Picking up the Pieces

In a few days it will be three weeks since I pulled the proverbial divorce trigger. There's been some hard days and I've cried myself to sleep a few times, but overall I feel a million times better. The amount of relief I've felt and all the guilt that has just melted away, I know without a doubt this was the right thing to do. I really do hate that I have to hurt him, but I'm trying not to look at that way… if anything there's a part of me that feels like it's his turn to hurt anyways.  

There were a few more emails sent after the last entry so here they are:

Monday the 14th:

Lil,

The closet lesbian was just a joke of levity.  I never event thought that for a sec.  please don't take everything so personal. I know you are not happy.  I'm sorry you didn't see light at the end of the tunnel.  I do. I know you would have been happy once you came back out.  I wish you would have tried it.  I've learned a lot from you as well.  I never wanted you to change what you believe in, just wanted you to change how you looked at me and what I believed in.  That wasn't "the man," but rather an individual who could work with you.  I never thought you were changing me just making me a more well rounded person.  I never wanted to change you.  I tried to integrate your life wishes: to hold off on kids, follow your career as much as you could, I joind the navy so we could get married because I wanted a steady income for us starting our life (or at least that’s what I was thinking. I always wanted to be in, so that obviously affected it, but honestly I prob wouldn’t have joined if I weren’t concerned about the wedding.) Sorry I never let ou in to see that. You might have been happier and still here. I wish you could change your mind.  I pray about it every day, but you don’t believe in that so it might be going on deaf ears. (joke to add levity) I wish you would reconsider or at least hold off on the paperwork for a while to make sure this is what you want.  But I know you made up your mind.  I'm glad youre happy now though.  I love you more than ever.

Lilly,

Sorry I was in the middle of Khaki call while writing the last email.  I have one proposal.  I hope this doesn't get you upset, so LISTEN. ;)  Since you might have to come back to San Diego anyway for the year for your sister, I propose this.  Put our marriage on a one year trial.  If you aren’t as happy as a clam by then, we will both be at ease with this. I know I will.  I know I am asking a lot from you because the decision you had to make was hard and took a lot of chutzpa.  But please think about it.  I think it will be a world of a difference.  I don’t want to stand in the way of your dreams.  I want to facilitate them. I don’t have any dreams other than a life with you.  Sure I have ideas & dreams of what I want to do but that wont take me away like the navy and wont take away from  your dreams.  It's just one year and if it is not working we will amicably help each other out in preparing for the rest of our lives.  Just please think about this.  You don’t need to answer right away. Just think about it. I know you love me. You're lost in a maelstrom of emotions and thoughts and worries and wants.  I feel that now.  This seems desperate and maybe it is.  I feel like an animal backed into a corner fighting for its life and will do anything to save it.  You, as I have told you before, are my life. I know the whole religion thing is a problem, but it doesn’t have to be a deal breaker.  My family: we can set boundaries like we talked about.  My friends: I'm married.  I don't need to see them that often or seldom . This isn’t me giving up my life for you.  This is me wanting save my life with you.  I don't know much else hun, but I do know that we have only had about a year together in the past 3-4 years.  Please just think about it.  I hope this doesn’t fall on deaf ears.  I love you so much.  I'm sorry I didn't understand till now.  You're my favorite.

Love
Sailor


I told you in the initial email the reason why I don't want to wait until after moving back in with you and giving it one more shot. I don't think I'd survive this without my support group.

The religion thing may not be a deal breaker for you, but it is for me. To be able to raise children together we have to be on the same page about our values and we just aren't. 

I firmly believe that if I don't leave now, I'll leave you later. There's no point in prolonging this and giving you false hopes. I'm done trying, I tried and waited my little heart out. I've got nothing left. 

Regardless of all this, I don't want to be your whole life, that's a lot of pressure for one person. I shouldn't be your only source of support and responsible for your happiness. 

I just don't fit into your world and I've never felt comfortable or like myself in it. It doesn't matter how badly you want it to work out and for us to fit together, we're from different puzzles, and we'll never align the way we should.

If you truly think that I'm doing this just because I'm emotional and fed up and that I'll change my mind, I will file for a legal separation for now. I have to find out if it matters for the divorce papers where you file for the separation. If it doesn't matter, I will file in the next week or so. If it does, it may have to wait until I get back out to California, so either way you'll get more time.

Sailor you deserve for someone to love you as unconditionally as you love me. And I deserve the chance to find someone who invokes that kind of love in me. I'm sorry that it's not you, and I don't believe that kind of love "comes with time". I think that kind of all in or nothing kind of love just happens without you even realizing it.

