The Midi-chlorians Strike Again

A midi-what?

Midi-chlorians! You know...from Star Wars? Have you been living under a rock or something? Geesh.

Theres been an inside joke in my circle for the last 18 years. Not a joke really. More like our own folklore. That my completely amazing and incredible god-daughter was the product of midi-chlorlains. We were young when her mother, my best friend, got knocked up. Young, geeky, and absolutely certain of our newly discovered feminist principles which didn't allow for such an unsubstantiated obviously patriarchal machination such as "immaculate conception". So naturally, midi-chlorians. It must have been the midi-chlorians.

Its 18 years later and I find myself wanting to utter the same myth. Comfort myself with the magical idea that this baby growing inside me is made of just me and stardust. But reality intrudes. Realty, and the fact that unlike my friend's situation from so long ago, my baby's father is not going to disappear into the ether. But he's not here either.

Backstory: Hubby and I had already been sleeping apart for a year and were well into leading separate lives. We had "the talk" on Valentine's day over a bottle of wine and after he cooked my favorite meal... Cuz thats how we roll(ed).

I deteriorated pretty quickly while he ran off and did goodness knows what and with whom. Over time that changed. I began to heal and he began to mourn. The biggest contributing factor to my healing was a new man.

Not exactly new.
Just new to me.

Actually, no, not even new to me...

But it was like I"d been walking past the same sculpture every day for years, a sculpture I'd always liked, but someone had moved it. Turned it. Put it under different light. And suddenly that familiar sculpture was wholly new and amazing and changed the way I saw the whole world and myself. Irrevocably.

Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in
 love with a statue he had carved

As shakespearean as the forces that brought us together were, so to were the forces that tore us apart. Getting over 2 broken hearts in one year is really more than any one person should have to endure. Add to that being pregnant with the child of, but separated from, a man I'm still wildly in love with despite all the stress and tears our relationship wrought and its a miracle I'm still standing.

The situation is ridiculously complicated and not really all mine to disclose. But the reality of it is that I'm 7 months pregnant with the most powerful symbol of the strength of what we shared. He's here with me every moment and at the same time he's the thing I have to fight every moment not to think about so I can manage all the other realities resting on my weary shoulders. I'm about to be a divorced mom. A single mom of a newborn. Running a household and a business on my own. Playing a complicated game of strategy to manage the needs and feelings of my kids, my soon-to-be-ex, my "baby daddy", and myself. I feel wholly ill-equipped for the task and yet I do it every day. Some days better than others.

I still sleep alone and yet I don't. The baby kicks, my son climbs in and snores gently in my ear, the cat makes herself a home between my feet so that even in sleep I'm laden with the needs of all the beings depending on me to hold my shit together. So when the time of night comes when my eyes need to close but my brain won't turn off I can let down my guard. And I let him be there. Warm against my back. Arm draped over my belly calming the lively creature that is half him. And I can sleep.

In the morning I'll wake and cry for a moment at the loss of the sweet amnesia of sleep. And then the baby will wake up and kick me in the bladder and the day's tasks will begin. The dissolving of a union, the care and keeping of my earthside babies, the planning and maintenance of our home, the building of a sustainable business, the management of far too few resources, the nurturing of the little soul inside me, made of wishes and midi-chloirans.

Advice Column: What to Wear to Your Divorce

And other nonsensical things I've distracted myself with to trick my mind into getting in the car and actually showing up at the mediator.

What happened?! You two looked so happy!

We were. Occasionally. Mostly we were housemates. Friends who increasingly disliked each other. We loved each other out of familiarity, habit, a shared life, a shared prioritizing of the two little beings we had created, a memory of love. That sustained us for a very long time. But "happy", or "in" love...I don't know how far back we'd have to go to say we really felt that way. 

Our relationship struggled and ultimately broke under the weight of years of multiple serious ongoing problems. Problems that two other people with different personalities and different baggage might have handled better. Or worse. Some people's instinct is to band together during times of stress. Some people's instinct is to handle it on their own. That gets more difficult when each of you is conditioned towards the opposite.

I've had nearly a year to process, rant, regret, mourn, and though I'm certain I'm not done I am not going to use this as any kind of platform to rip my soon to be ex-husband apart. He is and has done many things which have hurt me but he could say the same about me. None of it was done intentionally. We did once love each other so much that we chose to be with each other above all others. We got together very young and grew apart. We cut our teeth on each other. I can't speak for him but for me the difficult marriage and emotional (we've still been living together this whole last year) separation has honed an understanding of who I am and what I want that I just didn't have when I was 25. Or even 35. It's also transformed my understanding of him.

I don't hate him. The venom I spewed when I felt trapped with him in my miserable life is gone. In fact I believe I understand him and his motivations better now than I did through all the years of our marriage. Especially the last couple of years when I felt like I was living with a stranger. He's a good man. He's got a shit ton of issues - but who doesn't?! Letting go emotionally gave me much needed perspective. Maybe for some people that would even have been enough to convince them to stay and try more or harder but it did the opposite for me. Helped me realize just how mismatched we were and that in the end we didn't want to be the people we would have to pretend to be to stay with each other.

We were like two puzzle pieces that really wanted to fit together. We never did but we bent and smushed our edges to fit ourselves together in dim light pretending we didn't notice the different colors we were painted with. Over time it grew more and more uncomfortable. Over time the light changed and the differences became impossible to ignore. In the year before we called it quits we'd gotten to the point where we didn't enjoy each other anymore. We didn't want to hang out with the same people, we didn't want to watch the same shows. We didn't laugh at or value the same things anymore. Our dreams for the future were no longer the same.

He would say it's for certain reasons and I will say it's for others. Stretching back in time trying to find the source of when the breakdown started. We actually kind of agree on when that was. (Sadly, a really long time ago) He blames my actions. I blame his inactions. Really it doesn't matter. I've seen couples survive far more when the love and desire to be together is stronger than the pain inflicted. 

I never believed in one true love, or one soulmate, (I think we have many but that's another blog post entirely) . It would be nice to be with one person your whole life, comforting,  if that is what you both want and sure that's what we hoped for when we got married but intellectually and from everything I know psychologically and anthropologically it just doesn't make any sense.

I've been in a marriage by myself for many years. I was in conversation after conversation by myself. I was in couples therapy by myself. I was at social gatherings by myself. I was in bed by myself. I was alone - in a marriage. Possibly one of the most lonely types of alone. Untouched in both body and soul. Begging for attention. Crying out for affection. Compromising and making myself smaller and smaller in attempts to comfort coax and assuage then resenting him for it all.

At the end of the day he is a good man and a loving father. We came together, made two incredible children together, and maybe romantically that was all there was ever supposed to be. We are still linked through our children and our future grandchildren for ever. As soulmates go I know I could do a lot worse. Things suck right now. There is no other word for it. But they won't someday. 

Mediation is near conclusion. Both of us are kind of fucked though financially he will be fine in a couple of years. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do or how. I'm trying to keep as much the same for the kids and have been fortunate to have the guidance of my family (who are the poster children for functional divorces). Keeping the house going on my own is going to be struggle. Finding a way to support myself and this new baby is daunting. I sound strong but that is only because I have a wide variety of support around me to draw from. I also cry intermittently throughout the day like a release valve. But I keep going.