Chapter Afterstand up, dust off, and get moving

I’m pretty sure I just broke up with B__. It wasn’t my goal exactly, though in the back of my mind, I’d considered that it might be preferable to making a Very Big Mistake™. The timing couldn’t have been worse; she told me she loved me tonight. Your groans and forehead-smacks are so loud, I can hear them from here.

We’ve been dating for just under two months. About two weeks ago, she said something that sure sounded to me like, “I love you.” I’ve certainly been walking around since then wondering what the hell is the matter with me that I couldn’t return it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and that train of thought brought me to tonight’s events.

I wasn’t really sure what I wanted — I’m still not. So, naturally, that’s the first thing she asked and didn’t really appreciate me not having a good answer — let alone no answer at all. Probably fair.

Part of me just needed her to know that I’ve become freaked out by the imbalance of what we feel for each other. She’s been inhabiting “in-love” territory, and while I care about her very much, it’s not the same. I’ve been swallowing my hang-ups hoping they were some kind of new relationship jitters or guilt about still being married. Either, neither or both might still be true, but the point is it didn’t go away like I’d hoped. Not quickly enough to avoid saying something, so I said something.

It upset her (of course) and she said it was coming out of left field (true). Why had I done all those intimate things with her? Why had I pretended everything was fine? Why had I put a profile on a dating site in the first place if I wasn’t ready for a relationship?

I didn’t give very good answers for those either.

I have some guesses, but I hope I’m wrong. As far as my hopes go, I hope we sort it all out, fall in love, and live happier ever after, but I’m a bit jaded on that narrative. First and foremost, I needed desperately to get laid. There, I said it. Go fuck yourself if you can’t handle it. Me? I got really bored of fucking myself.

It was never the plan to have an only-for-the-sex relationship. Au Contrare. I’ve never had one, per se, and I doubt I’d enjoy it very long. But I did allow myself the luxury of the standard guy-thing. Too easily connected in the bedroom, ignoring (for the moment at least) the conspicuously lopsided emotional connection. Again, I don’t know if it’s specific to B__ or would have happened with anyone.

Part of what I found so intolerable about my marriage was feeling as though the time I had to spend as I chose got smaller and smaller until it disappeared altogether. The need for more money meant that time spent on work started to crowd out even other truly important things. I came to resent not being “free” and saw it as a major benefit of divorce. Now here I’ve gone and put myself into another relationship and it’s already swallowing free time as fast as I let it. Astute readers will note the lack of regular updates recently. Just a for-instance.

But wait. There’s more. I know at least a slice of this angst comes straight from the fear that if I find someone else too quickly, I’ll leave myself no opportunity to play the field. I don’t mean that in a sexual way, I mean it in a maybe-I-could-find-someone-better way, and believe me, the guilt is fairly equivalent.

Speaking of guilt, could it be that some part of my subconscious needs to find someone to punish — to break someone’s heart in cosmic revenge for my own heartbreak? God, I hope not.

B__ is really very fantastic. She deserves to be loved without reservations, and I’m apparently packing them by the truckload. I walked out her door and down the walk and mumbled something to myself about that being one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. The relationship itself or ending it, I’m not yet sure.

The market rate for mine would appear to be in the $50,000 – $60,00 range.

In the next installment, I’ll walk you through how I came to that conclusion. But first, what could possibly bring a person to decide it needed figuring in the first place? Separation Agreements, that’s what. Specifically, __ __ __.

A thought experiment: if your significant other offered you $10,000 to divorce them, would you want to? What about for twenty? (I hear one asshole in the back shouting he’d pay out $10k himself.) Take my wife. Please!

What do the amounts we’d offer, accept, and reject say about our relationships? That a spouse would agree to such a deal (at nearly any price) in the first place? And what does it say about me that I’m participating in all this, metaphor though it may be?

Even in a thought experiment, it’s hard to quantify, and there’s no accounting for the intangibles — the things upon which no supposed price may be hung (eg one’s health) though you can bet your kidneys the insurance adjuster does it every day.

Even though money issues are partly what brought us to this point, it is of course by no means purely financial. It seems only fair to say that we both want to be divorced, and the amount and direction of money exchanged doesn’t necessarily seem to be about who wants it more.

