My kids & my divorce

I actually am proud to say that I have two VERY well adjusted children. My daughter is 10 (going on 30! VERY grown up for her age) and my son is 8. My son also has ADHD & Aspergers (high functioning autism) so he is a very different kettle of fish from your average child.

My daughter is my mini-me … she looks like me and we are the same star sign. We are so alike that it is scary, and because she is so mature for her age, I kept her “in the loop” from the very start of this. I am from the school of parenting that you should be as honest with your children as possible … but the caveat is that this is based upon their age and understanding at the time. Example … the tooth fairy!! A few years ago my daughter asked me a ton of questions about the tooth fairy and I absolutely answered them based on her age and understanding without telling her a single lie – but without discrediting her belief. Earlier this year my daughter said to me point blank “Mum, is the tooth fairy real or is it you?”

… I was asked a direct question – I gave an honest answer to my ten year old daughter and admitted to her that yes, the tooth fairy was me. These days she just hands over her tooth and I had her the cash but she gets to enjoy keeping the secret from her brother.

Ohhh on the subject of the him and the tooth fairy … OMG … my son has a wobbly tooth at the moment and last night we had this conversation …

SON – I’ve got a wobbly tooth!
ME – Ohhhh cooooooool! Show me!
SON – *wobbles and points*
ME – Wow, that is seriously cool! It won’t be long before that falls out.
SON – *concerned expression on face*
ME – What’s up baby?
SON – *still thinking deeply* How will the tooth fairy know we have moved?
ME – *thinking on feet* Ummm well the tooth fairy will know that your tooth is wobbly at the moment from her special radar, so how about you write her a letter?
SON – AWESOME idea! *very excited about this(
ME – * Fetching pen and paper*
SON – *writes* Dear Tooth Fairy … from 25th October we will be living at XX XXXXX so please update your address book
ME – *trying so hard to stifle the laughter at the “update your address book” and today’s modern world and blah blah blah – That’s absolutely perfect baby!

It’s pinned up by his bed – just incase ….

I have to admit that I am so proud of the pair of them. I KNOW it is going to be so very hard for them to leave their dad behind, but I am focussing on the move as a positive thing and they are being so grown up and handling it so well. The fact that I have the keys already and have been moving bits and pieces in slowly has meant that they have had a chance to get used to the new house as well instead of it being a one off shock on moving day.

I really think that despite the arguments between us (that the children have witnessed some of recently – shame on our parts there) that the way we’ve been able to work this has helped them enormously. They both knew that Mum and Dad were having problems … then they knew that Mum and Dad were thinking about splitting up … then when I found the house we (I) talked to them about moving out and separation, and now gradually I’ve been able to drop in the fact that we are going to be getting divorced.

STBX has done very little of the talking I have to admit …. I’ve been “bad cop” with the kids most of the time and I guess once I finally move out of here that won’t change AT all!

I am going to struggle not to berate him in front of them but the truth is … he IS frigging useless. He is upstairs on his computer most of the time (he admits it is an avoidance thing) and I put our children to bed most nights anyway. He’s been a useless waste of space in my life for way too long now. He has already turned around to me and said that one night a week and every other weekend is fine … but that he may want to go away for a week and wouldn’t be able to have them!!!

So **I** am expected to bend backwards and for it to be okay for him to say he doesn’t want them on his one night per week purely because it suits him? Trust me I will be there for my kids and will support them in seeing their dad as often as they want beyond the basic minimum that we agree through the divorce … but if he says HIS life is more important than his kids and that he can’t have them that one frigging night a week …. then I will be there for them and they will draw their own conclusions on him from that and it won’t be due to me!!

But UGH it is so difficult not to let the children know the REAL truth because it is important that they maintain a healthy positive relationship with their father… and when their father is being a shit … it’s almost impossible but I will NEVER ever say a bad word about him in front of them.

I really and truly have had enough now. I need it to be over.

Thoughts on my affair …

I regret breaking my marriage vows and hurting my husband by being even emotionally intimate with another man, let alone having a sexual relationship with someone else while I was married …

But do I regret what I learned about myself through my affair? Hell no with bells on!!

