The transition from Mom to Asshole has been a quick one. It's one I have not noticed and didn't realize it was even taking place, but it's pointed out to me on a regular basis. No, the Marble doesn't come out and say I'm an asshole but her attitude toward me is one of utter disdain.
Sometimes I get caught up wallowing in my own sadness that I forget to mention there are three Marble's that have had their entire world pulled out from underneath them. Three Daddy's Girls have gone from seeing Him every day to sporadic visits here and there when I have to go to work.
I see my Marble's every day. Even on the nights that I work I pick them up from school and in the mornings when I return home from work I sit in my den on my cute little red Ikea chair and watch out the window waiting for Him to bring them home from an overnight at his house. Blue Marble always exits his car and runs directly into my arms. I kiss her forehead and she happily marches into the house to shower for school. She refuses to shower at his house or let him pack her a lunch. The other two Marble's do not show this same affection toward me when they are leaving Him. I can see the pain in their faces when they have to say goodbye. It seems like each time they have to leave Him their hugs get longer and tighter. Yellow Marble is the youngest and perhaps the one who most craved the bonding that she had with him. It's something that I can't duplicate. It's a bond that she had with him from the time she was a baby. I can see in her face her desire to have him back in the house but also knowing that him coming back brings anger. She puts her fingers in her ears when there is yelling so she doesn't have to hear it. She used to be the happiest child. She was adaptable to any situation. Now, her tantrums are frequent and her need to be held and cuddled makes her attached to me all the time. I don't think I'm an asshole to her. I think she just goes with the flow and whatever someone says that sounds good at the time she will agree with them but for the most part she doesn't want to talk about anything.
I'm the asshole to the Pink Marble and it's apparent to everyone who is around us. Pink Marble and I have always butted heads. She is intelligent beyond her years academically and tries to interject that intelligence into her every day life. This causes the problem of her thinking she knows everything. A trait typical in her age but one that needs to be corrected when she thinks she knows everything about affairs and divorce.
I am on the fence about how much I should divulge about the situation. She knows a lot because unfortunately when he was still living here she got tossed around in the fighting and was able to understand what was going on though she didn't thoroughly comprehend the magnitude of what was to come. Now that the situation is brimming over with tension, hostility and pain she has found that blaming me for all the worlds problems somehow negates the fact that her dad left our family for a girl he dated he dated in high school and thus had an affair on his wife (her mom) after a good twelve years of marriage.
He brings this woman around my Marble's and all of a sudden Pink Marble sees unicorn, cotton candy and rainbows. Suddenly, the woman who, after given two chances by me to leave my husband the FUCK ALONE decided it wasn't her responsibility to do that kept answering His calls to her knowing his marriage was fragile. I still believe that had she been a decent woman and hung up the phone and let Him figure things out with me, then him and I wouldn't be in this situation. And, I know this from experience. I know what it's like to have a hurting wife come to you and say, "Back off". I know what it feels like to then have anger for being told to back off and how it feels to let that anger stew. I also know how it feels to back off and allow a marriage that was balancing on sand attempt to reform and turn into stone. It can't be done when a third person is involved. It took me a while to fully grasp what I might have been doing in my friendship with one person, was causing pain in my other friendship. I am a good person. I never want to hurt anyone least of all people who I consider family. It was a no brainer for me to step out of the picture for months to allow these two friends of mine the chance to repair or sever this marriage. However it was going to play out, it was not my place to be involved.
I wished that this woman would have done the same thing because then I wouldn't have one Marble thinking I'm the Asshole because I want her home on a weekend that his skank was is in town. What Pink Marble fails to understand and I know that she is too young to really know how a marriage works but in explaining it to her, Pink Marble needs to understand that when a wife/mother says to a woman who is compromising the marriage to get the fuck away for a while, that woman should do just that. But, here's the thing, this woman couldn't because she had no one to go back to . She failed at her own marriage and then decided to come fuck with mine. In the process of her fucking with my marriage she also meddled her way into fucking with my Marble's and a mothers love is something fierce (isn't it Sandra?) and I will be God Damned if I allow my Marble's any additional seconds in the presence of that Home Wrecker than the court is going to allow. Quite frankly I hope the court sees what he has done and sees how he has exposed our Marble's to this terrible situation.
In the meantime, while I am left picking up the pieces of my marriage, I am also left trying to convince my beautiful, round faced, blue eyes hidden in black framed glasses Pink Marble that my love for her is not conditional on anything. I want her to know that it's ok to like this woman or like the fact that he is happy with her. But, it's not ok to think I'm an Asshole because I don't. It's also not ok to mull around the house with a scowl on your face because you can't spend more weekends with him. The weekends he doesn't have the Marble's he has been flying to Michigan and the weekends he does have them this woman is in town. I am sure they are having a lovely bonding time with her being in the picture. I am sure they are on the road to healing when they have to share a small condo with a complete stranger.
But, I'm the asshole even though their rooms are tidy when they get home, their lunches are made, their clothes are clean, there is food in the fridge. Pink Marble has a bag of Teryaki beef jerky waiting for her in the morning. Yellow Marble has her milk. Blue Marble her bagels. I know how each one of them likes their lunches and the right way to put them in their bags. I tell them how beautiful they are and how proud I am of them in all the things they have achieved this year. I am their biggest protector when it comes to things that they need to be protected about and I will fight for them whether they want that fight or not. But, somehow, doing these things makes me the Asshole.
I didn't run out on my family for a girl who I met on facebook. I didn't promise my wife i'd work things out and in tears reconcile only to be back in this affair-mode the next day. I didn't grab a gray suitcase and storm out of the house with the Marble's standing there screaming for me not to leave. In fact, I was the one wiping the tears, holding them in my arms and comforting them the entire weekend he left and no one knew where he was.
I'm sick of being the Asshole. I hope one day these Marble's will realize that i was hurting too through all of this. That I was new at divorce just like they are and i was just trying to do the best that I knew how to do at that time. If being the best mom I can be in the wake of my depression gets me one gigantic hug a day, I'd take being called The Asshole because I know my Marble's and they know I love my hugs, and when I have them in my arms they know they're safe. I'll be the Asshole until I am sure that all their needs have been met and I will stop at nothing to protect them from toxic people in their lives.
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