People are starting to realize that I'm not wearing my wedding ring anymore. I've been explaining a bit of the details as to why we are separated and that "really, I'm okay". Honestly, I am just so done with the whole thing. I know that we will get a divorce, because I don't see anything changing that will make me want to stay in this. He is still unreliable, unpredictable, and irresponsible. I feel so dumb with myself for letting it all go as long as it did. Dumb, but relieved that now it's finally taken the turn I've been hoping for for so long.
8 1/2 years; why didn't I leave in the first 2 weeks, when he told me that he wasn't sure he was really over his ex-girlfriend yet. Why didn't I leave at 10 months, when the same ex-girlfriend got pregnant while we were living together? Why didn't I leave at 3 years, when he started staying out all night with friends, getting drunk and passing out at their houses? Why didn't I leave at 4 years, when he decided that he was "too good" for his current job and started the multi-year stretch of unemployment? Why why why?? I keep going back to these times, and ask myself why, when it was so obviously black & white, didn't I just get out?
It wasn't black & white though...only in looking back do the puzzle pieces fall together. I wanted it so badly to work. He was my first boyfriend, my first anything. I've always been able to get things to work, to fix them, to make them better. His mom and sister always said that I made him a better person. I thought that if I stuck with him long enough, I could fix all the things that he didn't like about himself. But you can't fix someone that doesn't want to be fixed, that denies even having a problem. We have the problems, I'm the one being "brainwashed" by my parents, I should be seeing a counselor, his mom and sister are the mental cases, not him. I don't give up easily on things. I like to see how they develop, to bring them to fruition, and not to just start and then forget. I didn't want to give up on him. From day one, I was in and I wasn't easily jumping ship.
I see him now and just smile and avoid all confrontation. He is the one missing out, I remind myself. It's a mantra that Jacob and I started when he was only 2 years old and Nick didn't want to go out with us. If we were going to the zoo, I would tell Jake, "Oh well, it's Daddy's loss, he's missing out on the elephants!" Now, Jacob tells Nick the same phrase. "You're missing out, Daddy. Daddy's missing out, isn't he Mom?"
He's missing out on so much more than he'll ever know.