It all falls to Sunday evenings.
Bags are readied for school and work the next day. Trash is gathered from the far reaches of the house and set to the curb. The cat litter gets changed. I make certain that laundry, dishes and bills are completed. Children are bathed. I clear the kitchen counters—not that that’s any different from the forty-seven times I clear the kitchen counters every other day.
I do these jobs alone. I do more work than I did when the stb-ex lived here, and yet I do it now with a happy heart. When he was here, I slogged through tasks with resentment gnawing at me. Now, even though I work harder, my heart is lighter.
As I work, I wonder how it is that I can feel so cheerful when Sunday evenings spent with him appeared black before my eyes. There must be some knowledge I lack. If I’d had that knowledge then, I think, I would have been able to moderate my attitude and avoid the rending of my family.
If I could have had this Zen then, I could have held out until the stb-ex grew wiser. Or not. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d have gotten his act together or not, because I would have had peace either way. More than anything else it was an adjustment in attitude I needed.
But I was never able to make that adjustment. I missed the lesson then, so I continue to search for it now. It is the great mystery that bedevils my mind each Sunday evening as I prepare house and children for the week ahead.
Some day if I’m lucky, perhaps I’ll figure it out. As I wheel the trash to the curb a white hot bolt will reach down and offer the knowledge to my waiting mind.
“Oh,” I’ll think, stopped curiously in the middle of my driveway, trash forgotten behind me. “That’s it. That’s what I was missing. If only I’d known it then.”
Lovely. Thank you.
You could never have achieved the stillness of heart and clear outlook while he was still there. His absence is what it took. Yes you could have learned to look past the black curtain for as long as it took… but why live like that? I tried for the better part of 17 years to adjust my attitude and all i did was damp down my self, my real self. And you know that’s no way to live.
Families get rended, but it isn’t necessarily a fatal blow. Your happiness and peace will go a long ways to protecting the children from fallout.
To live in the world and deal with day to day things as you have without resentment and emotion, you’d have to be a Zen master…and they usually spend years away from the world learning how to do it. Your solution is much more practical, and just as good (better according to some).
I’ve come to a place something like yours. I work far harder than I did when Herself and I lived together. But my home is now always orderly and I don’t feel on the verge of screaming from her laziness anymore.
For me the key is that I don’t see he rsitting on her ass when there is work to be done.
Congrats on your Zen-ness. It’s tough, but at least it’s all yours. He can’t fuck it up beyond what you allow him.
you have some smart commenters
all i would add is that you can’t find peace when your closet is messy and your closet was messy for a very long time.
so yeah you work harder now but you still have a better life than you did with someone you don’t like anymore
Echoing all the earlier comments, you have to have the mental space to achieve that calm.
It’s so simple really as I have gone through this also. It is not what you were/are missing. It is what THEY are missing and THEY will truly never change.
i am now in search of some Zen of my own….i look forward to finding it.
aw shit. i’m still waiting on a white hot bolt for…something.
maybe the lesson was that it was OK for you to not have to wait for him to grow wiser, that you deserve to live in YOUR peace and not HIS chaos.
Someone was supposed to have given me the answer by now, dammit!
:)
Learning how to live for yourself is the most important lesson you could ever learn, and the most rewarding.
When you rely on just yourself, everything is easier. I think when you go into something with no expectations at all (never expecting someone to help with the chore, etc), you won’t feel resentment or feel unappreciated. But if they do pitch in sometimes, you feel grateful and happy rather then feel like it was owed to you. I guess if you go into something expecting the least, it’s a win-win.
Psssssst! AAG! As Douglas Adams told us all many years ago, the answer is 42 :o)