so heavy and scary. And yet I'm a grown-up, well-loved by so many people and so many different kinds of people. My road is in many ways much easier than others in this situation. I know I can do this. But I think I'm hitting the grief part of the cycle again. STBX is not only someone I can't be married to, he isn't even someone I or my friends would be friends with. That makes me so sad. I have lost more than just the man I loved.

[raliced]

Every time STBX remits a draft agreement he sends me long emails about how anxious he is that he's not going to have as much money as he wants, and then I have to fight this battle in myself between caring about his well-being and fighting for mine and the kids'.

Do you really need to be concerned about his well being? I doubt any proposed settlement is going to preclude him from having a roof over his head, 3 meals a day and the ability to continue on in his career? He's a grown man - he can pull up his boxers and make a better life for himself if he so chooses (particularly since you have the kids, what, about 90% of the time?). Your kids don't have that choice right now.

Thank goodness I have a zealous attorney. He gets very indignant when I worry about STBX. But then I have my work absences to worry about and hat stresses me out so much. I need balance in all this and I don't think I'll be finding it soon.

Yes. Thank Goodness! I have to ask- Have you shared with your attorney that the absences from work are becoming a problem? It seems to me they could adjust normal office hours now and then on your behalf.

Hang Tough Maybell!

[Zues126]

I for one think it's mature to want things work out well for everyone, and to be hoping for an equitable settlement. Far better than feeling punitive or vindictive, and hoping your ex is financially ruined so they rue the day they hurt you. Agreed children come first and you should follow your attorney's lead- as long as you trust your attorney to have those same values.

When I picked my attorney I made it clear up front I didn't want to be run over, but I didn't want to run STBX over. What I was looking for was 50/50, and if we had to err one side or another I wanted to err on the side of being 55/45 or 60/40 her favor.

I'd rather sleep than eat.

[Maybell]

I haven't seen my attorney since the review. I'll see him tomorrow and tell him then.

I'm not being vengeful, Zues. but there is an enormous disparity between his income and mine, and he's free to build his career while I have the kids 90% of the time and have to pay the sitter as well as everything else out of whatever he pays me. I'll be 54 when my youngest graduates high school and 58 when he's out of college. I have a future to secure too and significantly less means of securing it.

[SunnyB]

Amen Maybell.

[Zues126]

I think I didn't explain myself well. I was complimenting the fact that your WAH's well being was even on your mind. Of course you have to look out for yourself. I'm just glad you're looking at the whole picture. Sometimes things get lost in translation.

[SunnyB]

Zeus, my amen wasn't aimed at you. It's just that Maybell and I are in very similar situations financially and I don't think we are the norm here. She often explains things that I completely understood already. It was just a show of support for her.

[Maybell]

Well, that was fun.

My lawyers are trying to wrap things up and they gave me the assignment of looking through all the financials from the last year to see if STBX owes me money for his romantic involvements. I found several dates and a Valentine's Day trip (and maybe another couple of overnighters?) but mostly he just stinks at taking care of a budget. OBSCENE amounts of money on iTunes -- we're talking around $3000. Plus several hundred on Xbox Live. Also what looks like four months of a burner phone. TONS on alcohol after we separated. For some reason, a couple hundred dollars to GoDaddy -- anyone know what that could be about?

Anyway, my friend was worried about why I was having to do this myself rather than pawn it off on a professional, but I can tell at a glance what he's probably done with/for the kids and what he's done with his fabulous bachelor life. I have to say, my life looks a lot richer, even just on a credit card statement -- and I spend WAY less than he does. And it hurts more that he's spending his money in such lonely ways than seeing evidence that he has a girlfriend, or dare I dream it, actual friends of his own. I hate seeing that he spent day after day eating alone in the same few restaurants, and then spent $200 on alcohol. I wish I saw a better life for him.

It hurts that this is who he's decided to be. I had a high opinion of him. I thought he was a good man, a smart man. He was charming and handsome and had the best smile. Sometimes I could tell him how much he meant to me and his eyes would tear up. But now he's just a frat boy. I have cried over him a few times still. I guess I'm mourning him.

Anyway, I'm so done with all this. I wish I were on to the next phase. My life is still feeling sort of heavy and my days are dragging and I feel trapped in limbo and no sense of how things will work out.

