It just never ends
by Amy Nicholls
It happened today. On our walk to school, we pass by our old street. I looked down the road, at the house that was once mine, and I saw that familiar SUV outside the house, again.
They try to make it look random, not parking in the driveway, leaving early in the morning.
It is all so silly. Why put so much energy into living this big unnecessary secret. Making it even more insulting because they aren’t even doing a good job hiding. I knew the moment I saw his new shoes. He always gets new shoes and a hair cut when he starts seeing someone.
The door to my old house was left wide open. Floating back and forth from the house to her car, collecting her things, it is as if she lives there. Instantly I started to panic. Not because my ex was seeing someone, no, what really had me worried was she seemed so settled, and the reality hit me hard that this person I know nothing about may have direct contact with my son, and probably already does. It’s another blow, another punishment for leaving.
On the flip side, it is sort of a relief to have eyes on what I’ve known for awhile. This living his life under the shroud of secrecy wasn’t a new pattern for me to pick up on. The lying and deceitfulness was a part of why I left our marriage, the emotional abuse and control was another.
Connecting a person to the SUV that always seemed to be out front of the house made my observation reality. It was no longer something I could be accused of making up and gaslighted. That actually brought me a slight reassurance. One person, one personality for my ex to morph into and consume will provide some constancy in his behaviour for the time being.
He will never want our paths to cross. A narcissist’s big flex is keeping people in their spaces. If I blend into the current life he presents with her, it will no longer make sense. Showing I’m human, and not in any way the person he has portrayed, will bust holes in the story he’s weaving, and possibly end the joy it brings him knowing this extravagant play is causing me stress. It is a state of being he will want to continue living in as long as possible. To cause me pain is to still control me, and by that he retains his outlet for channeling his trauma hate towards me.
That’s the thing with narcissists. They play the long game. They prep, and spin stories before you are even aware what is going on. I always have to be on the defensive when I meet new people connected to my ex, because they more often then not, have already formed an option of me before we have even had our first conversation.
In my quick calculation it’s likely this has made it past the 6 month mark. I would hope my ex would keep his time with our son separate from his time with his girlfriend until the moment comes he’s ready to have her at least park her car in the driveway, but I know that would require a level of sacrifice his ego is incapable of considering. So here it is, another person, an entitlement to judge me leaning hard into a one sided option.
She’s his type. I can tell from this distance, and if she’s staying around she must offer him all the things I used to bring, and probably all the things I couldn’t or wouldn’t do for him. All the things that were never an issue before, but made a big blown out deal of now when he rationalizes his patriarchal toxicity towards me, “she deserves to be treated this way because...”
I find it hard enough sending my child out on his own into this fucked up world. To have zero communication from my own child when he is with his father because, the father feels he doesn’t need to tell me anything. To have people I don’t know be so influential in my child’s life. That the transition from toddlerhood to young child came at me without warning, even though no one missed a beat to chime in that it’s coming when I was in the trenches and felt like it will never end. Life presents no warm ups.
I do my best to combat the anxiety around this. I am my sons north star, and I will always be there to guide and protect him, but now, adding in another adult that could potentially influence my child’s development and view of life, that is so blatantly being hidden from me, that I know nothing about, well, it’s fucking terrifying, and frankly, really cruel.
I spend so much time untying knots of manipulation. I take the punches of anger my son has sat on overnight. The defiance and rudeness that comes out of his sweet mouth because he is confused and frustrated. I remind myself this is simply a 5 year old’s way of dealing with deep pain. He needs extra support for these very big feelings, and in this current landscape of the pandemic and people just generally being dicks right now, it takes all my reserved energy to give him all that he truly needs from me.
It’s just one more thing after the other, and I’m so tired.
So it becomes another thing I have to keep an eye on, and that I have to put my limited energy into. It is hard enough raising a good human, even more so when I have less than help. I have the other party trying to break me in the process. It can become to much some days. It can make me feel paranoid, and hyper vigilant because all I want is to filter the noise and garbage, so we can have a good night sleep without having to breakdown a nightmare, or big feeling that pops up at 3 a.m.
It gets really lonely doing this alone.
But no one really understands unless they are going through it too, and from what I’m experiencing, everyone’s situation is different, no two divorces are the same, because everyone’s marriage, back story, family dynamics, and children are all different. It becomes even more stressful trying to explain it, and in turn I end of operating in a bubble.
I am now faced with another choice I never asked to make. To pretend and wait, or call him on it.
Because this my weird life now, the stage in my life that I can’t escape from.
I have to forever be the bigger person, and try to navigate the shit-show of raising my favourite person in the world with someone that takes satisfaction in my pain and struggle.
So I call him on it, obviously, and we turn that page into this chapter of a book I never wanted to read.
It really just never ends.