Almost Divorce Part 35- How The Husband became my Sweet Babu
Posted: 2012/02/09 Filed under: Dating and Relationships, Lovies | Tags: Forgive, forgiveness, Girl Code, my personal catfish story, Relationships 1 CommentThis series is published no less than once a week on Thursday’s. Or you can start at the beginning here
A timeline can be found here.
This event was a game changer that came late in the game, the sick twist at the end of the story.
Being lied to at that level of magnitude is life changing. I made decisions based on those lies. I took actions based on those lies. I formed opinions, perspective, lived my life all based partially on 22 weeks of those lies. I don’t know how, if it wasn’t by the grace of God that I forced the vanishing mere hours before it would of been too late to turn back on being divorced. It was time to take a step back and do some analysis. Try to make some sense of everything from start to finish and figure out what I knew about myself and the situation. I literally had the driving need to revisit every conversation, every thought, every action and re-evaluate it with the new insight. I also discovered during those initial weeks of grief that I had put the job of dealing with the grief of the divorce on hold because I was distracted dealing with Paul. He had been partially right, I was using him to fill a hole, but it wasn’t a husband hole per se, it was a me hole. Once I had nothing to distract me, I started to process and deal with the emotions and grief from the divorce itself. Huge chunks of my time were freed when he vanished. Rituals were no longer the same, my physical and mental schedule was no longer the same. It was almost as if I was waking up from the wreckage. I was waking up broken and shell shocked but getting back up is my specialty.
Here I was alone, with a vanished sociopath behind me; and a man, the father of my children, my husband of 10 years, who still hadn’t given up in front of me. What to do, what to do? I was in control of the pace of the divorce, and after we talked we both agreed to put it on hold. I honestly felt I owed it to my children, our family and myself to really take a look at where we had been and figure out where I thought we might go. Figure out if I could forgive him for his portion of wrong, trust that he would be able to forgive me and that I could fall in love with him again and be content. I didn’t want to trap myself in something I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get back out of, because there was no fucking way I would be putting my kids through another round of this. If we decided to see if it could work it would have to be slow and with no expectations and without telling the kids or many others until we were absolutely sure. Before I go on I need to take a step back and give you some insight into The Husband and our story.
How The Husband became my Sweet Babu!
I met my Sweet Babu at work, this was the 90’s and we worked at a Computer Reseller that through mergers and acquisitions is now HP. Times were flush and the party was always raging. Hooking up, coupling, or marrying a co- worker was almost a requirement here. No one blinked an eye. Before I met The Husband I had slept with more than one sales rep, had one sales rep as a boyfriend for a while and been to countless parties held by vendors and co-workers. I started out as a 23 year old girl with no job and desperately needed one, who barely knew how to use a mouse and by the time I met Babu I was a traveling “fixer”. I went in to assess a fucked up situation, determined whose “fault” it was; ours, the sales rep, or the customer’s and implemented changes and controls to make things better so the customer would stay. I also gave presentations to potential new customers about what our portion of the organization would be bringing to the package. Before that I ran our largest account and a few smaller ones and had a reputation for talking business to the reps. I didn’t take their shit and I didn’t stand for them lying to our customers or setting us up for failure. I worked with mostly men and cussed like a sailor when needed. This was not only tolerated but also rewarded. I was placed in the Northeast Region as my territory and I thrived there. I was known for talking business. I was young (23-27) and I was pretty, I had a good amount of game, but I didn’t have half the confidence I have now. That came with good mentors, age, maturity, and self-acceptance.
Part of my job was travel, as in 3 cities in one week covering both coasts sometimes travel. My desk was often just a pit stop for a day or two before I was out again on the next plane to the next customer. I spent more time in town cars to and from the airport and in rental cars navigating cities like Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta, DC and surrounding areas, Boston, SFO. I took one of the prettiest drives of my life in Connecticut. I had some of the best times of my life on that job, met some of the best women who provided amazing mentoring and got to see a lot of our country. It helped me feel not so trapped and filled with wanderlust to get the heck out of Indiana where I was born, raised, and still live. The frequent flier miles and Amex perks also paid for something like 3 full vacations for Babu and I, including the one to Fort Myers where I got my turtle tattoo and he burned the tops of his feet.
One day I badged in and started walking through the rows to the back room of our cube farm where my desk was, when something stopped me. There was this tall, dark haired dude in dress pants and a white button up standing in one of the team’s rows. I remember I stopped and looked for more than second and wondered who is that? He is yummy. We often had reps or vendors visit and more than a handful of them were yummy, so this wasn’t out of the ordinary. I may have asked around a little bit about who he was but nothing ever came of it.
