buying newer car induces emotional drama

Who would have thought that buying a new (and by “new,” I mean different) car would bring about such challenging emotions?

Let me explain: The last time I shopped for a car, I was already driving an amazingly cool sports car. I started shopping for my “winter beater” and ended up instead with a fantastic, luxurious sedan that drove like a dream and had nearly every feature I could have imagined… For at least the first six months — and maybe then some — I rejoiced every time I got in the car to drive it…but that was more than a decade ago.

This time, I found myself driven to practicality: low gas mileage, cloth seats (at the children’s request, because leather is too hot), older than I would have liked… And, here’s the truth: I resent it. I resent being in a place where I have to focus more on needs than desires, where I don’t have the financial freedom to buy the car I really want, where the cost of a gallon of gas matters, etc. I’m perfectly certain I sound spoiled for saying so. I know there are zillions of people for whom financial realities preclude the thought of vehicle ownership. I know I should be grateful for what I have. But…

As always, when I’m feeling resentful, my thoughts veer back to my ex and our failed relationship, key reasons for my financial situation. Yet, as I continually remind myself, I made these choices. I made each and every single choice that has me where I am. I settled for a house I don’t love because my wasband liked this one the best; I stayed in a job I didn’t love because I felt trapped under the weight of having to support my family single-handedly; and now I’ve settled for a car I don’t love because it seemed like the most practical thing to do.

Yet in the larger scheme of life, I’m trying to stop settling for less than I truly want. I’m working hard emotionally and otherwise to ensure that I can not only provide for the desires of myself and my children, but also allow for them. It’s okay for me to have what I want. When I shop for clothes, I don’t buy it unless I love it. Like just isn’t good enough. I want to use my resources to surround myself with that which I truly love!

To that end, in this old house that wasn’t my first choice, I have transformed spaces and made it warm and inviting, and a safe place to land. Similarly, I will ultimately reconcile myself to the fact that this car is safer for me, more comfortable for my children, road-trip worthy and, ultimately, provides freedom that I haven’t felt for some time. No longer will I literally fear driving out of town.

And so I try to balance, to reconcile, and to heal the rift between what I need and what I desire, between good enough and my ideal, between resentment and gratitude, between failure and success…and I know that this is just another step along my path. And, even when it doesn’t always feel like it right away, I’m pretty sure it’s a step in the right direction.

my shit, your shit

My ex used to describe me as Teflon; nothing sticks. He wanted to push blame and responsibility for everything wrong in our relationship onto me. He also described my personality as swinging wildly between Deepak Chopra and Leona Helmsley. Frankly, I’m actually somewhat proud of that description — it makes me sound such a unique combination of serene and fierce!

Through it all, I developed a great sense of clarity when it came to “his shit” and “my shit.” We all bring it in to relationships, and the best of us own our own baggage.

Yes, I screw up. I don’t always do things right. But if you’re willing to point out to me where I’m going astray, I will happily take stock and try to do right. My ex wanted a mind reader. I went about my business assuming I was being a decent partner until he blew up about my not arriving home before six each evening or some other offense that I might have remedied eons ago, if only I’d known it bothered him. Truth be told, I would have liked to learn how I might have been a better partner to him. It might have helped me in future relationships, as well.

He made interpretations about me and my actions that were so far removed from anything I said or meant or intended that it was crazy-making! In other words, he heard my words or saw my expressions through a filter that had nothing to do with me, but then assumed that meaning was fixed, forgetting that there is intent and tone and nuance to consider.

I was reminded of all this over the weekend, when he picked up the children, criticized my housekeeping and told me I hadn’t created anything in 15 years. It was tempting to tell him about the 130 odd posts here on this blog, among other things. But let him learn the hard way or remain blissfully ignorant. He may still get a rise out of me, but I’m able to care a lot less about it than I used to.

Bottom line: I’ve got plenty of shit. I uncovered a lot of it all by myself. But I sure wish I’d had a partner who could have helped me see, heal and shovel more. And I’m sure hoping I can find someone more encouraging and life affirming, who will let me know directly when I misbehave, with whom to share my future!

where have all my friends gone?

The upheaval in my life in the past year and a half is not limited to divorce, single parenting, quitting a job and starting a new one. It’s social, as well. In fact, I can hear The Jayhawks singing right now…

If you asked me today who my best friends are, I’d list the usual suspects. Most are my single girlfriends (you know who you are), and I’ve been able to reconnect with and lean on these girls much more than when I was trying to manage a family life, especially a deteriorating family life. So there has been a lot of shifting in my friendships, and not all of it as positive as I’d like.

