Monday, September 9, 2024
My husband woke me up around 5:30…I had to go to town with him for the hair appointment I had. I borrowed my mother-in-laws car, so I dropped her off to work at 8:30 and then left for the warehouse to get the products I needed. Sometimes I just really get frustrated with myself about saying “yes” to my friends when they ask if I can do their hair. Anyway…I finished around 12:30-1 and then headed up to our house because that’s where he was working for the last half of the day.
Both of the girls’ rooms are now sealed, tomorrow he will pour the self-levelling cement. Then we will work on hanging the pocket doors…and ripping up all of the main flooring to poor cement down into the basement foundation. I am really hoping all of this gets done this week so they can start rebuilding the floor really quickly…that’s when we can get an electrician and plumbing in there which needs to happen before it gets too cold.
We left the house around 4-4:30, dropped my mother-in-laws car off at her work, grabbed my bags from my in-laws and headed back to the chalet. We hung out a little, started cooking dinner – chicken wraps – and then started a movie that we haven’t finished, Hit Man. It’s really good so far I think, but my nephew called to sell us some cookies and my husband went to bed early. I can only imagine how tired he is. He works non-stop, all the time. I love that he’s such a hard worker…and at the same time I wish he set more boundaries for himself to have a better home life…well, just a better life outside of work. I know he runs himself down, right now, we need it to get the house finished. That all brings me to my role in this…
I’ve been feeling so guilty living under his “care” for the last 5/7 years that we’ve been together…and he will always tell me that, “yeah it wasn’t what we planned, it wasn’t what it was supposed to be like…but it’s like that.” And that’s the truth! I moved here after speaking with our immigration attorney for almost a year before even making any hard decisions about moving, etc. We were told that I should be able to acquire a work permit within 3-6 months. Then…the world went wild right after I moved here in September 2019. A few months later…we were learning how to survive lockdown and mandates and everything else that came with that. I had a few short months to learn about this new place that I was living in…and learning to live with my husband because for the 2 years that we’d been together before that…we’d never lived full-time together…and lived 1,778 miles apart to be exact. We had always had our own things, our separate places, spaces, and family lives. It was always our plan to live together…but we were going from being apart for the majority of our relationship…to being with each other, unable to go outside the house outside of a curfew for the next 3 years, within a 3-5 month period.
I will say that I am very thankful…and blessed, that we do get along so well. I can honestly say that he is my BEST FRIEND…but I can also say that we went through some really trying times. It was a really hard for me to be stuck on this side of the border with very little I could do if I wanted to keep my papers moving…and also, keep building my relationship with my husband, “step” kids, and in-laws. I took the French class at the local school so I could learn to communicate with family here…none of them speak English, initially, my husband had the VERY basics at the beginning of our relationship. I honestly don’t give him enough credit for trying so hard at the beginning…and then continuing to push himself throughout our relationship. He is perfectly fluent now…and I need to remember to tell him that in the morning. I’m good in French…I can’t say I speak very fluently…I have a somewhat limited vocabulary and there are some people that I literally…cannot understand when they are speaking. I’m at 80%. Which is also hard now being back in the states where…I don’t have any exposure to the language and I feel like I’m hitting a plateau.
Anyway…we worked through a lot of shit during those years…which I totally understand were pretty dark for most people. Maybe sometime I will write more about that experience…because I definitely don’t want to forget it and I honestly think that so many people have actually forgotten what it was like when our basic freedoms were stripped away. I couldn’t walk my dog outside after 8pm…but that’s a whole other story.
All that to say, I’m lucky we’ve made it to this point in our relationship. We’re able to have disagreements and figure them out without fighting – there might be some tension…but we get through it. We often talk about how we’ve never just had a “normal” relationship. It’s always been us against immigration..wanting to be together…and yet fighting this invisible border of politics and agendas. It’s so frustrating no matter what side you’re on. You just have to be going through it to understand the complexity of it all…which neither of us understood…and definitely not to this extent.
There’s the quote “absence makes the heart grow fonder…” I do believe that’s true…and also it presents itself with a lot of other problems/obstacles. When we’re both frustrated with our circumstances…that tension is a whole other level of anxiety…and stress…and sadness. I just feel like I’ve done enough missing him…and not enough living with him. I finally found the person I know is meant for me…and we are fighting, for years, to just live a normal, happy, family life! We were able to for 4 years…and I may have taken a few days of those for granted where I could have woken up early with him for coffee while he sends his invoices or stayed up later to finish the movie we were watching…but believe me, I know what I have is something so special. And…I’m tired of having to work around month-to-month schedules and weekends/holidays with the kids just so we can buy plane tickets back and forth on both ends to see each other for a week or two…and factoring in trying to run two businesses at the same time, him and I.