Fast forward and one day my friend Dr. M tells me a new guy is going to be moving into our cube row. Dr. M is a TSE, a technical rep for one of the teams and the new guy is getting assigned to a team that doesn’t have a spot for him in their row, so he has to sit over by Dr. M and I. He’s young, Dr. M tells me. Be nice to him, he laughs. Babu shows up and he’s fine, but I don’t recognize him as the dude from the cube row in the button up b/c our dress code is business casual and he takes that to the lowest level possible. He sits there for several months and as I travel in and out of my cube we get to know each other. Mostly this is via him marveling at my business talk and being ever so slightly afraid of me. I am actually a very sweet and nice person and since there are just 4 of us in our cube row; me, Dr. M, the other fixer in my area who is also young and pretty and can talk business, and Babu. I’ve always shared my business pretty openly, Babu and I get to be coworker friends who talk about our lives a little and give each other shit. One day he comes back from lunch and brings me a big bag of Chili Cheese Fritos, these are my favorite kind. I don’t take this as a move, I was fairly oblivious to his feelings and I was also embroiled in my own boy drama at the time. He is also about 4 years younger than me, which puts him out of my scope because at the time I liked older, more established, better dressed and spoken dudes. I was in the process of having a bit of a dating life crisis though and starting to realize that maybe these types of guys and this checklist of things I was looking for were not really the best answer to finding a lifelong mate. I had just recently decided that I would go out at least once with anyone that asked and see where it went. Part of giving each other shit involved me relentlessly chiding Babu about his footwear and clothing. He had zero style. One day I am sitting at my desk and in walks Babu. He is dressed in dress pants, a button up and dress shoes. I laugh because I think he is doing this to be funny and prove a point and I respond “Oh, my Sweet Babu you look so nice!” This was the first time I ever called him that and in my head it is what Sally from Charlie Brown called Linus. Later in the day Dr. M turns to me and says “Hey, you know he did that FOR YOU, don’t you? He is into you…”. Wait..what??? Seriously? He has a girlfriend he hardly ever mentions in any way, but TJ ( the other fixer) and I know she exists. I start to ponder what this means and little things start to click into place; the Fritos, the breakfasts out, etc. So he is way too young in my book, and he has a girlfriend. But I have just been told he is into me and he is in a band and he also has a tongue ring and these brown eyes with these lashes that my son got in the DNA pool. Plus he is tall dark and hairy. I’m 27, he has a tongue ring, he is into me. I do what any 27 year old horny slut would do in my situation, I start flirting with him more voraciously via the IM system we have at work. Now part of that was voicing my concern about his age. But somehow it works out that on Friday night he is going to come over to my apartment and we are going to hook up.
He gets there and he is a nervous shaking wreck. He is WAY out of his element and is not capable of the walk in and start sexing me plans that were hanging in the air. It is actually quite sweet. So we sit on my couch and I am leaning against his big, I don’t it’s hairy yet, chest and we talk for a really long time. Eventually this leads to our first kiss and some third base action on my couch and floor and he leaves. He had told his GF he was helping another co-worker, who ended up standing up in our wedding, move. There are no discussions about what this means or doing this again, he just leaves. As far as I was concerned it was probably just a hook up and I’ll see him at the office when I get back in on Wednesday.
Tuesday night comes and I’m standing at the airport getting ready to catch the town car home when my phone rings. It’s Babu. He broke up with his girlfriend while I was gone. Oh holy crap, I just stole someone’s boyfriend. I’ve messed around with more than a few boyfriends in my time, but never actually stolen one. Wow, I tell him, that was a pretty bold move. I’m happy he did it I tell him, but he should probably plan on seeing other people besides just me since they were together for something like 2 years, basically lived together and I’m not really looking for anything super serious right now. That’s cool he says.
He then proceeds to ignore me and not date anyone else, and neither do I. We start out slowly and pick up speed pretty quickly. We hooked up in the beginning of August and by the time Labor Day rolls around we go away on our first weekend trip together. I get home from that and I tell him standing in my bed room, I just want you to know that I love you, I’m not expecting that you have to say it back right now but I just wanted you to know how I am feeling. I love you too, he says. The next week I started a merger rotation where I had to travel out to DC every week and stay Mon-Fri for almost 6 months. I was out there with a team of two other guys and we were ALL overwhelmed. I’m so exhausted and emotionally spent at the end of any given day that I don’t even have the energy to hold up my end of a proper conversation with Babu. While I was gone he was staying at my apartment and dog/cat sitting for me, then picking me up at the airport every Friday night when we landed and we would spend the entire weekend together. Every once in a while I’d need some alone time or want some time with my girlfriends but by the end of December we had the, I’d like to maybe consider making a life with you (too) conversation. We proceeded to do just that, started building a house together and got engaged on Good Friday, roughly 8 months into our relationship. We got married a year later after roughly 18 months of knowing each other. I was 29 and he was 25.
When we were starting this romance I was unsure. He wasn’t as educated as I was, he wasn’t as high on the food chain as I was, he was 4 years younger than I was. But being with him was easy. There was never any drama or games, there were no huge fights, he treated me like a queen and was wonderful in so many ways. Being with him was emotional salve, he said and did all the right things and backed it up with his actions. He was soothing my time and trips around the block battered heart and soul and I was growing him up. He became a man while he was with me and I was firmly attaching my heart, soul and life to him. Some small greedy part of me always wondered if I’d settled. I don’t feel that way anymore, but it took this ruin paves the way for transformation experience of Almost Divorce to land me here.
More to come soon Lovies.
Almost Divorce Part 27- Between Two Lungs
Posted: 2012/01/10 Filed under: Dating and Relationships, Ramblings | Tags: Forgive, forgiveness, Girl Code, God, Humor, Karma, my personal catfish story, Relationships 1 CommentThis series is published no less than once a week on Thursday’s. Or you can start at the beginning here
A timeline can be found here.
I progressed through the summer in this surreal dance of becoming myself again. Around me was a whirlwind of holding on, spinning and weaving as I tried to find that centered path to somewhere worthwhile.
Side bar: Seeing my old stick figures actually has me thinking I may draw this one. Just consider me your special friend who draws like a 4 year old. Don’t laugh so when I start my Dancing with the Stars is the pinnacle of my fame world dominance in motion with a self-published .99 cent e-book of a collection of drawings I don’t have to hate you! And for the record starting world dominance with a 99 cent e-book wasn’t even MY idea, I totally stole it from People I want to punch in the throat’s blog. Her posts about the Duggar’s and the Elf on the Shelf are awesome. Just think of what DWTS would do for my new year goal of a tighter ass and leaner legs. I didn’t have 8 asian kids with a pudgy spineless loser or get a TLC sponsored tummy tuck, but I have personality! My little curly haired stick figured girl could be famous some….nah really the drawing is just kind of cool to do during and see later. Plus, who doesn’t like to draw? Which is another conundrum, because how is an artist a sociopath? Don’t you need to feel to be any good at art? I’ll admit I never saw anything he ever created, I think that is interesting considering most artists love to show their work. In his defense I never once asked.
