Marriage: These days it’s a big fucking joke and I’m beginning to suspect that it was a big fucking joke back in the day as well. I love and like my husband, normally, when he isn’t my husband. When he is my husband, I hate him.
There. I said it.
I hate him. I hate my husband.
I cannot stand this guy and all of his never-ending problems which are impossible for me to effect in ANY WAY AT ALL and my fault entirely simultaneously.
When he isn’t my husband, he’s bad-ass.
Maybe he should stop being my fucking husband then.
“But Betty”, you say, “isn’t marriage a sacred contract involving Gawd and The State and all of Human Tradition? Shouldn’t you spend all your time living in constant stress, with everything being more difficult, and all goals and dreams unattainable, but the sacrifice is somehow ennobled by your lifelong investment in he, the one who’s ring you wear? Who’s name is on your arm?”
My answer to you is that I never got a ring, and I can get that shit lasered off.
“But, but, WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!”
Oh, you mean the three people I cannot invest myself in because his emotional needs come first, always first, and I cannot turn my attention to bettering anything in their lives or mine without reassuring before, during, and after, that I still love him and I’m not upset?
You mean those children who have watched him fight, and fight, and fight with me whether I fight back or not?
You mean those children who have seen me and him turn into monsters and scream the most vile shit at each other?
You mean those kids who’ve witnessed him rip blankets off my body and hit me with pillows and blankets while I sob and scream to be left alone? Those kids?
You’re worried about them if I LEAVE?
“So, you’ll be a single mom and force them to live with all that uncertainty?”
FUCK NO!
He’s got the career, the family, the hometown, the friends, the support systems, all waiting for him to use them. I have whatever he’s bought me in the last eight years, and he just loves to point out how other men don’t spend their money on their wives and kids like he does, so I don’t want any of that shit, either.
I can’t see how my kids will in any way benefit from me being around. Whatever I think about myself, I don’t think I’m in any way equipped for or good at being a mother. I probably should have gotten myself fixed before the possibility even arose, but I didn’t.
Now that I’ve got kids, well, the old way of doing this sort of thing I think is best. Clean breaks and Christmas cards. No messy hurt and confusing relational roles. Mommy loves them. Daddy and Mommy can’t get along. Mommy will write soon.
You think that’s fucking harsh?
What’s so fucking wonderful about fighting with your ex-spouse for the next fifteen years over who gets the kids on what weekend? What’s so warm and fuzzy about pretending everybody can get along now that the fights that always happened before are now happening over greater distances at multiple locations? That isn’t fair or just for kids. They’re constantly being fought over and around JUST LIKE BEFORE, but Mommy and Daddy don’t have to actually admit they walked away from something broken,
When you get a divorce, THERE IS NO LONGER A FAMILY TO KEEP TOGETHER. It’s broken. Let it go. Let everybody heal. Seriously.
If he’s got any sense, Daddy will get his shit together and find himself a nice woman to step into the hole I’ll inevitably leave, and he won’t chase her away.
Please, don’t a damned one of you think I’m talking about this lightly. I’ve put in eight years trying to make it work with this man. I love my children with everything I’ve got. I love them enough to see that sticking around is NOT to their benefit.
I’ve never left before because I feel so strongly that hanging around the edges of their lives is NOT loving them properly. So I’ve stayed here, and I’ve gotten fatter trying to solve whatever emotional crisis he’s having this week, and I squeeze token acts of parenting into the corners of my life and I hate myself.
And I hate him.
I am baby-I’ll-change’d the fuck out.
By all means, I’m as crazy as a hat full of assholes. Once shit goes down, I am right there, throwin’ elbows. I AM PART OF THE PROBLEM.
But, I’m the only one doing a god damn thing to try to fix the problem. He just wants to sit around feeling sorry for himself.
Sorry is for dead men.
I’m sick of sitting in graveyards while my heart still beats.
I Just Wanted a Pony 