The Eagle has landed

I have an apartment.

It's on the disreputable side of town (such as that is here -- I don't live in a really big city, so even the bad side of town isn't as bad as it would be somewhere else.)  It has one bedroom (which I will give to the boys when they are with me, and sleep in the living room).  I don't have any of the utilities turned on yet, so it's going to be a day or two until I can really move in (maybe the weekend).

But the monthly rent is half what our mortgage is.  Right now I am still paying the mortgage too, for "our" house where Wife is living -- I agreed to that in the short term in lieu of interim spousal support.  Or maybe "agreed" isn't quite the right word.  It would be more accurate to say that I told Wife that's what she was getting from me; then when she complained, I pointed out that for me to pay the mortgage was already twice what any court in the state would award her, so she could damned well live with it or else sue me and get a worse deal in exchange.  Maybe finally, after decades, she'll have some motivation to rein in her spending.  (Sorry, where was I?  Oh, right.)  

Anyway, I have stopped paying any share of the house's other bills.  And it looks like we might be able to sell the damned house itself for enough to clear our debts -- including even the crazy credit card debt Wife has been running up over the last couple years -- and have a little bit left over.  Maybe enough to pay for another year of the boys' schooling.  Or at least I can hope.

It's progress.  I suppose I should be glad of Wife's tantrum a week and a half ago, because it got me off my ass and into the real estate market.  And staying with Debbie in the interim has been very sweet, even though we've both had stuff to do so we haven't been able to sit and coo at each other.  It's been very much "normal time" and not "special time".

It's still been sweet.

Happy birthday, Plato!

As near as I can figure it, today is Plato’s birthday.  The traditional date was the 7th day of the month of Thargelion.  The Athenian calendar was a lunar one, so this means the seventh day after the second-last new moon before the summer solstice.  And I think that’s today.

Next year, it looks like it will be on Cinco de Mayo.

So do something Platonic today: contemplate the nature of reality, appreciate the beauty of simple colors and geometric shapes and soothing music, argue passionately about the education of the young … or open a large jug of wine with a dozen good friends and sit around until dawn talking about love.  Your pick which!

Moving out, I guess

Wife had a major explosive rage last night.  She accused me of starving her to the point of malnutrition and otherwise abusing her, plus a bunch of other things I don’t even remember because they made even less sense.  (Ironically I have been home as little as possible in the last few weeks, so I’m not quite sure what she thought I had done.)  She insisted that I “have no idea how much [she] can get out of” me by claiming to be an abused wife.  She shouted at me like this for some time, frequently six inches from my face.  At one point, to punctuate her remarks, she threw a full glass of wine in my face.  Then, not content that she had made her point (whatever that point was), she took a full bottle of Ensure she had gotten from the fridge for her dinner and emptied it over my head. 

I said very little during this – that is, I started by trying to bring her back to rational reality, but soon realized that I wasn’t getting very far.  I kept my voice very low and even.  Several times I suggested that what she was saying was an opinion but that I saw things differently; I said nothing which contradicted her more directly than that, though, and just hoped that the fit would blow over soon.  Oh … I did succeed in persuading her to mop up the Ensure which had spilled onto the countertop and the floor.  I didn’t bother mentioning the stuff that was in my hair or shirt, figuring I would deal with that later.  The only time I touched her at all was when she picked up her wine glass to refill it.  I told her I thought she had had enough and took her hand to get her to set down the wine glass.  When she resisted I let go: so sure enough she refilled it and took it with her.  (Fortunately she did not decide to throw that one too.)

Finally she wound down.  She took her night-time medications (or some of them) and her wine glass and went to the boys’ bedroom, where she has been sleeping since they are not home.  I don’t know if she went to sleep or not.  She left the light on, but closed the door most of the way.  I texted Debbie to see if there was any way she could put me up for the night, and fortunately got the answer Yes.  So I grabbed a new shirt and a pair of socks – and my briefcase (for work in the morning) – and left.  When I got to her apartment I first took a shower (to get all the Ensure out of my hair) and then slept.

I am writing this now from work.  Talking it over with Debbie this morning, I realize it would make no sense at all for me to go back home.  Wife has done things like this before, as you know, and I have always managed the situation and stuck it out.  And in fact while it was happening last night I was thinking “How unusual – she hasn’t done this sort of thing since her medications were stabilized a few years ago.”  But come to think of it, that’s not true.  There was the time last October when we were over at my parents’ house that she was so disagreeable for an hour and then slapped me and stormed out.  There have been other storms of other sorts.  I guess I have just papered over them in my mind, … I don’t know, maybe I just figured they were normal, so what was the big deal?  But that doesn’t make them OK.  And it doesn’t mean I have to live like that any more.

I’m not sure where I’ll go.  I can’t just stay with Debbie.  On the one hand it would hardly be fair to dump my problems in her lap for her to fix.  On the other hand she is starting to have second thoughts about the relationship – not about loving me (which she still does), but just about our actually fucking while I am still this early in the process of disentangling from Wife.  So I assume I’ll get a motel for a night or two while looking for a room to rent.  And of course I’ll have to go back to the house several times: for clothes, for other basic stuff.  A full-scale move-out will be a big deal and take a while.

Just to let you know the latest status ….

Never interfere with an enemy who is destroying herself

This will be ruthlessly brief, and unjustly so because there has been so much going on.  Perhaps in a couple of days I might have time to catch up with posting some of it.  But in all fairness I should at least let you know that Wife is threatening to fire her attorney because she doesn’t like one of the guys in the office.  Does she really want to do this before responding to my initial filing?  Will she then be able to respond on her own within the time limit?  Does she expect some other attorney to be better, and to want her business?

I have no idea … about any of it.  But it’s not my business.  Whatever you want babe.  Just go right ahead.  Don’t let me get in the way.