AP (affair partner) taught me so much about my sexuality and about asking for the things I wanted and needed sexually. These were all things that my husband simply refused to talk about and that left me so frustrated and rejected. In return, AP was a man who had also been dealt blows to his self confidence by his ex, and between us we built each other back up again. AP had never had a woman who felt so open and relaxed with him … and I’d never had a man so totally focussed on MY needs. It was a sexual match made in heaven and to be honest it was a case of right place, right time. We met – we were attracted to each other and we filled a void that was missing in each other’s lives.

The thing is – the sexual side dropped off after a few months, and AP and I became good friends. I was dealing with all of the hassle of a failing business as well as my marriage problems, bringing up children … ohh plus I was MARRIED with CHILDREN and represented all of the things AP (a single guy my age) wanted – but could never have (ie a family) while he was seeing me. He on the other hand works from home with major stress, had his mother staying with him when her place got sold under her, so being intimate was out of the question anyway! We just got on well as human beings and although he has “guy friends” and I have “girl friends” … I don’t know … there was just something that kept us in touch with each other.

AP and I TALK. I’m sometimes scared to tell him stuff because I know he will give me an honest answer, but that is what I respect about him and precisely WHY I tell him stuff! He makes me think about my decisions and choices instead of just merely nodding and agreeing that it is a good idea. He is also so INSANELY logical and IS always right. That irritates the crap out of me because I like to be right too! AP is Aquarius and could literally be a poster boy for the definition!

We both agreed a long time ago (we met just over 2 years ago and our sexual affair lasted about 4 months) that a “relationship” was out of the question because we were just too different. I can’t go into the reasons publicly but that we were both attracted to each other and that both couldn’t imagine a life without the other in it.

We kind of also agreed recently that “fuck-buddies” would be a good way to term it because I am going to be single … he is single … and there would be absolutely nothing to stop us enjoying a little bit of errr “fun” because damnit I have to admit, AP is the BEST sex I ever had!

I NEED to stay single! I NEED to not be in a “relationship” and sort my head out, work out what I want & need from my life … but can I handle it and separate the sex from the emotion with AP without convincing myself it is anything other than just sex? I certainly couldn’t the last time my husband and I slept together. Maybe AP is different … because of our past sexual history and lack of “relationship” … maybe it could work.

Grrrr I don’t know. I like this guy a lot – on a physical level as well as a basic level, but he also drives me nuts on so many levels too!! Sometimes I really can see us together in the future, but other times I worry he would bore the crap out of me … then reality kicks in and reminds me that I need to spend at LEAST SIX MONTHS in single-dom so it is irrelevant anyway!

Maybe that’s a good thing … we already know all of each other’s faults … we’re definitely physically attracted to each other … and he knows I come with a heck of a lot of baggage… and we are still here anyway! Maybe that is what scares me about him? Maybe he knows me too well? Maybe I need to completely start from scratch!

At any rate … AP knows I need to be single for a long time … and that is the way it’s going to be. As I have said before I have my own pink toolbox and a stash of vibrators … I’ll be fine!!

No, really … I will!

Fresh start or a lonely beginning?

I loaded up the car with some bits and pieces to take over to the new house this morning. Just some “stuff” – photos, artwork and personal effects I don’t need in the old house before the move, but seeing my STUFF in there made it all the more real. I really like my new house, and having the keys early to move bits and pieces in is going to make the adjustment much easier.

I am excited about moving and making a completely fresh start… the new place is going to be a “happy house” for me and the kids, but part of me can’t help wishing that it had never actually had to come to this and that makes me feel so incredibly sad.

I’ve talked before about how I feel my husband lives with his head in the sand and only pulls it out when I stick a rocket underneath him. Well it has to be said that signing contracts on a rented house is a pretty big fu*king rocket. Is my husband that “over me” that he couldn’t pull his head out of the sand and tell me that he doesn’t want me to go?? Maybe he IS already over it.