As you might imagine, with small children, much of my family’s socialization was right here in the neighborhood, with other couples who had children of similar ages. Some, I was surprised to find, seem a bit suspicious of me following the split…as though perhaps my ex went on a bit of a public relations campaign before moving several neighborhoods away.

In fact, this PR campaign was confirmed by a local wife over a bottle of wine one night. It wasn’t as though she came out and told me he had done this; rather, she hung around until after the other women had left and literally grilled me. In the process she happened to mention that my ex had been over and told his side of the story. And I doubt he stopped there.

Most adults recognize that there are two sides to every story. I was hoping not to have to air my grievances about certain of my ex’s betrayals, simply because I preferred to take the high road. It was over; the damage was done. Dissing him was not productive. In fact, one neighborhood wife had the grace to say, “We saw in your ex the man you fell in love with.” While I knew it was a lie, I appreciated her generosity and refusal to talk bad about him.

I mentioned other broken relationships in the neighborhood — one of those to whom I was closest moved away and, after having spent several years as an at-home mother, now manages half of the parenting, a long-distance relationship and a full-time job. It’s simply become harder to stay in touch. Another close friend moved to the coast. My neighborhood is a lonelier place than it was before.

There is no question that the disruption inherent in divorce extends beyond the family circle and daily life into broader social circles, often making friends feel as though they have to choose, take sides or spare you the knowledge of the party they held last weekend to which your ex (but not you) was invited. And then there’s the couples vs. singles dynamic, where you’re no longer invited to be part of the group because you’re an odd number or a single or you just aren’t thought of by the well-meaning folks thinking of which couples to invite. Divorce forces those around us into an awkward situation.

Recently, I experienced probably the worst possible incarnation that this dynamic might take — its impact on my children.

One of my daughter’s friends invited her to a backyard bonfire and barbecue. As they sat talking about it, my daughter assumed that her brother and I would also be welcome to attend as a list of neighborhood attendees were rattled off. Whispering ensued. I could hear the girlfriend complaining that they didn’t want so many people. This friend has been known to be manipulative and generally prefers to exclude my son, if at all possible. But it seemed there was more…

Later, when we were alone, I expressed to my daughter that sometimes it was a challenge for me to know how to respond to her friend. She agreed. We talked and, as I uncovered more about this dynamic, I had an intuition and asked:

“Did you friend tell you that her parents don’t like me?”

“Yes,” she confessed.

“When?” I asked.

“Awhile ago.”

“Is that why you haven’t been making plans with her for the past several months?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Does that make you feel uncomfortable around her parents?”

“Yes.”

My stomach dropped. I was, of course, hurt. I have been kind, generous and respectful of this couple. Certainly, we have had moments of difference as it relates to our parenting styles, but I would never exclude them or treat them differently for it. By far, though, pure rage outweighed my sadness. Regardless of what this couple thinks of me (and they’ve made plain their sympathy for my ex), one would think they’d have the discretion to limit what they might say in front of children. And, while I doubt this couple actually said the above verbatim, they need to know how grossly inappropriate and un-friend-like it was for their daughter to say something like this to mine. How dare their words be used to so callously injure my daughter’s self-esteem!

Add another difficult conversation and more social awkwardness to my to-do list…

Update: It should be noted that these friends later told me I’d done the right thing (in getting rid of my ex).

above all, a good roof

Both my home and my psyche are in fixer-upper condition.

I may have mentioned this before, but my ex was not particularly handy around the home. While he stayed home with our young children, familiarity with his surroundings seemed to engender blindness. Case in point: when the roof over his head began to leak, I had to point it out to him. And even though he knew roofers, he never managed to make the appropriate arrangements (which explains all the banging going on up there each day and the $10,000 gap in my finances).

If there was something I wanted done, no matter how simple, I started calling contractors or handymen for bids. When the tree guy came to look at the white ash, his quote was deemed “ridiculous” and my ex began trimming. So I managed to accomplish small improvements in this way. Any cost or investment, no matter how low, was “ridiculous” to my wasband, whose grasp on fiscal and other realities seemed to have eroded over his time at home.

