long assed sad narrative
I almost don’t know where to begin with this. George left me two weeks ago and I have so much to process, but I have already processed so much that I am not sure how to make sense of it. I am sad and angry and relieved and annoyed and incredulous and regretful and a whole bunch of things rolled into one. So perhaps I should begin by just telling the tale. We seemed to have fallen into a pattern that was the opposite of what we had agreed to, so instead of him being gone from Sunday to Thursday, he was here Sunday night until Friday afternoon quite often. And his being here usually meant that he was upstairs on my computer or sitting on my couch in front of the TV. Some days he seemed to be getting things done, but increasingly that failed to be the case. He had been working on his financial statement and using my desk top to do it and that was fine with me. But then he went for several weeks with no progress, but his papers remained spread out across my desk so that I could not use the desk and did not feel comfortable using the computer with his personal finances sitting there staring at me.
The last full weekend in June, I had an agility trial at a campground in Maine and was planning on camping from Thursday night until Sunday morning. A friend lives nearby and a mutual friend was coming down from Canada and I thought it would be a really fun weekend. George had said that he wanted to go with me and so I planned on it. Then he said that he had an airplane event on Saturday but that he still wanted to come up Thursday and Friday, so we planned on going in separate cars. That Thursday, he had medical testing in Boston, so I took him to the train and then spent the day going through paper work and getting ready to leave. I picked him up at the train station about 5 and he came back here to get ready. Or so I thought. I was sitting at my desk and he came in and said “if you’re not running both dogs this weekend, you can leave Cash with me.” Whoa. I said “I am running Cash so I can’t leave him, but can we back up? I thought you were going with me.” Well, no, he had changed his mind and did not want to go. He thought he would go to his hangar and wallow instead. I said that if those were his plans, he might as well come with me.
Anyway, we set off in two cars knowing that he would arrive later than I because he had errands to run on the way. We took my cot for me but we also took the queen air mattress to share and he took some other items with him in his car. He did indeed arrive about an hour after I did, joking (?) that he had hoped to get there after I had gotten everything set up. We had a little tussle getting it all set up - we were two large people in a small space and he is not at all careful of other people close to him, so I was proud that we did not get into a fight and that I managed not to snap at him when he stepped on me or jabbed me while we were setting things up. Overall, we had a good two days hanging out while I ran agility, having dinner with my friends and sleeping in the tent. He slept in on Saturday, but I had to be at the trial early, so I left him, asking that he please deflate the air mattress and take it with him, since I did not expect to have room in my car for everything the two of us had brought up in both cars. He came to the trial long enough to tell me good bye and that he would see me on Monday. And when I got back to the tent, there was the air mattress, covers thrown back the way he had left it when he got out of bed that morning.
I think I only saw him a couple of days that week, but I don’t really remember. I do know that he was gone for at least a part of the weekend because his car died and he ended up getting a ride back here Sunday night. I showed Lark in breed Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday going Best of Winners two days to finish his championship and then going Best of Breed two days to make significant progress towards his grand championship. I was so proud of my boy! But Saturday and Sunday were long days because when you win the breed, you are expected to compete for the best of the group (in Lark’s case, Herding) as a step towards Best in Show (as if!). So, not having heard anything from George, I went to bed around 7pm because I was just wiped out. Around 8:30 he called, saying he was getting a ride down and asking if I would meet him and his friend for dinner. I did not want to, but I was pleased that he was inviting me to meet his friend, so I got myself up and dressed and went to meet them at the restaurant he mentioned. And we had a nice time.
And as I remember the rest of the week, it was also nice. We did a little thrift shopping and we watched multiple episodes of _Breaking Bad_, a show that he adores and wanted to share with me. We attended a dog party on July 4 at my training place with a cookout afterwards. We walked the dogs to the Willows and back. We ate out, we ate in, we shopped. I suppose we bickered, but frankly, I don’t remember that we did. I tend not to remember the bad as much as I remember the good, though, so it’s hard to say. Friday, he asked me to drive him back to his hangar so he could work on his car and I said that if he was going to spend the weekend working on his car instead of on his financial statement, that he should clean his papers off my desk so that I could use it and so that I could have someone in to fix the wireless card in the computer. So he bundled his stuff up and he and Lark and I headed up to North Andover.