But it’s interesting to think about.

The luster of freshness steadily wears off any relationship so that much like your new pair of shoes, despite your careful steps, develop scuffs and smudges, and inevitably start to smell lived in.

B__ lives in the hood, or at least adjacent. She’s not racist — I doubt she’d have bought the house she did if she had any real issues. I simply think she’s unfamiliar with (or dislikes) the cultural differences that bring young, poor, African Americans out onto their porches and into the streets to get their late-Spring evening party on (and so loudly!) while young, better-heeled, white yupsters quietly retreat into their homes promptly upon parking the car to bask in the air conditioning and television. Sure, it’s annoying when you’re trying to sleep at 11pm because you have to be up at 6am and you’ve got the windows open for the three weeks the local climate will allow it and the neighbors are out being wild. Do you have the right to call the cops? Certainly. Are there more neighborly ways to handle it? Certainly again.

I probably only find the whole thing notable because K__ was similarly inclined to call in the heavies rather than face a difficult social situation with neighbors she wasn’t fond of sharing an address with in the first place. I’m no one to talk — I’d rather lay there (and fume) and wait until the party fizzles out all by itself rather than be thought a square. As long as there’s no gunplay, I’m usually content to mind my business.

Last night I laid in bed unable to sleep. I couldn’t point you to any single cause. B__ and I had had another uncomfortable conversation in which she asked me for assurance that I didn’t feel comfortable giving. We didn’t really end it properly, and after awhile she rolled over with her back to me. I thought she might be awake and upset, and that certainly wasn’t helping my own insomnia. It was only when she rolled back over that I knew I’d been wrong, but that was because of her snoring. She and one of the dogs traded verses and choruses in some bizarre subconscious opera. Score another trait I eventually came to resent K__ for. I had too much coffee yesterday afternoon and went to bed too early. By the time I noticed the neighbors making noise, I half wanted to join them for a 40 in the street.

I catch myself in this train of thought and wonder if I’m looking for the exits. B__’s been very open and vulnerable with me. I think she’s in love. That’s flattering and it pushes all my arrogance buttons about how awesome I am, about how I deserve to be treated better than K__ treated me. But it also scares me shit-less. I know I’m not remotely ready to be swimming in the deep end. I haven’t been able to return her I-love-yous because I know what kind of implied promises go along with it.

B__ enjoys living downtown and has pointed out a few available houses. I’m not sure where the joking ends and the seriousness begins when she suggests the (obvious) benefits of co-habitating, and any serious discussion immediately leads to how absurdly premature such inklings are. Of course, of course, we agree.

It’s another cold shadow cast from K__ — her repeated attempts to lure me into a larger house I didn’t think we could afford and the bitterness that went along with me eventually dismissing most attempts to even discuss the subject. Yes, this is different, but I daresay it’s not less scary.

…

It’s K__’s birthday [redacted], and I’d initially planned to get her a nice present. About a week ago, I stopped being able to even think about it. I feel so completely used financially, I can’t bear the idea of volunteering another nickel. It’s petty, and K__ takes birthdays very, very seriously. The slight will not go unnoticed. I can already tell it’s a huge mistake in the making. There’s still time, but I’m actively squandering it.

K__ has taken to asking if I’m ok a lot. She’s done so occasionally all along, but whether out of genuine concern for my well-being or ulterior motives relating to the ongoing health of her meal ticket / I__’s father-figure, I can’t really say.

I know deep down this up-tick is due to the revelation that I’m seeing someone. When she asks, I shrug and say, “yeah, I guess so” just like I always have. There’s still the impulse to return the query like our own little ritual of “fine thanks, how are you?” Some days I feel like I handle it gracefully, and then there’s most of the time.

She wondered aloud to me once whether we experience love the same way, and I quickly came to believe that we don’t. I don’t remember the last time, but for a long while I had the displeasure of wondering how to respond when she continued to sign off our phone conversations with “I love you.” I don’t remember the last time I returned the affection, and I sometimes catch myself wondering how different things might be if I faked it. There, of course, is a metaphor for our relationship that may be extended ad infinitum.

