What can I really say? I'm 37 years old. I have boxes of old paper journals. however to make this easier between working full time and parenting I wanted to try blogspot as a form of release and healing through writing. I had the making of a promising future. I was working at a decent job, I was married, I had the house and the dog, with the 8ft privacy fence and I have a beautiful 7yr old baby boy. Long story short we decided that because we missed home and our son getting ready to head to school that we would sell the house and head back home.
Now lets fast forward a few months. The house sells, and we move back up the east coast, to lovely, wonderful coastal Maine. You know, the shit you see on postcards. Old weathered Cape Cods, bright colored buoys hanging in the yard, granite rock beaches, light houses, blah blah blah. We make it home, and are staying at my in-laws house. now this is coastal Maine, we're are not talking about the epitome of prosperous living and opportunity unless you sold your house in upstate New York and decided to retire in Maine. We have a soon to be elder boom, lack of work, and a over inflated cost of living thanks in part to greedy landlords, supply and demand, and a influx of Air BnB ruining the housing market. Oh, did I mention we are in the literal middle of the Heroin epidemic in the state?
So, we set up shop. I landed myself a job at a warehouse packing protein powder, and she landed a job working at a financial company, and then the local cellphone stand in town. nothing glamourous but its a paycheck, and a paycheck is better than no paycheck. life continues on for a few months until she decides that she wants a divorce. we took a drive, talked about it, talked about getting couples help which she said she would think about. ultimately nothing materialized. she said money was a problem and needed me to pick up the reigns financially. So, I did what anyone else would do and applied to work at the Maine State Prison as a correctional officer. The summer continues, while I am going through the hiring process at the state. taking physical tests, taking entrance exams at the criminal justice academy, taking my oral boards at the prison. I make it through, I just need to wait until the class starts. so I continue to my work at the warehouse.
mean while the tension in the house is crazy. she's spending time with her coworker, and giving him rides too and from work. spending time on road trips, just ultimately being checked out and not really wanting to put any apparent effort into the marriage. So, on one of her road trips to visit a mutual friend she ends up getting into a car accident. she calls, car is totaled. I ask her if she is okay, she says yes. I tell her I'm coming down, and she refuses and is adamant I don't come down. huh, seems like quite the red flag. She ends up coming home a few days later. Clears her 401k out to get a car. This should be red flag #2. Now I should probably mention that we were also looking for a house at the same time. we had seen a couple of different places, and I applied for loans. we were told that we needed to pay some bills off. So, we decided that we would pay off a substantial amount of debt, namely her debt. Red Flag #3!
Meanwhile classes at the criminal justice academy have started. think of it as like bootcamp lite, classes, line up, lots of PT, working in the pods, getting maced both in the face and respritory. it was an awful couple of months. I deal with this all day, and then have to come home to a house that is shared by herself, and 3 other people. Tension so thick in the house you could cut it with a knife. I was going to bed at like 8:30 at night at this point partly because I was exhausted from getting the shit kicked out of me at work, and partially because I couldn't deal with the tension. Anxiety was high. So this is right about the time that I find out she decides that the marriage is done, she conveniently decides that it is not worth it, she's not into it, it's my fault for lack of communication, etc. It was also around this time that there was some mental illness issues going on in the house, which I am not going to get into details as its not fair to her. Her personal business is none of yours. Although it should be mentioned for point of this story that I ended up writing down stuff in my journal, my promises to her, and also compiling a shitload of cards from her friends and family as to why she is important.
Sometime in the near future I decided to go to the lake, rainy day, grab coffee and just pour my heart out into letter that I penned to someone in college. Now, I will not deny the fact that I in college had a crush on this person, while I was dating my then future wife, however everything was squashed and I never cheated. However, I decided to pen a open letter and because I had to vent. I poured everything from the last 10 years of my life into that letter. I must have been gone for around 3 hours writing.
Looking back on it she must have found it fishy that I was out writing for that long, because I remember her calling asking where I was, and I told her that I was writing. Now keep in mind that she decided our marriage was done at this point. So, I get home and tuck everything into my backpack and move on with the rest of the week. At some point, she had gone through my stuff and found my letter that I wrote and wasn't too happy about it. soon after I was kicked out of the house and into my current apartment that I am in. I was in the new apartment 2 weeks before Christmas, and her new boy friend was moved into where she was living 45 days after I was out of the house. I struggled horribly with how that looked to my son, dad leaving the house and a new guy moving in without him even comprehending fully what had happened. What actually happened, or how new boyfriend moving into the house happened is all he said she said, which I am not going to get into. however, in the best interest of the kid, she could have said no.
Fast forward to today, and I am in my apartment, divorce is over. I find myself lucky to have 50/50 split with my son. He is my light in life, and my passion to succeed. My son has transitioned well thus far. Doing well in school, and I am coming to grips with the fact that I am broken person, and have some issues that need to be worked through, although not perfect I feel like I put effort into my marriage up until it started to turn, which if I have to guestimate was about two years before we moved back. that's when I noticed a solid shift in the marriage, no intimacy, not wanting to hang out as a family unit. sudden projects that were taking up all the free time. I assumed this was stressful work. I have accepted some responsibility for this, and no one is perfect. I have days where I am okay with the fact that two adults changed as people and started to drift away. I have days where I feel like everything transitioned to easily into her favor, and feel like this was planned well before we moved back home. it's a moot point at this time. I no longer want to be angry about it, and I strive to take the high road and not bad mouth or talk trash because little eyes are watching. I have caught wind that she is writing a blog as well, I haven't looked at it, but apparently she has posted said letter on there, I'm sure dissected it and has her army of internet friends going "ohhh-ahhhhhh." whatever she needs to do to heal.
I guess the moral to the story here is that at 37 years old I never really thought that I would be in the spot that I am currently. Living and working in Rockland, Maine. with no family around, in that spot where I cannot afford to live, but I'm too poor for anyone to give a shit. Yet trying to convey to my son that everything is okay, and that I'm not in constant state of worrying about how things will be taken care of, or how I am going to survive, while she is nice and cozy in her apartment with boyfriend. I guess here is to moving forward, and trying to figure out how to make a quality life happen for my son, and restarting, rebuilding and striving to correct issues with healing from divorce, depression and anxiety.
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