Suddenly

I feel that this has given me the most incredible and wonderful thing that I have ever been given, and also, the worst. […] I’ve had my whole soul undermined by it — on the one hand. On the other hand, in one sense, my experience has been about finding joy.

It was Memorial Day weekend. The day before, maybe. End of May. Sunday? She was taking the kids to visit with her parents in Rochester. As they went outside and she was about to leave, she turned to me.

I was sitting on the loveseat (ha), sipping a cup of coffee, facing her and the door.

I knew that look.  It meant she was pissed off about something, and I probably did not have any idea what that something was or why it made her so angry.

This time, the something was a Facebook post: a link to a write-up on a role-playing session.  The tragic opening sequence contained characters she felt were too similar to our family.  I’ll skip the details, except to say that some of her … friends had told her that the story was grounds enough to get a restraining order against me.  She seemed more angry and embarrassed than concerned or afraid for herself and the children, and she left that way.

Maybe an hour later, I get a message on my phone.  She’s not coming back until I’m out of the house.

“OK.”

I stayed at hotels most of that week.  I didn’t see the kids.  I frantically searched for an apartment while trying to work out a budget that would allow for us to maintain two households under my single salary.  There wasn’t time for me to feel much (if indeed I ever “feel” anything) except frustration and a kind of passive, harmless anger.

It’s a month later.  I’ve got my little one-bedroom in the basement of a building in a park.  It’s nice.  Heat included.  I mostly eat tuna sandwiches and cereal, maybe pizza on Friday.  I’ve got Internet, and a great “open box” special of a deal on a big-ass TV from Best Buy.

I’ve moved a couch, a California king-size bed, a dresser, a desk, a table, all by myself in my trusty old Forester.  I’m very proud of that.  It wasn’t easy, especially that goddamned $25 thrift-store couch.

I saw the girls a few times while moving things after that first week.  Now I go over after work every Wednesday to spend time with them and put them to bed and whisper “I will always love you” to each of them until they get sick of it or fall asleep.

They seem to be taking everything remarkably well.  Is that a credit to how they were raised?  Their natural temperament?  Do they truly realize daddy isn’t coming back to stay?

God damn you.

Fourteen years together.  Two kids.  Two years ago, she decides she isn’t happy.  Fuck it.  She has her reasons.  I won’t go into them, because quite frankly, I don’t fucking understand most of them.  Part of the problem?

It makes me angry.  Sometimes, like just there.  However, surprisingly, most of the time, I am happier than I have been in years.

No more dreading going “home” to a wife who despises me.  Ah, she may beg to differ.  Well, her behaviour, her detachment, the complete lack of any affection over the past years — that’s been a worse hell than anyone who hated me has ever put me through.

I’m sure she suffered.  Poor thing.

Fuck you.  This is my fucking blog, and it’s fucking about me.

She thought I was a danger to the children!  My children. What’s the worst thing you can say to any parent?  That he’s a bad parent.  That he’s hurting his kids.  That he would ever hurt his kids.

By all accounts, I should be angry, or hurt, or something.  Profane outbursts aside, I’m really not.  I’m content.

I’ve also learned that I am not what she said I was.  I’m charming, considerate, intelligent, witty, and maybe even reasonably attractive for someone my age.  I add that last part just because it’s important with regards to finding someone else after being with the same woman for the best goddamned years of your life and expecting to be with her forever.

Through sickness and in health, til death do us part.

Was I ever depressed?  You know, she’s the one who prompted me to start treatment.  Treatment that has never worked.  Hell, maybe years of anti-depressants have made me worse.

This was supposed to be a celebratory post.

I’m as close to “happy” as I’ve been in years.

I wish her the best of luck as a single mother, but when the kids are no longer kids, well, I don’t like to end on a down note. Here’s a song.

Turn around.

Every now and then,
I get a little bit lonely,
and you’re never comin’ ’round.

Turn around, bright eyes.

Every now and then,
I fall apart.

And I need you more tonight.
And I need you more than ever.
And you’ll only be making it right.

We’ll be holding on — forever!

That’s a joke. She’ll get it, but she won’t be laughing.