Saturday, I was supposed to go to an agility trial, but I did not feel well, so I stayed in bed until 9:30. Then I got up and plowed through organizing this house. I worked hard and got a lot done and felt very proud of myself. I also felt relieved to be alone. And I started to feel a little used. It felt like George had spent a lot of time the previous week sitting on the couch watching TV with me and without me. Often, I would work for a bit and then go join him and then work for a bit more. He had been supposed to work on his financial statement, but he spent most of his time screensucking the TV or the computer. At one point, I enlisted his help to unpack boxes in the kitchen and he did help, but I felt that he resented having been asked. I don’t know if he really did, or not, but I felt like he did. And I remember having the definite sense that this is a man who needed to hit rock bottom in order to start improving his situation and that the only thing between him and rock bottom was me. That as long as he could sit on my couch or at my desk and use my shower and my laundry and sleep in my air conditioned bed room, he was not going to make any decisions about his life or even allow his poor wife to move forward with the divorce. I guess I got over that feeling, but I definitely remember having it.
Sunday, I did go to the agility trial and had a good day. When I was leaving, I noticed that George had called and I listened to his message (he had borrowed a car but would not be coming to Salem Sunday, perhaps Monday) but I did not call him back. About an hour after I got home he called again. He said he thought he would come see me Monday and I suggested that instead, we wait until Thursday. I said I would pick him up and we could go cruise Portsmouth Harbor, using a deal I had purchased online. He said Thursday was a long way off and I said that if he was being productive it would be good for both of us to keep working on our stuff. He said he hadn’t been being all that productive but that he would call me Monday.
Monday, I kept working on things. I had a lesson for Lark and I met a tile guy about ripping out the poorly done shower and I had a dentist appointment. I ran a bunch of errands and then I settled in with a novel to read. At about 8pm, Cash gave a woof and headed for the back door. I hadn’t even seen or heard the Beetle pull in the drive, but there was George. He said his phone had died so he decided to just come see me. And I was a little annoyed, but I smiled and kissed him and settled in to watch TV with him. He raised the alarm over my fish tank, so even though I had been working on it all weekend, I did yet another water change before really starting to watch TV with him. He offered to read with me but I was actually quite happy to watch Breaking Bad with him. We went to bed at a reasonable hour and everything seemed fine. He said that he needed to take his alternator to Watertown and wanted to leave early in the morning. He suggested I go with him and we could have lunch in Boston and take the dogs for a walk on the Esplanade.
Tuesday morning, the alarm went off at 7 and I suggested we get up. George said he was too tired, so we rolled over and went back to sleep. At about 9:30, the xLO called to ask if he could pick up some equipment from the third floor room he had been painting for me. I said that I was still in bed but the door was closed so to come and get what he needed. After we heard him go downstairs, George grabbed me and when he was done said “do you think Stan is gone?” Well, yeah, or I wouldn’t have been making that kind of noise…. But I thought it was weird. A little exhibitionist, which I didn’t care for at all. So we got up and I got in the shower and George asked if I wanted a bagel, which I did. When I got out and got dressed and collected my bagel, I saw that George was parked in front of the tv, so I headed for the living room where I discovered that my windows had been shut. So I asked if he had done it for a reason, thinking perhaps he’d turned on the air conditioning. He said he’d done it to keep the cool air in. I said I like the breeze and he said he thought we were leaving. I asked if I could eat my breakfast and he said sure.
Later he said that I had looked at him as if he had five heads when he said he’d shut the window and that he really had hoped I’d eat my bagel in the car because he was in a hurry to leave. But he never said that at the time. And my phone started to ring and I had calls to field and I really should have told him to just go without me because things went downhill from that moment on. He came in while I was still on the phone and made it clear that he wanted to leave, so I gathered the dogs and got in the car and traded positions so he could put his car back in the drive and I ended up driving. He commented on my driving several times but when we got off the highway I had to ask him for directions at every intersection, even after I said I was unfamiliar with the area. So when he commented that I needed to cede right of way to a truck coming at us, I asked if he wanted to drive. He said yes, so when we got to the place where he dropped his alternator, I changed seats while he was out of the car.
He asked me to pick from among three different places for lunch, so I picked a place in Somerville. He noted that there really isn’t anywhere to walk the dogs in Somerville (!) so we should probably do that along the way. He found an area along the Charles in Newton and suggested we stop there. I said that would be lovely, but that I needed to use the bathroom and so he took us to McDonalds. He then asked if we could both go in at once. I said I preferred that one of us be with the dogs, so I went first. When I got back, he said “oh, you didn’t get anything.” And I said “no, we’re going to lunch.” And I made the mistake of suggesting that he not get anything either, because he’s been fretting about his weight lately. But he went in and got a large soda which he proclaimed was Diet Coke and Lemonade and did I want some. I thought I declined politely, but perhaps not. It turned out the place he had chosen for us to walk was not as nice as it looked. It was a bike path and I was uncomfortable with the bikes whizzing at us and we walked single file. I was very quiet, but I did not think I was being unpleasant, I was just collecting myself and thinking about the day and that I should have either sent him without me or offered to call the person I was talking to back, since leaving home while on the phone had caused me to neglect to gather sunscreen for me or water for the dogs and it was hot. When we got back to the car, George started to program the GPS for the restaurant and I noticed that it was not the one I had chosen, so I asked what he was doing.
