False Bottoms

Tomorrow (Friday) is the day. No excuses jeans. I had planned on filing next Friday for practical and tactical reasons, but I really feel the time is now. Any reason for delay can be cured.

Today wasn't a good day by any stretch of the imagination. By now, I have concluded that 2006 is, in fact, the year of the cunt (although the Chinese may have been onto something with the whole Year of the Dog thing, given the Darby acquisition), and I have finally yielded to its prowess. 2006 won. I lost. I concede the race and am just going to hide out in a bunker and wait for the shadow of 2007. I very rarely toss in the white flag, but now, in the very final days of the year, I realize it got the best of me. I put up a good fight and battled most of the year, but, like Al Gore, I have concluded that sometimes? The deck is just too stacked against you and your mental health and dignity requires surrender.

Yesterday, I learned that B does, in fact, have a girlfriend and learned her identity. Now, him having a girlfriend wasn't exactly earth-shattering news, as I knew that instinctively. We've been separated for two years, haven't slept together once in all that. People do crave intimacy and sex, quite frankly. I, myself, had a good mercy/sympathy shag last Christmas that was probably better than my entire sex life with B, so I didn't have unreasonable expectations. If you can't have sex with other people during a separation ("WE WERE ON A BREAK!"), what is the point of separating?

What killed me was learning who it was (no one I really know or care about) and that he is stepping out with her publicly. She is probably six or seven years younger than me (and I am six years younger than B) and she is a wallflower -- I guess she's cute, but she's not the kind of person you remember after meeting her. Or I was self involved the two or three times I met her. My word for her is "boring." Uninteresting. That was hard to swallow. B refused to sign the divorce papers for months, then I couldn't file because of HIS work concerns, then he stalled and pleaded with me not to file, all while he is basically begging for my personal and professional guidance in certain important (to him financially, to me philosophically) matters. I put aside all of my sadness and rage to do something constructive, even though I knew it wasn't good for me emotionally. To find out he has the audacity to date in public -- to humiliate me at the expense of his own ego and needs -- all the while calling me several times a day for advice, guidance, etc. That was the harshest blow. This is not the man I married. I think that man died a long time ago and I am just now coming to terms with that loss.

It wasn't J, as J was the one who told me who it was. J did cover for B several times over the past few months, but now, B has included her in his dumping grounds of barked orders and has treated her as his equivalent "work spouse." I think the guilt finally got the best of her, or she realized she hitched her wagon to the wrong horse. In any event, J and I probably can't ever be friends again, as the whole thing is just too toxic for words. More collateral damage, I guess.

Incidentally, my sister has this phrase called "false bottoms" -- just when you think you've hit rock bottom, the floor gives out and you realize you can sink farther.

If that wasn't bad enough, I called my MIL last night to get her address (I was lazy and didn't feel like digging for it). At the end of the conversation, I told her that even though B and I weren't going to make it, I loved her and thanked her for always being a great friend and source of support. She responded by saying "You two are going to make it -- of course you'll work it out. No two people belong together like you and you have such love for each other." She repeated it over and over. I sort of blurted out "well, Mom, when your husband has a girlfriend, you have to harsh up to the reality that is probably isn't going to work out."

Awkward silence ensued. I never, ever wanted to say anything bad about B to anyone who knew us both. I'm sure I ruined her Christmas by telling her that her son wasn't the man either of us thought we knew. I wish I hadn't said anything.

Oh, but it gets better (false bottoms and all). This morning, I called AD, who was originally introduced into my life as B's new best friend. AD used to get on my last nerve and still can, but over the years, we have developed a very special bond. B and I separated while AD and his long-term girlfriend were having issues. We talked each other down off of ledges and forged a strange but real friendship. When I told AD about B's girlfriend (including identity), his response was "well, shit, K - I had heard something about that through the grapevine and had hoped it wasn't true. B is going to wake up one day and realize he thoroughly fucked his life up."

I lost it -- not at his words, but at the realization that there was a grapevine that was likely pitying me or otherwise titilating that B had a new girl while his long-suffering wife was still playing the do-gooder role. That B had such little respect for me and my contributions to this marriage that he would humiliate me while simultaneously extracting my counsel and advice. That this man could, in any conscience, take advantage of my respect for our relationship and solicit my support and advice for his business matters, all the while showing absolutely no respect for me while he pursued whatever hole he had to fill during all of this.

When I got into the office this morning, I promptly lost my shit in my boss' office and had an all-out sobfest. That was a new false bottom.

In any event, in the depths of this sorrow, I have some clarity. This needs to be behind me, and now. I am filing tomorrow. I need to sever the umbilical cord of our relationship. It need not be hostile and I will try really hard not to be hostile -- just definite.

And I need to stop with my online married friend. On one hand, I know what purposes we are fulfilling -- aside from the obvious friendship chemistry. He makes me crush on him, and it feels good to me to crush on someone that specifcially --- to say nothing of the fact that he is utterly crush-worthy. I make him feel alive and interesting and attractive, as married men are clearly wont to need that affirmation. He is a good - no -- a great man and I am better for having gotten to know him, but I need to redirect my efforts to persons who are available to me. Having really felt the pain of a breaking heart, that can only come from realizing your husband is pretty much dead and his reincarnation is an asshole, I don't think I can weather another broken heart. He is just a good man, who should be appreciated as such, and not anything more.

And I really need to rediscover something resembling a cheery outlook.