Our kitchen remodel made it to 85% complete…and, six years later, there’s still a list of to-do’s including new back doors, trim, a back splash and a few other details. And the bathroom needs a major remodel and … well, you get the idea.

My psyche is much the same way just now: there are some areas that need anything from a little redecorating or brightening up with fresh flowers to major renovation.

Inside my house, there are improvements on my wish list that I notice every day. Yet I’m repairing the roof first. I can’t see it, except from outside. It won’t affect my daily comfort (aside from during a hard rain). Yet, it’s as my roofer said, “Above all, a good roof.” The roof is the necessary shelter, the fundamental protection that will allow me to take the next necessary steps: a new ceiling, doors and trim. Eventually a bathroom.

Addressing the internal wounds is somewhat different, but it begins the same way. The first order of business is to secure shelter, a protected space or environment in which to process the emotions. Or, as Dr. Phil has explained (on one or more of the small handful of shows I’ve seen), “a safe place to land.” Divorce (and its associated betrayals), regardless of who or how or why it’s initiated, has a way of decimating the self-esteem, self-worth, ability to trust and more. One needs time and space to restore them.

And then there are matters of forgiveness. As if forgiving the ex were not practically unthinkable in and of itself, one must move beyond this to the even more monumental effort of forgiving one’s self: for failing to make it work, for actual harm caused, for giving up to soon or for staying too long and, especially, for the poor relationship example demonstrated to the children. And so much more.

While all that work is being addressed, there are the realizations and discoveries of habits, beliefs and paradigms adopted and lived out in the course of a failing relationship that must be examined and, likely, let go for something new and more wonderful to bloom. Certain triggers cause responses that are entirely too reactionary. As an example, say the words “stay at home father” and watch as I break out in a rash… Though my ex was much better equipped to be a full-time caregiver than I was when our children were babies, the experience ultimately took a turn for the resentful. I have to take a few deep breaths and remind myself that said domestic arrangement can and does actually work for a growing number of other families.

I’d say the roof is half-way finished. It would be impossible to say where my psyche is at along the path or how far I’ve come in healing. While I’d like to think that I am facing my challenges and healing consciously, there is no real way to determine whether or when there will be an end to the work. I can’t simply look at the construction schedule (and then add another few months). The past three months of down time to mull and process has been a true gift, and I’d like to believe I’ve made significant progress in healing my heart.

Yet I have a feeling the true test will be, as it is now, the patience, love and understanding I demonstrate to my children, my presence and openness, and the woman I am in relation to others.

seeing more clearly

Today, as I dropped off my children with my ex, I pulled him aside for a brief conversation and, in those few moments, I saw in him a glimpse of the man I once so deeply loved. And I saw him for who he is.

There is no possibility for reconciliation, but it’s nice to be able to see his warmth again.

acts of forgiveness

One of the lessons I’ve learned along the way is that forgiveness, like love, is expressed through action.

Witnessing acts of forgiveness is incredibly powerful and life-affirming. We know we have forgiven ourselves when we break a self-destructive habit, such as addiction, or form new, life-affirming ones. We know we’ve forgiven others when we stop doing things to make them angry.

A divorced male friend recently shared this story with me: He and his ex see a child development specialist every couple of weeks to understand and try to mitigate the effects of their break-up on their five-year-old child (which I think is a very mature approach on their part). My friend’s ex had introduced her boyfriend to their daughter, a man with whom she had recently broken up. She was asking the specialist how to handle it when their daughter asked for her boyfriend by name.

My friend, meanwhile, was fuming. He sat in his chair, gripping its arms with his hands until his knuckles were white. He had been upset with her decision to introduce this man to their child, questioned her normally sound judgment and, though he desperately wanted to seethe, “I told you so!,” he held his tongue and calmly asked the child development specialist, “Is it possible that our daughter associates this man with Mommy’s happiness? and that, rather than the ex boyfriend, our daughter simply misses seeing Mommy happy?”

The child development specialist agreed that this was likely, and suggested the ex-wife ignore any of their daughter’s references to the ex boyfriend. My friend, meanwhile, was quite proud of his restraint. It even earned him a positive email from his ex-wife. But I wonder if he even recognized his action for what it was: an act of forgiveness.

I recently experienced such an incredibly generous act of forgiveness that I want to share it here. I requested a networking coffee with a man whose company for which I had done some work (more than a decade ago). This man has seen my highs and lows, including me in the midst of my most morally bereft phase (I think a lot us were there in the late 90s).

