Unleashing My Inner Crazy

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned... no, hell hath no fury like a woman fucked over by a piece of shit for the millionth time. I'm unleashing my inner crazy and it feels good. At this point, I don't really give a shit what happens with everything else except making Army Boy feel some pain. Yup, I've said it, I've let go of everything else and now I'm out to inflict some pain and suffering. Retaliation. He drove me past my breaking point with his latest stunt and he's going to regret that he did that.

After texting Army Boy a few choice words and hearing nothing back, I hit him where it hurts. His career. And lo and behold, I get an immediate response back. So the talk of the kids didn't get him riled up, the talk of the house sale didn't make an impression, but the mention of his precious career, then he sits up and takes notice. My Catholic inner nice girl is now quelled and the dark side of my personality has taken over. I'm going to inflict some revenge or die trying.

Army Boy blamed the whole court debacle yesterday on his lawyer. Well, I'm not falling for that load of horse shit. My eyes are wide open, and I won't be giving him any more chances to fill my ears with false promises. I hope whatever hole Army Boy is hiding in is a deep one because he's going to need some protection from the rash of shit I'm about ready to bring raining down on his head. I hope he's shaking in his shoes right now wondering what the hell his crazy almost-ex-wife is going to do. If I make him feel one iota of what I went through as I tossed and turned and laid awake all last night, then I will know that my job is done.

2x4's and Blows to the Head

How many times does one need to get hit in the head with a 2x4 before you learn a lesson? Apparently I needed one more smack to cement the fact that Army Boy is a complete fucker.

Two weeks ago we sat down and talked very amicably about the terms of our divorce. We even shared a few laughs. Army Boy looked at me and said he wished he could turn over his whole paycheck to me so the kids and I don't have to pay any more for him being an ass. I let myself breathe a little easier and thought, 'Maybe he really does want us to stay in our home. Maybe he really has the best interest of the kids in mind and he's finally feeling some regrets. Maybe whatever medication he's taking is turning him into a human again. Maybe he's on step 8 of a recovery program, the step where you stop being a complete and total fucking asshole.' My doubts reared their ugly heads when he said he wouldn't really agree to what we decided without having his lawyer look at it. Of course, that's just good business sense to have it reviewed, I tried to convince myself, it was just a formality, even though my friends and sister said to watch out, he's never going to agree to it, his lawyer is going to tell him he doesn't have to. 

So today I find myself standing outside a courtroom, faced with being one step closer to the demise of my marriage. I actually went up to Army Boy and greeted him and chatted a bit. Then we walk into the courtroom and the rug is pulled out from under me. Army Boy is lowballing and back pedaling on everything we agreed on. He lied to my face yet again. The months that he's been telling me that he wants us to stay in our home was a lie. He just kept stringing me along until the end when there was no choice but to tell me, fuck no. Everything he agreed to was an absolute and fucking bald face lie. A fabrication to give me false hope. 

The fact that he could look me in the face two weeks ago and pathologically lie once again to me is scary. And even scarier is the fact that I fell for it again. And perhaps the most astounding thing is his lawyer told mine that Army Boy is terrified that I will get him fired once our divorce is final. That I'll tell his commander that he's a shitbag and he will be booted out of the army. Uh, if you give me what I need to keep my house, I need you to be employed. If you give me shit and I've got nothing to lose, then I'm going to release the inner psycho in me, the likes of which you've never seen. I would think that's an easy concept to understand and would be a motivation to give me what I want if he's so worried about his job. I'm not above blackmail, or I prefer to call it 'leverage', 'negotiating power' or 'hand'. You pay, I keep my mouth shut. You no pay, I share my truths with any one who will listen and that includes those in uniform as well as civilians.  

If he wasn't such a fucking coward, he could have told me over the summer that there's no way he could financially swing what I was asking for. He could have talked to me about his bills and calmly said, I can't survive on what I'm left with. I would have been pissed but I would have dealt with it and avoided what I don't want to do - move the kids during the school year. Now because Army Boy is a fucking coward who has no balls, I am faced with telling my kids that we need to sell our home and they will be switching schools. 

