Separation @ MindSay

My mother asked if the kiddo could stay with her until Wednesday.  She said she just missed her grandchild and she just wants to be around someone who she knows loves her unconditionally.  It's really not a big deal because my mother teaches at my daughter's school. The Cocolette was very excited and I got a much welcomed break. 

 

My mother said she would have kept her an entire week, but Dad is moving out on Thursday and she didn't want her to see it.  Dad now says he wants to try a separation.  I told mom I thought it was a good idea, but not to get her hopes up.  He could be stalling after all.  Besides, I told Mom that she may find that she doesn't even want him back after a year of being separated. I do think it's a good idea because they've been together since high school (40 years).  I don't think even he realizes what a divorce would entail.

I talked briefly to my sister today.  We both have busy lives so we only talk a couple of times a year these past couple of years.  She told me that she and her "husband"  are separating.  They never really got married but lived together and presented themselves as married, purchased property and businesses together for the past 28 years.  I think in tennessee that means legally they are married, but not sure.  her comment that got to me is that she hopes she gets out of this alive. Her husband has a jealous streak and a paranoid streak and apparently it has been getting worse to the point where he is checking her cell phone #s stopping in at all hours to check on her at the bar, taping her phone conversations, etc. 

 

And it is finaly enough.  For as long as I can remember he has been abusive.  She had a child, she loved him, she had nothing else to go to except a minimum wage job in a factory, etc.  So in all those years she worked like a dog 6 and 7 days a week building up several businesses.  On more than one occasion doctors told her that he was at death's door because of his drinking and she always nursed him back to health.  And HE is deciding now that they are separating what he will give her. He might even let her continue to run the bar and let her keep half the profits.  She should have let him die.

 

I pray that she gets out of this alive and that  he goes on one of his drinking binges that his doctors warned him not to do again while he is alone....

 

Only one more after this... told you the journal didn't end up amounting to much.

 

Monday, January 14, 2008

 

The decent, civil conversation from Saturday, the tentative kindness and reluctant but comforting embrace, what I thought might be a step in the right direction all fell apart again yesterday.

 

I tried to start a conversation in the spirit of what was said on Saturday, to expand on that and try to bring her closer again.  But suddenly, all the blame was being placed on me again.  I'm not saying I'm not to blame, I know I have things to work on, but the difference in her attitude, her outlook, from Saturday to Sunday was like night and day.  I got frustrated, I got angry.  I didn't mean to, didn't want to, but it happened.  And, I don't mind.  I think she needed to see me show some anger.  She needed to hear some of the things I had to say.  But, she didn't like it.  As soon as the discussion gets difficult, as soon as she loses a little bit of all the control she's had over the whole situation, she tries to walk out the door again.  She needs to be talking, we need to be communicating, but she can't do it.  I don't know who she's talking to.  She barely talked to E, she won't talk to C after she told her she was making the biggest mistake of her life, she won't go to counseling, and she wants her space from me.

 

I may have said a couple things I didn't really mean, and I fear I may have pushed her even farther away, but a part of me doesn't care anymore.  I'll keep trying, keep fighting for this, but there's also a part of me that figures if she's giving up, what's the point of trying anymore?  I mean, I'm so lost, so confused by everything, I just don't know what to do anymore.

 

I don't think she knows what's going on, don't think she knows what she wants.  The difference in her from Saturday to Sunday is proof of that.

 

I don't know, I've been talking about it so much today and going over so much in my mind, I can't write any more tonight.  I'm just too lost, too hurt to go over it anymore.

 

One last thought..  Does she think that if I had known she was hurt and unhappy, that I would have done nothing to change that?  But, I couldn't see it, and she doesn't say anything, so here we are.

So, I changed my dating status on Facebook to "It's complicated" tonight.  I've been tempted to do that for awhile, but couldn't do it for some reason.  It's finally done.  We'll see how many people notice, and what kind of comments I get from it.  I don't care anymore, I'm done with this.  I want to move forward.

Might as well keep going with this...