Wobble

Feeling very, very low tonight. I don't know why, but I let the Ciderman get under my skin, which is a predictably stupid thing to have done. But I don't often meet people I want to talk to, who interest me, who aren't 10 years older than me and married.

This evening I spent in the company of two nice couples - late 50s/early 60s. 20-odd years older than me, and reminding me with every shared joke, every sentence that they finish for each other that I will never have that. I will never grow old with a person by my side with whom I've spent the majority of my adult life, who is the father of my children, who remembers that disasterous holiday we had 30 years ago, who planned the house extention with me etc, etc.

But I'm back to the old problem, I'm too young to be old and too old to be young. While the 30-somethings cluster round the pub with friends, I realise I have none to do that with - they are all the old smug-marrieds. While any younger friends I have are having fun, I seem to be always refusing a pint in order to drive home. It's become ingrained over the last 25 years - its what I do.

The most wonderful, memorable weekend of my life was spent, 9 years ago at a music festival. It wasn't because the bands were great, although they were. It was because, after rushing to get there, after sorting out the kids, and making sure the shopping & washing was done, I dashed over to the campsite to wait for the next item on the checklist of things to do.....only for the realisation to dawn that there wasn't anything. I could just: put the car keys down, get myself a pint, dance in the sunshine and repeat - for the next 36 hours. It was revelatory. For a day and a half, I wasn't responsible for someone else, running children here, collecting them from there, organising stuff. It was the first time in my adult life I'd ever had that much time to myself. I was 31. 

Occasions since seem few and far between, which is why I feel I have turned into the most boring, prematurely-aged old bag known to mankind. Its like I know there's a life out there, but have no idea how to access it. How will I ever meet someone? This post is self-indulgent and whiny and I'm not even pre-menstrual, which is even more worrying, really.  

Six Month Check-up

Looking back over the blog, I thought it might be worth doing a mid-year review to follow up from my New Year's Eve post. But its all so damn good! What a difference 6 months has made. From feeling trapped, defeated and negative, I'm now feeling positive, vibrant and alive. Ok, I'm not a grinning sunbeam every moment of every day, but then, would you want to hang out with someone who was? Or ring the local funny-farm and advise them to bring their biggest net?

So here we go - Midsummer Joy

Emotional
Living in my own space and skin, occasionally lonely but pretty content. Having an affair with that married man, but as long as it stays within its boundaries, all is good. I know where I stand and as long as I know when my next shag is coming, I'm fine. Involved enough to be edgy when I don't know where he is when I was expecting to see him at work and he's elsewhere. Involved enough to not particularly be interested in actually sleeping with anyone else, but not so hung-up that I spend my weekends & evenings pining. Yup, could be a LOT worse.

Professional
Brilliant! The shake-up in my personal life has left me feeling so much more positive and in control of my life and this has been reflected at work. My boss and I are getting on better. I bounce around like I'm walking on air, and I get noticed. I've been approached by the director of another function to transfer to his area to bring my unique blend of skills with me. Just need to negotiate a payrise now.

Family
One darling is living at home, and we're having such fun. Its so relaxed, we never row. She cooks, I shop, its no hassle. She says I'm the best flatmate she's ever had. Well, if you will hang out with born-again Christians, don't expect to be asked out down the pub too often. The other one is too far away for my liking, but she's doing what she wants and is pushing her way through life in the direction she wants to go. I can't help worrying, but then that's my job as a mummy. She's great. 

Hobbies
Bugger the gym - not been near it this year. But I go out walking most Sunday mornings with some friends. Much more civilised. And I've joined a trio to play classical music, and am investigating joining a folk group for general laughs.

The future
Well perhaps that Ayn Rand was on to something. I have indeed turfed K out, sprog minor has moved in and its even better than I dared hope. My indian summer of whoring about is available to me if and when I want to explore that option. Talking of which, went out last night and bumped into Cider Man, (he of my February shinannigans) who was very keen to give me his number. Meanwhile, although I can't afford Australia, I shall be visiting my sister in SA later this year. So no longer stuck. I have options. I have control. I have a big smile. I have a hangover.