Thanks Army Boy for continuing to be a worthless excuse for a human being who can lie with such ease and fool me yet again. Thanks for letting your lawyer play the bad guy as you refuse to look at me in court. Thanks for ignoring my texts about telling the kids about the house and ignoring me when I said you can be the one to list and sell the house because I have enough on my plate with getting the kids switched to a new school. Thanks for fucking up my life, Army Boy, and making me spend another day bawling my eyes out because of shock and disappointment and yes, even some hurt. 

And I'm sure your mother will thank you when my parents tell her that she needs to find a new place to live because my parents won't let the kids and I be homeless and have offered us the apartment that my mother in law rents from them. Blood is thicker than water and her son screwed their daughter over so bad that my parents are having a hard time looking at her. My mother in law isn't to blame for this but she's another piece of collateral damage due to Army Boy's morally bankrupt personality. 

Go Squat Somewhere Else

Yes, I still have a tenant. A roommate. A squatter at this point. Over the summer, when we weren't home much, it was a breeze to share space with a stranger. I collected the rent money and went off on my merry way, often to the farthest set of outlets with the kids in tow to buy new apparel for my divorce-diet shrinking body. Now that we are home and the summer breezes have turned into 'batten down the hatches, winter is here', I'm resenting that stranger who told me it was just a month or two that she needed a place to stay. The month or two has turned into four, and my fear is she's never going to leave. I like money but I also realized I like my privacy too.

Don't get me wrong, my first experience with a renter could have been a lot worse. She seems to like my kids and our dog. She's very patient with all of them, and she's quite nice. But she's also a, how do I put it kindly...a fucking slob. And a pretty lazy one to boot. I know I'm anal when it comes to organization but it's my house. If my stuff is picked up, yours should be too. At least in the common area. And would it be too much to ask for you to wipe the fucking stove down after you've cooked your greasy midnight snack bacon which splattered all over? Would it kill you to clean the bathroom once in a while? I know you share it with two kids but for me to have to do it every week seems a little, I don't know, GODDAMN unfair. 

There are days when I drive up my road and I say a little prayer that her car is gone and she's not home. Very similar to how I felt coming home to Army Boy for the previous six months before he tore my heart out and shat on it. Maybe my squatter is secretly cheating on me and that's why I don't want to be around her. 

Or maybe I'm still PMSing or maybe, just maybe, I'm torqued up because I have go to a court meeting tomorrow about the divorce because Army Boy is too fucking stupid to finalize anything and apparently wants the court and some lawyers to tell us what to do. Heart warming really that he can't make a decision about his own children and needs someone to tell him what to do. Or more likely, he's too much of a pussy to tell me to my face that he's not going to give me what I asked for and he's going to let his lawyer play the bad guy. I texted him that he can pay my attorney bills because we should have been able to come to an agreement overselves and our lawyers could have just reviewed it. Dividing assets of nothing doesn't take an accounting degree. But wait, I believe his skanky whore has an accounting degree from a mail order school. Even she should be able to advise him that nothing divided by two is still NOTHING. And I'm sure it's the money thing that Army Boy is worried about because he told me the schedule he wanted to see the kids and I said yup, sounds about right. 

I'm prepared to stay up all night worrying and angsting (that's a new word I just coined) and tossing and turning and swearing and cursing and plotting someone's demise. And I can only hope my stovetop is clean in the morning or my squatter is going to get an early wake up call via a wet sponge to the head and me yelling, 'Clean up that fucking grease or you can move out today.' 

I Wish I Looked Good in Stripes

When is a bad time to be PMSIng and feeling like you could commit murder and feel no remorse? The day you have to see a soon to be ex spouse at your son's basketball practice. No word from him for a week and he shows up at practice and tells our son he's going to help coach. I literally had to bite my tongue to stop from saying - what a switch from a year ago when you stormed off the field at soccer practice and pouted that you weren't one of the popular parents and you refused to be on the field again even though you had promised our son you would be his coach for the season. What a switch from you saying you weren't being included in the coach conversations and when I said I wasn't either but I just figured out the drills, you said, 'Well I guess you're a better person than I am.' 

