so, today, i got this bombshell:
I looked and I don't see either of the plastic folders you're talking about.
I have some friends still staying with me until tomorrow afternoon and then I'll go through everything again to see if I can find them.
as for the other email you sent I do remember discussing those options with you but for the record I don't agree with the terms or the way they are written. There are still things we need to work out before I will agree with your demands after you jumped ship.
I don't need a mediator. I hope we can come to an agreement without outside help but if that's what it takes to make things right then so be it.
I know you're not as shallow as you come across. Along the way we were happy and you were in love with me and for you to deny me and yourself that fact is psychotic. I will always love and care about you.
As for me disputing the divorce, as long as you list the reasons you gave up on trying to get through a rough patch and make our marriage work, I'm fine with it.
Since I was willing to go to marriage counseling, get another job and accommodate your other demands on an agreed time line "which I did" it wouldn't be honest to say our marriage ended because of irreconcilable differences.
Here are a list of reasons you gave me in no particular order. Pick a few of your favorites to list and I'll sign the divorce papers with a smile, but if you try to make it look like I wasn't willing to do anything and everything to save our marriage you will find out very fast how wrong you handled everything.
1."you didn't sign up for this"
2."you'll never be able to open your own coffee shop while I was still working at (his business)"
3."you want someone to take care of you financially"
4."I don't make enough money for you"
5." you don't love me anymore"
6. "you just want to be alone and find out who you really are"
7. I never fully understood the reason you were trying to explain to me, about "you turning into your grandmother who is just waiting for your grandfather to die so she can sew blankets" but if you can word that correctly I'll take it as a reason.
8. you "feel like you settled"
9. You "weren't in love with me for the past couple of years so you thought us buying a house together that we were going to be struggling to afford would fix things, the same way other couples have a child to try to save their marriage".
10. one of my personal favorites "I didn't please you sexually"
stay safe,
ever
and i penned this response initially, though it won't be edited and sent until i return from my trip home in two weeks:
okay. look for the folders.
(i since found that i had, in fact, taken them when i left. i have the cert in my hot little hands...)
let me know what you find.
i didn't know that you were thinking of contesting the divorce. it's called an uncontested divorce because both parties agree that it didn't work. in pa, you don't place blame on one party or the other. it's no fault, kinda like car insurance.
whatever all this other stuff is you're talking about, i don't really understand where it's coming from. you've made no attempt to speak to me about any matters that involve emotions.
surely you remember what you wrote in the valentine's day card. if you need me to dig up old journals (really, i'd use the blog, but he doesn't know that it exists) and rattle off dates where we had conversations about things that i wrote down, then i could do it. only it is a waste of my time, because it won't make you see anything differently.
i'm not shallow and i'm not making demands.
there were happy times, sure. there was also a lot of struggle, and more than too much imbalance. but in the end, i was not happy. and you said that every reason i gave you didn't matter, because i wasn't in love with you and you didn't want to be married to someone who wasn't in love with you.
and you told me that if i separated myself from you, that it was over. you were the one who wasn't willing to entertain that idea. you told me on several occasions, that if i left, i would never be allowed to come back.
so how could you possibly need more reasons that the two ultimatums/threats that you gave me.
i didn't realize that you were on an honestly kick all of a sudden. it seems to me that you've done nothing but lie to me since i left. if you were really 'the good frede' (his username on the dating website he is listed on), then i guess you wouldn't have to go so far to prove it to other people.
you can say that you were willing to do everything except clean the house, clean yourself, man up, and stop smoking weed. you weren't willing to get another job, you said that you'd be giving up faith in your company if you did that, and that you'd figure out another way. you refused to entertain the idea, and that is when i really threw my hands up in the air. you chose weed over sex with me on several occasions when our relationship was in crisis mode, and had no desire to take care of me in any way, except by telling me that you loved me.
i don't know where all of this is coming from, but i'm sure there are reasons other than irreconcilable differences. choose another, if you must. you've committed adultery, perhaps, since i left you?
your rendition of what i listed as reasons is a little skewed. but i refuse to go over this yet again with you.
if i have repeatedly repeated things and this is what you take from it, then i cannot help you.
