Temporary

Posted on January 8, 2009
Filed Under Anxiety, bitching and moaning, challenges, kids, marriage, parenting | 16 Comments

You all are too kind, with your words of sympathy, support, understanding and even commiseration. To speak about the implosion of one’s marriage is almost cathartic. As soon as it’s out there, finally out there, otherwise private individuals are quick to share their own personal tales of connubial woe, of separations, divorce, of nervous breakdowns. I am swimming in confessions. I am the now privy to other people’s secret failures. There is solidarity in this type of vulnerability and rightly so…it is so necessary to surviving this sort of crisis, to know that others have walked this very same line.

And of course they have. Intellectually I know I am not alone in this. Statistics show that some 50% of all marriages end in divorce. And still, no one ever imagines themselves on the precipice of such a colossal failure. If we could even conjure a picture of our future selves living in separate homes, contacting attorneys and real estate brokers, divvying up the furniture and the pets… well of course no one would agree to marriage in the first place. There’s no temporary happiness that can justify this type of pain. We all really, really mean it when we say “I Do.” Until we don’t.

Admittedly it’s been hard to focus on the dreadfulness of this situation as I am currently exhausted due to the frenetic pace that this life change has ushered in. I have temporarily taken work as a painter/renovator for a friend who buys multi-family homes out of foreclosure, slaps on a fresh coat of paint and changes some switch plates and proceeds to rent the places out for outrageous prices. It is depressing and mindless work but she pays a generous hourly rate and I can come and go as I please. I keep reminding myself that it is only temporary. I am rushing home from my painting job to meet the kids when they get off the bus. I am managing homework and bathing and dinner and house keeping. I am meeting real estate brokers and tracking down the right therapist for the kids. I am keeping the walkways to the back door ice free which means I am shoveling and scraping and salting as necessary. I am typing up resumes into the wee hours of the night. I am looking for a full-time gig, one that tickles the mind, pays adequately, offers benefits and a growth opportunity. I am trying to schedule a service appointment for the car. I am trying to squeeze in quick trips to the gym even if then kids need to come and do homework while I plod along on the treadmill. I am ordering a new Canine Fence Company collar for the dog since she’s broken the old one and keeps skipping the yard for greener pastures (who can blame her?). I am not sleeping well because there is laundry to do and I should really get one more resume off and there’s school snacks and lunches to pack and dishwashers to unload before it all starts again tomorrow.

The kids have been sort of swept along in this eddy of activity and coping and seem to be doing much, much better. This improvement in their mental state comes just in time for their father’s return home for the weekend which should set them back to square one by Sunday evening. But this is the best we can do right now. And that has to be enough.

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