Yes, I'm still a better person and I will let you live to see another day even though my hormones are raging, and I spent a few hours this week reviewing the terms of our divorce and conferring with my lawyer. I'm a better person because I would love to tell the head basketball coach that you're a disturbed dirtbag who takes nude photos of himself for a hobby and sends them to girls who I wouldn't even want to guess their ages. I'm a better person because I won't yell across the court that you're a fucking asshole who pretends to a good dad to the outside world but you couldn't even be bothered to pick up the phone to ask your kids, 'Hey honey, how's your week going?' 

I hope the PMSing passes soon because he's either going to end up in a body bag or on a respirator, and I'll be in prison and I don't look good in orange or stripes. 

I'm Building a Fence

Boundary setting. Putting up some fences. Drawing imaginary lines. Yup, that's on my to-do list, and I'll get it done if it kills me.

This weekend Army Boy and I brought our son and a few of his friends to a college basketball game. It was a post-birthday type celebration for my son, without being labeled 'a party' (no presents required). I had told Army Boy about what I had planned weeks ago when I was coordinating the event because 1.) I needed help shepherding five 6/7 year old boys to a venue with a thousand people and 2.) if Army Boy had planned something like that, I would sooner have my eye gouged out than miss it. (Extremely doubtful Army Boy would plan something but still, I want in on it if it includes an event if my child's life).

Together we enjoyed our son and his friends. Giggling in the backseat, punching each other, banging each other over the head with water bottles, telling fart jokes, cheering at the basketball game, begging for candy. Typical boy behavior and I basked in all of it. I love being around my kids, I love seeing them with their friends, I love doing things that will make them happy, I love every second of it. (Well, hearing that they were thirsty and hungry for the 50th time after we had just spent $40 on snacks and drinks wasn't a highlight, I'll admit.) I assumed that Army Boy felt the same way and I felt bad for him for missing something in our kids' lives so that's another reason why I included him.

Then I read the comments for this post. Am I doing the 'pick me' dance and saying it's for the best of the kids? I don't think so, I wouldn't take back Army Boy if he begged me and swore up and down that he was thinking about me when he snapped those photos of his ____ <ick, I can't bear to write the word now>. I wouldn't take him back if he inherited a title to some far off country and it would make me a queen. But, I'm not delusional enough to say that I don't want him to come crawling back and admit that he made a horrible mistake. So maybe I am doing a version of the 'pick me' dance but my type of dance isn't meant to end with a pair of partners, it would be designed to end in a solo.

The last comment echoed in my head. Army Boy DID decide not to be there every day for his kids. He DID decide that his search for happiness was more important than tucking them in and kissing them goodnight. Why the hell am I pitying him? Why the hell do I feel sorry for him if he misses an event in his kids' lives? I'm judging how he would be feeling based on my own thoughts and desires. He walked away from being his kids' full-time father, my pity is wasted on him.

The day after the basketball game, Army Boy sent me some inane small-talk type text. Really? We're going to pretend to be friends now and text pleasantries about the weather or other non-important matters? We're going to pretend that you didn't fuck me over and pull the world out from under your kids? I blame myself, I've been sending mixed messages. Well, that's over. I'll still be civil, I'll still let him join us when he asks and if it feels right for the kids, but I won't be engaging in casual conversations. I won't be putting on my 'let's be friends' mask any longer.

I never responded to Army Boy's text. I felt guilty about it at first.That's the Catholic, people-pleaser in me I guess. I squelched that feeling down and chose to feel empowered instead.