There is one thing that's worrying me a little bit, and it's so stupid and short-sighted, but I'm going to say it because it's on my mind. It's the fear that no one will ever love me. I don't know if STBX ever did because I can't imagine loving someone and building a life with them and letting that love, that relationship die on purpose, but since I clearly don't understand him at all I don't think I'll ever know if that was his version of love. But I know what kind of relationship I'd like to have in the future -- close, a real friendship, playful, loving, mutually protective, adventurous, pushing each other's comfort zones but in a really positive way -- and I'd like him to be TALL. But I also don't know if this will ever come my way. It feels too good for me. I don't feel like a good person. I feel like a lucky person, I feel like I'm treated (mostly) better than I deserve, but I don't feel like a good man will ever see me and think, yes, She's The One. I worry that there is a fenced off part of me that doesn't trust fully (and before I hear any of this... yes, I tried with STBX, he was one tough nut) and that lets people get only so close before I withdraw in fear just a bit. I'm trying to get better about that but I worry about it just the same.

One more then I'm done. A few weeks before I met STBX, I met a tall, reasonably good looking guy at a New Year's Eve party -- and I liked him a lot, and he liked me a lot, and he actually kissed me at midnight -- and I never called him back, because he was a contractor with a THICK Southern accent and I was worried that if I ended up with him that I would end up lonely in the South for the rest of my days and never see the parts of the world that I dreamed of seeing. I was still kind of thinking of him off and on when I met STBX and I felt like with him I *would* see the world (which I didn't, unless you count the four states we've lived in) and that my life would be bigger than with the cute, sweet, tall Southern contractor.

I was SUCH A SNOB. And I don't know now if I regret it or not. And I worry that that part of me hasn't gone away and I'm going to miss the next possibly wonderful person who comes my way out of the same shallowness. What if Tall Cute Contractor was The One and I blew it? And bought myself this lovely experience of heartache and divorce and hurting my children over a shallow expectation that a contractor couldn't show me the world?

Just to clarify... I'm not ready to date yet. But I have had the chance to look around me and see how many fun things there are to do in my neck of the woods, and I would love to have someone around to share those good times with. And it sure would be a fun adventure to do that stuff with someone who gives me a little zing.

[mahhhty]

MB - What a reflective/introspective post. I think it is very thoughtful & curious about what your future looks like, but for the most part slightly sad, which is understandable.

For some reason, a couple hundred dollars to GoDaddy -- anyone know what that could be about?

Most likely for a website domain, or business emails, or a combination there of. If you really were interested you could look at their packages and figure it out.

And it hurts more that he's spending his money in such lonely ways than seeing evidence that he has a girlfriend, or dare I dream it, actual friends of his own. I hate seeing that he spent day after day eating alone in the same few restaurants, and then spent $200 on alcohol. I wish I saw a better life for him. It hurts that this is who he's decided to be. I had a high opinion of him. I thought he was a good man, a smart man. He was charming and handsome and had the best smile. Sometimes I could tell him how much he meant to me and his eyes would tear up. But now he's just a frat boy.

I think you are reading into this & doing so incorrectly. People don't choose poorly, they choose to not change as their relationship does. IMHO, seeing him like this now, shows only that he is hurting on some level. And trying to drown his sorrows. He is most likely grieving the loss of his relationship just as you are. Yet doing it much differently than you are. The person you meet and married was the best version of himself. Over time that person changed or choose not to change as the situation did for many many reasons. The takeaway is that you had a hand in the person he became as he did.

Anyway, I'm so done with all this. I wish I were on to the next phase. My life is still feeling sort of heavy and my days are dragging and I feel trapped in limbo and no sense of how things will work out.

We don't have to know each step, but we do have to know what we want. Think about what you want, in 5 years, 10 years, where will you be? what do you want? who will you be with? Think hard about your goals, and the individual steps to meeting them will come. When they do.... CARPE DIEM!

It's the fear that no one will ever love me. I don't know if STBX ever did because I can't imagine loving someone and building a life with them and letting that love, that relationship die on purpose, but since I clearly don't understand him at all I don't think I'll ever know if that was his version of love.

In the words of Mary Poppins this is Pure Poppycock! (Honestly I have no idea if she said that). Regardless, we can't comprehend it b/c it was not us who wanted it. However, the idea that love will not come, that "the One" will not come... I believe to be a fallacy. If you are open to it, it will appear, when you stop looking for it. There is no such thing as The One. In fact there are millions of "The Ones." There are people upon people upon people that will be lucky to be with MB.

he was a contractor with a THICK Southern accent and I was worried that if I ended up with him that I would end up lonely in the South for the rest of my days and never see the parts of the world that I dreamed of seeing

You came to that decision pretty quick. Definitely judged the guy rather severely rather quickly. Live and learn Girl!

Goodluck MB!