“I thought we’d get a quick burrito.”
“Why did you ask what I wanted if you weren’t going to do it.”
“Did you pick a restaurant?”
“I did.”
“Which one, I forgot.”
And I don’t know why I couldn’t answer him, but I could not. And he got mad and started to yell at me that I know that he forgets things and it’s not fair to punish him and I started saying “can we just go home. I just want to go home.”
So we went home and he yelled at me most of the way there. I had been unpleasant all morning. I treat him badly and he’s not the only one. It’s one thing when it happens occasionally, but lately it has been constant and he’s just done. That’s all, he’s done. I’m controlling and manipulative. It would be one thing if I had his best interests at heart when I told him he shouldn’t get McDonalds, but actually it was because him eating at that point did not agree with my fixed idea of what should have happened and that was just bullshit. I actually owned that one and apologized for it, but he didn’t seem to hear me. I also told him that I would own being controlling but that I am not manipulative.
When we got here, he started collecting his things. At one point, he stopped and started hugging and kissing me, but when I asked him what we were doing, he said “I am collecting my things and leaving.” So I let him. When he had his things all together (which involved me handing him things and pointing things out to him), he said “see you later?” And I said “does that mean you are not leaving my key?” Well, no. He had dumped it in a bunch of stuff on my buffet, leading me to wonder if he’d left it here the last time he left and just quietly picked it up again. So “see you later?” And I said “does that mean I’ll see you or I won’t?”
“It means I don’t know.”
“That’s not really fair.”
“Ok, then. No.” And he left saying that we had worked hard enough on this.
And I have to say that I was angry for days. Angry that he had come over without calling after I had told him I would see him Thursday. Angry that he had insisted we leave before I was ready. Angry that I had not acted to protect my own interests and meet my own needs - I had work to do and phone calls to make that day. I did not need to be running around with him on his errands. And I know in retrospect, that I had been resentful of how quickly we had left the house and of the fact that I had not acted to protect my skin or my dogs by getting sunscreen and water. I was also puzzled. He had made a couple of references to the xLO that had indicated that he might be jealous, which was just nuts. But I didn’t understand how he could go from needing to see me so badly that he came without telling me he was coming and being so happy that morning that he had told me how lucky he was before we got out of bed to being done. In spite of my own misgivings about where the relationship was going, I ended up feeling totally blindsided by the way it ended.
The last full weekend in June, I had an agility trial at a campground in Maine and was planning on camping from Thursday night until Sunday morning. A friend lives nearby and a mutual friend was coming down from Canada and I thought it would be a really fun weekend. George had said that he wanted to go with me and so I planned on it. Then he said that he had an airplane event on Saturday but that he still wanted to come up Thursday and Friday, so we planned on going in separate cars. That Thursday, he had medical testing in Boston, so I took him to the train and then spent the day going through paper work and getting ready to leave. I picked him up at the train station about 5 and he came back here to get ready. Or so I thought. I was sitting at my desk and he came in and said “if you’re not running both dogs this weekend, you can leave Cash with me.” Whoa. I said “I am running Cash so I can’t leave him, but can we back up? I thought you were going with me.” Well, no, he had changed his mind and did not want to go. He thought he would go to his hangar and wallow instead. I said that if those were his plans, he might as well come with me.
Anyway, we set off in two cars knowing that he would arrive later than I because he had errands to run on the way. We took my cot for me but we also took the queen air mattress to share and he took some other items with him in his car. He did indeed arrive about an hour after I did, joking (?) that he had hoped to get there after I had gotten everything set up. We had a little tussle getting it all set up - we were two large people in a small space and he is not at all careful of other people close to him, so I was proud that we did not get into a fight and that I managed not to snap at him when he stepped on me or jabbed me while we were setting things up. Overall, we had a good two days hanging out while I ran agility, having dinner with my friends and sleeping in the tent. He slept in on Saturday, but I had to be at the trial early, so I left him, asking that he please deflate the air mattress and take it with him, since I did not expect to have room in my car for everything the two of us had brought up in both cars. He came to the trial long enough to tell me good bye and that he would see me on Monday. And when I got back to the tent, there was the air mattress, covers thrown back the way he had left it when he got out of bed that morning.