Simply meeting me was a generous gift of his time. Then he told me that he had always seen my talent, appreciated my personality and was thrilled to see the light inside me shining brightly again. I actually teared up. Even knowing the lowest points in my personal history, he sat across from me, looked into my eyes and uttered these warm and positive words. After an hour, we embraced and parted.

Every moment and every word was, to me, an act of forgiveness. And it was painfully humbling. I confess, I questioned my worthiness. How could I possibly deserve such grace? Yet every religion on Earth makes allowances that we might all be forgiven, healed and made whole.

Now if only I could learn to forgive myself and others with such grace and generosity!

the relationship as a mirror

I’ve long believed that relationships are our mirrors into ourselves, bringing out the best and the worst, but always the potential within us. There are few people I’ve ever truly disliked, yet I’ve had the wisdom to ask what it is about them that I don’t like in myself. The answer wasn’t and isn’t always clear.

When tension began to grow in my marriage, I looked first within myself to see how I was creating and affecting and directing the relationship. I changed many of my own thoughts and behaviors, using the opportunity to grow. I stopped reading into and interpreting my husband’s behavior in ways that were harmful to me. His behavior had nothing to do with me — I could accept it or like it or neither. Perhaps my fault in this was that I was so busy taking on the task of growing myself that I forgot to pause and communicate that I wasn’t willing to accept the impact of certain of these behaviors on me or my (our) family.

Meanwhile, as I’ve begun to more actively focus on healing myself after the split, I’ve enlisted the help of Debbie Ford‘s wise Spiritual Divorce. In following the exercises at the end of one of her chapters, I listed all the qualities in my ex that I disliked or hated. There were really only a few, but they were kind of big buckets. Then I contemplated the judgments I made about those characteristics and, finally, I mused about how those very qualities exist within me. I was surprised at how easy this was…until I was lying in bed that night: suddenly, I thought of approximately a dozen additional character flaws that I positively hated about my ex!

I made a mental note to revisit these qualities in the next couple of days and to follow through on the exercise of searching within my own psyche for how these characteristics manifest within my own behaviors. I have yet to follow through. These must be the sticky ones…

do you have romantic regrets?

A recent NY Times article cited a study about regrets, saying 44 percent of females had a romantic regret…

I suspect there are many of us who occasionally think about the one that got away, the friend to whom we never confessed our true feelings, the relationship we unintentionally sabotaged, simply because we didn’t know any better…

Most of us who have gone through a divorce or major break-up have probably thought more than one of these regretful thoughts:

Why didn’t I settle for the guy / girl before him / her?
Why didn’t I leave sooner?
Why didn’t I work harder?
Why didn’t I see his / her true nature before we got married?
Why doesn’t he / she want me anymore?
Why wasn’t I enough?

None of these are productive questions. As I’ve said before, even if these kinds of questions were answerable, the answer(s) would never be satisfactory. If there were easy answers, I’m hopeful that we’re all smart enough to find them unacceptable. What could possibly explain away the upheaval, decimated self-esteem, cock-eyed financial shenanigans and ruined dreams (especially of our children)?

Perhaps later in the process, we’re asking instead:

How could I have done that?
Why did I behave so poorly?
How did I let that slip in front of the children?
Why did I fight so hard for or hang onto that (home, piece of furniture, or other physical object) for so long?

…or any number of other possible regrets.

This morning I met a strong, incredible and divorced woman for coffee. She asked me what happened, and I told her, “we just disagreed.” Yeah, it’s probably a cop-out. After awhile, the pain and resentment fade, the drama no longer seems to create a compelling narrative, and it seems I’m mostly looking forward.

When I’m feeling nostalgic, I just dig through my iTunes for this classic Dave Mason song:

So let’s leave it alone, ’cause we can’t see eye to eye…

There ain’t no good guys; there ain’t no bad guys;

There’s only you and me and we just disagree.

I’d like to think I’ve mostly moved on. Every so often there’s a flash of anger. I can hear it in my tone of voice when I’m cleaning the basement and marveling to anyone who will listen about something my ex hung on to, or when I come across another of his ineffective home repairs. Mostly, though, I am grateful for the lessons, grateful for our children, and very pleased with the woman emerging from the experience.

Do I have regrets? Sure. But most are fading regrets of misbehaviors that I’d like to think taught me a little something. There’s no one who got away. In this Zen moment and every other, everything is as it should be.

what’s your wacky divorce story?

