You've Got Mail....Fuck. He's Ugly.

This blog has taken many forms over the course of the last few years.  What once started as a blog about my goal to run a half marathon turned into a blog about my divorce and how I went from a devastated blindsided wife to a strong, resilient single mom.  And now there is a new phase in my life I have entered into and that is Dating.

I never really "dated" when I was younger.  I didn't go on dates.  It just so happened that the boyfriends I had were people that I knew and we just started going out and becoming an item.  When I met TGIM (The Guy I Married) we didn't necessarily date.  We just kinda went places together and it was just implied we were boyfriend and girlfriend.

Well, now I'm dating.

My friends convinced me to go on dating websites in hopes of "getting out there" and meeting someone.  After much research I settled on two sites: Plenty of Fish and eHarmony.  POF was free and eHarmony you have to pay for them to match you to the what they say is the right person based off some long questionaire. 
I decided not to use my real picture of POF because any time I did a search men would come up that I worked with and I was less than excited about anyone knowing my business in the dating world.  No, I wasn't Catfishing anyone.  I found a picture of a girl that could be me who was wearing sunglasses and her face was kind of obscured.  My profile on POF was snarky and littered with sarcasm.  I wasn't going to take this online dating seriously, but men messaged me and so began the adventure into "Meet-ups".

I call them Meet-ups because they're not dates.  I am putting on my cute jeans, cute shoes, my signature cami and black blazer, expensive lip gloss and meeting at stranger somewhere.  Half the time I didn't bother even shaving my legs or armpits because I knew none of these Meet-ups would pan out.  Why?  Gut instinct.  I have some of the best gut instinct in the gut instinct business. 

Just like when I was buying my house I could tell from the pictures and little blurb about it whether I would like it or not, I am the same with the men on these sites.  You don't have to give me much for me to know whether I am going to like you or not.  It's mostly NOT.

So, in these next several posts get ready to meet the men of the online dating world.

Epilogue

After two years of arguing, mounds of papers, hiring and firing of lawyers, hours of mediation and thousands of dollars in attorney's fees it was a phone call on a Monday morning from the secretary at my attorney's office to announce that I was officially divorced that ended this saga.  I thanked her for the information.  She told me to go celebrate.  I assured her I would and as I hung up the phone I realized I had no feelings of happiness or remorse about the news I was just given. 

You see, I was "divorced" back in November of 2011 when He sat across from me on the lanai and told me he didn't want to be married any more.  That's when my marriage was over.  It was that night that I found Her picture on his phone and it was then my marriage was irretrievably broken.  It was all those nights that I would call from work and he would be on the phone with her but lie and say he was talking to someone else at eleven o'clock at night.  It was the phone calls to her and me screaming to leave my family alone but she never hearing a word of what I said.  My marriage was over when He stood in the garage of our home and told me he was in love with Her and all the other things he said to me that repeatedly tore my heart into shreds.  I didn't need a judge or a lawyer or two years and a Final Judgement to tell me my marriage was broken.

The day I signed my Special Interrogatories, I had to answer if my marriage was irretrievably broken and then give a brief explanation as to why.  Did it matter at that point?  I had gotten all the way to the final settlement, did it really matter why I was there? Regardless of what I put in that explanation box would it have made a difference in the judge's decision on the Final Settlement?  My lawyer filled in in for me:  "Alienation of Affection".  Essentially, he had an affair.

With it all said and done now, I am moving on with my life.  I am going to date and see how that goes.  The next part of this blog just might be some pretty funny stories about these first dates that I go on.  Stay tuned!

Maybe I'm Too Headstrong

"Madness" by Muse

I have probably listened to the song "Madness" by Muse over 500 hundred times in the last three months. 

Arriving at Change

Everything changes.  Every second, every minute something is changing whether it is for the better or for the worst and it's my job to know how to adapt to it.  Change is something that doesn't come easy for me.  Changes in my life are things I fight and I resist them constantly. What I have today may become what I had tomorrow.  Things change, often spontaneously.  People and circumstances come and go.  My life didn't stop when I slipped into depression after He left and everything in my life changed.  It moved rapidly and rushed from calm to chaos in a matter of seconds.

Sometimes the shortest split second in time changes the direction of our lives. He might have thought his seemingly innocuous event didn't rattle my whole world. But it took my entire life and swiveled it and flipped it upside down on the strength of that unpredictable event.  What was mine?  The day he uttered the words, "I'm in love with her."

However bad that situation was then and how I felt about it, it changed.   I have come to realize that every ending is the beginning of something else.  Every exit is an entry somewhere else.  Sometimes life closes doors because it’s time to move forward.  And that’s a good thing because I probably wouldn't move unless circumstances forced me to.  My best lessons were learned at the worst times and from the worst points in my life.  From that, though, I have learned so much about myself and about how much I have changed as a person from two years ago when I found out about the affair and filed for divorce to the months after and the angry person I was as I dealt with the new life I was living.  Then the year and a half I spent completely removed from myself as I fought tooth and nail to get my marital settlement.  And, now in the last four months I have changed again.

