After receiving the proposal response and an email of justifications that followed last night, I sat stunned and speechless. The entire night, actually, during which I repeatedly awoke to thoughts already in progress, as my mind chewed and churned through the situation, the scenarios, the options and the outcomes.
On the last waking cycle of the night, before arising, I did so with a renewed sense of resolve. A resolve I’ve felt a time or two throughout this process, like an adaptation or adjustment to a new level of acceptance.
When the phone rang recently, on my drive home, I avoided responding, and a brief text exchange occurred, during which I recognized the same pattern I’d experienced and grown to dread for so many years. One that promoted my use if “Basket Case” as a ring tone, followed as well by a clip from “Syncronicity II”, with Joe Jackson’s “My House” as a close contender for the next itteration. Through this exchange, I remembered a period of history where a sibling of hers just “went dark” for a few years as a means of avoiding the onslaught of what they felt had gown to become an unbearable volume of anxiety, depression and complaining.
That sibling did this disappearing act a couple of times, as had others, and I understand now how they got there. I tried my best to protect and defend, as a good partner was supposed to do, and as I was literally reminded I should and chastised for not doing.
The kids convey very similar feelings and experiences as well. The level of damage being done to them can only be offset by the skills and coping mechanisms I can provide for them, and the sanity and stability I can ensure they have, until they’re out of that situation too.
This morning, I awoke prepared to accept a number of inevitable.
I’m accepting that keeping them in their home for the next 3.5 years means more to me than the complete chaos and drama that would ensue with a home sale and move. They need that foundation and grounded experience. For the time being. Once they are 18 they can and will be encouraged to make choices of their own, including where they want to reside.
I’m accepting that I gain more by closing this chapter and accepting the negative financial impacts by conceding to her insistence that the mortgage interest and property tax write-offs are her’s to claim for 2018. They’re not if we’re being fair. I paid them all these years, including the last 5 of separation, by withholding income taxes in order to do so. I’m only protected from that tax debt by the write-off. But you know what… fuck it. She’s a selfish self-centered narcissist who doesn’t really give a shit about my own ability to sustain myself, so much so that even the assurance that I’d pay any tax debt for 2018 she might incur in exchange for that write-off would not be enough. She’s a perpetual victim, and this is her stage. She can have it. I need to walk away, for my sanity.
Although I would prefer to decouple 100% and have absolutely no further need to engage, which keeping the house prolongs, the fact is that we will have minor children through 2022, so the house isn’t what keeps us having to engage. The kids are far more constant of a collaboration. I will ride this out, for their sake. I have already. I’m up for doing so. However, I’ll be distancing myself dramatically, going forwards. As have her siblings. I’m going as dark as possible.
I really wish this were not the case. I think my posts have amply expressed the contention I’ve felt in coming to terms with so much of this. I wish we could be more in harmony. I wish we could agree to disagree. I wish we could just get along. I wish we could feed all the people who need food. I wish we could work together towards resolving climate change. I wish money didn’t influence politics. I wish we could teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.
I’m out of wishes. And that’s ok because I’m out of time. The last candle of hope has exhausted its wick, melted to the core, and burnt out. There are no more wishes getting made, and just a smoldering acceptance of the ensuing darkness.
"One of these days, one of these days,
I'm gonna turn the car around,
And keep on going 'til I lose track of time..."
- Joe Jackson