Happy Easter

Its been a good one - spent entirely on my own, but in the company of beer, chocolate, the radio and about 30 square metres of peach-coloured woodchip wallpaper to strip. Doing the latter is quite cathartic - not my favourite distraction, but therapeutic nevertheless.

Of course I did have to drag myself away from a pornucopia of web-based smut this morning. The essential finale to this was a wank, sitting on the floor in the living room with my nose pressed to the window, knees spread wide. My breasts were pressed up against a warm radiator below, which in turn hid my blushes from passers-by, of which there were few, due to the inclement weather. Pity.

 

The Aftermath

So, the deed is done, I am now officially single. K and his stuff have gone, leaving behind a beautiful letter, a huge bunch of flowers and the crap furniture. Amazing; he's had 10 years to buy me flowers, why wait til the morning I throw his arse out?

I can't quite shake the suspicion that as soon as I have the house straight and everything sorted, I'll think, "Hmm, that's better, now when will K be home to see it all?" I'll miss his smile, but I've missed that for ages now. Part of me thinks I'm being incredibly selfish, immature and unrealistic to expect a relationship where we were both happy. From the example of my parents' marriage, judged a "success" by society simply due to its length, I learnt that I never wanted to spend my adult years in the poisonous atmosphere of the silent war, like I had my childhood. But that's often where we ended up, unless I folded.

Apart from the sly attempts to meet women off the Internet  (and lie about it), the passive aggressive silences and the occasions when the aggression had nothing passive about it, it was the emotional manipulation that wore me down. Strangely, it was often around food. K had very definite ideas about the purchase, the preparation, the cooking, the time and location of eating and the clearing up afterwards. Neither I nor the off-spring were that fanatical in our beliefs about any of it, so to keep the peace, we'd go with the flow, mostly.

But it was extremely difficult to point out the difference between the reasonableness of the request (can someone wash up afterwards) and the unreasonableness of the full-on sulk if he didn't immediately get his own way. Sometimes people get phone calls straight after dinner, and so don't start the washing up for an hour or two. That shouldn't be an "issue" but it always was. It was so difficult to point out that there was nothing wrong with requesting that we usually eat early due to his work schedule, but there is something wrong when no-one dares have a life or arrange anything after work for fear of upsetting his cooking schedule. Try to make the point, and you are bombarded with the reasons that his request is reasonable, and it is. What's not reasonable is a 4 day period of only speaking to answer questions with a grunt because someone forgot to mention they'd eaten the last of the bran-flakes, despite there being a cupboard full of other cereal. Or something equally petty., but he could never see that.

So I was left with the choice of continually rowing over petty, nonsensical trivia, or not sweating the small stuff and giving in. The problem was that the expectation became set that emotional manipulation works, and the situations in which it was deployed spread and spread. Thursday night, we had the classic, "Either you share a bed with me tonight, or you'd better look after my sleeping pills for me." No direct threats to kill himself, just the wild implication in the hope that emotional blackmail would get me onto the same mattress as him once last time. The joke is that after Monday's heart scare, I'd promised to spend one last night, just cuddling. I don't mind doing something freely offered - I object strongly into being manoeuvred into the same thing. "This - is precisely why you're moving out on Saturday." I tartly informed him.

Maggot or Caterpillar?

Well, its all over, including most of the shouting, with K. He officially moves out next Saturday and the house is being pulled apart and tagged as his or hers. There have been some dicey moments when the threat of a row around who had absolute right to the wok loomed, but we've managed to back away from total insanity. We've even been getting on reasonably well, until he started to try to pin me down to what nights I was eating at what time and I could feel my blood pressure start to rise again.

And I've cried and told him that I'm sad its over. He's found somewhere to rent that is a state at the moment, but hopefully will be tarted up before he moves in. The location is perfect for him and he may even be able to buy it. If I give him a whacking great lump sum for the deposit. Which will sting a bit, but is fair enough. I'd rather see him settled - its one less thing on my conscience.

