A Bitter Pill: Loving Your Ex

A friend of mine texted me last night and said I needed to update my blog.  Ha!  I know, I know.  I get in the habit of writing almost daily and then I completely lose all inspiration and just sit.  I did do a fair amount of sitting over the weekend but I actually had a great weekend considering I was off.  Stanley and I took the kids out to dinner, kind of on the spur of the moment on Friday night.  He was looking for somewhere to take the kids and kind of under his breath asked if I wanted to go.  Like, just to be nice.  I jumped on that.

Why yes, I would love to!  Just let me get my purse.

And my roller bag with my life in it so that I can go to the Crash Pad after.

It was fun and we focused on the kids then he brought them back to the nest and I went to my other bed.  Then on Saturday, Stanley was carting kids to various birthday parties and also trying to buy stuff to fix the roof leak and move the computer out of his room and into the living room (goal: get the kids out of his room so that he can have more privacy and a real room here).  He asked me if I could pick up JB from her party at 4:30.  Then because Merlot was at a sleepover, from there I took her to use a mani/pedi gift certificate, dinner and she stayed overnight with me while he spent the evening with The Boy.   It is so hard to get one on one time with them (especially the girls because Merlot is on me like glue) and I appreciated him for suggesting it.  We had a great time and I brought her back to the nest before Merlot got picked up from the sleepover so that she still had time to spend with her Dad.

 Our coffee talk went a long way in clearing the air here.

  We are back to friendly again, pats on back and hugs.

When Al was here he got upset with me for hugging Stanley at the Auction.  I did hug him several times and he hugged me too even though his girlfriend was standing right there.  I wondered what she thought because Al has been around longer and knows much more of the history.  He knows every detail of every emotion I have about Stanley, in fact.  But Stanley doesn’t have the verbal or emotional ability to share that with her so she may have been quite clueless.  Al wisely didn’t bring it up with me that night, but 36 hours later he did while we were having lunch.

Well…  So, I launched into this explanation that spiraled into tears and a pitiful woman sitting at lunch with her lovah admitting that she still loves her ex-husband.  It was pathetic. Bless Al’s heart.  Really, bless it.   I kept thinking how wonderful this man was for not getting up and walking out.  What a bitter pill for anyone to take: sitting there listening to their lover talk about loving their ex.  But the bottom line, is that I do love Stanley still.  There are so many things that I don’t love about him and I certainly don’t feel ‘in love’ with him.  I can’t even remember intimacy between us.

Isn’t that odd?

 (I wonder if that is a phenomenon after divorce or is it just me?

Must research.)

I can’t remember it at all.  I can’t remember what kissing him feels like, or sleeping with him.  Even sharing a bed and I slept next to him for 14 years.  Al sat with me at the table until I was able to process my feelings enough in my mind to classify the love I feel for Stanley as, ‘dear’.

He is ‘dear’ to me.

Like a family member.  More than a friend, almost like a brother.

 Stanley is one of my ‘loved ones’

He wasn’t a great partner.

(I have Al for that.)

He wasn’t a best friend.

(Again I have Al and a host of wonderful women for that.)

We certainly weren’t on fire in the bedroom together.

(Al is filling a lot of roles here I realize.)

But still, when I am around him, I want him to be happy and okay and I have this desire to hug him.  He is dear to me.  Plus I realize how absolutely dependent on him I am to help me raise these 3 kids.  Every time he is a good co-parent and asks me to go to dinner as a family I want to hug him some more.  Beer monkey or not, he is a good dad.  As a matter of fact, it is hard for me to even call myself a single parent most of the time.  Because he is always there if I need him for the kids even if he is the off parent.

 *Disclaimer*

Just in case you think I’ve lost my mind, I am very grounded in reality.  I came in yesterday and there were projects due today that were unfinished and it took me 2 hours to tackle the mess.  I don’t even know how he manages to do that to the house in the 2 days I’m gone. But he had gotten the stuff to do the roof, had the boy on task and managed to run cable and move the computer, in between the time he sat on the sofa and scratched.

Al says he doesn’t feel insecure about Stanley.

He says that he knows what Stanley’s role is in my life and that he believes in his heart that there is no way I could ever be with him again.  His philosophy is:

A relationship is only as good as the minimum amount of effort that is put into it.

He feels like Stanley’s maximum effort (when he actually tried) was still the minimum amount in the relationship and therefore I was never going to be happily married to him. He says he feels no competition because he puts in his maximum effort to be a good partner, friend and lover and that he knows I love him because I smile and giggle and kiss him a lot (when we are in the same zip code).

okay, okay.  I admit it, I do.

 The ‘bitter pill’ is mine.

In some ways it would be easier to hate Stanley.  Instead I look at him with love and regret, 3 – 4 times per week.  I wish we could have had a wonderful friendship and love affair that lasted 50 years so that my kids didn’t have to be children of divorce.  Gulp.  Because I love him, I grieve him.  I grieve what could have been.

 I’ll keep taking my pills and washing them down with Chardonnay just like always.

I am ever so thankful to have a man in my life who is a grown up

and can do things like process and have philosophies and not freak out

when I say things like “I love Stanley.”   Ever Thine.