I'm not the same person I was four months ago, last month, or even a week ago.  In order to change and maintain peace and serenity in my life, I had to find the strength to laugh every day.  I had to find it in myself to make others smile too.  I had to stop stressing over things I couldn't change.  I had to  live simply, love generously, speak truthfully, work diligently.  And even if I fall short, I keep going because every moment gives me a new beginning and a new ending.  I get a second chance, every second.  I just have to take it and make the best of it.  I wasn't making the best of my second chances.  I was taking them for granted.  I often felt like quitting, but I had to remember that sometimes things have to go very wrong before they can be right.  I had to live through my very worst, to arrive at my very best.

Kicked Myself in the Ass

I knew it was time for me to do something because I couldn't linger in my sadness anymore.  I couldn't stand myself and I knew other people couldn't stand me either.  So, along with my list of things that I needed to actively do to get myself going again like settle my divorce, go back to school and exercise there were also many, many mental things that coincided with that list.

I took my usual seat on my lanai one night after the girls had gone to bed in late January and compiled another list:

 things I needed to give up in order to be happy

1.  Excuses - I had an excuse for everything. And, I refused to let go of anything.  I had a reason for hanging on and digging my nails in.  I had an excuse and I was ready to pounce and fight and argue if someone was to challenge me on it.

2.  Doing Nothing - I was basically like a hamster running around in its wheel.  It might have looked like I was doing something but I really was just going around in circles.  It was exhausting.  I had to decide to change my perspective.  Change my mind from negative to positive thinking.  I had to stop being filled with insecurity and doubt.  I had to realize that I needed to take an active part in my life.

3.  Over thinking and Worrying about EVERYTHING - I was good at this.  In fact, I was the best.  My fears had me looking too deep into things, it created problems, it didn't fix them.  I would think and think and think, and thought myself right out of happiness a thousand times over, and never once into it.  Worrying didn't take away tomorrow’s troubles, it took away today’s peace and potential for me.

4. Not Giving the People Around me a Chance - I regret this every day.  I still regret it even after I have had months to learn from all the things I should have been paying attention to months and months ago.  But, when you know better you do better.  I know better now.  I will do better and I have opened my ears and everything that was said was right.

5.  My Pride - “A proud person is always looking down on things and other people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something beautiful that is above you.” CS Lewis.  Or maybe instead of "pride" I could just say "being an absolute bitch".  Either way, I knew I needed to give up my pride.  I wasn't going to be able to stay in my home.  I wasn't going to be able to keep my car.  I wasn't going to be able to maintain the lifestyle I had and oh well. My happiness and The Marbles happiness was more important.  Once I came to that conclusion, I felt lighter and I seemed nicer.

So, I noticed that when I stopped doing all the wrong things I gave the right things a chance to start.  It hasn't been easy and it's something that I have had to be conscious of every day.  But, I also have little reminders here and there that I am doing good.  I take the time to tell myself that I am proud of the accomplishments that I have made.  They might not be big ones, but to me they're huge.

My Marathon

These last few weeks have felt like the end of a marathon.  TGIM and I have communicated effectively on so many levels that it amazes me that we weren't able to do this years ago.  The dynamic that we shared as a married couple to get things done re-emerged with the negotiations of the settlement agreement and it was almost like old times yet we were on opposite teams this time.

It's lonely standing on the sidelines without your Head Coach.  It's hard staring across the field and seeing him standing on the other side with his own game plan and not having a clue what his strategy is but knowing you have to be one step ahead and two steps faster to beat him at the game.  Unfortunately, that is what the end of this divorce turned into was a game of who could out negotiate the other.  If you know me and you know my debating skills, you can bet I won.

However, as He and I went back and forth with four revisions of the Marital Settlement and close to fifteen revisions to the Parenting Plan, I have to admit that neither one of us yelled, cursed, talked over, put down, degraded, argued loudly or fought about what the other wanted.  It was as if we both decided to just lay down our swords.  Me more so than him.

So, when it was all said and done, I finally signed the last of my divorce papers on Friday.  It was the final chapter in this long drawn out process.  The secretary at my lawyers office asked me how I felt about it and I told her I was glad it's over.  I guess I don't really have any more feeling toward it because TGIM and I have been living apart for two years now and it feels like we have been unmarried for that long anyway.  It was just a piece of paper that was legally keeping us married and several financial decisions that needed to be decided.  I guess it was just the decision making process of being on separate teams that struck me as being sad.  But, frankly, the fact that my marriage is over and in just a couple weeks when the judge signs the final judgement and I will no longer be married to him has no positive or negative feelings on me. 