The whirlwhinds around me were The Husband holding on, Match.com spinning, PJM weaving. All around me was chaos, even my own personal path was rocky. I was a divorcing single mother. My emotions were all over the place and I had no lasting way to control it. I was learning to identify issue driven behavior, observe when I was doing it, live with the uncomfortable feelings that drove me to do it while simultaneously NOT doing it for as long as I could, observing my choices in behavior and observe the reactions from others and inside myself after making a choice, use that data to learn and modify my behavior, rinse, repeat, repeat repeat until the range of behaviors and emotions surrounding whatever “it” was started to pull in from the sides of dichotomy and form a new tighter range. This new tighter range would then be lived in for a while, and the process of observance, living with the yucky feelings while trying to work through what changes in MY behavior could lead to changes in my FEELINGS about my behavior and therefore, about myself as a person. That is the best way I can describe what working on yourself feels like while you are doing it. You are in your own world because your brain is over engaged on observing and molding you, while trying to keep the beast of your emotions at bay long enough to let the positive changes stick and the lessons settle in. It sucks, those feelings are awful, the failures are frustrating but the victories, how ever small at the time are the fuel that kept me moving along that path. It was through working on myself and finding an excellent therapist in Tab that I learned that I could create another place in my world, a bubble I could step into that refused to allow the chaos inside of it. That place is where I could step and choose to work on me, not control the events going on outside of me. It was the place where I could mold my behavior, pick my battles. It was inside that bubble that I was finding my grey. I don’t think we have a line inside of us that we do or don’t cross. I used to think life was like that but I have learned that it isn’t. There is no black and white, there are only shades of grey. In order to be able to love myself I had to define my grey, sometimes I stumbled through that badly but this was when I was first learning to actually do it. I don’t know that I think of my soul or personality as a morphing bubble but for point illustration purposes it seems to work. It was in creating that bubble that I was able to learn that I could choose when to step out into the chaos and how to deal with it when I did. who or what was allowed into the bubble with me. God was in that bubble and He had been waiting for me. I will get to more of that later. For now let’s talk about the forces of chaos holding onto my heart between two lungs. I just love Florence and The Machine.
The Husband Holding On:
The Husband was still holding on. We were still having sex, going on dates. He was still choosing to start fights about PJ and was still occasionally pushing me on why it couldn’t work between us. The thing was, I was no longer in love with my husband. I hand’t been in some time, that is part of what got us to this place. I could remember a time when I was falling in love with him. I was still critically questioning if I’d settled while that was happening. But we had 12 years of being a couple under us. We had been together in a time spans almost as large as the age gap between PJ and I. We had two children who were unwilling victims in this. We built a life together and it was full of promises we made to each other. I honestly didn’t know if I could ever fall in love with him again. This was a question I asked myself often, I am a PM, Risk Mitigation is part of my job. I would ask myself, If I end up without PJ, am I going to want him back? Each time I pondered this question I could never imagine a place where my Sweet Babu and I were ever going to be able to be ok for long. I could see an initial reconciliation poisoned by the pain and issues of trust and forgiveness. I could see bitter, hateful people married to each other feeling trapped because there is no way we could do this to the kids twice. Even though we went on to reconcile and have remained together our reconciliation process had hints of those things. Amazingly by the grace of GOD we work through them to land where we are today. But when PJ was accusing me of using him to fill a hole left b y The Husband I did not agree, because I honestly felt that there was no hole left by The Husband. I still feel like The Husband won’t let go and that he doesn’t have my heart. I’m more eager about option C- none of the above than choosing between he and PJ. I hadn’t started to mourn the almost divorce yet. That hits in early August and my little 4 year old Destroyer sets it off. The Husband was the thing trying to hold me back from moving forward. He was blocking my escape.
Match.com Spinning:
The Match.com dudes were culled into two categories, young and old. There were very few my age that even remotely interested me.
Hints for Dudes on Match.com and some for girls too….
- If you put a picture of yourself on a dating site please do yourself and everyone else a favor and put a face and full body recent picture, not something from college. This will allow you to not look like an insecure douche bag and will probably get you more dates. I am not a skinny girl, so I made sure that the whole package was displayed, take it or leave it dude I have plenty to keep me busy. You should love yourself to put who you really are on display, you only want those who are attracted to the real you right?
- This does not mean unpack all your crazy on the phone before you ask me out on a date.
- Most girls prefer to actually meet you in person prior to receiving a picture of your privates, no matter how fabulous you think they are.
- Every girl know that ” No one has ever complained” is code for my dick is small, because dudes with large penis know they have them so you know you have a small one. We really don’t care how big it is, sure all girls have preferences but the most important thing is that you can get it hard to something other than porn and last longer than the time it takes for Chasey to do her thing. We aren’t Chasey, slow the fuck down and enjoy it for a minute. No one likes to fuck a rabid monkey.
- No you cannot stay at her house after the first date because it will be late and you work early and you live “so far away”. You should probably not ask her this before the date actually occurs, or it won’t happen.