It’s why I know that it has to be the right decision to leave him and make my own life. He has had so many chances over the years to make an effort, to listen and not to be so complacent… and nothing ever did change for long. It’s all the proof I need that things never will change – and I can’t live like that. I KNOW I did wrong – I had an affair … but he was responsible for screwing things up well before I ever did anything wrong, and although it was all so long ago now – it was never dealt with properly at the time – he lied and said he was over it when we went to counselling a couple of years ago… and then recently has pretty much refused to talk to me about it.

I guess both of us knew deep down that our marriage was over back then – but even up until recently I’ve still held out a hope that somehow SOMEHOW it would get fixed, that he would do SOMETHING and we would work it out. Why do I beat myself up like that.

I am scared of being lonely … but then the other part of me remembers that I am pretty much on my own anyway. I see my husband for around 15 minutes in the morning, then for a couple of hours MAXIMUM when he gets home from work, and then briefly before the first one of us goes to bed. I spend my evenings in the lounge and he is upstairs on his computer. We barely see each other … but there will never be the sound of the key in the door and someone calling out a cheery hello as they walk in, and that makes me want to cry. I know it’s going to be the same for him too, and at least I will have the children with me… but it isn’t the same.

Found a house!

I hadn’t expected it to happen quite so quickly. I have been looking for precisely TWO days and that has merely consisted of phone calls and emails. This morning I spotted an ad in the paper from a private landlord that sounded ideal. I called and arranged to view it within the hour. It is within budget, has everything I need and is within the area I want to be in.

*deep breath*

As soon as I walked through the door I felt SOOO weird. I haven’t house shopped for myself in … well umm I never have! I lived with my parents then moved in with my ex. When I left my ex boyfriend, I rented a tiny little bedsit for a about 4 months until I met my current husband and then eventually moved in with him. I’ve never been by myself other than those few months and I have always looked at places to live with my husband since then. There has always been someone else to bounce ideas off of.

I felt so very alone as soon as I went through the door!! I don’t even think it would have made a difference if the house was a palace! Ohhh there was nothing WRONG with it … it was perfect in fact! It just felt WEIRD. The space was perfect for me and the kids, it’s in a good location not far from where we are now and as soon as I took my first look, I knew it was a place that I could live in. It’s a good family sized house and will be ideal for us. Downstairs there is a nice size entrance and hallway, and a huge lounge/diner with sliding patio doors that open onto the garden. The garden … yeah see, outdoor space is important to me, but I also don’t want something too “pretty” that will need too much maintenance! This is an outdoor “yard” but there is a grassy area out the front that the kids can play on.

The kitchen is quite small, but nothing smaller than the one I have now! I don’t need to worry about appliances and there is a lil breakfast bar area too, so I have a feeling that this will be a room I will live in. I told the landlady that I was a non smoker, so I will only be smoking in the kitchen with the back door open.

Upstairs … the bathroom is TINY and the shower is over the bath, but there is a separate toilet, and at the end of the day, the size of the bathroom isn’t the most important thing in the world!

The main bedroom – my bedroom – is MASSIVE!!! It’s MUCH bigger than the bedroom I have now, or any other bedroom I have had before and there are fantastic built in wardrobes that have more room than I will ever need for my rapidly shrinking wardrobe and all of my shoes!!! I loved this room!

The second bedroom is lilac and I automatically assumed it would be perfect for my daughter …. it’s actually a nice size double bedroom. The third room is tiny – a very small single room and it’s blue … so very fitting for my son!

I explained the whole situation to the landlady – about the breakdown of the marriage and how we had tried but it hadn’t worked out … that I needed to claim tax credits and housing benefit … and that didn’t scare her off. Even when I mentioned that I had two cats she said it was fine and would just have it put into the contract that if the house is flea infested then I would be responsible for sorting it out! Can’t say fairer than that!

The weird thing is … the landlady lives out of the country most of the time and only actually arrived back last night. I called her at 8.56am when I got back from dropping the kids at school and I was the first phone call she had. I was the first person to look … and she therefore offered me first refusal.

I was a little concerned about taking the first place I had looked at… but I decided that although it wasn’t “perfect” as in a small kitchen and a tiny third bedroom … that houses within my budget in my preferred area come up so few and far between … that really I HAD to make a snap decision.

