The NoJoMo Diary gives writing prompts daily from letters from the alphabet. Today’s letter happens to be “X”, as in x-ray. But that’s not what I think about when I think about the letter X.
I’m trying so hard to purge the anger that I have regarding Grrrr’s X-wife. It’s probably not right that I air their issues in this diary, but fuck it. I’m gonna do it anyway because maybe it will help to get it out of inside me.
Granted, I only know one side of the story, but it’s the side of the story that comes from the man I love fiercely, and it’s all I have to go by, so it’s the side that makes me so upset. Here is the super-short version:
Grrrrr met his X-wife when he was going to school in Europe. I think they had a class together or something. Regardless, he caught her eye and she approached him and pursued him. She is of a particular European persuasion that I associate with aggressiveness, gruffness, arrogance, and ummmm…okay Nazism. She has extremely manly features, dressing habits and mannerisms, and I frankly have no clue what Grrrr saw in her from the beginning, but that’s neither here nor there…because he fell in love with her, they moved in together, and two years later were married.
She was raised in a wealthy family and lived a privileged life and used to the finer things. She also worked for the family business and I guess made great bank, because when she decided that they would have children, she also decided that Grrrr would stay home and raise those children. Grrrrr went along with everything. He will admit to practically anyone that she wore the pants and that he was extremely passive with her. After all, she made all the dough and he was not in a position to argue about anything.
She also didn’t want anything to do with her children after they were born. She basically handed them off to Papa Grrrr while she went traipsing out to the bars at night. Seriously, Grrrr says that she was always into going out, but she would take off when their firstborn was just three weeks old and do the all-nighters with her “girlfriends”.
Turns out that her “girlfriends” were actually a singular: a guy who happened to be their accountant. And a whole bunch of things happened at once: the family business sank (literally…a whole other story), she flipped, and she basically abandoned Grrrrr and the kids to shack up with the family accountant.
Apparently, she left her husband (Grrrr) and children for a YEAR. And then one day just strolled back into their gigantic house and turned to Grrrr and said, “Okay. You’re out, The Accountant is moving in, and I’m taking the kids back.”
And guess what Grrrrr said?
“Okay.”
(of course there were a few scuffles….at one point she punched him in the kisser and BROKE HIS NOSE!!!)
But he fucking gave her a divorce without argument, let her have full custody of the kids that SHE ABANDONED, and moved into a small apartment down the street.
[Sideline: My blood is boiling–AGAIN!! I get soooooo angry when I think about all of this]
[Other sideline: when you ask Grrrrr why he didn’t put up a fight for the babies that he raised practically by himself while his wife was out drinking and committing adultery, he will tell you that he didn’t know HOW to fight…that the mother ALWAYS gets custody in Germany, that her family was too powerful, that he was so blindsided that he didn’t even know what to do. So he did what he ALWAYS does with her: he rolled over and took it]
[ANGER!!!]
[deep breaths]
So cut to present day. Grrrr has been through a couple of years of therapy to ease the pain and to figure things out. He has forgiven his X-wife and The Accountant of their sins and hopes for a happy union (they got married last December) only for the sake of the children, because he wants to make sure that they are in a stable environment: the home they were born in, the familiar schools, their friends, their new family, etc.
I do give the X-wife credit in that she and The Accountant are actually interested in the children’s welfare now. They take them on vacations and treat them very, very well. I’m not sure what happened there. Perhaps she is much happier in this relationship or she realized that she needed to step up and be a mother now that she doesn’t have a full-time nanny-husband. Whatever the case, I know the kids aren’t being abused.
And now Grrrrr and I are together and I’m trying so desperately to prepare to become a stepmother to these two precious, innocent kids. Grrr wants us all to get to know each other and bond as another family unit that these kids can depend on and maybe eventually love.
What’s the problem then, you ask? Why the anger and resentment? Why don’t you let go just like your beloved fiance? He seems fine with everything the way it is.
Well, the answer is that “the way it is” is still the way SHE wants it. He bends over backwards to agree to anything and everything that she says/wants/needs. And that’s all fine and good with THEM, but now I’m in the picture. And THEIR decisions affect me. Not just decisions about the children, but decisions about everything.
SHE STILL WEARS THE PANTS!!
This affects everything that Grrrrr and I do together because my poor, poor Grrrr only wants to see his kids, and I don’t blame him. But when he rolled over and simply granted his X-wife the divorce, he also signed over ALL of his rights as a FATHER!!! And now the ONLY way that he can be a father to the children that he raised from birth, is to kiss her ass and do anything and EVERYTHING that she says.
[again, BOILING BLOOD]
And The Therapizer tells me that my anger is kinda displaced when I point it directly at the X-wife. I’m really angry at Grrrrr.
I’m angry at him for not FIGHTING for his KIDS (yet, he is doing it to keep the peace….I realize that she has him by the balls, but I’m angry at him for LETTING HER KEEP HIS BALLS!!!!)
I’m angry at him for being so very zen-like about this whole thing (and angry at myself because I can’t even meditate my way out of this one…how can he be so at peace with the decisions that were made??!!)
I’m angry at him for FIGHTING WITH ME about all of this stuff (he NEVER fights with his X-wife about ANYTHING!! Why does he fight with ME??? Oh, he will argue for HOURS with me about anything that has to do with the smallest bit of control. And I know why he does it with me–because he never did it with HER!! He’s making up for lost time!)
I’m angry at him for telling her that WE would be DELIGHTED to have her at our WEDDING!!!! (now granted, this is a special circumstance because the kids are coming from overseas and all and I get that part…but it’s the fact that he fucking spoke on MY BEHALF about OUR WEDDING!!! I DO NOT WANT GRRRR’S X-WIFE AT OUR WEDDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*ahem*
Sorry.
No, I don’t want the X-wife at the wedding, but I will make a special exception for this because right now the kids don’t even speak English, and I know it will be a comfort to them to have their mother their while their father is busy getting married. I get it.
And I get a lot of it. Really. I don’t know how Grrrrr has risen above all this and completely turned the other cheek–to EVERYTHING.
I mean, he speaks so cordially with The Accountant when they talk on the phone. It sometimes sounds like they are buddies. It boggles my mind.
And he remains on extremely good grounds with his X-wife, and I know. I know in my heart it’s all for the kids. He desperately loves those kids and would put up with anything…ANYTHING…EVERYTHING to make sure that things don’t get screwed up to the point where he can’t see those kids.
[now tears, and lots of them…shit]
He loves those kids more than anything in the world, he is a good, good, father. I know he is and I know he does.
His heart breaks EVERY SINGLE DAY because he can’t be with those kids.
It’s all about the kids and he has risen above everything: the infidelity, the abandonment, the slaps (and blows) to the face.
How does he do it? How can I do it right along with him?
How do I purge this ANGER once and for all?
I’m seriously at my wits end and wonder if this is all going to be worth it in the end. It hurts so fucking bad, and I’m the one sitting on the sidelines here. I don’t have a say, yet I’m being brought into this circle. And I’m fighting, fighting, fighting every step of the way.
How can he possibly be so at peace while I watch helplessly from the outside?
[I’m spent now…exhausted]
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