- We know what kind of guy you are by the bars you tell us you frequent. So don’t try to tell us you are looking for an eventual relationship when we can see the only bar you go to is MILF town. Just say, I’m into fucking MILF’s and I’d like to fuck you.
- The truth with the right girl will get you so much more than lies with the wrong girl.
I was lucky enough to make one actual friend. A guy a little bit older than me that as it turns out also had some online experiences to share. Though we have not been nor do not go to the same online circles. Dr. Kink and I went go carting for our first meet up and then occasionally out to do stuff. Mostly we have come over and play cards time while we talk about whatever drama I am currently experiencing and he tells me about all of the adventures going on in his life. We became pretty good friends. I had to stop talking to him last Spring after the chat round 2. The husband requested I cull my male friends list, he provided a few suggestions that were not negotiable and he was one of the victims. I also had Sunshine and VinD as platonic friends and they were both doing their part to teach me what kind of man I should be seeking. The other boys were simply spinning devices. There to take up time and energy, but not really going anywhere on either side. One I spend a lot of time sexting with, and even sample the grass and move into phone sexing him. I do the phone sex thing simply to purge my memories of shouting out PJ’s name while recording it, with new memories. I’ve often subscribed to the quickest way over someone is under someone else theory. I didn’t say it was a good solution, but it is one I was used to. The thing about match.com is it is a lot of work. Keeping up with it is a huge time suck and there are a lot of weirdo’s out there. One of my final match boys teaches me some more about what boys are really thinking when they choose not to call. Turns out they just don’t’ want to call, they assume you know this by their act of not calling you. The silence is the message. He tells me this while he is talking about another girl he met once, but I know what to think later when the replies stop. It is easy to take note and move along because a- he already honestly spelled out for me what it means when he doesn’t call b- having sex with that dude was like being fucked by a rabid monkey. I was so ready to go to bed alone when that was over. The last match.com guy is a borderline psycho. I never let him get past g-chatting me and sending me some pics. As August approaches I am winding even that down. I think it is probably best to quit dating for a while as the divorce gets finalized and then figure out what to do. I do not wind down match.com in PJ’s mind though. I make sure to keep the idea of other guys working their way into my life very fresh. I regret that game a little bit. I was more hinting than lying and even though we now know he was lying the entire time, I’d still like my Karma to be a little cleaner in that arena. These diversions were little or large spinning forces, just sort of buffering me about as I fought to learn to be able to engage them in healthy manners. It was within those experiences that I was able to find those uncomfortable feelings I needed to work on and give new behaviors a shot. I was so very bad at it in the beginning too. But between staying in the fray and talking more and more with Sunshine I got better and better. The match.com boys were fun and funny, but they kept my focus scattered. Thanks Match.com dudes! It was a fun couple of months.
PJM Weaving:
Lastly there is the weaving of PJ. The way we climbed this last hill. I refused to run to it, so he lured me slowly. He worked for it, took his time saying all of the right things. He dug the hole of his identity deeper. He attached himself further to me. I allowed myself hope, I willingly went along for the ride. I had my doubts, but a very large part of me still wanted to be there. I was just getting healthier and smarter and closer to me. Instead of running from PJ and the pit of despair, I was always running back to it, looking around, opening it up, peeking inside, shouting Hello in there? Pj? Are you going to come out yet?. I don’t what the hell is is about that boy but something would not let me let him go. Instead I just wove around like little Billy in Family Circus when he is supposed to just go get the mail and instead he is all over the hood. Even as I was pulling away from him I was investing more emotion in wanting to know who he really was. In my mind all of the things that came with the identity were real and the details would be validated once we were actually around each other. PJ once told me “something always brings me back to you” and ” we have something we just have to figure it out“. I could say he was pulling me through his little mind fuck, but that would not be 100% of the truth. I was letting him, but I was tired of how it made me feel.
Getting to that somewhere worthwhile involved letting go of PJ and running toward whatever was going to happen instead. Apparently I was just about to queue that up.
More to come soon Lovies.
Almost Divorce Part 23- PJ comes back
Posted: 2011/12/29 Filed under: Ramblings | Tags: BGP, Big Girl Panties, Girl Code, my personal catfish story 1 CommentThis series is published no less than once a week on Thursday’s. Or you can start at the beginning here
A timeline can be found here.
I knew I had an entire weekend to process what the heck was going on, and try to figure out what I wanted to do about it. I start by Googling his first and last name combination in conjunction with all the cities he supposedly has ties in. There is nothing. I should get his family name and a whole bunch of family members in his home town…but I don’t. His Dad is living in his Grandma’s old house, he and his Dad live din the same time before that when he was growing up, yet there is nothing. There is nothing in conjunction with his undergrad and there is nothing in conjunction with his grad school or where he lived after college. PJ told me earlier in the summer the delusional girl had gotten his home for the summer phone number by Googling it. Yet it does not show up for me. His emoregw email is still in working order, but I have refused to interact with him using that method in some time, because I forced him to provide me the email he just nuked into oblivion. I don’t know about you Lovies, but for me at the time it was a head scratcher. Why on earth would you nuke your entire real life email? Well… you’d have no qualms about nuking it if it was fake now would you? In the words of Madeline’s Miss Clavelle..something is not quite right! PJ is showing his true colors. I don’t really know what is going on, but I know we are broken up, it is over and he did it badly and now there is un-ignorable sketchiness on top of it all.