So I'm now starting to face up to reality of life on my own. I swing from ecstatic to terrified. The sprog is contemplating moving out, so I may have to get in a lodger at some point. Yuck - but perhaps that's too negative. And I have to acknowledge the growing infatuation with D. You know the pathetic thing where you can't settle until you know where they are, but once you do, you're just happy to be sharing the same building with them? Pitiful!

So which am I - a maggot for ending a 10 year relationship, or a caterpillar, about to metamorphosise?

Respite Care

I have made the point, repeatedly and firmly and calmly....and then less calmly and with rising hysteria...that I need some space. So K is going to spend the week with a friend. Except that as I'm away a couple of nights this week, he's threatening to come back on those nights. I've said that as I won't be here, it's no skin off my nose. I could make the point that being somewhere different might allow him to think differently, but I haven't got the energy. I feel sorry for him. I look at him and remember why I fell in love with him, but know that it hasn't gone the way I hoped.

Tomorrow I have the first of a number of two day training courses at another site. Apparently, the woman running it specialises in emotional rape - she ferrets out your mental Achilles heel and sinks her teeth in. Everyone who has done this course has cried...or seen others cry. As many of them are software engineers, we're not talking touchy, feely, in-tune-with-their-feelings types, we are talking taciturn geeks with the depth of a puddle. They have all come back, mentally reprogrammed with mad-eyed zeal to save the world, and become great "leaders" and "communicators". So great timing - my plan is to indulge in a little passive-aggressive silence myself, while ferreting out her emotional weaknesses and exposing them to the harsh light of day. Wish me luck!

But more pleasantly, on the evening in-between, I hope to catch up with an old friend. Every girl needs a good, platonic, honest, male mate who tells it to you straight and he is mine, although we've drifted apart a bit the last six months. Nevertheless, he is someone that within 5 mins of being with, I'm spraying saliva over through laughing so hard. Could be just what the doctor ordered. And if that doesn't fix it, a session has been booked with D for Wednesday night. I sincerely hope that Z is right, and the emotional rollercoaster is on its way up.

High Days and Holidays

Hmm, that last post was a bit of a self-indulgent whine, but as my daughter says, "That's what the internet is for!" Of course, me and Trekkie Monster know the internet is for porn, but hey, I can multitask.

So holidays - what do I have against them? Well, its more a case of what they have against me. The fact that the current interest is off with his wife sunning himself in a tropical paradise has reminded me of a nasty trick that life has played on me. I just don't get to have holidays.

I can't really say my parents had a bad marriage. After all, they stuck together for 40 years and who am I to say it was all bad? A fair chunk at the beginning was probably good, and they were kind to each other at the end. It was probably only 10 years or so that they weren't on speaking terms. Its just a shame that ten years had to coincide with my childhood. Thanks, guys. So after my older sisters left home (which they did with unseemly haste the instant they could), there was just me left. Mum and dad used to take it in turns to drag me away on holiday, because they refused to go together. So there was one bored, sullen kid and one bored, resentful adult, stuck in a tent in a field in the middle of nowhere. So that was a riot.

Then there was the occasion after shitface left. Its okay, my daughters know I privately refer to their biological father as shitface. I kept it from them for many a year, but they probably have an equivalent name for him - not that they need a name for an individual who (at his own insistence) hasn't clapped eyes or ears on them in nigh on 20 years.

Shitface came home from work one Friday night, announced he had fallen madly in love with a woman in the office and was leaving with his stuff first thing in the morning. And yes, he was as good as his word. As the door slammed shut behind him, the phone rang. It was my mother. She said, without really pausing for breath:

"Hi, you know your dad's been ill for the last nine months? Well we hadn't really spelt out how bad it was cos we didn't want to worry you, 
but the specialists say he actually needs a heart transplant and he's been on the waiting list and a heart has just come up and they're just running the tests now to check his immune system is up to scratch as much as possible and he hasn't got cold or anything but hopefully they'll go ahead later today but we won't know anything for 24 hours so I'll ring you tomorrow. Bye."

As weekends go, it was a bit of a shocker.

