In Addition...

It occurs to me that I have overlooked two topics, so before I get up to the present, I must address these two things: dating since my separation, and my relationship with Matt now, as well as his with Avery.

So, dating: something I thought I had finished (successfully)! I first got back “out there” when Avery was seven months old. I signed up on Match.com, because I really didn’t have any other way to meet people! Being in my mid-30’s, I didn’t have the network of single girls to go out with that I had back in my 20’s – pretty much everyone I know is married with kids. Most of my coworkers at the school were women, and when I wasn’t working I was home with an infant. So I signed up on Match, and my first few attempts were a little crazy! My life was full of drama at the time, and I really had no business dating! I was a mess. But I needed to feel attractive to men, to feel lovable, because at that time I was feeling unworthy of love. Not the greatest motive for trying to find a new “partner”!

I have had several semi-serious relationships over the past 2 years. Each of them was “fine” in its own way, but none has been the “right” one, which is ok – I am actually still in touch with several of them. I have realized that my agenda for dating now is completely different than it was back then, which is to say, I really have no agenda. I feel like, in our culture, there is so much emphasis on marriage, that it causes many young women (including myself) to try to turn every man into a potential husband, causing us to have tunnel vision. We can only see the “prize,” the finish line. When I met Matt, I was just about to turn 30, and I don’t think it was that BIG birthday that made me want marriage so badly – it was the fact that I was almost the LAST one of all of my college and high school girlfriends to find my “prince.” They had all gotten to have a wedding, and all that that entails – showers, gifts, the perfect dress, etc. It was finally my turn! I had had a VISION for my life, and that vision was becoming a reality.

Now, I am trying not to have a “vision” for the future. I am not looking forward so much to the day that I “find someone.” I don’t think my family understands this – people are supposed to want to be married, right? But I tried it and it really didn’t turn out so well for me, so I’m trying to just be more accepting of what life brings me. I am trying to be happy with myself, and my life, and my daughter. And I have never been so content with myself and my life before.

I think I am largely free from anger. There’s a saying I love, that I learned on an Oprah episode dedicated to anger, which goes: being angry is like taking poison and expecting someone else to die. That’s not to say that I wasn’t angry – I was angry for the better part of two years! But my anger never affected HIM. It did, however affect my everyday life greatly! Is it shitty, what happened to me? Yeah, it is. Was THIS the vision I had for my life? No way! But being angry about it doesn’t change or solve anything. I do believe that people are meant to be in pairs, that the highs are that much more exciting with someone to share them with, and that we all need help with life’s hurdles. But I’m not going to make that the ultimate goal. I’m going to simply be happy with what IS.

As far as my relationship with Matt: ugh. It’s fine, but for the past two years I have seen him four to six times per week, usually for only about 5 minutes as he picks Avery up, or drops her off, but still, I see him almost every day! As I have not been working and Avery has not been in daycare, the pick-ups and drop-offs have been at one of our houses. I guess we get along. We don’t communicate too terribly much, which I don’t think is right in light of the fact that we are BOTH Avery’s parents, and we will ALWAYS be Avery’s parents. There are always going to be things we will have to work on together as we raise our daughter. But he doesn’t feel the need to discuss anything with me, and he thinks I’m being dramatic when I say that there is a HUGE potential for her life to be very screwed up, as segmented as it is now. But just like in our marriage, he wants to do things the way he wants to do them, and he really doesn’t care what I think about that. When I look at him now, I honestly can’t believe I was ever married to him! It doesn’t even seem real. After all of this, there’s very little I find attractive about him. It makes me weary knowing that our lives will be connected forever!

Matt does spend time with Avery. He has her two nights during the week, after work until before work the next morning, and one night of each weekend (unless he’s away, which he often is), which is a full 24-hour period. His nights with her, however, are always scheduled based on whatever else is going on in his life. Whereas I plan my life around my time with her, he tends to plan his time with her around the rest of his life. He cancels or switches nights on a whim, which is very frustrating to me! I don’t have too many obligations at the time, but I am trying to have a life!

Avery seems to enjoy her time with him. In fact, for the past few weeks I have often heard that she “only loves dada” and not me, and that dada’s house is “funner” (the only concrete reason I have gotten out of her is that we have a black cat, and she wants a pink cat!) I know she is three and doesn’t understand what she is saying, but of course these words very hurtful to me! I feel like I have put my life on hold for three years, staying home with her to give her the best possible foundation instead of dumping her in daycare 50 hours/week, while his life has not skipped a beat. And he gets to be the hero. Daddy is SO FUN – woohoo! And mom stinks. I hope she grows out of this, and I know someday she will understand everything that is impossible for her to understand now.

I rarely say a bad word about her father to her – on occasion, I can’t help it (like last weekend when she threw a fit all the way home from his house because she wanted to be with him on HIS day, but he had left early in the morning to play golf, and I bore the brunt of it!), but I try to bite my tongue. I think it’s important for kids to take pride in where they come from, and if they are constantly bombarded with “your dad is a jerk” it’s bound to affect how they feel about themselves (which is essentially what happened to Matt and his siblings growing up).