avatarJenn M. Wilson

Summary

The author reflects on post-divorce struggles, including anxiety about parenting, dissatisfaction with a partner's financial situation, body image issues, and the challenges of fitting in socially while dealing with personal insecurities and health concerns.

Abstract

The web content is a personal diary entry of an individual grappling with the emotional aftermath of a divorce. The author describes intense anxiety during weekends without their children and a surprising sense of maternalism that has emerged in their life. They express frustration with a romantic partner, Thomas, for not getting his life together and for not meeting their financial expectations, despite having a steady career. The author also discusses their own body image issues, having gained weight post-divorce and feeling uncomfortable in their skin, which has affected their self-esteem. Additionally, the author touches on the difficulty of managing a household and the feeling of not fitting in with friends, as well as the impact of their partner's health issues on their relationship. Despite these concerns, the author acknowledges the exceptional quality of their sexual relationship with Thomas, while also criticizing his domestic habits. The entry concludes with a recognition of the need to improve their own health and employability, while admitting to procrastination and distraction.

Opinions

  • The author is critical of their own parenting anxiety and the unexpected maternal feelings they have developed post-divorce.
  • There is a strong sense of dissatisfaction with the author's romantic partner, Thomas, particularly regarding his financial situation and lack of progress in his personal life.
  • The author has a negative body image due to weight gain and associates their previous lower weight with higher self-esteem and attractiveness.
  • They feel a disconnect with friends and society, often putting on a façade to fit in, which is attributed in part to their experience with autism.
  • The author is highly critical of their partner's domestic skills, particularly his cooking, which has led to a ban from using the author's kitchen.
  • Despite the criticisms, the author values the high quality of their sexual relationship with Thomas, acknowledging it as a significant factor in their connection.
  • The author recognizes the need to prioritize their health and career through further education and better habits but admits to current distractions and a lack of action.

March 14th Shower Thoughts: Telling My Brain to STFU

Dear Diary…

Photo by pawel szvmanski on Unsplash

This isn’t a fancy article for a publication. This won’t be proofread. There’s loads of typos. It’s just a raw dump of what’s been in my brain for sanity’s sake. Maybe the content will eventually fuel a formal submission, but for now…this isn’t it.

Dear Diary…

Post-divorce, the weekends without the kids are the worst. Weekdays aren’t so bad since they’re in school and there’s the hustle to get them fed plus ready for bed. But the weekends without them leave me feeling lost.

If you knew me in real life, you’d be as surprised as people who have known me for decades at how maternal I’ve become in a bizarre kind of way.

By the time I left my house to pick up my kids today after not seeing them for three days, my anxiety was through the roof. I don’t know why.

I feel this impending (pending? whatever) doom as a result.

I feel like I’m barely keeping things together and everything will come crashing down (note to self: make a fancy shmancy Medium article about this). It’s like this new life is temporary and playing pretend.

It doesn’t help that for real, I need to do something about Sean and Thomas. The first is easier because he knows he’s on borrowed time already. I barely see him and he’s just an easy distraction. Thomas on the other hand is a whole other thing and I’m going to have to break up with him next time I see him.

However this hinges on one thing: him not following through on a promise.

I told him on February 18th (my TLDR version here) that I’m done waiting for him to get his shit together and until he does, I’m going to date other people. That spooked him enough to promise that he’ll file for divorce within 30 days (or “one month” but either way, same diff).

That means when I see him next week, it’ll be past that point and I can call him out on it.

Buttttttttt….if he actually files this week, then I’ve got less reasons to break up with him. Yes, I feel like I need a reason. In reality it’s not just his hot mess of a life. I really, really can’t get past how little he makes.

I saw a friend today and told her this. She began to rant that I wasn’t being fair to him and it wasn’t okay for me to expect a guy to make a ton of money. Then I told her Thomas’ salary and her reply was, “OH NO…okay you’re right. That’s not okay.”

Stop dicking around with your fucking hobbies or focusing on me and turn your damn attention to your career. You’re in your forties and you behave like you’re in your twenties. There is no excuse for an educated person who lives in one of the most overpriced counties in the US to barely scrape by poverty level when you’ve had a steady career for twenty years. Not for his line of work (I realize it’s not so easy for other industries but his is a no-brainer).

