A complicated relationship with my ex

This post has pictures from my favourite blog, The Edge of Reality, which features the beefy, furry men which I love .... muscled ithout being too fat and with a "bad boy" look about them. Despite all the men I hook up with, I rarely get to spend some sweet sexytime with guys like these.

I've become increasingly busy with the Breakfast Club (two mornings a week), my GSA planning and my three new classes so I've been going into work 1 - 2 hours early just to get my work done. I'm at my best and most energetic in the early morning.

But last night, the temperatures have dipped again into the -30 C range, so it is cold, dark and I'm still very sick.  Bleh!

One day after the drama described in my last post where I slammed the phone down on my ex, I was in her driveway helping my son fix his truck.  She appeared, heading out on an errand. "Oh, shit!  I don't want to see her!!"   We hadn't had a face-to-face meeting all year.

She looked me in the eye without any apparent hatred (as is her usual look), barely smiled and said, "Hello."  I said, "What do you think of my 'grandpa car'?" She said: "It looks good" and proceeded on her way.  This was an inconsequential exchange but it illustrated to me how she can flip-flip from anger to normalcy in a flash.   

My last post generated quite a few comments about my ex, so I'm going to put a few thoughts down about her:

1.   I had NO idea of her emotional and mental health issues when we got married. One factor was that most of her family lived thousands of miles away;  I met them all for the first time at our wedding! 

Had I met them beforehand, it would have been a huge red flag because they share some of the her behaviour traits.  I only heard about her issues from family members later and observed them myself as our lives became more busy and stressful.

It was the birth of our third child which was the straw that broke the camel's back.  It pushed her over the deep end from which she never recovered. 

At that time, I still was unaware of my attraction to men and our marriage still seemed to me to be fairly strong and normal.

2.   For many years and until very recently, I was my wife's biggest and at times, only supporter but she never appreciated this.  She had no tact or common sense when dealing with other people and would blunder into conflict after conflict with friends, neighbours, family and work colleagues.
 
I spent many years as an enabler, making excuses for her behaviour:   "___'s really tired today."  or "____ didn't mean to say that.... she really was trying to say....."  In the end, I gave up trying to save her from herself and stopped making excuses for her behaviour.

3.  As infuriating as she is, I still feel sorry for her ...sometimes.  She's trapped in a cycle of behaviour which she apparently doesn't recognize and can't get out of.  And it has cost her countless friendships and relationships with family members and will probably continue to do so.

4.  While it may be true that in every relationship breakup, there is his story, her story and the truth, I can say that my story is constantly corroborated by friends, neighbours, family and my own children.   My wife's conflicts were apparent to everyone and at times, I became embarrassed when people felt sorry for me.

5.  Right now, my feelings towards her are mixed.  I want to be on good terms because it mean less awkwardness for the kids when we run into each other at future family events.  But if her occasional erratic and hostile behaviour continues, I want to have nothing to do with he as long as I live.