Monday, May 18, 2009

And So, It Finally Starts

This weekend was filled with sorting and cleaning.

My garage, my basement, my head, my life.

Clean for twenty minutes, cry for twenty minutes.

With The Decemberists on repeat on my Ipod




This week may just be the most difficult of my life with the contested omnibus on Friday. I had a very smart friend prepare me for the worst by telling me that I need to wrap my head around the possibility that he won't receive anything but a slap on the wrists. There are mothers and daughters out there that have been through this process and gotten nothing but fucked, one more time, by the judicial system. It's at times like that when you have to appreciate how much courage it takes to face down the demons and realize that even though they don't get what they deserve, the fact that they were charged with a sex crime means that it will be on their record forever. Even if they don't go to prison or jail, they will always be a marked individual and will probably never get a "real job" in the future. Unfortunately, that won't mean much for STBX as he never had a "real job" to begin with. Any job with any amount of aggravation was an unceasing diatribe against humanity (I know, I heard about it). I highly doubt that he's going to apply to work at a daycare center or a school.

In other words, a slap on the wrist will mean just that, a slap on the wrist.

My friend wasn't telling me to give up just yet, just like my divorce lawyer, she was preparing me so I won't go off the deep end, so I won't meet him out front of the court house with a moltov cocktail, shaken, not stirred.

"You have no control over any of this. You've done everything you were supposed to do. Now you just have to wait. You can't expend you mental energy on him. You have to focus on your daughter."

Great advice. I will try to remember it as I watch the bastard try to squirm his way out of this one.

4 comments:

Shelly said...

I have to ask...was it stupid crap that brought on the tears? I ask because this weekend, I was at a greenhouse, because I love greenhouses, and every once in a while, while walking through the greenhouse, I would see a plant and think, "Oh, I have that!" and then I would realize, "Oh, never mind...I HAD that, but it is in the ground at my house in Duluth, which I no longer live in, because of my stupid STBX" and I would catch myself wanting to cry. Over a f*cking plant.

At this stage, I'm pretty much just a shell of my former self, and the re-build is agonizingly slow, and confusing. I didn't really want to have to give up going to greenhouses, you know? Or most of the other things I have had to give up because they are now too painful. What the hell am I going to fill my time with if all the 'old' things remind me of past insanities? Why should I have to completely re-make myself when he gets to just go on as usual? Is that fair? Not even close.

What I mean to say, and apparently can't briefly summarize...I completely understand how even the mundane, even the things we used to enjoy, are now emotional mine fields. It's not fair--not even close. But at least we FEEL...those just going on as if nothing serious has happened, apparently don't. (Feel, that is.) I'd feel sorry for them if I wasn't so damn busy becoming a completely different person.

You're in my thoughts this week, and though it may end up being just a slap on the wrist for him legally, I want you to consider that his becoming a complete non-entity in your life (following the completion of the frustratingly slow re-build, of course) to be punishment enough--after all, you are a person of great value, and even though it is incredibly difficult right now, in time, you'll be able to think of him and feel nothing at all.

I don't want to be one of those people spouting off about how time heals all wounds, because I hate those people. Sadly, those assholes are right...

So think of all of this as temporary, and hopefully that will help get through the difficult week.

Debbie said...

Everything that I touched this weekend was junk that he had collected, purchased at garage sales, or whatever, and just left to sit in puddles of water to rot in either our basement or our garage.

He wanted to be a beer brewer so that meant buying all the equipment, collecting hundreds of beer bottles, and then never brewing beer. Oh yeah, there was that one time when he made what, six bottles or so?

And all the computer parts that would have been good in the nineties.

And all the paperwork (bank receipts from 2007?) that are literally fused into the concrete floor because he left them there in the wet basement in his "office".

And the piles and piles of sunflower shells that he spit all over the garage when he was out there working on his car which I have had to use the ice scraper to crape them off the floor because they fused and molded there in the wet conditions.

Did I mention that I'm allergic to mold?

I've got 80 gallon contractor grade garbage bags and I've filled 8 of them so far and I'm only ablout a quarter of the way done.

It's nothing sentimental. It's just that everything is a horrible mess, his belongings, his life, our life, our mental health, everything that this rotten perverted fucker touched, is a mess and I'm the one that gets to clean up after him. I'm the one that has to have a spine and "fix" the house, "fix" his moldy messes, "fix" our kids, "fix" everything, including myself.

I'm not whining. I'm just incredibly angry. Horribly, horribly angry.

The tears come from feeling overwhelmed, angry, and so immensly sad when I see how much pain he has brought to his children.

Having come from a fucked up childhood, my biggest job on this earth was to give my kids a loving, stable home and a firm foundation to go forth and be, as the ninth doctor would say, "fantastic". He not only screwed up his kids, he screwed up that foundation.

My hands are constantly shaking since I started cleaning up the garage on Saturday. I'm feeling like I'm trying to funnel my anger into cleaning and getting stuff done but my cup runneth over.

Shelly said...

My STBX is a lot like that--stereos, old radios, stuff that his father owned, and medical receipts from (get this...) 1995. They are a lot alike, those two...the stuff he HAD to have stacked up everywhere.

And yes, I did the sorting and cleaning of all of that crap, but it was while we were still living under the fantasy bubble of "OK". The shit went down a few months later, after we moved out of Duluth. I would hate to have to have gone through it after the fact, considering how pissed I was to have to do it at all. My entire marriage was spent cleaning up after him in one way or another.

Funny, when I left, Mr. Sentimental-Must-Hold-On-To-Everything had a huge garage sale and sold all the stuff I left behind. How nice for him. And here I am in Minneapolis wondering how I could have possibly walked away without taking my f*cking rolling pin! Like he was ever going to use that...HA! He sold it. Asshole. It was my mothers...

40-odd is pretty old to be starting over again. I sure as hell hope I'm up for this...

Anonymous said...

I'm so sorry for everything that you and your kids are having to go through. I feel like an absolutely helpless bystander. But do remember one very important thing. Your children can live without that asshold in their lives. But they absolutely CANNOT live without you. So remember that whenever it feels like it's all too much to bear. Or when you're having crazy thoughts about how to torture the STBX. It will be better sometime soon. And your children will never forget that you were there for them.

Pam