Monday morning arrives. I get up, get dressed , ger the kids off to summer camp and get on my computer. I’m pretty done with ALL male related bullshit going on it my life. I’m tired of arguing with The Husband, I’m way over PJ treating me like shit and since I have been going to counselling and have dropped the online chat room addiction I am feeling pretty cocky about my progress. I have learned that right about the time I feel cocky about my progress something comes in from left field and challenges that theory. I think I changed that past week from being under his spell to oh no you didn’t. But…. I like return on my investment, and PJ is pretty darn easy on the eyes, and he certainly has a way of making me swoon when he chooses to do so. I like a good mystery and I don’t like to be taken advantage of, but I also don’t like all my hard work to go to waste, if you will. I don’t like to be wrong, and I don’t like to feel like I made a bad decision or wasted my time. At this point, he is a puzzle to me. I recognize that there are probably things he is lying about, and I’d like to know what those are. But I don’t come right out and say, I’m pretty sure you are not being truthful here, perhaps you’d like a 2nd chance to amend you response from Saturday morning. Remember we are broken up, he dumped me on G-chat in something like 3 short IM’s. I’m not that girl. But I wish I’d chosen to be and just let it go…then. I think I was probably clinging on to the fact that the PJGW email was still there so he was still ‘around” in some manner. This next phase of the story is the “I wish I could just just walk away from PJ and I start actively trying” phase. But something keeps bringing me back to him and him to me. That something was I was being fucked with, but it’s going to take me another month or so to figure that out.
Instead I see that he is on G-chat as PJGW and is green. I don’t remember who chatted first, but I remember my tone was one of…so you nuked your real email account….that makes no sense… what is going on.
He replies that it wasn’t his best decision. That he replied that he typed in his last name, slammed his laptop down and was so angry he almost threw it into the pool. Then he got in the car and drive to WI. I’m listening/reading. He goes on to say that he was never going to fuck O. That it started out as they were going camping and he said he might meet them in South Bend for coffee. In typical chat fashion that grew into more and there was talk about how he should participate in a 3-way with them. He never said he would, he probably never said he wouldn’t either. He says you know me Lola, I was probably not even going to meet them for coffee. You have to believe me, I wasn’t going to do that. I would never do that, Lola. You have to believe me Lola, please believe me Lola. I am skeptical but he re-iterates this again near the end of our conversation. He also tells me that he let his sister drove home so he could cry and that he told her about what happened with their step-dad growing up. He says they had a good talk and that she was very understanding. He hasn’t told anyone about this his whole ( so I was first a few weeks ago??) life and he is starting with her. He may of even told her about the dead baby. I am pleased to hear this, it is a step in the right direction. PJ is starting to get better and there could be a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m feeling pretty good about my progress, I was in my first cocky I’m getting better stage. I was getting better, I had left chat behind, was relying less and less on pics on r/gonewild to boost my ego.
I was still unsure about getting a divorce, but I was sure that after the events of the last week culminating in me not being able to validate this full identity he had given me, made me ready to get moving on with liveing MY new life. In My life there are twp phases to PJ and MY story. There is phase 1, which goes from that first sweet moment I noticed him in chat and thought “OMG, who is that deliciousness in scruff”; to the moment he deleted his first real life email account. whatever lies he had told that that point could of easily been divulged at the start of phase 2, this particular Monday morning. This particular Monday morning was the time to come clean. To say “Hey Lola, you know what? I’ve been telling you some lies and I’m going to spell them out for you right now. ” It was the internet after all, lies can and should be reasonably expected when dealing with the opposite sex in a sexy manner in this forum. Now would of been the time to say, Hey Lola, you know what? I’m actually engaged or married or whatever but I’m really into you and I’d like to fuck you on the side and maybe see where that goes.” Or even ” Hey Lola you know what? It has been really fun but quite honestly you amazing sexy unforgettable woman, you are too much drama and I just cannot handle this so I’m going to go ahead and bail you crazy bitch.” No, that didn’t happen Lovies, what did happen was PJ started to both pull away and chase me more all at the same time.
I do not leave that G-chat conversation that morning thinking that PJ and I are back together. Only that perhaps we are talking. That perhaps there is a small feeling of good will between us. I also call my husband that morning to tell him I want to talk about the divorce. We have found that we sometimes handle these types of conversation better via G-chat so that is what we do. We talk about if either of us thinks there is a chance for us, or are we both ready to move on. We tip toe and tap dance through this lengthy conversation. I tell him I think I am ready to file to paperwork and we would be divorced by 8/28/2010 or shortly after. I ask him if he is ok with this. He agrees that he is. There isn’t any anger, there isn’t any extreme sadness. There is only amicable tolerance for the one we each used to love. Except The Husband never stopped loving me and that is part of the reason we are still together today. So later that morning I make the short drive to the county courthouse and after a side trip to the library for the RIGHT forms and a small fee of less than $200 I have accomplished filing for divorce.
On the drive to the courthouse I have plenty of time to think about The Husband, and Paul and MY life. What kind of life I am ready to get on living. What kind of man I’d like to someday see in that life. I feel like I would like to have some time to have crazy fun and enjoy this freedom and some time to heal from all of The Husband vs. PJ and Lola stands alone mess. I got there for the 2nd time with the RIGHT paperwork and it was a warm sunny day, yet I got a spot under a tree by the park across the street in the shade. The crazy drama people from my first trip had cleared out of the clerks office. I filed my divorce, got instructions that we needed to bring back the notarized, signed divorce decree sometime after 8/28/11 and then the judge would look at it, make sure no one was getting screwed and the kids were taken care of. Then within 2-3 days after he would declare us divorced. I left sad and happy all at the same time. I drove home with the sunroof open and the windows down and the music blaring. A smile on my face. I put on my BGP and was finally starting to own it.