Eat a Cookie, Please

I hate it when your husband cheats on you and dumps you and gives you anorexia. Yeah that's a little of what I'm dealing with now. Can you have a little anorexia? 'Hi I'm Kay and I just need to lose a few more pounds and he'll realize what he walked away from.' How fucking stupid can you get. 

I haven't been to see a counselor since the spring. I was doing better, I thought. I knew I wasn't the crazy one, he was, so I took the summer off. Well apparently I declared myself healed a little too prematurely. My daughter's counselor asked to see me alone and I thought she likely just wanted to talk in private about my daughter's challenges. Nope, she wanted the full story of what had happened with Army Boy and wanted to let me know I was a little on the thin side. Really? I haven't been told I was too thin since...well, NEVER. 

The counselor wanted to make sure that I was okay and was eating enough. I'm eating fine, I said, but I did pass out in the shower last week, probably due to tiredness. You need to take better care of yourself she said. Yes I know and I'm working on it. Then she asked me if I would rather lose a pound than gain a pound right now. Well duh, I don't want to gain all my weight back. Then she proceeded to tell me how many calories you need to eat to gain weight and yada, yada, yada. To be honest I was only half listening. I'm not an idiot, I know it takes time to gain back weight but hey, it all adds up after a while. 

Then the therapist said that she has counseled many people who, when they lose control of the rest of their lives, take control of the one thing they can - their own bodies. Hmm, I'm listening now. She said they exercise and lose weight and feel great but then they can't stop because at least they can control that one aspect of their lives. Hmmm, I'm still listening. 

She asked me if I had hit my ideal weight yet. I said maybe one more pound to go and then I'll be under that threshold and I'll be done. She said you already look too thin. Then I admitted that four pounds ago I had hit my ideal weight but, God, wouldn't it be nice to have a buffer and lose a few more in case I gained a few back, and I would STILL be in my ideal weight range. (Yeah, even I can hear the crazy ringing around in that sentence.) 

Then she asked me about exercising. I said most days I get up and walk 5-6 miles and sometimes I walk again at lunch with my friends for another two and a half miles. I said I know if a friend told me she did that every single day, I would say that wasn't necessary, you need a break. But somehow I can't convince myself of that. I feel like a lazy ass when I don't get out of bed at the crack of dawn and I hate to disappoint my dog who is gazing at me with those big brown eyes, pleading 'Please, let's go for a walk'. Also, I enjoy walking with my friends and venting to them so I really don't want to skip those lunchtime walks either and blah, blah, blah. I can hear the attempted rationalizations piling up about why I'm pushing myself too hard. 

So maybe I am a shade on the crazy side and I'll go back to the counselor's again and start telling her all my deep dark thoughts about why I can't eat that cookie that is calling to me. 

You Don't Need to Wear a Costume, You're Already the Horse's Ass

Army Boy emailed me a few days ago. 'What's going on for Halloween? Can I tag along?' Knot in my stomach immediately forms. 'Hello, you walked away from this family, how about you go fuck yourself?' That thought bubbled in my mind and almost, ALMOST, flowed from my fingers onto the keyboard. One thing stopped me though.

I went out to lunch with a friend this week. Her parents divorced when she was in college. It was an ugly, 'I can't stand to even be in the same room with you now' messy divorce. My friend said that she wishes her parents could tolerate each other because it would make things a whole lot easier. I kept that thought in mind when I responded to Army Boy. If my friend was an adult when her parents got divorced and the conflict was upsetting to her, how would my 7 and 9 year old kids feel about their parents constantly being at each other's throats?

So I wrote back to Army Boy and did what I always do, I said you are welcome to join us. I know many people think that I need to set boundaries and I probably do but I'm really not a masochist or a sadist. I'm a realist. This is my life now and he is what he is but he is also the father of my children. We both love our kids. I could say we each love them in our own way but I won't go down that road.

Army Boy joined us for trick or treating and the kids said they had a great Halloween. And that's all that matters really. I got through it and it wasn't even that difficult. I just think of Army Boy as a dim-witted distant relative now and it makes it much more palatable to be around him.