the things you forgot to list were about sacrificing my dreams for yours, and promising me that it would be my turn year after year.
i was lonely in our marriage. when i told you that, you laughed. when i went home to get away, you belittled me. when i talked to you about the book, you made fun of me. and in the last days i was there, you said that if i made an appointment with a counselor, you probably wouldn't make it, because something would come up.
when keeping your personal favorite in mind, list a few times that our sex was over when you got me off and didn't get off yourself. i can only think of a couple, and it wasn't because you just wanted to please me. it was because you were either too stoned or too tired or your body wasn't working.
i can't force you to sign anything. but if you still think i am your wife and that we are still married, then you are the one who is psychotic.
you took off your ring, too. and unlike you, i'm not looking to hook up with random people online. so it seems to me that you're actually more into this divorce than i am, from where i stand.
but it's a nice try. i appreciate the effort after it's too late. just like i appreciated the fact that you started to clean yourself, the house, shave, and be a better man after i left you.
if you really want one more reason, i'm happier since i left. i feel better about myself and i have more confidence and faith in myself. every day that i'm away from you, i'm one step closer to making my own future better. because you are no longer my anchor.
and telling me that i can't go certain places to see mutual friends just reiterates the fact that you're being selfish and petty. and that your only job now is to try to make me as unhappy as you apparently are.
well, it won't work.
try as you might, i'm better now. with or without the charms of a former life i shared with you. you can take what you want from me, but i'm done with giving more to you.
if you can't find the folders, i'll just get a duplicate copy.
i'm sure all of your free lawyers can help you figure out another reason to list, if irreconcilable differences is morally troublesome to you. this conversation, or email, is exactly what irreconcilable differences are.
the last few years was the rough patch. and if you were so willing to do all the things you claim to have planned to do, then perhaps you could have done just one. but instead, you just planned. and did none.
tea
after i wrote that, i had a smoke and called my sister and family, who were amping me up for the trip home.
and then i got a note from nina, who said:
DID he go to counseling?
DID he get a new job?
DID he stop smoking pot?
DID he please you sexually?
Ugh. So if he's happy to agree with one of those reasons, then wtf is he
talking about?
And what are the terms he does not agree with?
So fine, HE's perfect and HE's fine and HE's wonderful, it is just YOU
that is fucked up and wrong? Is that what he's trying to prove here?
GET DRUNK WITH ME. IT WILL FIX EVERYTHING!
Love you, and I'm not /settling/ to call you my best friend,
nina
i'm listening to dark sky mix (aka spring mix), and this song came on. it's a song i used to listen to with coffee. and i had it on this mix i made for ever when we were first dating. it came up on shuffle when kit and i were driving home from dark sky park, just before the speeding ticket.
and it serves as a reminder that i was merely transferring feelings from coffee to him. and i was telling kit about it the other night.
i don't know. getting ready for nina's visit. getting ready to go home. i now have a party planned and i'm just so ready to be there, emotionally.
as far as work goes, there are still loose ends. and there is absolutely nothing i can do about the main one, which is that one shift.
work was frustrating again today. i'm trying to just put it aside. i know that my hormone levels are making it hard for me to be nice all day every day.
and especially having that email from ever timed as it was.
i know that he knows i'm going home. i know he knows that i'm excited. because i'm sure our friends are mentioning something to him. or are willing to spy on me for him. and i think this is his fucked up way of trying to wreck my trip.
but he's not succeeding. he derailed me for a minute tonight. i thought i was going to throw up after reading it initially. and again when i was smoking after i wrote the unsent response.
kit went bowling, and i called my sister.
some time after that, i felt fine.
then i came back and cleaned more for nina.
then i went back to get my dry laundry.
then i packed and got really fucking excited.
this time tomorrow, i'll be on home turf. and i cannot wait to see what happens when i'm there.
surely there will be a waiting-for-the-plane-with-peet's-coffee post, while i wait in the terminal for the plane that will carry me home.
to a place where i'm loved and where i have so much condensed fun.
where i will see old friends again, and get sun, and swim, and dance my ass off, and probably get drunk more than once.
and where i will, FINALLY, get the answer to that question that has been derailing my life, despite a marriage, for the last year. probably longer.
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