I was torn between the devil and the deep blue sea! Here was a house that was PERFECT … that suited my every need and that I knew I could live in and be happy in. The price was right … the area was right … and I had to make a choice.

I told her I would take it but that I needed to show my children and have that conversation with them before I signed anything. She understood that, but also made it clear that this was a house that did rent quickly when it was available and that I literally had a few hours to make my decision.

I called my husband. I told him I’d found a place and asked him to come home early so that we could talk to the kids and take them to see it.

It was hard – hard for him I know, but the kids needed him to be there.

My daughter has known what has been going on as I have kept her informed, but it was really about telling our son. I’m a little annoyed that my husband left ME to do all of the talking, but I had assumed that would be the case. He was so upset. He knew that me and his daddy were splitting up and he actually surprised me with his maturity, but he was still really upset. He wants us to stay together and said that all we needed to do was stay away from each other (ie different ends of the sofa) and then we wouldn’t argue.

It broke my heart, it really did. I always knew I would eventually have to have that conversation with my children, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

The timing was right too - telling them just before going to visit the “new house” – literally half an hour before was perfect. They then were able to focus on being excited about the new place and arguing over who gets the biggest bedroom! Co-incidentally I talked my daughter into taking the smaller room knowing that she and I have a very special bond and that I will share my room with her anyway … that perhaps as she has always has the biggest room, that maybe because her brother was struggling with the separation more than she was – that maybe it would be a nice thing for him to have the biggest bedroom.

I have promised her that it will eventually be the funkiest and coolest tiny little bedroom in the world. We’ll sort out some fab hanging storage and tons of glitter! LOL It also made my son happy to know he was getting the big bedroom. It gives him something to look forward to and that will be a big thing for him.

My husband is taking it hard. I knew it would be difficult for him to look around the house and for the reality to finally sink in. He has hardly said a word to me. Part of me wonders whether the reason he is so quiet is because he doesn’t really want this to happen and that same part of me wishes he would just get down on his knees and lay it on the line… tell me how much he loves me and prove to me that he really does give a shit, but even then … he says nothing. The other part of me then hates him for not even bothering to fight for it even at this stage.

Maybe … just maybe … if my husband had fought a little harder for me and our marriage then things could have been different. Even today … even after going to look at that house and telling the children the bottom line … there was always still the option for him to say to me that he loved me and wanted me enough to stand up and fight for us.

The fact that he didn’t … well that speaks volumes. Even after this second set of marriage counselling where I tell him he buries his head — in front of a therapist – and he denies it … yet 24 hours later he is doing precisely what I predicted. Burying his head.

I know my husband. I have known him for 12 years now and I know that he is asleep upstairs regretting everything … but that he never truly will change. Even if I don’t sign the contract on the new house … nothing ever would really and truly change.

Time for a MAJOR subject change. 

I haven’t felt even a little bit hungry today. I forced myself to eat two slices of bread with low fat cheese spread just after I picked the kids up from school and that was purely so that my daughter would see me eating.

After getting back from looking at the house tonight … the kids announced they wanted pizza. We had some frozen ones in the freezer and the oven has three shelves … ie will cook 3 at a time, so of course I did husband and two kids and as soon as theirs were out, I put mine in.

385 calories - that’s all that was in this plain cheese pizza and I couldn’t even manage quite half of it. I worked out my total calorie intake today was less than 400 calories (not counting the wine tonight, but that’s made from grapes and counts as a food group!!)

But I don’t feel hungry!! I tried SO HARD to eat that pizza tonight. 385 calories really is fuck all for an evening meal by anybody’s standards … I just couldn’t put the food into my mouth. I cut it into 6 slices and managed 2.5. Even that was a struggle.

I worry … I do worry that once I am left to my own devices in a new house and not accountable to anybody that my anorexic behaviours and tendencies will become worse. At the same time, I do NOT want to become so painfully thin that I am ill … and that is just one of the many battles I am facing at the moment.

