I have gone through so many emotions this year – anger, denial, depression and so much more.  In the end I guess I’m just resigned. I filed for the divorce – he doesn’t have his shit together enough to do it and would take advantage of me (financially and otherwise) as long as I would let him.  I don’t want a divorce though.  I want to stay married to this man.  I love him.

And then there is being single and 44.  Don’t get me wrong I am attractive, successful, independent financially and otherwise and I have no kids at home.  I am pretty desireable in my age group (note I say “in my age group”).  We all know though that men my age want women much younger right? 

I spent a lifetime using my looks.  I may be very smart and successful but I used my looks to get where I am.  I guess it is just desserts finding myself here.  I married a man younger than me – just 4 years though.  I thought he loved me.  I thought our commitment was deep.  However he had some festering issues.  He never fully communicated them to me.  Once he got exposure to “other women” he realized he’d be able to find someone “better than me”.

So now what the fuck do I do?  Do I got out with younger men?  No way … How about older men?  Oh yeah I  really want an old guy who can barely have sex much less want to go out and have a good time.  At 44 finding a man “like me” – who may be in his 40′s but looks in his 30′s and acts same … well it is not easy.  And they all have soooo much baggage – kids, ex’s, etc. 

I can’t express my feelings of inadequacy.  I feel like such a failure and someone society has no use for.  I’m no longer hot and young.  I am a mom, an aunt, even a grandmom.  That’s all well and good but doesn’t fulfill me as a woman.  So now I’m desperately looking for a new man.  I feel like I have such a limited window to find a new man.  If I wait too long I’ll miss the window.  It might already be too late.  WTF.

I am dating someone now – good guy.  Met him online.  However as he considered who he might date, he thought about “starting again” with a 32 year old.  Geez … that makes me feel great.  Yes I am attractive … I have something to offer … much to offer.  But I am not 32 and not willing to start again.  Not sure how it will go – he likes me and really seems to want me but I can’t help but think about the “other considerations”.

What’s this post even about?  I guess it is about disappointment in how life works out.  It is a reminder to “watch your man” and mind your marriage.  It is all on us (women).  Sure the husband has a role but women make the world go round.  You want to stay married?  My answer is yes … Work really, really hard at it.  The alternative is being like me.  In a hotel room alone on Christmas evening.  It isn’t pretty.  It is sad.

Late in 2008 my husband learned his best friend’s wife was dying of cancer. At that time he seemed to be hopeful. He visited with her and was part of the support system. As with most cancers, she never really got better. She got worse. She is still alive but perhaps not for much longer. In May of this year she was released briefly from the hospital. My husband continued to visit with her at home, taking her lunch, texting and amusing her to distract her from the inevitable. When I expressed my unhappiness with the time he was spending her, he largely ignored it. And I don’t mean to sound cold. What I was feeling though is all the emotional energy he had went to her. He no longer wanted to spend time with me. He had no interest in sex. He never wanted to talk. He just “left” me emotionally and I overlooked it. Shortly after he told me he was concerned that “we didn’t like the same things”. He “worried” we would have nothing to do when we retire. Keep in mind we are just in our 40′s …. So I’m starting to put it all together.

Just a slight digression. In the past year, I had a knee replacement, pancreatitis, my dad died, and I was promoted to a role at work with greatly more responsibility. Couple all of this with the economy and stress around hoping you keep your job … well I was probably a little distracted.

August brought a vacation my husband takes yearly with his son. They go to our lake home. He takes the wife of his best friend and her kids. They take a vacation together. Yep, they hang out together at the lake enjoying some R&R.  No one tells me she is going.  No one tells her husband that I’m not there.  It wasn’t pretty.  Was there an affair going on?  Who knows?  Who cares at this point.  It was so very clear to me that everything my husband had to give was going to this woman.  Her husband took the head in the sand approach. I don’t fault him.  He has a wife who will die soon and 2 kids to raise.  I also don’t care to hang out with either of them ever again.

I’d like to suggest some kind of happy ending.  That is not to be.  My husband offered no real apology.  He expected me to understand he’d want to have her there.  He expected ME to have compassion for her illness.  It just wasn’t happening for me.  I gave it every angle I could – tried talking to him, counseling, analyzing, etc., but he was already gone.  Next thing you know he is saying he’s ready for a divorce.

Now he’s got a list a mile long of how I’ve wronged him.  I share my part in this break up.  I know EVERYTHING I did wrong, missed, etc.  However I didn’t cheat on my husband.  I didn’t take myself from our relationship.  The worst thing I “did” was never love his son.  See past posts on that one.

So now I’m 44 and single.  If that’s not bad enough, I can’t sell my house or pay the mortgage on my own.  I don’t want this post to be a bitch session.  I want it to be constructive.  Here’s some advice for you – take it or leave it.  And I realize I am not telling most people things they don’t already know.

Don’t take your eye off your marriage for a second.

Your husband is desirable to other women – anyone’s husband is.

Marriage is a full time job.  Having a full time job plus a marriage isn’t easy.

Communication is everything.  If you have partner who doesn’t communicate you aren’t going to make it for long. 

I could probably go on and on … The hardest part is that I still love my husband.  I thought I’d spend my life with him.  I made so many adjustments to my life to accomodate his (make a note – bad idea) and now I’m back to square one.  I feel I’ve wasted 7 years.  I feel bitter, sad, lonely and just plain stupid. 

What’s next …

 I was once called a chameleon by someone I loved.  I think of this often.  On one hand it is a compliment, sort of.  To me it says I get along well in all situations.  I know how to act in different situations.  This trait has not only helped me to be successful in my career, but also personally.  Or has it.  You see when I read about the self monitoring type I saw a negative.  I saw myself as learning to adjust and fit just about anywhere.  The expense is myself … my happiness, my truth.  This is a negative, because my truth always comes to me.  And I insist on having it and making it real.  Then where does that leave someone I am in a relationship with? 