Happily dad survived, and by about the Wednesday, I realised I had to get a bit of a grip. A quick tally up revealed that apart from £27.28 in the bank, I had: no money, no income, no assets, no job, no experience, no qualifications, no childcare, no friends (they were all away at uni), no family support (they were still quite busy at the hospital). What I did have was a brand new mortgage, only 4 weeks old, 3-year-old twins and less than 2 weeks to go before Christmas. Which meant that even if I managed to sob my way through a social security interview, I wasn't going to get any cash before the new year. So I rang shit-face, to ask for some money to feed the children with. I was told in no uncertain terms that he had no money for me as he and his new girlfriend were about to get on a plane. Apparently, "Lesley needs a holiday, she's had a really rough time of it recently." Wow, I can't imagine how bad it must have been for her.

Which brings me slap bang up to date. Why aren't K & I having loads of fabulous holidays? In the intervening 20 years, I've sorted the money issue and while I'm not rolling in it, between us we have enough to keep the wolves from the door. Well, we did have one very nice holiday, to Cyprus. Its a beautiful place and I couldn't believe my luck. I thought I'd broken my holiday jinx. Until the last night, when K got the hump and turned on the silent treatment. And on and on, despite all my efforts to jolly him out of it. Eventually I snapped and walked off by myself, determined that I wasn't going to have my last evening ruined by spending it in an atmosphere of tension, just like my childhood. Except when I got back after a not incredibly exciting meal in Pizza Hut, he refused to let me back into the room and an "incident" kicked off.  Its not the only time it has happened, and I'm not prepared to go abroad with him for any length of time because I have nowhere else to go. In the UK I can walk away, drive away, let things cool down. I'm not coming home from another holiday covered in bruises.

So no, I don't get to do holidays like other people. Wah. Life's snot fair.

New Year's Bloody Eve

Never good, is it. The pressure of being on the verge of a whole new year, virginal in aspect, yet you know that despite all that potential for change, for rebirth, for reinvention, it's pointless - you'll just fuck it up like all the others.

2008 has a whole new horror for me -the dreaded 40th birthday. Six months off, yet monolithic in its unyielding, ticking unavoidability, like an essay deadline or an execution. Oh I'm sure its possible to emerge, unscathed and blinking into your 5th decade without a dose of the screaming heebie-jeebies, but to be frank, the omens aren't good. 30 was a bit of an issue for me. It was also the year I reached my seventh wedding anniversary, having known my husband for 10 years in total. Well guess what? This year I'll have known K for 10 years and we'll have been shacked up for...you guessed it.

And as for the state of play there? Well, his obsession with eating does nothing to help his high blood pressure, the medication for which does nothing to remind me why we got together in the first place....if you get my drift. Yes I know that was stupid - you can't build a relationship on sex. I knew that but hey - see 1st paragraph. Me? I'm very aware that I've been avoiding losing weight because I kid myself that if I had a great body, I'd want to use it. Actually, I'm not kidding myself about wanting to, I'm kidding myself about the opportunity to.

Mind you, having said that, in the last month, a "potential situation" has arisen. And of course, its with someone I work with. What a bloody cliche - I can hear you all (all 1 of you that stumbles across this in 8 months time) screaming "No - don't do it." I don't know if I will, I don't know if there is any chance for the potential to turn physical at any point. I just know that a bit of mild flirting that wouldn't scare the horses has put a spring in my step and encouraged me to lose 1/2 a stone. That's 7 lb for the merkins. Actually 8lb now, due to this poxy cough I've had all Christmas which has kept me away from the wine and beer far more effectively than a 12 step programme. Just another 40 to go. The irony isn't lost on me that this is probably as good as it gets - all the ego stroke with none of the embarrassing disrobing issues. Quit while I'm ahead maybe. But his Christmas card had "xx......" and damn, I want to explore those dots.

So - an inventory. A stock-take of my present position.

