It’s funny to me how we are so certain that we are getting
what we want in one moment, and not so sure about it the next…
It took a girl in a bar to change my relationship for the
better. No more arguing, no more distance and none of this intentional
hurtfulness…all because of one girl in the right bar on the right night (I guess).
Thanks to her, my life with my kid’s dad has gotten so much easier. The divorce
papers are nearly signed and ready to go, we are openly talking about other
people - dating other people/ being involved with other people…and that’s great
because it’s what’s going on with us now.
And while it is great, it also makes my heart a little sad.
The friendship that I have with him now is what we should have been able to
have the whole marriage, except that we had done too much damage to each other
to find this friendship on our own. It took another woman to wake us both up.
And what’s really wonderful (and honestly, a little annoying) is that I think
her and I could be friends if we ever met each other. She’s getting this
version of him that I don’t know if I ever had, and yet it’s making him and I better
co - parents and friends. The sad part of all this is that if he and I could
have found this kind of relationship years ago, we’d probably never consider
leaving each other. How’s that for irony? In a matter of hours it went from “I’m not
moving on because I don’t want to” to “so…I met a girl…”
And while I am happy for him (honestly, I am) I suddenly
feel more alone than I did before. I think part of it stems from jealousy because
as a full time single mom, I don’t have any time to try and go meet anyone. I don’t
find guys at the bar, and no one comes up to me in any fashion outside of the
bar…
The other part of it is because I didn’t think that he’d
move on so fast and after 11 years, the idea of him being with someone else
just makes it hard to breathe. SO, back to what I started with- from one moment
to the next life can turn you on your head and leave you there for a while. Now
I find myself looking to make sense of everything all because this girl walked
into our lives. And I thank her for that. I thank her for everything she has
given to my boy’s dad in the short time they’ve known each other which has
trickled down to him giving me what I always needed. I thank her for giving
this sense of value and purpose and an emotional connection to the man that I have
to raise my children with. I thank her for walking to the bar that night and I
even thank him for being so stubborn with me just a few hours before meeting
her, that he was mad enough at me to stay at that bar. I never thought that
when I left him there that night our lives would change. I thought I would wake
up the next day and still be fighting an uphill battle and living my next few
months as the bad guy that just “didn’t try” or “gave up”.
When he asked me if I could meet him for lunch 4 days later because
he needed to talk to me, my heart started to race thinking that something big
had happened. Maybe he lost his job, or maybe he was sick, or maybe he wanted
to make the divorce harder just because he could…I never thought I’d be greeted
with a hug - a tight, sincere hug that I had been missing for so long. That hug
wasn’t trying to make me feel like shit for asking for a divorce, it wasn’t being
offered because I asked for it, and most importantly – it wasn’t being given as
a way to manipulate me or make me feel guilty. It was the best hug we’d shared
in ages. And then he said “I don’t want
to not be friends with you” and I almost cried.
This woman that he barely knew gave him so much that I wasn’t
able to for the longest time. By giving him what he needed, she gave me my
friend back. Someone that should be my best friend, really. Someone that I want
to spend my time with and talk to at the end of the day and I want to hear how
his day was, and how she’s doing. It’s a whole new level of maturity that I didn’t
know I didn’t have until this last week. But it’s such a gift and that gift is
felt amongst the entire family. I
finally feel like we might be alright after all. And I hope she stays around, I
really do. I’d like to meet her and take her for coffee and thank her for what
she’s done for our family. I think she is what we’ve needed that we couldn’t put
our finger on. Our missing link turned out to be a cute girl in a bar on a Friday
night. So, again I ask- how’s that for irony?