I also worry about money and finances … and one way I can cut down is to simply have less food in the house. I made an Excel spreadsheet (yeah I love my spreadsheets) to work out a weekly and monthly food shopping budget. I worked out and planned the meals for my kids over a two week period, then used the supermarket websites to plan a shopping budget.

I realised that I had worked out and planned a breakfast, lunch and dinner for myself every single day of the week. Fuck I haven’t eaten that much on a daily basis for around 4 months now. Straight away I was able to literally strip my anticipated food budget in half and that still allowed for a dinner every day plus all the food and biscuits / snacks the kids need.

Oh it is scary. I am scared beyond belief. The reality is that in 2-3 weeks time I could be sat in my own house with just me and the kids … god I have never felt more alone in my life.

Swooped off my feet

I saw AP this afternoon and he picked me up – ummm literally! He bent down, put one arm between my legs and the other on my waist and swooped me up, spun me around in the air and put me back down again! I have NEVER been light enough to have a guy pick me up and spin me around!!

I hadn’t expected to see him today especially with how truly awful I looked with my big red puffy swollen eyes. He’s seen me at my complete worst several times now and it doesn’t seem to scare him off. It was pretty obvious that I had been crying, so of course he asked. I hadn’t wanted to tell him because even though AP and I aren’t in a “relationship” – we have been intimate and talking to him about being rejected by my husband … well not a conversation I wanted to have with AP.

So I skirted around that part, but I talked to him about the empty raw pain in the pit of my belly – about how low I had been feeling and about how I knew more than ever that moving on and moving forward was the best thing I could do. AP’s last relationship was a pretty bad break-up so I know he understands that part.

AP – You’ve definitely lost weight. If you lose much more I’ll have to take you to get a bum implant. Where HAS your bum gone?
ME – Just another 12lbs, it’s all I want to lose now.

He came behind me and grabbed my bum saying “Ohh there it is” … it did make me feel good. I was wearing the new jeans again. Worth every fucking penny with the self confidence I’ve had from them. They are still 2 sizes bigger than I need to be, but every pound off is worth a million.

I’m in a weird place with AP … see I don’t want to swap one needy emotional relationship for another, but I can’t help the way he makes me feel – no, I LOVE the way he makes me feel and I’m not stupid. I know we wouldn’t work as a proper couple and that I’m not in love with him… but in the meantime we are sexually attracted to each other and he is so good to flirt with … is it so BAD??

I came home and was actually hungry and I made a sandwich – just low fat cheese spread on wholemeal bread with some sliced tomatoes. Funny really … my husband puts me off my food. I lose all appetite around him, but after seeing AP and having my confidence boosted, I ate CARBS and didn’t feel like the world was about to end!!

It was good … being literally picked up as well as emotionally picked up.

The Final Irony

Well, I sobbed long into the night and then woke up with eyes like piss holes in the snow after about two hours of very disturbed sleep. I am very tired and look like shit. This isn’t actually a “see it different in your head than it is in the mirror” thing either – I have very red puffy eyes, my eyes are slitty, I’m exhausted and I look like I have been crying all night! Funny that!

My husband heard my middle-of-the-night sobbing and came downstairs around 3am to talk. The general concensus from him is that he thought this was all a done deal and that there wasn’t anything to talk about. He was very matter of fact and I felt utterly destroyed.

It’s ironic really … when it all first started going wrong, our mis matched sex drives resulted in sex going completely out of the window and him rejecting me sexually in bed. THEN when we are in the process of separating .. he dangles a sex carrot in front of me – sleeps with me because it is convenient for HIM – and then rejects me when I suggest getting out the carrot and scratching the itch again!!

I don’t know that I am capable of separating sex and intimacy … and I think I am being way too clingy, needy and desperate. And fat of course.

Fat and rejected

So it’s almost 2am UK time and I have been sat here crying my eyes out for the last hour. I feel so utterly rejected and alone… and fat and overweight and … well fill in the rest of the blanks as you feel fit!

My STBX husband and I have had sex twice since I started writing this blog just about a week ago. I only wrote about the first time – maybe I was embarrassed or something … I don’t know why I didn’t mention the second time, but BOTH were initiated by him. Funny really - it’s more than we tended to have sex while we were “married” in inverted commas.