Up until about a week ago I felt that I needed to say a lot of things to both TGIM and C to clean the slate and bring closure to the part of my life where I maybe didn't handle relationships all that well.  I have spent a lot of time over the last several months determining what it is that makes me happy and how I need to apply those things to my life.  I laid the groundwork for how I need to treat myself, my children and other people so I can be a happy, productive person.  I need to show up in my life every day and participate in it in a positive way.  That is something I am fully aware that for many years I never did.  I don't think if I said that I was sorry to TGIM and that I was completely absent for several years of our marriage it would matter because what is done is done. I can't go back and change the past and as much as I would like to know then what I know now, I only can learn from those past experiences and choose not to do them again with anyone else.  Unfortunately, when I met C that realization had not come yet and he didn't quite stand a chance with me.  With him, I wasn't ready to move on in a relationship and I have a lot to say to him about that.  He has let me know that he has no interest in hearing any of what I have to say, and that's fine.  I have made peace with the fact that I was a different person who had some unresolved issues and misdirected anger. I have dealt with those things and will not let them define me anymore.  I don't have to apologize or explain myself anymore to two people whom I loved to complete this process in my life.

I am closing this book.  I putting it on the shelf.  I am never going to read it again.
I am different now.  I am neither defined my by marriage nor my break-ups.  I am stronger because of what I have gone through.  I am divorced.  

The Clearing.....

I was told that I have been carrying a sack of rocks uphill for months now and that I will continue to carry that sack for another six to nine months.  That was a good analogy because the weight of the stress I have been carrying does feel that heavy.  I was also told that there is a light ahead and that I should be able to see it.  And, I can.  It's there.  I'm optimistic I will reach the clearing in fewer than six months and drop the sack of rocks and be free from the burdens that have weighed me down for the past few years.

About two years ago, I wrote here about the five stages of grief.  Divorce takes you through those stages in almost textbook fashion. I came out of the grief a different person.  I was so angry.  I was mean.  I was hostile.  I was ready to fight at the drop of a hat.  I didn't take anyone's feelings into consideration.  I completely blocked off my heart from letting any ounce of compassion out or in.  While doing that I lost the person that I was.  I allowed myself to get involved in situations that weren't beneficial to me.  I was irresponsible at times financially.  I got caught up in relationships that were unproductive and hurtful.  I lost sight of my purpose and my place on this planet.

Then one night about a month ago I was sitting out on my lanai where I do all my thinking and I had this huge realization.  I was sitting on the same spot on the couch that I had sat two years prior staring down the street after He left me hoping His red truck would turn down the road to come home, but it never did.  I was sitting on the same couch where I had cried to my Mom, my sister, Autumn, myself because my life had fallen apart and all I wanted to do was magically put it back together.  And, in that moment I realized that being angry and bitter and sad and upset these last two years has taken me to the same place - that couch.  I was right where I was two years ago.  Only nothing better had happened to me, in fact things had only gotten worse.  My house was now in foreclosure, I had not one failed relationship but two because the person I had started dating didn't work out with either, my divorce was ugly and expensive and deadlocked, my children were living in flux, I was broke, I had no other skills to better my life past the skills I had that day.  So, I just decided I was done.  That was it. 

I wrote down a list of the things that I needed to change.  There were many choices I needed to make, however the one choice that was going to dictate how the rest of that list played out was my choice to be happy.  All along I thought that a house is what made me happy, or money, or a nice car, or a solid marriage, or a boyfriend that took me places.  Then I realized I had lost all of that and I had three girls relying on me to toughen up and figure shit out. 

The next morning I drafted a settlement offer to Him that was fair and that I knew would quickly resolve this divorce.  He and I talked on the phone, minus lawyers, like we had always been able to do and negotiated between each other until we were able to reach a deal that we felt we could bring to the table and discuss with our lawyers and agree to.  Neither one of us came out winning, but in the end I got what I wanted.  I pleaded my case with Him on why I felt I was entitled to the things I was asking for.  I think he finally realized what I was saying and over the many, many years that Him and I were together the one thing we were always able to do was talk and figure shit out.  I wish we could have done that years ago.

Once the settlement was done and getting fine tuned, I contacted Florida Gulf Coast University because it was time for me to go back to college.  It's been time for a while, but I needed to do this.  FGCU gave me some good pointers about their admission process and because I haven't been in school for a long time, they advised me to start at Edison State College and finish up my prereq's before starting back into a degree program.  I am all registered at Edison and I am just waiting on my residency to be approved and my financial aid.  I will go meet with an adviser and next thing you know, I will be a college student!  Exciting!

Also on my list was to make sure I didn't spend another minute moping around in front of my Marble's and what a difference that made.  My demeanor changed a million percent and then their demeanor changed.  The laughter in my house is awesome.  I love being with my girls.  Now, I look forward to being home with them when before, I didn't have the energy to do anything with them.

And finally, I am doing stuff for me.  I have to.  I have neglected myself for far too long.  My hope is that I am going to see someone a year from now and they are going to look at me and remember the sad, miserable, uptight, wrapped around the axle Bridget they once knew and be happy for me that I chose to finally get off the porch and start living again.