I think I only saw him a couple of days that week, but I don’t really remember. I do know that he was gone for at least a part of the weekend because his car died and he ended up getting a ride back here Sunday night. I showed Lark in breed Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday going Best of Winners two days to finish his championship and then going Best of Breed two days to make significant progress towards his grand championship. I was so proud of my boy! But Saturday and Sunday were long days because when you win the breed, you are expected to compete for the best of the group (in Lark’s case, Herding) as a step towards Best in Show (as if!). So, not having heard anything from George, I went to bed around 7pm because I was just wiped out. Around 8:30 he called, saying he was getting a ride down and asking if I would meet him and his friend for dinner. I did not want to, but I was pleased that he was inviting me to meet his friend, so I got myself up and dressed and went to meet them at the restaurant he mentioned. And we had a nice time.
And as I remember the rest of the week, it was also nice. We did a little thrift shopping and we watched multiple episodes of _Breaking Bad_, a show that he adores and wanted to share with me. We attended a dog party on July 4 at my training place with a cookout afterwards. We walked the dogs to the Willows and back. We ate out, we ate in, we shopped. I suppose we bickered, but frankly, I don’t remember that we did. I tend not to remember the bad as much as I remember the good, though, so it’s hard to say. Friday, he asked me to drive him back to his hangar so he could work on his car and I said that if he was going to spend the weekend working on his car instead of on his financial statement, that he should clean his papers off my desk so that I could use it and so that I could have someone in to fix the wireless card in the computer. So he bundled his stuff up and he and Lark and I headed up to North Andover.
Saturday, I was supposed to go to an agility trial, but I did not feel well, so I stayed in bed until 9:30. Then I got up and plowed through organizing this house. I worked hard and got a lot done and felt very proud of myself. I also felt relieved to be alone. And I started to feel a little used. It felt like George had spent a lot of time the previous week sitting on the couch watching TV with me and without me. Often, I would work for a bit and then go join him and then work for a bit more. He had been supposed to work on his financial statement, but he spent most of his time screensucking the TV or the computer. At one point, I enlisted his help to unpack boxes in the kitchen and he did help, but I felt that he resented having been asked. I don’t know if he really did, or not, but I felt like he did. And I remember having the definite sense that this is a man who needed to hit rock bottom in order to start improving his situation and that the only thing between him and rock bottom was me. That as long as he could sit on my couch or at my desk and use my shower and my laundry and sleep in my air conditioned bed room, he was not going to make any decisions about his life or even allow his poor wife to move forward with the divorce. I guess I got over that feeling, but I definitely remember having it.
Sunday, I did go to the agility trial and had a good day. When I was leaving, I noticed that George had called and I listened to his message (he had borrowed a car but would not be coming to Salem Sunday, perhaps Monday) but I did not call him back. About an hour after I got home he called again. He said he thought he would come see me Monday and I suggested that instead, we wait until Thursday. I said I would pick him up and we could go cruise Portsmouth Harbor, using a deal I had purchased online. He said Thursday was a long way off and I said that if he was being productive it would be good for both of us to keep working on our stuff. He said he hadn’t been being all that productive but that he would call me Monday.
Monday, I kept working on things. I had a lesson for Lark and I met a tile guy about ripping out the poorly done shower and I had a dentist appointment. I ran a bunch of errands and then I settled in with a novel to read. At about 8pm, Cash gave a woof and headed for the back door. I hadn’t even seen or heard the Beetle pull in the drive, but there was George. He said his phone had died so he decided to just come see me. And I was a little annoyed, but I smiled and kissed him and settled in to watch TV with him. He raised the alarm over my fish tank, so even though I had been working on it all weekend, I did yet another water change before really starting to watch TV with him. He offered to read with me but I was actually quite happy to watch Breaking Bad with him. We went to bed at a reasonable hour and everything seemed fine. He said that he needed to take his alternator to Watertown and wanted to leave early in the morning. He suggested I go with him and we could have lunch in Boston and take the dogs for a walk on the Esplanade.
Tuesday morning, the alarm went off at 7 and I suggested we get up. George said he was too tired, so we rolled over and went back to sleep. At about 9:30, the xLO called to ask if he could pick up some equipment from the third floor room he had been painting for me. I said that I was still in bed but the door was closed so to come and get what he needed. After we heard him go downstairs, George grabbed me and when he was done said “do you think Stan is gone?” Well, yeah, or I wouldn’t have been making that kind of noise…. But I thought it was weird. A little exhibitionist, which I didn’t care for at all. So we got up and I got in the shower and George asked if I wanted a bagel, which I did. When I got out and got dressed and collected my bagel, I saw that George was parked in front of the tv, so I headed for the living room where I discovered that my windows had been shut. So I asked if he had done it for a reason, thinking perhaps he’d turned on the air conditioning. He said he’d done it to keep the cool air in. I said I like the breeze and he said he thought we were leaving. I asked if I could eat my breakfast and he said sure.