Sometime that day PJ got on G-chat again, still on the PJGW account, not a new real life account. He chatted me first and I told him I filed my divorce paperwork that day. “Wow”, he said “you really did put your BGP on today.” Yes, I did. I ask him what his new email addy is, to make the point that I am not all that cool talking to him using this PJGW account. I know it was the same PJ on the other end, but it is the point of the many layers of the GW Rabbit Hole I have previously discussed. I wanted real PJ, not fake PJ. He made some lame excuse about wanting to hide from everyone for awhile and that he might not get one. The conversation ends amicably and that is not code for we got naked.
More soon Lovies.
Almost Divorce- Part 19 PJ Steps it up a notch
Posted: 2011/11/17 Filed under: Ramblings | Tags: Forgive, forgiveness, Girl Code, my personal catfish story, Relationships 1 CommentThis series is published no less than once a week on Thursday’s. Or you can start at the beginning here
A timeline can be found here
We left off last time here:
pj: I’m not forcing you to do anything but I’m asking you to wait and give me time.
me: In non inflammatory tone…why should i
bc i melt when you smile
bc i can tell how you feel when you look at me
why should I PJ’s real name
pj: because it’s what I need to give you what you need
and i need
me: so i get to live in he doesn’t want me land while you work it out?
that’s a pretty big take one for the team
that’s a LOT of risk for ME
pj: yes becuase its so obv that i dont want you
me: stfu
pj: everyone can see that im not a fucking wreck
i dont get pms and emails asking me what’s wrong with me
me: you don’t?
pj: im so not in to you
no I get them all the time
everyone is bugging the shit out of me
me: and what do you tell them?
pj: that im a fucking mess
me: you know
pj: that i hurt the person i care about
me: if we are going to be a team
we will have to help each other
but you’re asking a LOT from me
pj: most get it and one girl is too stupid to figure it out
me; no she is just a cunt
you’ll have to back hand her with it
pj: lol
me: you are asking a LOT from me and in return i get very little assurance that its going to be ok
pj: ACA has been helping me out a lot with this tho since Ruxy ( ❤ you Ruxy) isn’t around to chat with
me: and what does she say
pj: all kinds of things
me: that you’re an idiot
pj: nah she has the same problem we have
she has a 33 yo Bf
and similar issues
me: she is like 19 ( ACA’s issues, which I have discussed with her as well are NOTHING like what PJ and I are dealing with. But I’m not about to say a damn thing about this because at least he is talking to someone about it. I know she has a decent head on her shoulders and is a good hearted girl so I’m not worried too much about it)
pj: yep
me: BIG difference
pj: i know
but emotionally very similar
me: if you have any hope of me weathering this you’re going to have to find a way to keep me reassured about it along the way.
pj: i know
can i see you tonight ( 2nd time he has asked in this conversation)
me: I WILL have doubt about it if it ever does start
bc I’m going to spend a fair amount of time in the beginning expecting you to change your mind ( doesn’t THAT sound like a fabulous beginning to an epic relationship??)
pj: that’s to be expected
me: you WILL have to earn it
pj: ok
me: I can’t let you tuck me in (but good Lord I want to)
I’m sorry
pj: allright
me: It’s just going to make me think everything is going to be ok
pj: i understand
me: and it still won’t be
pj: allright
me: no it’s not really allright it fucking sucks
pj: no shit
welp now I’m late for work
I’ll talk to you later Lola’s real name
try to smile today you’re very pretty when you do
me: gee thanks
pj: …
me: im not in a good place right now babe
im just not
enjoy your day
pj: neither am I
And that was the end of it. Off he went to work, I turned my attention to my work laptop and got to it.
This captured conversation is a fair example of how we communicated. I would call this an open honest mature adult conversation. I could of left off the “gee thanks”, he said sweet things all the time, including calling me sweets for an entire night once, I shouldn’t of been so flip about it. When PJ was communicating he was VERY good and communicating. We were very frank and open with each other, from the moment we met actually. He started it with “Hey, that was my naked penis up there earlier” and and this tone went on in our relationship till near the end, when I finally figured out he was fucking with me, optioning me, retreating in his responses to my questions about his intent. Yet sending me emails telling me ” Sat by the bonfire tonight, was consumed with thoughts of you. ” Hell, it could be he was simply just tired of having the same fight , tired of letting me down and not doing anything as fast as I wanted. He may of even felt a little bit like the longer he took to get himself together the better he better be so the wait would be “worth” it to me and I wouldn’t get bored and leave him for the next 25 year Greek boy that flashed a smile my way. With my inability to practice patience and with my high ability to make his dick hard and his eyes go soft it was probably just as fucked up a ride for him. If that boy has any kind of working soul ( my prayer for him is always that God will give him what he needs) then his experiences with me left him both deeply enriched and immensely fucked up. It’s funny when I started writing this story, roughly 5 months ago, I had a tiny handful of things I felt I could own regarding this relationship. And now, well let’s just say it is a laundry list. Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT blaming myself for what he did to me. I did not deserve it. I am just saying that I am finally in a place of forgiveness where I am also OK with recognizing how things may have felt and looked to him. Because I am over it, I can see it with clearer eyes. Liken it to a cataract like film that gradual dissipates as you heal. All those feelings of hate, and anger and desperation that poison the version of truth you feed yourself start to clear. I can see things from a higher elevation. It’s nice up here. I’m in his unfinished karmic business. But it is HIS business, not mine. I’ve sorted and sifted through the rubble from the implosion with all the pieces I need to keep. I’ve got some nice memories and some lessons learned. At the end of the day I can be happy with that.