Tonight … as we still share the same bed as it’s comfortable … I said to him that I was feeling horny… and his exact words ….

 ”umm to be honest, I don’t.”

It wouldn’t have mattered what he’d said …. see, I heard “you’re still too fat, nothing like a skinny porn model and I’m not interested.”

He claimed he has trouble separating having sex and making love … so what the fuck was it the last two times when HE was in the mood???? His FAT wife was obviously good enough for him then.

I said “Ohh, well, err ummm that’s okay” … then left it a polite few seconds before rolling over and trying to hold back the tears in my eyes.

What hurts the most is how I lay there waiting for him to fall asleep  so fucking ignorant of my feelings … then I took my pillow and snuck the top cover off the bed. He heard me just as I was about to creep downstairs and asked me what I was doing … I said I was going to the loo … then literally started bawling my eyes out as soon as the lounge door was shut …. and I have heard nothing from him. I’ve been downstairs for about an hour and a half and feel totally ignored and alone.

I’ve calmed down now … but with the volume I was sobbing earlier I am surprised I didn’t wake the entire house. It’s just fucking typical of him. It always WAS on HIS terms and when HE was in the mood. My feelings and my emotions never seem to matter. The discussion that we’d had was that it HAD been just an itch that had been scratched despite how emotional it had made me feel being so close to him like that.

If my marriage ever did have a chance, then my husband rejecting me tonight when I feel so vulnerable and in need of being held … then this would have been it.

Packing up “the marital home”

It’s official – I am starting to pack up my personal belongings from the “Marital Home”. I knew I wasn’t going to achieve anything today – and in hindsight (damn there it is again) I forgot to take my “happy pill” today. It probably explains my melancholy mood this morning and the fact that I sat on the sofa watching Maury Povitch, Jeremy Kyle & Ricki Lake for three hours after taking the kids to school before I moved again.

I boxed up some of my “non essential” stuff like books, my rubber stamp collection (ouch it hurt to put that all away) and my card making stuff. Three boxes – not much, and I still have two big cupboards full of craft stuff to go through, but it was a start. I only had three big cardboard boxes or I would have done more.

I actually thought my husband would have made more of a comment … it was pretty obvious that all of my “stash” had been cleared out from the bedroom.

My husband – or STBX as I should start calling him … keeps dropping things into the conversation that I am sure he doesn’t mean in a hurtful manner, but they hurt nonetheless. He doesn’t mind picking up some cigarettes for me when he’s going to the shop, or sticking some fuel in the car ”while I am still here” – I never really know how to respond to that.

I wish it were easier … I wish I actually HAD an income instead of a failing business and then I could move out NOW instead of relying on government tax credits to come through. There is still even no guarantee that I will get anything at all … being self employed but taking no income from my business puts me into a very grey area. I haven’t yet thought about what would happen if that were the case … I just can’t even go there. I’d have no choice but to close down the business, forget about my future and get a crappy job JUST to qualify for the tax credits and earn enough to survive as a single parent. Pile of crap huh.

In the meantime it is even worse than limbo. Things between my husband and I are civil but so strained and awkward. It just needs to be over.

I miss it …

Intimacy I mean and conversation.

That’s what I miss … someone to tell everything to and hold me when I am feeling low. It’s not even a sexual thing, it’s just about being close to another human being and I miss it.

I talked to BF today (my good girlfriend) but our conversation was so brief and we didn’t really get a chance to even touch the surface on what we’ve both been through recently. She broke up with her long term boyfriend recently too and I have been so utterly pre-occupied over the last two weeks that I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it. I am a crappy friend.

She noticed my weight loss – it was the first time in a while I hadn’t worn overalls to work (what I do is messy – it’s easier) so the baggy overalls had hidden my changing shape. It felt good that someone had noticed.

*sigh* I am in a weird place right now and I’m not entirely sure how I feel. My husband keeps mentioning things like “when you move out I’ll be doing x,y and z to the house” and things along those lines and I do very much feel like a stranger in my own home. I think mentally I’ve moved out … or at least I am starting to. I bought boxes home today to start boxing up things like books, my craft stuff and summer clothes that I definitely won’t need before I move! I didn’t get around to actually boxing anything up, but it was cathartic to bring the big boxes home.

