Betrayed

The title says it all.

But because nobody likes weird, cryptic blog posts and because I have to vent, unleash, release… I’m going to break a rule of mine and discuss my marriage. Or what’s left of it.

You see, I found out my husband has been having an “internet relationship” with another woman.

It gets worse…

It’s with his ex-girlfriend. The one he was in the throes of a pretty acrimonious break up with when we got together. The one he’s had not a single nice thing to say about for the past thirteen and half years.

I guess she’s having the last laugh now, huh?

We’ve had some problems over the last couple years and as recently as five months ago we were contemplating divorce. I feel so stupid. I was so trusting, hence the title of this post.

When I read the emails, I was literally sickened by their intimate nature. No cybersex or anything like that; just the kind of talk that people engage in when they’re still in that glorious becoming-infatuated stage.

So I confronted him. And he claims they’re just friends. That it doesn’t mean anything. That it’s just a distraction.That she found him on MySpace and they just email. But I know they frequently iChat as well as email each other numerous times daily.

And I damn well know that those are not the words of people who are “just friends.” And I know now that’s why he spends hours every night out on the porch with his laptop while I’m inside either working or waiting for him to come in and hang out with me.

I’ve all but begged him to be with me the way he’s been with her in those emails. Apparently he’s only got enough of that for one woman and she ain’t me.

There’s so much more to tell but I honestly feel like I might throw up.

So in a rather large nutshell, I can’t bear the thought of tearing my family apart and hurting my children by taking them away from their father but I’m also not sure I can bear the idea of staying in this marriage for another day.

Right now I’m hurt and angry and I’m giving serious consideration to selling this house, filing for divorce and moving far away from this godawful state and starting over somewhere else.

I’m turning 40 on September 4th. I feel like I’ve wasted the best years of my life with him (I know…a total cliché) and now I just want to put it all behind me and begin anew. As a single mother. With no family. And no place to go. I have some pretty sucky options, it seems.

He really wants to go to marriage counseling to try and fix whatever is at the root of our brokenness and four months ago I would have agreed but I don’t know now. I’m not sure there’s anything left inside me to try with. I don’t know what to do. I feel empty.

Sad.

Betrayed.

••••••••

There’s now an update to this post.

Kitty Said What?

I am, admittedly, easily amused. Regardless, this video is so dang cuuuuuute and it’s kid-friendly, too, so gather up the rugrats and be prepared to hit “replay” A LOT.

(After I watched this a frillion and one times, I stumbled across some other stuff on Youtube that I found incredibly disturbing but frankly, I can’t bear to despoil the awesomely awesome cuteness of teh kittehs right now. I’ll write about it later this week and maybe we can shake things up a bit, yes?)

TGIFMFPFA

I’m not someone who utters that dorky acronym very often but TGIF! I’m so glad this week is done. And can you guess what MFPFA means? Yep…my effing period finally arrived!

My daughter started her first day of first grade at a new school on Monday and she loves it, which is wonderful. Everyday after school she declares her day to have been “Awesome!” I couldn’t be happier. Of course, it’s just the first week and awesome could always turn to awful but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the positive trend continues.

This school, while academically similar to her old school which I praised last year for being “ordinary” in a land of upscale yuppieness, is different in every other way. For one thing, almost everyone personally picks up their children, meaning they park and physically escort their children from the school, which equals a parking nightmare and a lot of human chaos. Now that the first week is over, I’m going to use the car lane and hopefully I won’t be sitting in it forever, fretting about my carbon footprint, as I often do when stuck in traffic.

The first reason we opted to send her to this other neighborhood school is simply because, somewhat icky yuppie factor aside, it’s a school where parents and even grandparents are very, very involved.

At her old school, almost all kids went to some kind of aftercare because the majority of parents worked so there was no after school socializing for my social butterfly and frequently dismal turnouts for anything involving parents unless it was well after working hours. After years of knowing every student’s parent in her preschools, it was strange to not know ANYONE and we felt very disconnected from her school experience.