When PJ left for work his g-chat went from green to off. We communicated through mostly g-chat so our lines of communication were controlled individually. If I was open to talking to him I would be on and green, or even green cam. If he was open to talking to me he would be on an green or even green cam. There is also red for busy or red cam for cam is busy, as well as away and invisible. Invisible we used often. At first so my husband wouldn’t see that we were chatting and camming and in the end to hide from each other while still being able to talk to other friends. Add in the layer of plugins that allow you to broadcast your current music as status updates and you have the instruments for the music of our sometimes carefully orchestrated status dances . We could ‘talk” to each other even when we weren’t talking TO each other. Seeing someones feelings flash across your computer every 3 minutes as their playlist broadcasts can be intense. When we were falling in love it was a beautiful lust filled swoon; when in conflict a mix of revelry, hope , resolution and despair. It’s probably the kind of thing the most annoying love sick teenagers do. I can admit I often felt like a love sick teenager. Skype works pretty much the same way.
Later that day we were chatting and and camming. He asked me twice in the morning if he can tuck me in. He knows that tucking me in is my absolute favorite thing. If we had sex as much in person as we did on cam we would be on a 1-3x a day schedule. That is how lust driven this relationship was. We wrapped it all with emotion, intimacy, vulnerability, honesty ( I thought), respect ( I thought), and love (he claimed, I lived in denial that I didn’t). In specifically asking to tuck me in Paul was offering the thing he knew I liked most and the best he had to give, this was his “I’m trying”. I knew it, and he knew I knew it. It was understood. PJ and I had a very eerie in simpatico understanding of us from the perspective of knowing how we both moved through this intricate dance. We knew us and I thought we knew each other. The mood was lighter throughout the day. We talked more about what PJ’s next steps might be. He’s told me he is thinking about going to see a therapist because he has some things he wants to work on. That his plan is to get his shit together and call me from area code (###) when he does. So he shares is area code. (Anybody else got Luda going through their head?) He later tells me the name of his home town. He also shares the story of the lost baby that day. We talk about it at length. I don’t think it really happened, but if it did I am quite certain it was awful. He went from corporately employed and about to be promoted, living with, engaged, and about to be a family with the woman he loved to dumped, alone and in art school living in an apartment with another couple. And they had a ton of mutual friends so it was everybody’s business. That summer instead of opening wedding gifts and counting RSVP’s, he was living at home above the garage above his Dad’s house, working in a low wage shitty job. He felt he gave this selfish girl everything and in the end she chose money over being with PJ where he wanted to go. To say he was still heart sick 9 months after it ended would be an understatement. He had only very recently stopped hating her. He had only recently been at rock bottom and he was only starting to be willing to try to climb out of it. It could also be a part of why we so easily bonded. We were what we each needed at the time. He needed someone to point him out to himself and educate him on how great he really was, and I needed someone to pay attention and nurture me. He said more than once that something about you just keeps me coming back. When it was working we clicked and hummed, we sharpened each other, we comforted each other, we brought each other pleasure, and supported each other. We were in every emotional sense, great friends and a couple.
That day he also tells me all his friends call him PJ. I do not like this. No 39 woman wants a 25 year old boyfriend she has to introduce to her friends as PJ. He might as well have boytoy tattooed on his forehead, or wear a scarlet B. I already called him e as my nickname for him. I never once called him PJ, which is funny because I’ve been calling him that in this blog for so long that most of the time in my head he is PJ, not his real name. So I guess I’m calling him that after all.
That’s enough for today Lovies, more to come next Tuesday, because I am not publishing a story about my Almost Divorce on Thanksgiving, even if I am quite thankful for the Almost Divorce and the opportunity to tell you my story.
Almost Divorce: PJ and the Delusional Girl aka DG
Posted: 2011/11/01 Filed under: Ramblings | Tags: Girl Code, Google, my personal catfish story, Relationships 1 CommentThis series is published once a week on Thursday’s. Or you can start at the beginning here
A timeline can be found here
Lately I’ve been a bit anxious to move this along a little faster. You may see some additional posts for a while. Plus this story is super easy to write and my time is super short these days. I’m sure there are some parts of this story I will get mixed up or out of order, I’m going from my personally colored memory. It’s been over a year since these things happened, it is hard to always remember the details of what goes where, and I’ve gained a lot more insight to the situation as time has passed.
DG, still haunts me. I think she was his real life girlfriend at some point. I feel very sorry for her.
The Delusional Girl got introduced to me very early. When PJ was still at school he was talking to me on g-chat in the studio. There had been some bullshit slung about him planning to start a project called curves and curls. It was pretty hot and heavy but he wasn’t going to be heading home anytime soon. It was the last month of school, he taught undergrad art classes and was in his first year of art Grad School. We were discussing some naughty fantasy involving the studio and the shower late at night. He mentioned her first, telling me she was there. I teasingly suggested a trist between the two of them. This was early and the rules were different. We had no emotional claims on each other, we were just fap buddies still discovering how much we liked being together. He said ” No, she hates me. Besides she had her chance.” I took this to mean something happened between us and didn’t work out well. Or I asked her out and she said no, and it’s awkward now. I didn’t think a thing of it, I didn’t care.
Little bit of time passes. PJ is still at school and he tells me he and DG got into a fight, at school. It seems she often screws (metaphorically) him on office hours. She was to cover for him or they were both supposed to work or something and she just didn’t show up. He tells me shortly after it happened, that he told her ” If she was going to fuck him she should pull his hair a little because he likes that.” My first reactions to this news are as follows. A- PJ likes his hair pulled during sex, good to know. B- You fucking did and said what; to DG, who is a woman, and you did this while at your place of employment and study?
“What did she say?” I asked. “I made her cry”, he said. Ya think? I wondered.
