It’s not just Mr. Nico that has ex baggage.
It seems I have plenty of my own.
Last night I had a horrific confrontation with my ex-husband. Or soon-to-be ex-husband, I should say. The marriage has been doner-than-done for a long time, but the legal technicalities haven’t been completely finalized.
And, apparently, the ex wants to stand in the way of that happening.
I had this utopian vision of our divorce. I thought we could interact rationally and treat one another with care and respect. I thought we could leave the anger and bitterness to the past and work together to be the best parents we could be for our two children.
He, however, didn’t share my vision.
Our conversation last night started with him unleashing his hatred on me. Hatred is not an exaggeration. He used words like hate, loathe, and despise to describe how he felt about me. He threw every wrong, every slight, every inadvertent sin I’d committed in our marriage in my face. With viciousness.
“Why is it that you flat-out refused to have sex with me the entire time we were married?” he angrily growled.
Me: Blink. Blink. What?
Sex was always at issue for us, as I’ve mentioned before. I spent the entire marriage feeling sexually rejected . . . and he spent the entire marriage feeling sexually rejected. Now I can see it was because our love styles and communication styles never meshed. His Asperger’s complicated that, a lot. He doesn’t know how to read social cues, and thus missed out on every “I’d really love for you to screw me now” message that I ever sent. And he doesn’t know how to communicate at all, so his attempts to initiate sex were reminiscent of an awkward 12-year-old boy who doesn’t know how to tell a girl he likes her.
But, in his version of the events, it was ALL me, completely my fault.
As was everything else. As he ranted, I was struck by how odd it was that he was dwelling on every finite detail, bitterly angry about each one. I’d long ago left all the ways he’d hurt me and betrayed me to the past, long ago let the anger go. I couldn’t fathom how he could possibly still be clinging to it.
He reamed me for wasting the best years of his life, and then he said the oddest thing:
“But then I think about those two incredible little boys, and they deserve to have their mother and father be together.”
Me: Blink. Blink. Huh?
In summary–he hates me, loathes me . . . but doesn’t want to divorce me because he thinks a divorce would be bad for our kids.
I’m still sitting here blinking in shocked astoundment.
I believe that there are a number of family compositions that can be nurturing for children. I DON’T believe that having married parents necessarily leads to happy, healthy children. You know, especially when one of those parents despises the other. That really can’t be a healthy environment for kids.
I guess it’s just another indication of why we shouldn’t be together–we see the world SO very differently.
And so he’s decided to stand in the way of the divorce. And so I need to drag in lawyers and get my fight on . . . a dirtiness that never figured into my utopian vision.
I’m a broke graduate student, and the idea of mounting a legal battle feels so unbelievably daunting. I dread the thought of having to borrow money from my parents to pay legal fees. The irony is that Mr. Nico is the best person to help me with the legal messiness, being a lawyer and all. It’s not his specialty, but he recently handled a divorce for a friend of ours. And yet I feel so uncomfortable about asking him to help me . . . there’s something that feels not right about asking my new boyfriend to help me get my divorced finalized.
So tonight I’m feeling a bit like I’m floundering, not sure how to get myself out of this fucked-up situation with my ex. I know that I’m a strong, tough woman who will fight her way out of this mess soon . . . but my fighting spirit seems elusive right now, in this overwhelming moment.
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