I learned about self monitoring no doubt as a child.  I lived in terrible situations.  I learned to get along … however good or bad the situation.  This was survival.  Now I still do it … it is ingrained in who I am.  Is it healthy?

Now there are degrees of self monitoring I’m sure.  I’d go so far as to say more people need to be self monitoring   At what point do you lose you?  When are you not even sure any longer what you want, who you are and who you should be?

I don’t have the answers.  This one perplexes me but it also makes me think I might be a really bad person.  I often called myself “shallow”.  I’d say “but that’s just an act”.  Maybe it is much deeper.  I am a very deep thinker.  I am considerate and feeling.  However I keep a healthy distance from EVERYONE and I mean everyone.  Is this self monitoring what it is all about?  I used to always tell a counselor “I never have a feeling without first analyzing it and deciding how to proceed”.  This is true for me today as it was 20+ years ago.  Maybe I can give it up now?  Maybe I can afford a little feeling first? 

Here’s the article that led me to this introspection.  Interesting stuff.

 http://news.softpedia.com/news/Why-The-Perfect-Partner-Makes-the-Worst-Relationship-78625.shtml

Ok I’m not ignoring reality here.  The step parenting thing is universally difficult (if you believe everything you hear and read in the comments on my blog).  So maybe this is a bad example.  However it is clear to me I go the extra mile at work.  I succeed where I could never have imagined succeeding.  In my personal life I’m like a totally different person.  I don’t know what that’s about.  Perhaps it is still the desparation left over from my youth of poverty. 

Now we find we are bound together by the loss.  How to express the way we feel … well there are no words.  This tragedy will make us stronger.  It will bring us together.  We know that is the case.  I feel it. 

We will never forget this little baby whose name we never spoke.  I want to say I can’t wait until we have another one on the way.  However I’m still too sad to feel that way.  Give me some time with my grief. 

What’s all this always on the go all about?  It’s about control and trying to prove I’m someone.  I am always working harder to make sure I get ahead.  I remember being poor growing up.  I feel in my bones that I come from ignorant people who never even considered college for me.  My parents expected nothing of me, never encouraged my intelligence or pursuit of something more.  They were fine with me getting pregnant at 15. 

My parents never encouraged my success.  They still don’t have any clue what I do.  They never said they were proud of me.  They never attended school functions.  They didn’t ooh and ahh over my A’s on report cards. 

So now I’m left with the constant pursuit of this elusive “success”.  I’m not even sure what it might look like.  And who am I trying to prove anything to?  Myself, that’s who.  No matter how hard I work, at home, at the office, with relationships, it is never enough.  I’ll never be good enough, smart enough, successful enough.  Who has time to relax, enjoy, take vacations?  Someone who is a failure that’s who.

So I know this isn’t healthy.  I know it is wrong.  I also know it is me.  I’ve been rewarded in life for my relentless pursuit of whatever I set my eye on.  Success is actually mine everyday is so many little ways.  However never ever do I relish this success.  I never sit back and say “hey good job”.  The fun is in the getting there.  I never stop and smell the roses.  Before I’m done I’m onto the next pursuit.

I suffer everyday.  I never give myself credit.  I never accept the compliments and accolades I receive.  I continue to drive for me.  I blame my parents, but I don’t think about it often.  I just know I am a driver, driver, driver.  Type A defines who I am.  Relaxing means I got sick.  When I needed to be out of work for an operation that would leave me incapacitated and in bed, I set up a series of projects I could do from bed.  An idle mind or hand I’ll never be.

Sometimes when I have “free” time, I get into trouble.  I wander into situations I don’t belong in.  I don’t know how to handle this time.  Perhaps having a child at 16 contributed to this situation.  You see I never learned to have hobbies.  I never figured out what makes me tick and turns me on.  I just learned to survive.  And getting ahead meant never slowing down. 

I can slow down now.  I have success, affluence, happiness.  Yes I still don’t relax.  People try to get me to but I push them away.  To spend time with me is to accept my relentless pursuit of whatever I think might make me a success.

I wonder what it would have been like to have been born to a family that considered success just being happy?  Or one that recognized success with a celebration?  Have I similarly infected my grown son with this problem?  Is it so bad?  Maybe it will counter-balance his “millennial” attitude? 

I can relax when I die right?

As a result of living in such a household, I learned about hate first hand.  My goal in life was to leave that house and live in one where fighting didn’t happen.  I did a pretty good job of this in my life.  However, I accomplished living with very little fighting by sometimes living with people (read men) who I refused to fight with.  I bottled all my unhappiness up inside and then just left them.  I repeated this pattern many times.  I lied to keep from fighting.  I’d bet very few people would have called me unhappy.  Instead I was slowly boiling inside. 

Later in life I learned to have relationships with good men who I didn’t fight with.  I didn’t fight with them because we truly got along.  When fighting is needed or a strong point needs to be made, I don’t dread bringing it up. 

Another fallout from my fighting home of origin is my desire to make people like me.  I go to great lengths to be what people need to be liked.  I compliment, I assist, I help, I do whatever it takes for that person to like me.  I just need to be liked so they won’t argue with me or dislike me.  That is a very unhealthy reality.  It also causes me to have a great deal of surface relationships versus those with depth and real fulfillment.

Fighting parents raise screwed up kids.  No doubt about it.  Call yourself good for staying married for your kids.  But if you hate each other, your kids know it.  If you fight verbally, throw things, or anything that looks like generally not getting along on a regular basis, you are hurting your kids.