Now I understand people work and don’t necessarily have the ability to be at the school’s beck and call but it did, in many ways, impact this particular school in a less than positive way (for us anyway). The second reason is that the kids at her old school had a tendency to be kind of rough and somewhat unpleasant to each other.

I’ve addressed all that before so no need to rehash. It’s only relevance now is in the fact that the aforementioned things made us seek out a different school. Now, the parents are also very different at the new school (perhaps a bit…helicopterish?) and my husband has already noted the distinct lack of tattoos among them but we hope the end result will be a better school experience for TQ.

My son, 27 months, started his Mother’s Morning Out program this week, too. When I took him the first day (he goes 2 days a week), he let himself into the classroom via the half-door and never looked back. I watched him while I turned in paperwork and chit-chatted with the director and he was, per my observation, not at all sad to be there. Some of the other kids wailed and sobbed at the prospect of being left by their parents and frankly, I thought P would be among them but nope. He was too excited by all the new toys and faces to worry about me and I have to say, I was SO proud of him!

My husband took him and picked him up on Wednesday as I was dealing with an unusually unpleasant period and he had a similar report –> P went right in and started playing and was having a ball when he picked him up on the playground at noon. Yay for P!

So what am I so miserable about that I actually typed TGIF? Oh, I dunno…cramps, crankiness and the paperwork, mostly.

See, I’ve spent the better part of this week dealing with paperwork for my daughter’s peanut allergy (for the school) securing doctor’s signatures for various forms and that doesn’t even begin to touch on the amount of crap the school sends home every day!

Sign this, sign that, register for this, pay for that, join this, deadline is near, better hurry, quantities are limited, first come, first serve! I’m drowning in this stuff and frankly, it’s a harsh reminder of the parts of school I always hated.

Deadlines, reminders, paperwork, homework, signatures, payments…urrrgggghhhh!

Makes. Head. Hurt.

And? We need a new refrigerator. Oy.

I’ve got to find a way to get organized this weekend (a perpetual but always elusive goal, it seems)

AND find a new refrigerator

AND sell my husband’s old car that’s been taking up valuable driveway real estate since early July (so we can buy a damn refrigerator without charging it)

AND just generally find the motivation to start cooking, cleaning and staying organized again, which always deserts me come summertime. All tips and helpful hints on those topics are welcomed!

So what are you doing this weekend?

Forgive My Bluntness but I Hate George Bush

I’ve mostly kept my politics to myself on this blog because I’m one of those people who doesn’t like to alienate others or cause strife over things that are basically personal choices but this is it. This is where I cross that line, where I come right out and say that I hate the man as well as his corrupt, self-serving administration.

Why? Geez…where to start? There are just SO MANY reasons but for the sake of brevity, I’ll limit my focus to just one issue.

First, though, let me ask you all a question.

How many of you are paying so much for health insurance that you could actually almost pay a mortgage payment with the monthly premium? How many of you find your standard of living compromised in some way because of your health insurance premiums? I raise my hand to both of those.

We pay $800 a month (a mere $200 less than our mortgage payment) for a not particularly stellar group plan that covers my children and myself. After the first dependent, the amount doesn’t increase so when we added our son at birth it didn’t cost any more and thus, prior to his birth we were paying $800 for JUST TWO PEOPLE. My husband’s share is paid for by his employer which means that it’s actually MORE than $800 without that benefit. Have I lost you yet?

In a nutshell, our mediocre health insurance is obscenely expensive and goes up about 15% per year. Every time my husband, who has a GOOD job, gets his annual raise, it’s eaten up by a premium increase. How can people ever get ahead, save for retirement, send their kids to college or anything else in a situation like that? You can’t.

So today, I’m reading the news online as I occasionally do and I come across this article in the NY Times wherein I learn that the Bush Administration is seeking to limit access to the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It’s already impossible for middle class people like us to qualify for this program that helps give children insurance coverage when their parents don’t have access to private insurance or can’t afford what’s available.