My husband and I are definitely avoiding eachother. He leaves the house at 8am in the morning and it’s kind of arranged that he sorts the kids out first thing when he gets up, and then I take over from 7.45am, so I see him for 15 minutes in the morning. I see him then for maybe half an hour when he gets in from work … and perhaps 2-3 minutes before I go to bed. Conversation is strictly limited to things about the children and what plans either of us have for the next couple of days so that we can conveniently avoid each other further!

I am feeling alone, insecure and confused… I realise that … and because of that I am clinging to the memory of what once was – but it is also what can never be again. I tried so hard with my marriage and at the end of the day I do harbour so many feelings of resentment towards my husband. I blame him for not listening to me. I blame him for ignoring me and using porn and I blame him for the reason why I looked elsewhere.

I blame him for so much, and although there is so much about our marriage that I miss, I know I will never get over that despite the fact that *I* had an affair and ultimately I was the one that broke our marriage vows. We didn’t stand there and say “I promise never to wank to porn” … we said “foresaking all others.”

Shameful isn’t it and trust me I feel shitty for feeling that way. The truth is, if it had been the other way around and my husband had done the things I had done, I would have kicked his ass to the curb a long time ago. I am full of guilt about it too. As a parent you try to teach integrity, honesty and truth, and all the while in the back of your mind is “you had an affair and you told LIES.“ 

I have a lot of soul searching to do before I can get over that one. I KNOW that my marriage is over and that even if we were to try again at this point … then it never could work with even the best therapy in the world. There is just too much water under the bridge and we have both already started to move on.

I can’t ever imagine being intimate with anybody else ever again … in a romantic sense I mean. It’s just not a place that I am in mentally or emotionally and I just need to be by myself for a long – LONG time. The thought of letting somebody close enough to really get to know me – when I don’t truly know myself … *big sigh*

On the upside, I did feel better for going into work for a bit earlier. I didn’t actually achieve much, but I did enough to make myself feel good about accomplishing something for the day.

I ate “properly” today too and I feel okay about it. I weighed myself at night (big mistake) and the scales showed a gain of 3lbs but I know that was only because I was weighing in the evening and I’d *just* had something to eat plus I’d drunk a pile of water and coffee during the day so I KNOW that is the only reason the scales said that.

I had a cucumber sandwich around 2pm and then I ate a filo pastry mushroom thing this evening. It’s the most I have eaten in days. It’s just easier to eat something small in front of someone than avoid talking about why I haven’t eaten.

Taking me for a fool?

I have definitely reached a stage of “acceptance” as far as my marriage is concerned. My husband and I are both beyond yelling, screaming and shouting at each other and are just trying to get on as human beings until “the situation” can change.

The current plan is that as soon as the tax credits award comes through (anywhere up to 5 weeks time), I will move out of the house with the children into rented accomodation as I will be entitled to Housing Benefit … and financially a better option than for my husband to move out. My husband will stay in the house and redecorate it – then it will go on the market and basically he’ll be sitting here waiting for it to sell in a nice comfortable house.

A friend of mine pointed out today that my husband will have a very cushy life while I will be struggling on a fixed income as a single mother and not able to dedicate the time to re-establishing my business because of the childcare issues. My husband will gets to stay in the “Marital Home” and he has already mentioned that he feels I should pay for half of the decorating costs … PLUS husband wants to keep pretty much all of the furniture because “the house will sell better” that way.

I don’t know … maybe I am just a little bitter about it all and part of me wants that fresh start in a completely new place … but as my friend pointed out, if my husband is expecting me to move out so he gets to carry on living here … as well as being weird over furniture … AND expect me to contribute towards decorating costs … isn’t it reasonable of me to expect him to at least make sure the house his children is living in is basically furnished!!! One thing is for sure – we can’t keep living together until it is sold. With the way the housing market is … that could take at LEAST months if not longer… and it just isn’t an option.