When it's over

It’s the question I heard way more times than I wanted to after I broke up with my ex-fiancé. Every time I talked about it I would say “sometime in December…” because Christmas is so special to me and I love to have a tree and go all out in decorating and such. It was the second Christmas we were spending in his parents converted garage, that Christmas symbolized a broken promise.

Let’s go back, therapeutically. He couldn’t keep a job, union work so I understood that winter was going to be slow… but he’d been that way since before my birthday so paying bills was getting rougher. We lost the apartment and moved into his parents garage/room/space/kill-me-now-area. I was under a huge amount of stress being there and that Christmas was ROUGH to say the least. He promised me that we would be out of there before the next Christmas, that I would have a tree and a good time… I believed him. I had no reason not to, this was someone I loved, who loved me, who I cared about and we were engaged… so it was going to be so, right???

Wrong.

Living with someone else’s family is a train wreck… it goes in slow motion and there’s nothing you can do to help making things better.

It hit the next Christmas and low and behold, I was still there. I had just gotten back in contact with an old friend (who, if he wasn’t so a-sexual I would’ve totally left the boyfriend for, like in a HEARTBEAT… gah) who reminded me of what I was like when I had fun. This was about as close as I’ve ever come to cheating. NOTHING I REPEAT NOTHING happened between me and this friend … though… don’t think I didn’t want it to… cause… whoa… yea… anyways. He reminded me of what I was like when I felt good about myself, when I was able to care about other people (and not just about paying someone else’s bills for effing video games). So I started eating better, working out (kinda lol), going for walks and really getting into my teaching credential. I realized when I stepped out of myself and my worries that I could see a life without the fiancé, and it was a good life. 

I started looking elsewhere for teaching jobs, not just where my POS car would take me from his parents’ house. I planned on moving, and did, in May of the following year.

Those months between Thanksgiving and Easter were tumultuous at best. He knew I was pulling away and would occasionally make moves to show he was “looking” for work… he wasn’t. I put a software on the computer to monitor usage because I wanted to believe him, deep down I wanted to work it all out with him. After all, I had invested close to five years of my time, emotions, energy and life with this person. I think that’s what makes breaking up an angry proposition. You feel like you lost, you lost the time, the feelings, everything. Almost equivalent to being robbed. Whenever A asks if I think his ex was mad at him I say yes, you were together 8 friggin years… that’s a huge waste of time if you knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere, and even though she was a dirty cheating whore she had a right to be mad at him for wasting her time. So yea. Checked the software one night after a day out with friends (cause I made that a priority again, rather than sulking in the room watching him play video games) I was on a high, we all had plans and how our lives were going to turn out, and then… then I clicked that file folder. I went out for the day while he focused on “job searching”, he kissed me goodbye and said he was going to try to “help us move forward together”. I was so damn stupidly hopeful… He did start on google searching “jobs in ******”, I can remember smiling, then I clicked for the next screen shot… it was video game site… I scrolled through the screen shots… disappointment set in and I, I gave up. THAT was the pin point moment when I told myself I needed to leave. I spent the next day (as our agreement was I took the Saturday, he got the Sunday) following up with jobs out of state. Running away. I booked a flight to Utah and interviewed within the month. 

By the following month I was packed and moving out. He started working with a friend of his dads and the plan started to shift to “come with me, I’ll go first, then when I get set up you can come too”… again… stupidly hopeful.

That job barely lasted a week.

We ended.

I’m sometimes happily married now with a baby, my dogs, my cats, and a house (home ownership is highly overrated btw).

I hear that he’s married with a step-kid and supposedly twins on the way still living with his parents. 

His brother had a kid, his sister popped one out just after graduating high school (she had PCOS so I can’t hate on her thinking she couldn’t get pregnant, just expected her to make more of herself), and yea. Life goes on.

It’s better now. More for me than him in all reality and that sucks cause I didn’t wish anything but the best for him. He needed it.

The point is, all of that and when I thought it was over and when I “knew” it was time to look for something more wasn’t December… it wasn’t that broken promise. It wasn’t when he disappointed me AGAIN…

It was when I realized that him “providing” and working to make sure that we were a team and I wasn’t pulling all the weight (being fair, I never expected him to pull all the weight either, I always had a job that paid my bills –usually all the bills, with TWO jobs) and totally stressed out and unhealthy. I wanted him to take care of me the same ways I took care of him. Found a journal the other day and was going through it (before I burned it – cause why think about it) and found where we had fought and I had cried because he said something along the lines of I’m not your workhorse. THAT right there is when I knew we weren’t going anywhere. THAT was the snowball that started the avalanche. That happened before 4^th of July… and my comment was “freedom… needs to come sooner”… I was trapped and I knew it, even if it was just subconscious.

So this therapeutic post is just to say, when it’s over, get out. There is no point in extending the hurt and disappointment when you’re in a one-sided relationship. You know it’s over. Stop trying to hang on, stop trying to “believe in us”.

I’m not saying don’t TRY, most relationships are worth the natural work of a relationship. I’m saying PAY ATTENTION. If you’re the only one DOING the work… go work with someone else, someone worth the work and time and energy and DESERVING of your love and commitments.

Are there days that I miss the ex? Yea, he was fun for the most part.

Are there days where I feel like I could’ve worked harder? Sure

Are there days that I know I’m better off without him… every.fucking.day. No hesitation. I’m a better person without him in my life. Daughter, sister, friend, mother, wife, coworker, all of it. BETTER now that I’m not HIS.

“Leave. Just leave. Say your goodbyes and move forward with your life.” – journal 5/16/2010