Tuesday the 15th:

Hey Hun,

        I won't bother you with emails and I will call you once I get back to HI on the 30th or somewhere around there.  I gotta look at the schedule again but it's on a different computer system that I don’t have in front of me right now. One thing I wanted ask was if you would be willing to see a councilor.  If you're already dead set, there is not much I can do, but if you're willing, I think it couldn't hurt.  Either way I hope you are doing well and enjoying your summer in Philadelphia.  I like the tattoo by the way.
        Just got done a swim call in the middle of the ocean out here.  Those waves are brutal, but it was pretty awesome and a little scary to think about being stranded in the middle of the ocean floating.  Definitely a reality check. It reminded me of JAWS because there are a lot of sharks out here.  I got stung in the foot by a jellyfish.  No big deal though.
        Wish you could be here just to hear the Koreans, Japanese and Chinese on the comms. It reminds me of what I always say. Erizabef, you funni giyal.

Anyway, I Love you and will talk to you later.

Hey,

That whole ocean thing is pretty cool, don't really like the shark part so much, but I do always like the notion of being reminded of how small we really are...

I got an awesome phone call yesterday. I don't know how much I shared with you, but I had called the VP of the Planning Department who offered that full time position to the intern and she turned it down. The VP (Paz) emailed me back last week and said she was sorry she hadn't called back but was very busy and was going to continue to be busy for the next few weeks but that she was cc'ing Dan Lee the new group manager for the Civil Transportation group who started in March. She gave a little blurb about who I was and told him to look at my resume saved to the drives in the ex-employee folder. I emailed Dan immediately saying I wasn't sure if that resume was up to date, please find a current one attached and I would very much appreciate a phone call if he had the time.

He called me yesterday and we had a very informal phone interview. I also got word on Friday that my old group won it's first big contract since everything went to shit. $10M contract with Caltrans. So apparently my old VP Ed and Dan have been talking about me possibly coming back to the SD office proper as part of Dan's group, and then when things start picking up in the Water Resource group when the new Caltrans work starts up, I'll transition to working for both groups, and possibly if that Orange County thing comes through, I may still be needed to fill that role.  I wasn't given any type of timeline, and Dan seemed wary because he doesn't know me. I wrote him a follow up email and he responded well so we'll see. It was definitely more and better news than what I've heard up to this point.

If seeing a counselor together when I get back out to California is something that will help you with this, than I'd be willing. But I'm telling you that nothing is going to change my feelings that this was never meant to last. Yes there were somethings done by both of us that should not have happened, or could have been handled better, but there is no outright bad guy or good guy in any of this. It's just a lack of long term compatibility. That doesn't take away from the good of our relationship, I just know that I need something different. And it's not your fault that I didn't recognize or come to terms with this until now.

Your emails are not a bother, but I'm trying really hard to keep this as objective as possible and to the facts of all of it. There's a lot that has happened that I can't let go of that I have a lot of anger about. I don't want to be pushed to a point where I'm going to start lashing out at you in a mean and hurtful way.  You don't deserve that, and that side of me... I really hate it, and it was starting to feel like that was the only side that came out when you'd call. 

Considering the contact I've received from your family, I've gathered you haven't told them yet. I will be polite, but for the most part I will continue to keep my distance. It's not my place, nor responsibility to share this with them, and I understand if you need more time to do so.

That Friday before I headed up to Vermont for the weekend, I got a phone call from his best friend. It was totally out of the blue and something I could never have guessed would happen. But he basically called saying he heard from Sailor but the conversation had been short and that he'd been very emotional and angry. He wanted to know more about what went wrong and if it'd be more prudent to give Sailor pep talks and go get her tiger or help him see this is best and it's not the end of the world. I think I was able to convince of the latter quite easily. He actually agreed with several of my points, particularly the drinking and his family. It was a weird conversation to have, but if it will help the Sailor to have a friend pushing him towards the reality of all this and out of denial, then fine. So yea his family and friends seem to know now, so that's definitely progress.

Last Friday I got an email from him letting me know that he'll be in town the 16th - 26th of August.  I didn't respond until today, I was waiting to have my therapy session that was last night.

Hey,

I'm sorry I haven't responded sooner but I wanted to talk to my therapist first to make sure we could actually do what I want to do.

I'm sure you want to meet up, but I don't ever want to be at your parents' house again, and I don't really want you in the townhouse either.

One of your final pleas was to try joint counseling, even though when I suggested you should start seeing someone your response to me was that I was the one who was crazy and stressed, that you were fine.

She agreed to have a double session with us. It's scheduled for August 20th and I think it's at 6 or 6:45. I have my next session with her on the 14th to talk about an agenda for this joint meeting to make our time as fruitful as possible.

Let me know if there's anything in specific you'd like us to talk about.

