Divorce Feelings & Dreams (Patreon)

I woke up this morning agitated from a dream where he was throwing a huge party in my house. (The house that used to be our house.) I was frazzled, confused, I felt out of control. People were in every room, he wouldn’t explain anything, brushed me off. I marvel at my sleeping brains’ ability to distill my real feelings this way. It’s artful really.

In our quick exchange with the kids tonight he mentions (another) vacation with his girlfriend. To New York. I cringe. I bite my tongue. Don’t react. Stay peaceful. Happiness can’t enter a crowded room. Let go.

I asked him for years to come with me on my trips to New York. Come to this party with me! Come meet my friends! Come and skip through Brooklyn and get away with me! There was always a Really Good Excuse. A reason. And then next time a reason again. It never happened.

Which was fine! We’d been together decades, I could accept his no! I needed the me-time anyway! It was fine! I’d go alone! I needed to work on being alone! How perfect! It’s fine!

We dress things up when we don’t like them. We see them through filters and rosy coloured glasses. We believe in the redemption arc and the bigger picture. We hope and keep on working. And then after a divorce we look back and see things with a different lens. It was fucked. I never stood a chance.

So he’s going to New York with her. How I wish I could be happy for them. How I wish I could respond with “How nice! It’s lovely in the Spring!” But I can’t. It’s just another hurt on the pile of hurts. I wish it didn’t get to me. I wish I wasn’t petty and jealous. I wish I wasn’t wishing for their misery. That’s not very poly or evolved or witchy of me. That’s not very me of me.

Joie says I have to remember their relationship is different, less factors to balance, “focus on giving yourself what he never could.” Max says he does stupid shit all the time, why let it get to me? Piper says it’s callous and fucked up, that I always deserved better. Bear says it’s bullshit he didn’t try harder, and reminds me I’m grieving. O is sleeping but she’ll send stabby emojis in the morning.

I am so grateful to have these reminders to be compassionate to myself. These hurts are real and some days it feels like there’s no bottom in the free fall that comes when you blow up your own life. A thousand tiny cuts from the shrapnel. A lost kind of feeling.

“The thing is it was easier when” my therapist stops me mid-sentence. “I was there Heart, it was never easy.”