I’ve heard some truly bizarre stuff in talking with friends and colleagues about divorce. Seems once you put it out there, everyone’s willing to share a story.

Take, for instance, a local friend: He’s not originally from these parts, and he was offered an opportunity to come and work here, in this lovely midwestern city, by a friend — his best friend. My friend bought a house, met a woman, got her pregnant, got married and is now divorced. My friend always did the bulk of the housework, brought in the bulk of income and did the lion’s share of parenting, as well. Since the split, he’s learned that his very best friend goes over to visit his ex, shovel the walk and babysit their child — without telling him!

Or another male friend: Just over two years ago, his wife’s sister was going through a divorce. At the time, he remarked to his wife how stressful and sad that must be, and asked: “I mean, if you were having feelings like that about me, we’d be talking about it, right?” Six months later, his wife’s brother was asked to move out / for a divorce. Six months after that, my friend was asked to move out and was on his way to a divorce. Six months after that, his ex-wife’s sister’s ex-husband and his ex-wife’s brother’s ex-wife are dating. Did you follow that? The in-law’s exes are dating. And then my friend’s ex-wife’s father made a feeble suicide attempt with a bottle of sleeping pills and a cry-for-help note. As I told my friend, “It’s not you. Clearly your ex and everyone in her family needs drama.”

When I was going through the worst of it, feeling emotionally unstable and questioning my sanity, stories like this kept me going. Like watching any of The Real Housewives franchises, it was incredibly grounding; I realized I wasn’t all that crazy.

So what’s the most bizarre divorce story you’ve heard? What crazy cues did you draw on to assure yourself of your sanity?

the ex-husband-orcism

Last weekend, I invited girlfriends over to help me perform an exorcism: the exorcism of my ex husband’s belongings, photos, spirit and trappings of our married life from my boudoir and other areas of the house.

I had long been thinking about the idea of a cleansing or a celebration, and I never felt quite certain about what was appropriate or acceptable. My plan took on definition for two reasons:

A girlfriend gently told me that, while I clearly cherished my “mother” identity, it didn’t belong in my bedroom. Every other room in our home is family friendly; my room should be a personal sanctuary, a child-free zone. The family photos and stuffed animals would have to go.
With each passing week that I failed to tackle the project of cleaning and re-organizing the basement, I knew that I was experiencing some major resistance to dealing with it all. This was not going to be an easy job for me.

I was going to have to call in some reinforcements. And I would need them to be both relentless and brutally honest. After all, my closet (and outdated wardrobe) was part of my bedroom.

I invited a bunch of fun girls, knowing that only a handful could or would show up — this sort of thing is not for everyone. In one day, what we could accomplish would be limited, so I prioritized:

Rearrange and organize my bedroom and closet
Organize the children’s artwork (my sister, the art major, would be assigned ultimate judge of what I should keep, purging the rest)
Begin the impossible task of cleaning the basement

I set out a spread of beverages and snacks — brie, hummos and the like — and the girls arrived in early afternoon. We began by moving furniture and de-cluttering in my room. Down came the belly cast from my second pregnancy, out went the family photos, and in came the “welcome to my boudoir” energy. Any trinkets or baubles that I’d received as gifts from my ex went into the garbage. After the momentary feeling of guilt that this might be appreciated by someone else, I willingly, gladly let go.

With a team of supporters around me, it was easy to enjoy the feeling of liberation that letting go, releasing what no longer served me, could provide. Sure, there were a few moments of compromise, a few items that, for sentimental reasons, I was not ready to let go. But mostly, perhaps because I was being watched, it was easy to say no to that oh-so-tartish Roxy tee shirt, a circa 1988 Benetton and a Coogi sweater (yeah, embarrassing) that I’d purchased while vacationing in Sydney with a boyfriend in 1996. What was I thinking, holding onto these for so long? Even after the girls left, I purged books and jewelry with glee.

We never got as far as the basement, but I now feel unstuck, as though the task might be something I could accomplish, little by little, on my own. And I think the biggest surprise to me was how easy it actually was. I thought I might have some bigger moments of resistance or feeling really emotional, maybe even tears. But there were none. It was fun, even empowering!

When the children returned from their weekend with their father, they were energized and began cleaning their own room. We’re on nine large bags for charitable donations and counting.

Sage smudge yet to come.