Realizations

About a week and a half of this new single mom thing, and I’m starting to realize a few things…

My daily routine is not one bit more difficult, which is making me realize just how little J was doing. He would basically go to work, come home (sometimes, actually more often than not he wouldn’t come home until late), and that’s it. No help with the girls, no help with the house. It’s kind of sad to realize just how much of a waste of space he’s become, but also kind of a relief to see that this won’t really be much harder.

I am HAPPY to have him out of the house. I’m sad for Little K, because she misses him, but I don’t miss him at all. I don’t miss uncomfortable silence during the times when it was just the two of us, after the girls were in bed. I don’t miss lying next to him in bed, not wanting to touch him because I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he had been touching all over some girl at work. I especially don’t miss the fights, me begging him to show me some emotion and him coldly looking at me and saying any possible thing he could think of to hurt me. I don’t miss him making me feel like I wasn’t good enough–a good enough wife, good enough mother, and good enough woman.

I’m not feeling scared anymore about money. I can make this work. I might have to scale back some things in my lifestyle in order to make the best life possible for the girls, but I don’t mind. Whatever happens, I can manage it, and I can probably manage the hard times with a lot more grace and confidence now that I don’t have J emotionally beating me down every step of the way.

I used to feel like this was the worst thing that could happen, to have my marriage end, my husband walk out on me. But I’m realizing that it isn’t the worst thing at all. The worst thing would be to leave things as they were, to be unhappy and disrespected, to teach my girls that it’s ok for a man to yell at his wife and cheat on her.

I’m sort of hoping he does just walk out entirely. Obviously a part of me needs him to be involved with the girls, for their sakes. But then, he’s never been a good or loving dad, so why would he start now? Maybe we’ll all be better off if he just disappears entirely.