We need to let the Lushins know by September 1st whether or not we'll be moving out, or if you'd like to renegotiate the lease. We must be out by September 30th.

If you are positive you want to find somewhere new, the more heads up we can give them, I'm sure they'll appreciate it.

I'll make sure to pick a weekend before the 30th of September to come out and pack the rest of my things and most likely store them at Sofia's or Mel's until I figure out what I'm doing. Would any weekend in particular be better for you? The sooner you let me know, the better, I don't want to pay a fortune for my flight.

I've done some research, and it looks like we qualify for a dissolution in the state of California. This means no court, and no lawyers. There's a few requirements to qualify such as being married less than 5 years, no children, no property, neither spouse is seeking alimony, and our combined debt is less than $6,000, and we have a signed property agreement for the assets we do have.

The debt situation is the only one I'm not sure if we qualify for that yet. Forming a game plan to pay our debt down is one of my main concerns anyways.

I know some of this might be too much to handle right now, and that your probably still hoping I'm being overly emotional and I'll calm down and things will go back to the way they were.

But things will never be able to go back to the way they were. Too much has happened. I know you have already changed a lot of the things that were triggers for our fights, but it's really a case of too little too late as well as too many things you really can't control.

I love the idea of being able to start over, but I'm just never going to forget crying myself to sleep on the night of our wedding.

His Response:

I love you too.  I'll see you when I see you. I guess your even with having each other cry ourselves to sleep.  I'm sorry you're not happy. I do love you and want you to be happy.

Love,

Sailor

So I haven't responded yet and I guess he's not interested in going to the therapy session? I just know that I'm still too vulnerable to be entirely alone with him. I'm still me and he's still him and whatever drew us together in the first place still exists. He still knows me and my weaknesses and even though I'm now aware of how manipulative he can be, doesn't make me immune to it.  I wish this could be like any other break up… you call it quits and then that's it, you get to start picking up the pieces and beginning to moving on. It's probably going to be a year before everything will legally done and I'll never have to see or talk to him again if that's what I want.

I'm excited to be starting the next chapter of my life and to have virtually hit the reset button, but now I will carry around the label of divorce, a label I thought I'd never have. I mentioned this sentiment in therapy and she basically said I shouldn't even count this as a marriage. That our relationship never reached the level it should have to be a real marriage.  I guess I agree with that, but regardless of that, whoever is next in my future, they will not be my only husband. Luckily I guess we never did get to go on a honeymoon so at least I still have that to look forward to.

I'm sitting here in my living room with the dog next to me thinking that I never would have guessed he'd be the last thing I'd decide to eradicate from my life to get back on track.  I was initially trying to sell him to try and break even on some of his expenses but he's not puppy anymore and I tend to be too candid about how much effort he can be. I think I may have finally found a new home for him and they're willing to give me the value of all his stuff at least. Hopefully that will work out, I'm about drop $100 on him so I can go to Montreal this weekend!

I'm so excited, I went to school in Burlington, VT and yet I never made it into Canada. The weekend should be a lot of fun, but I'm also a little nervous about it too. There is this girl that will be a part of the group I'm traveling with who is good friends with Mountain Man. There's a part of me that feels like I should filter myself, but there's another that thinks it might be an opportunity. To be honest after making the final decision and breaking out of this cage I've been trapped in, the obsession with the idea of how much better my life could have been if I'd chosen to pursue the Mountain Man instead of recommitting to the sailor, has decreased significantly. I think part of it was because it was my happy fantasy that I could cling to, to help me just get through all the bullshit that was happening. But I don't really need the fantasy anymore because now I have no idea what's in store for me, I just know whatever it is, will be better than what I had previously resigned myself for. 

Although I may be a little nervous about what I might say, I'm pretty sure there's no way I could embarrass myself any further when it comes to Mountain Man. I still think it's pretty stupid that two people have spent the last three years thinking a whole lot about the other and now we don't even talk… but I have to respect that from his point of view, nothing good would ever come from talking to me. During the serious obsessive compulsive phase of the fantasy, the one thing everyone kept saying was he's in Alaska, even if things were different it wouldn't work. But I uprooted myself before, and I did that for an asshole, it's hard to say to myself that I wouldn't be willing to do that for someone I actually admire.  

Well for now, I'm in Philly for the foreseeable future. There's no husband I have to get back to, and my baby sister is no longer doing her field training out in San Diego. I'm still in the running for this potential job for Orange County, but the opportunity with the other group fell through. They decided they wanted someone with more technical experience. I don't think there's any harm in keeping my name in the hat for the OC job. I liked California and I really think it would be a million times better to be there on my own terms. 

Looking forward to the weekend and hopefully I won't have any issues getting back into the country!