I was a bit taken aback. That is the behavior of a guy who cannot control himself. That is the behavior of a guy with anger issues. That is a pretty severe reaction and handled in a really douchy way. This sounded nothing like the guy I spent time with. I don’t remember the details but I am quite certain we had a conversation about my feelings on the topic. This was before lunch. I remember he worried about what the Department Chairs would say and do discipline wise. He told me he got a lecture and had to apologize, but that he had already apologized before they told him he had to.
This is probably the point where I delved further into this topic. Something didn’t make sense. This is the story I was given over time.
PJ, DG, and D all work as grad student teachers at art school. They are all friends. And they are all friends with S, D’s girlfriend, soon to be fiance. D and S live in PJ’s apartment complex. PJ talks openly to D and S about me, they know who I am and what we are to each other. I mentioned before about how PJ had to travel for work sometimes. It seems these were recruiting trips. It also seems that this fine college institution believes that grad students are adults and allows them to share rooms when they travel together. D isn’t really a fit to speak in front of people, so the recruiting trips were left up to DG and PJ make, often together.
Later in the summer I explain very clearly that if he and I are together in the Fall, it is not ok for him to share a room with female grad students when he travels. He tells me he will talk to the department chair and make it clear he is no longer planning to be single and it won’t be an issue. I think he might of even claimed he had the discussion and they were planning on sending DG and the one of the new grad students, the one from his first trip to Chicago and our first e-date, on those trips.
OK so when PJ and DG first met, he was fresh from his fiance, with her for 5 years, dumping him. They flirt, but nothing ever really comes of it. I have been on the receiving end of PJ’s flirting. It can be intoxicating. He tells her he isn’t in any shape to get into anything. But they all continue to hang out together all the time. Then one trip they are in a hotel together, they have separate beds. It is his birthday. She climbs into his or on top of him or some such thing and offers herself to him for his birthday. He says he threw her off of him, there may have been some previous drinking involved, and went and got his own hotel room for the rest of the weekend. I know every one of you is reading this and going…sure he didn’t bang her… but it certainly explains the hate doesn’t it? He claims he has never even kissed her, he has never told her he wanted to be with her. She is just a friend and a girl he works with that is still mad at/into him and he doesn’t even liker her all that much because she is crazy.
I wasn’t pleased with the angry violent outburst when he made her cry. But I let it go. It was early and I was only considering him for my boytoy, not my boyfriend . We were still in the playing and learning about each other phase. And he came to me to talk about it and vent. I didn’t start going WTF again until a little later in the summer.
PJ moves home and has given me the real life Gmail address. One night he has a stern warning for D on his Gchat status. D is going to get it and PJ isn’t laughing. DG had called PJ’s home phone looking for him. Turns out she just Googled it. That’s strange, I thought later when he gave me his last name. When I Google you I get nothing in that town. I don’t get your Dad, your Grandma, nothing. It is a small town and you guys have supposedly lived there for years. She called him and wanted to talk. It started out ok, then ended in a fight.
There is a weekend where he is excited because D and S are coming to visit. Apparently DG has weaseled her way into the weekend. Something happens and S and DG go home early in S’s car. S is supposed to have the talk with her on the way back to school that she needs to lay off. At this point I’ve had enough. I need to talk to you about DG, I tell him. Something isn’t adding up here. Why does that girl think and feel the way she does about you. She is crazy, he asserts. No baby, no girl is that into a guy without some clues that she thinks it is ok to be. I need to know more. I ask more questions about when they hang out together, all four of them, as friends. He claims she is always trying to make it a couples thing, but that he never bites. We discuss this some more. I tell him he sure seems to be surrounded by delusional women; DG, the ex. I ask if I am one of those women. No, he tells me. You and I have discussed being together, DG and I never have.
At some point in time PJ gets a summer short haircut. I ask him who cuts his hair and school. Holy cow it is DG. WTF, I ask him. You let her cut your hair? Don’t you think that is a pretty intimate thing to allow a girl you aren’t into to but is really really into you to do? This is when he tells me about his habit of not saying anything if it is going to be uncomfortable and just letting girls think what they want. You can’t let her cut your hair anymore, I tell him. That’s unfair to her. You also need to set her straight, it’s is unfair to her that you aren’t doing it. Later he tells me he has discussed this with S and she agrees with me. He reaches out to her and sets up a time when they are going to talk on the phone. While it is happening he is driving. It starts out ok, but then she starts a fight and he gets pissed off and throws the phone out the window of the car on the highway. When are you getting a new phone?, I ask. I’m not going to get one for awhile he tells me.
I am unsettled. I am super glad he has set DG straight, because I’m planning on having to meet and be around her soon. But what a total fucking douche bag thing to do throwing the phone out of the car window. He knows I want him to call me. He knows he has told me, I’m going to get my shit together, and as soon as I do I’m going to call you and it will be from area code (123) and I will hope it can still be my time. I mention it in the moment as a, I get what you really did here, note. I must of been in the desperately optimistic skepticism part of our relationship. Later in time he admits it was a crappy move to pull.
The last thing I heard about DG was that they had made sure to separate their offices back at school for the coming fall semester. This is when he was still pretending he really went to that school.
That school is less than an hour’s drive away from my home. I have been there many times, mostly in my 20’s. I have both ex- boyfriends and best friends that went to that school. There is a chapter of my sorority there and it is the closest one to me should I ever get crazy and decide to volunteer. And I have some very found memories of time spent there. I haven’t been there is years. One day I’ll take a drive up and give that campus a good 5 miles of my time. I bet it is pretty right now with the leaves turning.
Closer to Lola 
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