My Own Part

Alone and mostly happy that this is how my life is. Look at me! Don't I look thrilled? This is last year's Thanksgiving dinner. I do actually do just fine making holiday memories for me and the kids solo, without a man!

After I wrote yesterday's post about the lack of a man, sort of, in my life, I worried that it all sounded like a big whine fest. I hope I haven't taken a page from Fred's book of Mr. Whiney Pants!

I wanted to say then today that I do know I hold a lot of the responsibility for staying single.

I acknowledge that I do like the arrangement I have with current dating guy. I do like having autonomy over myself, my kids, and my household. For the most part, I don't dream of having someone here changing our routines and structure. I really hate feeling judged, especially in my own home.

I honestly hate dating. It will be hard to find someone else when I simply refuse to put myself out there and try to find someone!

I know that at times, I am not the easiest person to live with. When I was married, I think the first several years were probably the worst for my husband. I do suffer from anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. It took until after I had Hannah before I finally acknowledged that I might need some medication to help ease a little of the edge to my behaviors. Once I started the medication and saw how other people are able to let things just roll off, I was startled at the difference. I apologized no less than about a thousand times for being too hard on him. I don't think he ever accepted it though. He never did acknowledge his role in the demise of our marriage, citing only that I was a psychotic bitch with personality disorder. I suppose whatever works for you!

I also feel just broken, and I don't know if that is ever going to go away. It wasn't my divorce that left me feeling this way, but the end to another relationship a couple of years after the marriage. I had been dating my old high school sweetheart. He is a pilot and was based in Milwaukee. He wanted to go ahead and move in here about a year and a half after we started dating. I said whatever he wanted to do was fine with me because he would be the one that would have to commute. He assured me that yes, it was what he wanted. He moved in here and three weeks later, he said that things weren't working out and he thought we should break up and he should move out. A couple of weeks later, he came back and gathered his belongings. He said that it was just too much family around here for him. He made it my fault as was his pattern. This was a man with whom I had a long and storied past. We dated on and off through college and even a little beyond. He was a frequent cheater. After my divorce, he said that was all in his past, so stupidly I believed him. About a year after he moved out of my house, he became engaged to another woman, his first fiancee ever. I saw him that summer, and the story had come out that he had been seeing this other woman about six months prior to moving in here with us. At first I was glad to know some of the story, then I was a little taken aback, now I am mostly just angry that he had the nerve to even say he wanted to move in with us while dating her all that time. It really was his idea alone to move in here. I wondered why he did that to us. And the part that makes me the angriest is that he made it my fault. Even during the visit where I saw him last and he explained how he had met his fiancee, he said that some of it was just embarrasing for him and that he felt like I had made him lie to me. Really? I made you lie to me?? I was sad at first because I missed my friend, but since then I feel like he just owes me the world's largest apology. But something broke in me that day. I had been so sad for over a year that he had gone away and I felt that somehow I had driven him away. I had let him into our lives, my home, my family and all the while he was cheating. I just don't know if I can ever trust someone else to come in here and be a part of my family for fear of the betrayal.

I know I shouldn't live from a state of fear, but it is different when the kids are involved. It is not just me that is affected by a man leaving me. The kids loved this old high school sweetheart too. They didn't understand why he moved in and then moved out so quickly. I feel that I have the responsibility to protect them as much as possible. If that means that I am single until Fred is 18 and moves out of the house for college, then really so be it!

So while I sometimes wish, and apparently dream, of a man of my own who would love me for me and with whom I could form a partnership and support system, I think that realistically this is the best life for me and Fred and Hannah for the time being.