I dropped I__ off at her place this morning, and we stumbled through the exchange again. She asked about work, and I rattled off a scary list of projects I’m behind on. She asked about B__ and I deflected. She asked about some art I’ve been doing, congratulated me on all of it, said I must feel so successful. I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”

She said she was disappointed she’d not been called back on the temporary census-taker position she applied for even though she scored a 100 on the test. Said she had a small freelance project for a new client in nearby C__ town. Said she was reading some books on depression, which I take to mean she’s feeling depressed. She hinted at as much yesterday.

It’s hard to interpret much differently than: she finds out I’m not sitting at home depressed, but rather going out and doing exactly what I said I’d do, and sure enough I have, and sure enough I’ve met someone, and …

Wait. Am I actually supposed to care? This changes things how?

B__ called last night after her class got out around nine or ten, and I told her about some of the stuff from yesterday. She’s been freaking out a little off and on, worried I’ll be one of those guys who keeps promising a divorce is imminent, but never manages to finalize it. The resulting limbo a very convenient way to keep any further commitments from ever materializing.

I keep telling her that I understand that fear, though that scenario isn’t very likely with me. “When are you getting divorced,” she wants to know. And I don’t know, so that’s what I tell her, which is exactly the kind of thing she doesn’t want to hear. She asks (though not in these exact words) if I think it’s possible I’d get back together with her. And I’m not 100% sure, so that’s what I tell her, which is even more exactly the kind of thing she doesn’t want to hear. After it’s already said, I realize she’s focused on the point-oh-oh-oh-oh-one possibility she’ll get her heart returned to her via the ass end of a meat grinder. K__ would have to show she wants to make some pretty radical changes that I haven’t seen even a hint of a tiptoe towards. Not the assurance B__ needed either. I think she’s looking for something more like, “even if she showed up with a winning lottery ticket, a totally believable apology, a six-figure job, and a bulk jar of Prozac, I’d tell her to get her filthy shadow the hell off my doorstep.”

The conversation went on for about forty-five minutes, the whole thing an emotional mine-field. I realized I was through telling people I love what they want to hear, and that the likely end result would be that I end up both divorced and broken up with B__ before it’s said and done. Interestingly, I’m not in the least tempted to change my mind. Being alone sucks. A lot. But you can take some minor comfort in knowing you’ve got lots of company. Become someone’s gimp, and people just point and laugh.

Today, I met with (wait for it) my wife’s boyfriend’s wife. It is a sure sign of how fucked up our culture can be that such a sentence could even be written, let alone be so completely true.

I’ve heard it said more than once, “no matter how hot she may look to you now, someone, somewhere is tired of putting up with her shit.” C__ could be the poster-girl as far as I’m concerned — tall, beautiful, with a body that’d make you question the legitimacy of her supposed motherhood to two kids. I’ve heard stories that she’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she made it through law school alright, and I didn’t detect her hitting any speed-bumps during our little chat today. K__ herself has repeatedly pointed out how lucky T__ was to snag such a catch, and I wonder what in the hell he’s smoking that his own lawn looked anything but the greenest on the block. It’s probably neither fair nor appropriate to compare his to mine, but it’s also unavoidable. I was plenty happy thank you very much, so I don’t want it to sound like I’m slagging on the woman I chose to marry. It’s just that from where I sit, it’s his blade that could do with the sharpening.

Frankly, that very detail, though on the periphery of my own troubles, continues to haunt me even now. Since I know that him choosing my wife over his own is preposterous (again, no disrespect meant), and I know that both of them repeatedly denied that anything (well, much) serious was going on, doesn’t that logically lend some credibility to the claim? At least, in absence of further evidence?

Also, I learned during our talk today that they are officially, publicly dating now. I suppose that’s a good thing. It has long been my fear that their tryst was purely sexual (at least for T__, whether he was aware of it or not), and that once his lust had been thoroughly quenched, he’d pull a standard asshole maneuver and “suddenly” realize he could do “better”. This concern is so strong, and stretches back so far, that when I called his cell phone all those months ago to confront him, the message I left wasn’t threatening or anything like that — it was to ask as nicely as I knew how that he be careful with her. I’m not sure if he’d even know what I meant — and it’s another matter entirely whether he’d oblige me if he did.