Later he said that I had looked at him as if he had five heads when he said he’d shut the window and that he really had hoped I’d eat my bagel in the car because he was in a hurry to leave. But he never said that at the time. And my phone started to ring and I had calls to field and I really should have told him to just go without me because things went downhill from that moment on. He came in while I was still on the phone and made it clear that he wanted to leave, so I gathered the dogs and got in the car and traded positions so he could put his car back in the drive and I ended up driving. He commented on my driving several times but when we got off the highway I had to ask him for directions at every intersection, even after I said I was unfamiliar with the area. So when he commented that I needed to cede right of way to a truck coming at us, I asked if he wanted to drive. He said yes, so when we got to the place where he dropped his alternator, I changed seats while he was out of the car.
He asked me to pick from among three different places for lunch, so I picked a place in Somerville. He noted that there really isn’t anywhere to walk the dogs in Somerville (!) so we should probably do that along the way. He found an area along the Charles in Newton and suggested we stop there. I said that would be lovely, but that I needed to use the bathroom and so he took us to McDonalds. He then asked if we could both go in at once. I said I preferred that one of us be with the dogs, so I went first. When I got back, he said “oh, you didn’t get anything.” And I said “no, we’re going to lunch.” And I made the mistake of suggesting that he not get anything either, because he’s been fretting about his weight lately. But he went in and got a large soda which he proclaimed was Diet Coke and Lemonade and did I want some. I thought I declined politely, but perhaps not. It turned out the place he had chosen for us to walk was not as nice as it looked. It was a bike path and I was uncomfortable with the bikes whizzing at us and we walked single file. I was very quiet, but I did not think I was being unpleasant, I was just collecting myself and thinking about the day and that I should have either sent him without me or offered to call the person I was talking to back, since leaving home while on the phone had caused me to neglect to gather sunscreen for me or water for the dogs and it was hot. When we got back to the car, George started to program the GPS for the restaurant and I noticed that it was not the one I had chosen, so I asked what he was doing.
“I thought we’d get a quick burrito.”
“Why did you ask what I wanted if you weren’t going to do it.”
“Did you pick a restaurant?”
“I did.”
“Which one, I forgot.”
And I don’t know why I couldn’t answer him, but I could not. And he got mad and started to yell at me that I know that he forgets things and it’s not fair to punish him and I started saying “can we just go home. I just want to go home.”
So we went home and he yelled at me most of the way there. I had been unpleasant all morning. I treat him badly and he’s not the only one. It’s one thing when it happens occasionally, but lately it has been constant and he’s just done. That’s all, he’s done. I’m controlling and manipulative. It would be one thing if I had his best interests at heart when I told him he shouldn’t get McDonalds, but actually it was because him eating at that point did not agree with my fixed idea of what should have happened and that was just bullshit. I actually owned that one and apologized for it, but he didn’t seem to hear me. I also told him that I would own being controlling but that I am not manipulative.
When we got here, he started collecting his things. At one point, he stopped and started hugging and kissing me, but when I asked him what we were doing, he said “I am collecting my things and leaving.” So I let him. When he had his things all together (which involved me handing him things and pointing things out to him), he said “see you later?” And I said “does that mean you are not leaving my key?” Well, no. He had dumped it in a bunch of stuff on my buffet, leading me to wonder if he’d left it here the last time he left and just quietly picked it up again. So “see you later?” And I said “does that mean I’ll see you or I won’t?”
“It means I don’t know.”
“That’s not really fair.”
“Ok, then. No.” And he left saying that we had worked hard enough on this.
And I have to say that I was angry for days. Angry that he had come over without calling after I had told him I would see him Thursday. Angry that he had insisted we leave before I was ready. Angry that I had not acted to protect my own interests and meet my own needs - I had work to do and phone calls to make that day. I did not need to be running around with him on his errands. And I know in retrospect, that I had been resentful of how quickly we had left the house and of the fact that I had not acted to protect my skin or my dogs by getting sunscreen and water. I was also puzzled. He had made a couple of references to the xLO that had indicated that he might be jealous, which was just nuts. But I didn’t understand how he could go from needing to see me so badly that he came without telling me he was coming and being so happy that morning that he had told me how lucky he was before we got out of bed to being done. In spite of my own misgivings about where the relationship was going, I ended up feeling totally blindsided by the way it ended.