On to my next rant…

I maintained a “slightly underweight” weight for the past few years. Is it healthy? Nope. But I felt so, so much better about myself when I could wear form-fitting things that I’ve always wanted to wear. Clothes looked damn good on me.

I’ve gained a few pounds as a result of the divorce and moving out (difficult to find a way to work out when your house is completely upside down with construction and you’re trying to rebuild your life from scratch). It’s not much, but it’s enough for me to feel uncomfortable in my skin.

I haven’t really gone balls-in trying to lose it because it used to be easy before. When you’re already fit and have muscle, it’s remarkably easy to maintain since your muscles have mitochondria doing the calorie burning for you. I could eat grilled cheese sandwiches and bowls of fries every day and still maintain my weight.

But to lose weight when you’re still trying to get back in shape is rough. So I hate how I look. I get anxious getting on the scale. I’ve written about my eating disorder issues in another article, I’m well aware that this is an extremely unhealthy line of thinking. But being at that weight is the only time in my life I’ve liked my appearance (I’ve weighed even less but hated my appearance so I’ve found the sweet spot).

What a waste of brain cells it is to panic about weight and eating your whole life. And yet, here we are.

Well damn…this diary entry is dark and depressing.

Let me make it further depressing.

I had friends over this weekend. I panicked about my house because a part-time mom has no right to have laundry not put away or dishes in the sink. I have all this extra time, I should be on my household management A-game.

One part of autism is feeling like you don’t fit in. I can fit in very well. I can mimic the hell out of whoever is around me. No joke, I binge-watched Inventing Anna and all day I spoke with a bizarre European accent while having an air of indifference. I’ve got a lot of nerve.

When I’m around friends, I feel like there is a bubble around me that lets everyone know that I’m not like them. I’m putting on a façade. I’m keeping it together just enough to maintain the illusion but inside, my brain is going in hundreds of directions while feeling extremely uncomfortable.

Last night, I sat with a glass of wine I only poured for appearances while my friends talked about summer camps and kids’ baseball practice. My kids aren’t in sports so I have zero care to hear about the differences between leagues in a division in a blah blah blah. But I feigned interest like the suburbanite mom (almost wrote “wife” and corrected myself) that I am despite wanting to stab my earballs.

Back to Thomas because there’s a never-ending list of things to bitch about. And yet, the sex is so mind-blowingly good that I’ve warned him if we ever break up (setting up my exit strategy from day one), I still reserve the right to ask for sex.

I’m enough of a whore to know great sex. I also know toe-curling, eyeball-rolling-to-the-back-of-your-head incredible sex. It’s like he’s writing a PhD on how to keep me sexually satisfied. I used to feel guilty but he gets off on it and he’s praised me plenty so I figure, it’s all good for me to appreciate a guy who wants to be the G.O.A.T. of sex.

But like, he has an outie for a belly button and that’s just creepy as fuck.

His use of my kitchen last week has me officially banning him from cooking in it ever again. My house still smells like ground beef and it took forever for me to clean my pan from the charred meat goo caked on. Sorry bro, you’re not the culinary pro that you claim to be.

This is how it works when you have an Avoidant Attachment style. Everything drives you nuts. You find yourself seething over conversations that have yet to happen. Everything is an irritation. The poor guy has diabetes (the kind that you get no matter what your weight..type one? whatever) and I get irritated from some of the considerations related to it.

If I can’t bake sugary treats to show my baking skills and get that hobby out of my system, why the fuck am I dating you? Take the damn tray of cookies and shovel them down your throat like a true American.

Switching gears with my rambling for…more rambling.

I really need to take better care of my health. It’s after midnight, by the time I get to bed I’ll have to wake up four hours later. My diet is garbage (being down to one income doesn’t help). I don’t read as much as I’d like to and I need to take a bunch of online tech classes to level up my employability so I can bail out of the shitshow that is called my job.

Instead, I do things like binge watch Inventing Anna while keeping my work laptop open feigning work. But I did get that bizarre accent so you know, it all balanced out in the end.

Sex
Parenting
Mental Health
Self Improvement
Money
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