Separated But Living Together Means Your Sex Life Has No Privacy

“I need to get the fuck out of here,” I repeat hourly.

I tried the Parenting Marriage. Really, I did.

I wanted to be able to stay under the same roof for the sake of my kids. For them to have equal access to both parents. So that there would be no bouncing around between homes. For financial security.

That didn’t work. I still had to deal with the same bullshit with Joseph as I did when we were normally married; nothing changed other than him crying every other day.

Unfortunately, I’m on a slow crawl towards divorce. Do you know how fucking long it takes to divorce in California? It’s supposed to be 6 months because the courts want a “cooling off” period so that you’re not filing in haste.

Do you know how much time it takes to get your shit together to even get to the “6 months cooling off” point? That’s another month or two between when you petition the spouse, then it gets served by the court, your spouse has thirty days to respond, and then a bunch more back and forth bullshit before the clock starts ticking on those 6 months.

That’s after I paid $970 to file with the fucking courts. With money I earned here on Medium. Writing about divorce is funding my divorce. That’s some meta shit right there.

I hate how slow all of this is. Every day I log onto real estate websites and news sites, telling me how little inventory there is because you know…Covid. Landlords can’t evict anyone because of the eviction moratorium. Would-be landlords won’t rent out their places knowing they can’t evict if things go south. Everyone’s working from home, so there’s no movement with relocation or living arrangements. With interest rates so low, Millennials jumped into the real estate market for the first time (I’m not complaining about that part, I think it’s a good thing but it still sucks for me).

Being cooped up at home with my quasi-ex-husband has been nothing short of torture. I couldn’t even escape to Starbucks if I wanted to get relief. My only breaks were in the form of sitting in my car, in the garage.

Now that things are slowly getting better, it’s still a struggle.

I can’t wear whatever I want when I go on dates. I don’t care so much if Joseph sees me, but I don’t like my children seeing me get all sexified up and asking where I’m going. Under normal circumstances, I would only go out when they’re with their dad in his home so this would be a non-issue.

It’s even a struggle when I wash my sexy delicates; it’s not ideal to have lace thongs hanging from the clothing line in the shared laundry room. Or when Joseph needed to do his laundry so he took my clothes out of the dryer. I don’t like him touching or seeing the things I wear for other guys.

Today was the worst: he opened my mail.

Opening the mail by accident happens. It did a lot in the beginning because Joseph secretly had all his crap shipped to his work. All incoming packages were 99.99% for me.

Now the tides have turned. I’m paranoid about affording single life so I don’t even buy new lip balm whereas he’s in Parental Guilt Mode and buys new shit on the daily.

A sex toy company reached out to me (I guess I write a lot about sex) and asked if I wanted to review a few sex toys. Fuck yeah, I’ve got no shame in my game. I think my readers know that I’ll be nothing but brutally honest. Plus, I already figured I’d get Sean in on testing them with me, so double bonus.

I didn’t give my real, full name since the company was sending this to my house. I tracked the box and knew it would arrive today.

Walking downstairs, I see the box in my entryway. Except I see that the box has been opened. And then hastily taped back up using plain Scotch tape. No company in their right mind would ship something using tape meant for paper. And then it dawns on me: Joseph opened the box, realized what was inside of it, then tried to tape it back up sloppily like a monkey using the shittiest tape we have.

Sigh.

I’m upset.

Not because he saw the contents; at this point, I don’t even know if I give a shit.

I’m upset because I have no fucking privacy. I can’t even charge these fucking toys easily. I’ve figured out the one outlet I can use to charge any toys which allows me to discreetly cover them because brilliant sex toy designers seem to think that having private adult toys glow when they charge is smart designing.

I can’t use these toys in privacy. Everyone is home all the fucking time and they’re not the quietest of devices. Even with the door locked, it’s a little difficult to be in a sexy frame of mind when Joseph is yapping away with the kids at full volume downstairs.

Approaching month 15 of being stuck indoors with him and I’m ready to slam my fist into the wall.

It’s not about the sex toy itself. My problem is the complete lack of autonomy. My alone time isn’t truly alone, nor can I use it to do what I want. My thoughts feel invaded now that he knows I’ve got sex on the brain and will engage in activities related to that. I don’t hide things in fear of my kids finding them; I have hiding spots in my own fucking house to avoid Joseph stumbling upon them.

A year ago a sex toy in my house went missing and I discovered it in a spot that I would never, ever leave it. This is a continuation of it.

My life isn’t my own right now. I have no control. Joseph brings in nonstop toys and shit for the kids out of his guilt, leaving the house a complete disaster. All I have for my sanity is looking online to budget for new furniture (well, new to me because I expect to buy many things used) and fantasize about buying homes that are snatched up within hours of being listed. It’s my version of porn.

The market will go berserk in the summer since that’s when parents want to move without ruining their kids’ school year. That leaves the earliest that things will settle back down to be September.

Five months.

Five more fucking months.

The earliest I’ll get out of living with my quasi-ex-husband will be after twenty months of being trapped together in a single house. It won’t get any easier as we move through this divorce and his temper flares yet again. I’m so fucking tired of living with someone who is an emotional basket case while I ball my fist up, silently raging because I can’t get the fuck away from him fast enough.