Emotional
Living with a man with whom I have little in common, who has no subject of conversation beyond work, food and rugby, without much in the way of sex to fill the silences. Considering an ill-considered affair with a married man from work.  Potential for happiness in 2008: 3/10

Professional
Not fabulous. Not particularly gelling with my new boss. Am giving in to my inherent laziness and frankly, just don't care that much. Performance review wasn't brilliant, although not unexpected for someone newly promoted. But I basically need to get some inspiration and get my finger out or things will not go well. Too apathetic to look outside the company. That final salary pension thing sucks you in. Potential for happiness in 2008: 4/10

Family
The children. A current major worry. Not that there's anything wrong with them - its just when they are around I see my life through their eyes and I feel like I'm letting them down. They expect perfection from me and I feel punctured by their low-level barbs of disdain. One has just officially left home. Its not like when she left to go to university or abroad to bum about, because each time then, she had plans to come home again. Not this time. She's moved in with her student boyfriend and I felt bereft. Until I logged onto facebook and found she'd left a message for her boyfriend (unaware that it would appear in my update page too), saying that she couldn't stand the stultifying atmosphere here and wanted to leave there and then. My crime? Watching tv on Christmas Day. Christ, what does she think overweight 39-year-olds with flu do on Christmas Day?

The other one has gone to see the unsuitable boyfriend who dumped her at the beginning of December, because he hadn't succeeded in emotionally blackmailing her into coming home from abroad a month early. Not that he had done anything about finding them somewhere to live together - he is perfectly happy living with his parents and spending his spare money on computer games. Understandable in an 18 year old - less so in a 25 year old. Obviously I don't want her giving in and moving to where he is at the other end of the country, but as he apparently said to her (as reported to me by her incensed twin sister), "well, your mother is hardly the best person to take relationship advice from". Possibly not, but life advice from someone who has not only been self-supporting from the age of 16, but single handedly bought up 2 children as well has some weight. Just do as I say, not as I do.... I wouldn't mind if he made her happy, but he doesn't. She likes eating out, or at least stopping for coffee when out shopping - he considers it a waste of money. Alternatively, she likes long walks in the country. He sulks and stays indoor playing computer games while the rest of his family go for walks. She loves travelling, happy to rough it and submerge herself into a country and its culture. He joined her for a month and whined the whole time, ruining it for everyone else in the party. Honestly he needs a slap! You'll just have to trust me on that one. Potential for worry in 2008: 9/10

Hobbies
Well, I was making good use of that gym membership earlier in the month, til this bloody head cold and interminable cough ambushed me. I've joined about 4 different orchestras this year, which has been variously terrifying, exhilarating, tedious, unintentionally hilarious, touching and in the case of chamber music, passionately fabulous. If only I'd practised more as a child....

The obsession with web stuff has dwindled to zero. I really should have carried on promoting WW, but as the bank-charge reclamation stuff that was driving so much traffic to my site was cut off by OFT indecision, I lost the drive. I always secretly knew that the fun was in the design and putting it together, rather than the intrinsic subject. Potential for happiness in 2008: 7.5/10

The future
So what do I want to improve in 2008? According to the superficially seductive philosophy of Ayn Rand, "Happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values." So according to her, I should feel no guilt about turfing K out because I'd rather live in my own space. Sprog Junior could move in here as the atmosphere would be so much better, and I could enjoy an indian summer of whoring around before preparing to "go gently into that good night". I could also consider going to Australia with my sister, who invited me just before Christmas, leaving spring or autumn. I frankly wouldn't want K dragging along behind and there's no point suggesting I go alone with her for the moping. Can't really afford it. Mind you, I could get another job somewhere else entirely with more money - sell the house or rent it out. But K won't move further away from his job or brother or kids, so that's a no. So the bottom line is that I feel suffocated and hemmed in, the obvious solution to which is to leave my lover, except I won't be going anywhere, its my house, and as he has little in the way of assets since I persuaded him to leave his wife, he can't afford to go anywhere either. So I guess we're stuck...for another year....

More Intro

and I realised I missed out sex. Hmmm, what does that say about my life :(

The intro

So a new blog - why?

Well I started an entirely different blog on a particular subject. This has got me looking round blog-world in general & I'm finding loads of fascinating, interesting, readable blogs that have nothing to do with my first blog (which is about debt), so I thought I'd start a personal blog so I could link to them.

Plus I could ramble on about politics, religion and any other taboos I might have missed, having covered money in the first one.