Over the weekend I had a sort of epiphany on the subject of my ex husband. On Friday I was bitching to my assistant about G and his expensive apartment and lack of debt. I guess she got to the point of disgust where she was forced to say something, and she commented, "Well, a lot of people do get by on a lot less than you make."
Hmm. Point taken.
Then Saturday I was bitching to B about it... how bitter I was feeling about it and how unfair it all was, and he commented that I sounded like his ex-wife. "G can do what he wants with his money," he told me. Great. A bitchy, bitter, money-grubbing ex-wife, that's just what I want to be. I apologized for bitching and he said it was okay, but it just made him sad that I still had enough of a connection to G to be hurt by what he does.
Ouch.
Okay, okay. I get it. Let it go. I woke up Sunday morning with a hangover and a new perspective. B was right. My assistant was right. I'll be okay, and what G does or has or feels has no effect on me. It has no meaning to me. He doesn't have to be miserable for me to be happy. I don't have to have what he has to be happy. I can't – and wouldn't want to – go back and change things now. Though I did not choose the situation that started me down this road, I did make certain choices that got me here, and all I can do is move forward from where I am. It's not a bad place to be. I have a nice new place to live, a great new boyfriend who treats me like a (slightly off-kilter) princess, a happy, well-adjusted little boy, and now I've sold the house that was weighing me down and can simplify my life by moving to Norman. What the hell is wrong with that? Nothing. I was only holding on to bitterness about G because I was jealous of his freedom: from debt, responsibility, consequences and (in his own mind, at least) blame.
I'm done.
Many years ago, when I broke up with a boyfriend that I still had to maintain a working relationship with, we went several weeks in stiff silence. After that, he seemed to put it behind him and managed, most of the time, to carry on amicably with me. Then one day, late in the afternoon, he appeared in my office with two glasses and two bottles of beer. Silently he set them down, opened and poured the beers, and handed one to me.
"I've been really angry at you," he told me. "And I'm not going to be angry any more."
We've been friends ever since. That was 15 years ago.
So I went to see G at the house, and I told him I wasn't going to be angry at him any more. I told him I couldn't spend my time, energy and my future wishing him to be miserable. He hugged me and thanked me and said "Maybe in ten years we'll get married again."
Okay, probably NOT that, I thought. But it was nice to be nice to him and not be secretly grinding my teeth all the time. So I said "well, in the meantime, I'm going to buy a scooter."A better choice, I think.
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