I KNOW people who are NOT living below the poverty line that do not have access to any sort of affordable health insurance for their children. They are not indigent, homeless or even what one might consider poor. They are getting by but if were they to purchase health insurance for their children, they would NOT be getting by.

They would have to forgo things like food, gas in their cars and other non-luxuries to be able to have health coverage for the kids. And yet, they don’t qualify because they’re not a family of four living on $20,650 per year. That in itself illustrates the direness of our country’s healthcare crisis. Now Bush and Co. want to make it even harder for children to qualify while people like the aforementioned cross their fingers and pray nothing awful befalls their children.

I think Georgie needs consult that faith-based inner compass of his and ask himself “What would Jesus do?” Heh. I kid. Sort of.

But seriously, this president is COMPLETELY out of touch with what’s happening in his own country. I know 28% of you may not agree with me and really do approve of the job Bush is doing and that’s fine. In fact, you’re more than welcome to disagree with me but I can assure you that you won’t change my mind.

Regardless of your political leanings, I still urge everyone to read the full article because you or someone you know may be affected.

(I’m also going to copy/paste it at the end of this post because the NY Times may not have it available to read for free down the road.)

Click here to tell Congress to make kid’s health care a priority. It’s super easy and will only take a moment of your time.

Did you like or agree with this post? Sk*rt it so more people can learn about this abomination!

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Rules May Limit Health Program Aiding Children

The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.

Read more »

How I Wish…

I’m feeling so melancholic this weekend and I don’t know why it is exactly (although I hope it means my period is coming) but I’ve been thinking about my children a lot. I mean, of course I think about them all the time but I’ve been thinking about them in a different way.

I get this way from time to time and it’s always epiphany-like, as I suddenly see them so clearly, as these pure little beings that practically emanate light. But I also see them as distinct and unique and absolutely perfect just as they are. It’s almost like I’m seeing them the way God (insert divine creator of your choice) sees them.

It’s truly a gift and for this brief period in time, I feel no frustrations, no impatience. Rather, I feel myself trying to soak up the essence of who they are RIGHT NOW and trying in vain to commit it to some kind of sense memory because I know that it’s something that can’t be recorded on videotape or captured in a still photograph.

My husband surely thinks I’m a sucker because when my son, who isn’t tired because he took a late nap, calls me into his room for the umpteenth time, I get him out of his crib and he jumps from my arms onto the big bed and gets under the covers, giggling. I join him and simply enjoy being in this moment where nothing else matters but us having a few minutes of illegal post-bedtime fun grabbing each other’s noses and playing with a flashlight.

When my daughter, who went to an evening birthday party and came home well past her bedtime gets out of bed to tell us she’s too excited about school on Monday (amongst other things) to go to sleep, I feel nothing but understanding. I’m not compelled to usher her back to her bed right away but instead I engage her for a few minutes as she tells me what’s on her mind, treasuring this moment instead of wishing for silence.

As I listen to her, I study her profile and I’m struck by how big she suddenly is and subsequently, how beautiful she is in an untamed, lust-for-life kind of way.

My heart melts in bursts of pride and pain. She’s all mine. For now. In a few years she will think I’m stupid and hopelessly uncool and that I couldn’t possibly understand the complexities of her tween/pre-teen life. Then high school, college and beyond. *shiver*

At least once a month, I playfully implore her not to get any older and she playfully agrees, though I know she loves every second of being newly seven. She’s suddenly so mature and it scares me because I don’t even know when it happened. I also remind her not to try and grow up too fast because being a grown up is a drag and again she promises me she won’t because she loves being a kid so much.

Oh, how I wish that could really be. How I wish I could keep them little forever. How I wish I could freeze moments in time and revisit them whenever I wanted. How I wish I could always see my children the way I do today.