COVID, Divorce & Living Together

It’s going as well as you would think.

This isn’t how I thought it would go if I broke up with my husband.

I thought I’d finally experience freedom. That I wouldn’t get any commentary from him. That I would be liberated. There would be a chance to at least try and fall in love again (unfortunately, I can’t love more than one person at a time, which means I need to actively work on getting over the previous guy who has my heart).

I think a Parenting Marriage (where you live under the same roof but as roommates who raise kids) works if both people agree the marriage is over and there’s not a fucking pandemic that has everything closed. It works if the kids are at school and not at home where both people are in close proximity 24/7 while playing teacher all day.

The problem isn’t him. It’s me. This isn’t working.

I spoke to our divorce counselor last week on my own. For her hourly rate of $210, I babbled about how this feels like it did when we were married. Joseph is being overly affectionate (don’t put a fucking blanket on me when we’re watching a movie with the kids) and I have no autonomy. We’re coworkers. You wouldn’t tell a coworker to “get some rest” so that they’re not tired in the morning.

I explained that because I’m the only one who leaves for overnight getaways, it makes me look like I’m abandoning the kids. Ideally, it would be something that we both do on alternating weekends so the kids don’t view it as a behavior that only one parent does.

My kids are ultra needy; they didn’t even like it when my quasi-ex-husband and I went on date nights (which averaged maybe three times a year). If I leave, I get the third degree because it’s odd to them that one parent goes out while the other one stays home and overly dotes on them instead of promoting independence. I no longer leave the house overnight.

At this point, I also want 1:1 time with them. I’m an amazing parent when he’s not around. Anyone with kids knows that their kids behave differently in the presence of both parents compared to just one. When he’s not around, they’re less whiny. They’re more engaged in the activities I propose. They’re less attention-seeking. While I want us to have 50/50 time with the children, I don’t want to do it at the same time with him. I have boundaries and rules; he’s the fun parent who constantly buys them toys, lets them stay up late, buys them iPads, and waits on them like a servant.

Then I brought up how I backed off on the dating thing (while I started seeing someone new this month, I’d like to stop feeling like I’m cheating). But he’s not making any efforts to try and get over our relationship. Joseph isn’t open to our friends knowing anything. The whole point of this was that I finally wanted to live a life of truth and here I am, still keeping everything a secret.

I expected the divorce counselor to tell me that I’m being selfish and irrational. Instead, she told me that I’m letting Joseph and my kids dictate my life.

“Isn’t that what being a parent is about?” I asked. “I have to factor them into every decision I make.”

She told me that at this point, it’s definitely too much like a standard marriage and that in any other circumstance, we would divorce. So I’ve done plenty of accommodating to everyone to minimize the damage.

I asked Joseph to tell me some times that he could meet with the divorce counselor. As usual, I’m the middleman who schedules everything or else nothing gets done. He said we should revisit our Parenting Marriage Contract before we schedule.

Going over the contract, the only change we made was that I’m allowed to tell friends that he never sees. As in, friends who are out of state that he doesn’t know. I told him how it’s hard to have friends share their problems with you and not say anything back, only to later say “Surprise! I had this major situation the whole time but I didn’t feel like telling you that, dear close friends”.

I don’t want to violate his privacy by telling people about us but like everything else, he’s dictating something that impacts me (I’m the one who sees these friends on my own, he only sees them when an event is scheduled. His only friends at this point are the kids.)

Everything I ask to change, he says we can revisit in three months.

Finally, I ask him to tell me when we can speak to the divorce counselor. He says there’s no point in paying money to see her. Joseph doesn’t even see her for individual therapy anymore (I have my own therapist independent of her but he chose to see her on his own). I tell him that I’ll just schedule time on my own. At that, he concedes to meeting her again.

We’re four days away from the counseling session. I’m going to bring up the issues I brought up here. Joseph will get angry because he’ll feel sidelined and ambushed by doing this during counseling (it’s a pattern that I wait until I have the therapist to help moderate my concerns and he freaks out because he feels ambushed). At this point, I don’t care.

I didn’t anticipate that when you’re trying to be amicable during a split, there is a fine line between stating something that makes you unhappy vs. them blowing it into you saying the entire marriage was miserable.

I didn’t think it would be difficult for him to knock before entering the bedroom when the door is closed or that he would dismiss me after I said I wanted him to knock. I didn’t think when I asked him to “clean as you go” when making things in the kitchen because it makes it hard for everyone else to use it as well, he would answer, “well, tough!”

I foolishly thought our problems were from lack of intimacy and his absence due to work. I was wrong.

We’ll have to sell the house and move our separate ways when the virus stops killing the world en masse. So much custom work went into it. It’s literally designed to make life easier. Giving up this house is the hardest breakup I’ll ever have. If I let him have our entire savings, that would cover the equity on the house but I know he wouldn’t ever let me “have” it by letting me buy out his half. If he has to suffer, then so do I.

With these thoughts racing in my head, I have to play it cool for the next few days until the counseling session. I struggle to play nice right now. I’m a rip-the-band-aid-off kind of gal. I want to get the worst over with and deal with the consequences.

Instead, I’ll let my anxiety grow while I do my best to white-knuckle my resentment until our divorce counseling session.