Ugh, it’s just all really hard right now. This is definitely a lot of rambling, I can feel it, haha! I’m feeling so many things right now…and my annoyance with his ex is creeping in again…I HATE the way she talks to him. My husband is a very strong person…and I don’t just say that because I want to believe it, I’ve seen it…AND he’s also a very kind, gently, compassionate person who doesn’t always stand up for himself in certain situations or certain people. I think he’s really living with a lot of trauma from his 9 years with her, I wish he’d see someone again. The mind games that she plays with him…it’s a yo-yo of emotions…and she uses the girls as bait EVERY. SINGLE. TIME…because that’s how you get him. But then she puts him down…telling him he’s such a shitty person, shitty dad, shitty lover, shitty everything…because she’s mad he left. We thought when she got with her new boyfriend (they got together a few months after we started dating) that everything would calm down. We hoped that would be the case anyway…but even after 7 years…the bullshit continues. I’ve been thinking about typing out all of my entries from my older journal…just to remind myself of everything that I’ve overcome…but I contemplate doing it because I’m not sure I want to relive or feel all of those things again.
Changing subject…interesting events of the day – my roommate didn’t go to work today, I saw her stumbling in at 9:30 at night last night into the house, half of her jumper on, dog in tow…and then she just didn’t leave the house all day, except to answer the door for the pizza delivery. I should have prefaced this with some context. Soooo…my roommate is going through a divorce. We moved in together because she is one of my best friends. However…there’s some major issues that I have after only 4 months.
-She always leaves the back door open for her dog…that she literally has no time for. She does this because she doesn’t have time to come home to let her out during the day. And then…she get’s assed out at night…and just goes inside, passes out, and leaves the back door WIDE OPEN. (Mind you, I have a HOUSE CAT…she has never been allowed to be outside…) She’s always working…or she’s out…and it’s always been that way because this dog was NEVER trained to do anything. She constantly barks her head off like a psycho at everything and everyone, day and night.
-The only water she gets is out of the toilet. (I’m scolded if I put the toilet seat down.)
-Doesn’t know how to walk on a leash at 2 years of age.
I could go on and on…but the door situation is the one that bothers me the most…and the $600 utility bill that we got for the month…which I was gone for a week of that she tried to tell me was because of “all of the watering we were doing…” It was because she was coming home, turning on the sprinkler for her dog, I would go to bed, wake up, not only was the back door still open with the air conditioning running on 100 degree temps…but the sprinkler was still on. This happened OFTEN. And talking to her…did nothing. Add on to the water bill her 45 minute to 1 hour showers in the morning before work…and often after she’s trashing out a 6-12 pack of APA’s before going to bed with all of her lights on and windows open..and we live on a main road. I can see straight into her bedroom from the street.
We don’t live in a safe city or neighborhood either…
I’m venting tonight. My husband is soundly asleep and I am just feeling all of the things…of having to go back to feeling unsafe and without my best friend my by side. That’s a lot of what it really comes down to. When I’m not with him…I feel unsafe. I think that’s what a good relationship is all about though, too…finding someone that makes you feel safe…at home, at peace and comfortable with yourself…all of it. I would say 90% of our arguments have been about his ex or the girls – which have been so brainwashed by their mother that it’s to no fault of their own…but still equally destructive and hurtful.
And somehow I’m cycling back to what I was talking about before changing the subject. Ugh…I guess it just needs to be said…get it down and out so that I can move through it.
I should probably seen a therapist also…I know I mentioned it earlier for my husband…and we were both seeing one at a time before. But…it was really expensive, especially to find an English-speaking therapist around here. So I just gave up and my husband got a leave of absence for around 6-8 months from his job…he has so much unresolved trauma from his past relationship…and I hate to see it continue to affect him in certain aspects of his life. And also…doing everything that he knows to do for the girls…and that being thrown back in his face in some obscured fashion that she’s managed to construct in her mind…and then convince the kids what’s true vs what’s actually…TRUE. She is diagnosed bi-polar…and having been a mental health professional…I’ve seen a lot, I am a compassionate person…but she’s hateful and destructive to my family and that just hits differently.
I really need to wrap this up and get to bed. I have a 90-minute massage in the morning so that’s really exciting. I’m also supposed to be meeting with my husband’s aunt sometime tomorrow. I love her…I am really excited she reached out to him and asked if I could hang out, haha. It’s his dad’s sister…and they couldn’t be more different…and I love them both! I also have a meeting/hangout session with a girl that I used to VA for…so that should be nice also!
Goodnight OD world, xx