Today I stayed home from work to accomplish the following:

1. Open a new checking account.
2. Make a visit to the water company to track down a late payment and put the account in my name.
3. Buy groceries.
4. Conduct my traditional mourning ritual for a broken relationship (i.e. - get high).

What a strange and painful journey it's been since I drafted my last thoughtful blog entry at the end of Jan. In the 8 months that have passed, the following has occurred:

• I was exiled from my children for about five months as a result of my poor judgment with my son.

• D. and her boys moved back with me.
  
• D. attempted suicide by eating nearly everything in the medicine chest. I initially thought it was about her finding my new stash, but she says it was about me pointing out to her the fact that if I really wanted to keep her from finding it, she never would have. This makes me think that she finally faced her utter powerlessness over me, and couldn't deal with it.
  
• My visitation rights with my 4 youngest were restored, and we took a trip to Niagara Falls as a family - minus my oldest son. This trip was funded by a massive year-end bonus from my job.
  
• D. agreed to stay home for at least the summer and try the stay-at-home mom thing with her boys. It was a mild disaster, from my perspective.
  
• D. also attends about 3 meetings per week in Al-Anon, as well as a weekly counseling session, as part of her course of post-suicidal therapy. Results are mixed.
  
• D. continues to go to church, but I stop. I am mad, and I am in no mood for sermonizing and pretense.
  
• D. attempts to force my 17-year old daughter to attend church with her, after I'd given her a special pass to stay with me and work on a floor tiling job. The results of the encounter are disasterous after D. tries to physically pull my daughter out of the house, forcing me to intervene and tell D. that she has crossed the line.
  
• I continue to get high on an average of once a month throughout. I also continue to smoke cigarettes.
  
• D., on advice from her therapist, proposes an in-house separation and sexual abstinence for an undetermined period while we work on "our relationship".
  
• Based on D's continued use of the word "relationship" instead of marriage, I point out that in order to honor God in any relationship that she could hope to have with me while we were yet unmarried (her position, not mine), she would have to leave. D. does not at this point have a job, but the stay-at-home mom experiment is now officially over.
  
• D. and I agree to this separation, which for me is the end of the relationship. In my mind, no contact between us is advisable once she leaves this house. It is early September. I have set a hard date of 1 December for her to be out. In the meantime, we agree that she will cook and clean and do the grocery shopping until she finds a job or leaves. I will pay for her and her children's monthly expenses. This includes a student loan, insurance and trust policies. Several of these expenses have been set up online by D. to automatically deduct from my account. She purchases the groceries on her credit card and pays that expense off from my account online as well.
  
• D. begins packing in earnest, having completely filled the front room of my home with packed boxes.
  
• D. obtains a temp position with a large, international corporation in the area. She is making more than she did when she lived in MD. This is about 4 weeks ago.
  
• D. and I spend about one full day every weekend arguing over the state of things. I find it very draining and unproductive, but I keep allowing myself to get sucked in. My overall assessment of the war is that she's fighting to be able to stay and dictate the terms of my rehabilitation, while I'm using every tactic I can think to speed her permanent departure.
  
• This past weekend, after a business trip to Philly, I went over my accounts online. D. had a "bill" for 186.05, for which I wrote a check. I also deleted all of her expenses from the budget sheet I keep. I inform D., for the second time, that I prefer that she accept re-imbursement in check form rather than continuing to access my account online. D. has begun receiving paychecks of her own. This, in addition to having informed me several weeks ago that she has enough money to move into an apartment. A deposit and first month's rent. Assuming that she realized that she would have also needed to cover living expenses, utility deposits, and ongoing daycare costs, I now know that D. has more money at her disposal than do I.
  
• D. takes great offense to my unwillingness to allow her continued, unfettered access to my money. She is insulted that I don't trust her not to rip me off. I do not believe that she will do that, however I feel it's best to make very concrete boundaries in accordance with the conclusions of the past six weeks. That is not enough for her, and she continues to harass me about it through Sunday evening, Sunday night with a written letter placed on my pillow, yesterday via email and in another hour plus conversation last night. Many tears are shed, many accusations flung, and my temper lost. It the end, we are still in the same, sorry place.
  
  Much could be said to expand on any of the above summary points, but frankly, I've lost too much time living inside my head over this. It's time for positive action. I've no interest in casting blame here. The actions and choices of the individual players speak for themselves. For the first time since I married to D, I feel free. Even though my freedom cost me the comfortable respectability my previous attempts to salvage the relationship brought. In the end, I needed to confront my own desire to be rid of this woman's incessant barrage of neediness. I make no excuses. I could easily have chosen to play along. Quit smoking, go to meetings, sit in church with a stupid, vacant smile on my face. All to make her happy. But not to really deal with my own desires, and plead for the strength and willingness to conquer them.
  
  I just decided not to continue to invest in someone who doesn't appear to be able to love ME.
  
  My mourning ceremony is a celebration of my freedom, mingled with the sorrow of having been so wrong and having set the bar so low for myself.

- posted by The Drake @ 11:02 AM