I told C__ today that I’d hoped to have my gut instincts validated, since K__ never really came clean about anything. She’s clung on to a fleeting shred of innocence all along as far as I’m concerned. She stopped denying, but she didn’t start admitting either. Apparently that’s been T__’s game-plan too, so instead of some idea of when temptation turned to actual sin, I just got more hints and speculation.

…

This evening when I picked I__ up, I told K__ we needed to revisit our financial arrangement. I expected some token resistance, but she agreed, at least in principle. Everyone who cares about me wants to know why it is that I’m sustaining her lifestyle, and I’ve run out of answers. As the months have drug on, it’s gotten a lot worse. The initial logic went something like this: As a married couple, everything is justifiably shared, including the household income, regardless of who brings it home. True, we’d separated, but the final goal was (supposedly) reconciliation, and it wouldn’t make much sense for me to say that out of one side of my mouth while cutting her off financially with the other. Now that divorce is looking like the obvious end-point, all that needs to be reevaluated. Badly. And soon.

Last week, K__ took I__ on a road trip to Florida with T__ and his two kids to visit grandparents. He’s from money, or at least a lot more money than I’m from (something is greater than nothing), and I think they’ve got a vacation house. I’m not familiar with the exact details, and I like it that way.

I missed him terribly even though I basically spent the entire time camped out at B__’s house getting a too-much-too-soon taste of cohabitation in her ~650 sq ft one bedroom. The trip and calendar worked out that I had I__ for Easter weekend.

So, B__, I__, and I hung out downtown soaking in some of the most beautiful weather we see in this part of the world. We participated in the city egg-hunt kid-fest that, had it been indoors instead of at a city park, would have easily violated fire code. The volunteers didn’t so much hide eggs as sow them seed-like in the grass and mulch. The result, if it wasn’t already predicable, was repeated several times throughout the day in case you missed it: 1-2-3- GO! and a hundred little kids are set loose all at once to pick their by-age-group corner of the park clean in about ten seconds. Locusts would marvel at the lack of restraint and table manners. This was followed inevitably by tears as the slower, shyer kids came to the realization there was nothing left to find, their baskets as empty as they’d been during the half hour they spent waiting in line — a line that had no discernible purpose to begin with. Then, if this didn’t strike you as pandemonium already, parents would begin calling the names of their little ones, unable to bear being out of eye-contact for fifteen seconds. As the parents invaded the kids-only space, the wee ones would be further lost in a sea of fast-moving legs and still-echoing cries of the tearful candyless.

All-in-all, great fun, I must say. I__ found five eggs and (as far as I know) didn’t have to throw a single elbow to keep them. We got lunch and generally had a blast. It wasn’t long after arriving at B__’s place for a break before I__ asked if we could spend the night. Sharp little fucker. How’d he know we’d been shacked up all week?

We gave each other a knowing grin and worked out sleeping logistics. After cooking out with the neighbors, a bath, storytime, and a night-night phonecall to mom (wherein I was immediately ratted out) he slept like a brick. I moved him to the couch a few hours later and I don’t think I’ve been able to do that without waking him up since he was an infant. Not even then usually.

This morning at brunch, who should we run into but C__, T__’s ex in the booth behind us with her kids — the ones I__ spent last week in Florida with. R__ town is small enough, I knew I’d run into her eventually, and I knew I’d be unable to resist asking some tough questions when I did. She gave me her card, and I’m looking forward to it with a kind of morbid curiosity.

As is usually the case, by the time I get my chance, I’ve already given up caring, and now it’s kindof like finding out the answers to a test that’s already been graded, on material I had no interest in absorbing in the first place.

Speaking of morbid, B__’s grandfather died Friday and I’m attending the funeral tomorrow. I’ll probably meet her mom and an assortment of other relatives. As much as I’m completely unready, I do want to be there for her. The whole affair will be impossible to keep light and casual, and upon reflection, that’s probably fitting given that everything about the relationship so far has been exactly that.