I will own that I have high expectations for people. It is something I wish I could overcome. I am still surprised when I find out that friends who I thought liked me have been talking mad poop about me behind my back, or that my family members are thieves and have been hiding their stolen loot in my house. When I meet someone new, I always hold them to a high standard; that standard gets lowered as their shortcomings unravel piece by revealing piece. I do have trouble maintaining friendships because I just can’t respect or support most of my so-called friends’ morally bankrupt actions. I’m not sure whether this outlook is a fault of mine, or a defense mechanism that protects me from having too many broken people in my life. I did however hold my ex-husband to an even higher standard. He has been the only person for whom I have made exceptions, and to whom I have given ridiculous amounts of pride-swallowing forgiveness.
I always wondered why things that should have been happy milestones in our life always felt emotionally paused – like my life was on hold. I never truly enjoyed our accomplishments, and I was always surprised that numbness was my reaction. Sometimes an overwhelmingly sick feeling of wrongness would fill my body. I can remember, last September, my ex and I were on vacation. It should have been a happy time. I was kissing him and this feeling of gut-wrenching discomfort cramped my stomach. I always felt that feeling when I tried to date a guy I didn’t like, and it struck me as odd that I was feeling it now with my husband after 15 years of marriage.
I also remember feeling this way just before I got married. I figured that I must have some warped intimacy issues that I needed to overcome. I hadn’t felt that feeling in so long, it stunned me and got me wondering, “Why now?” My ex had recently pulled me through an unfair amount of hell, not realizing at the time how much damage his actions caused me. I added his new betrayal to the long list of things that drove me absolutely crazy.
These are in no particular order:
1. His speeding was overly annoying and reckless. He would tailgate and cut off everyone on the road. If someone asked him to slow down, it would just make him drive faster. I would wish for him to get a speeding ticket so he could see that the rules applied to him too.
2. His flatulence. He had no respect for others and would openly fart anywhere thinking it was the funniest thing ever. The only thing I felt was that it was really sick and humiliating to me personally.
3. His eating habits resulting in his self inflicted depression. He would eat and eat crap upon crap, and then complain that he had no energy and felt fat. Well duh…..
4. His hygiene was something I wished he would take more pride in. He would only shave like every four days and he didn’t have that sexy stubble that some men have – his is sparse and light so it looked like his face was always greasy. Showering was another challenge for him.
5. His butt crack was always showing. I would jump behind him and cover his back, so people wouldn’t have to see and I wouldn’t have to be embarrassed.
6. This is the most annoying one of all. His laziness was over-the-top. He did absolutely nothing to help me keep our home in order. He would only contribute to the mess because he was unable to pick up after himself. He couldn’t even put his dirty clothes in the hamper – he would throw them on the ground beside it. He never put the lid back on the toothpaste, so I would make a point to buy the ones that had attached lids (I wish they did that for milk).
7. His disregard for my feelings was painful. I would ask for help around the house, and his reply would be, “Well, I work.” I would say, “Well, I work too,” and he would say, “Well, you don’t work as much as I do.” Such a jerk. He never did anything to help me – really, his idea of work was always half-hearted and crappy.
8. His inability to grow the heck up. You would think, that as you get older, you would mature past the 14-year-old boy with A.D.D... but not my ex. Reasoning with him was a torturous annoyance with irritating results.
9. The flip-flopping. He couldn’t ever make a meaningful change in his life. He would say he wanted to change so desperately – after a month or so, he would flop back to his old self again. It made it very hard for me to respect or trust him.
You could be thinking to yourself, “Gosh this girl is harsh,” but put yourself in my shoes. I had to put up with this amount of crap, year after year, with no improvement or desire to be better. It would weigh heavily on anyone.
I had pulled myself emotionally away from my ex and unknowingly opened my heart to new possibilities. All of the wasted years and missed opportunities for true happiness over the past 15 years makes me incapable of wasting any more time. Choosing to live in sin with Bingley was, in so many words, exactly what I needed in my life.
Another thing that is really interesting is that I didn’t know what I was missing till I felt the undeniable love that was customized just for me. All of the things I wish I had felt (or thought I should be feeling) in my last life, I feel now with Bingley. It is like my body has awakened, and I can feel all of the things I thought you should feel when you‘re married. It was cruel of me to expect those things from my ex because he wasn’t designed for me. It’s such a blessing and a surprise, that even after my long marriage and my over-the-hill age, Bingley and I still have so many firsts that are just ours. I thought that ship had sailed. It’s never too late to change that ship’s direction…
~Jane
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