What happened between the late 90’s and mid 2000’s that children today feel ENTITLED?

Well so tonight words might flow easier than on most nights because here I sit alone in my house, with my version of a “white Russian” (vodka, coffee liqueur, and rumchata) because while it’s only Wednesday, I’ve been on edge since 10/16. In addition to dealing with trying to stay away from pool boy (i need to give him a name) I have the devil incarnate for a step-daughter and she lives in my house. She’s less than 2 months away from turning 17 yet some days–like last Monday–she cries over me not being inside the school waiting for her when I went to pick her up for a Drs appointment and some others she wants to be “supported and not work until she’s done with college”–YES she actually said this!!!

How many of you had the privilege of not working until you got to college or after college?? I grew up in a middle class family, where my mom worked until it made no financial sense for her to work because she was working to pay daycare and my dad worked for a well known company where we used to live. In the mid-90’s my dad was so stressed out at his job that my parents decided to sell our house and uproot us from our place of living to start a brand new life in NC. Unfortunately, being the mid-90’s, my dad was unable to find a job in his field and ended up reading power meters and driving school buses to make sure we didn’t go without. The year after, he was able to find a job in a different state so off we went and thankfully we have been here ever since.

I thank my parents every day for the tough decisions they made back then because when I look at some of the people I grew up with and how much struggle and hardship they deal with on a daily basis it makes me wonder where my siblings and I would be if our parents hadn’t taken the path they took. Because of their honesty and ability to talk to us and communicate (when we were old enough) the financial struggles we, as a family, might have been going through, we all felt responsible for ourselves and our expenses. I remember my first job like it was yesterday..party coordinator at C.E.C.! I had the best coworkers, the best manager, and I got to make some little kid super happy with their birthday party and the mouse! I had just turned 16! With that job I paid for my senior year expenses, down-payment for a car for college, helped out my parents when they were short for bills, name it–that $ came in handy!

Today I argued with my stepdaughter because clearly being her mother’s daughter, she feels entitled, she feels like as her dad & step-mom we are responsible for providing EVERYTHING, she even had the audacity to tell us that “we raised her this way” and all i could think was —no your mom did, with the $1600/month she received from your dad while he rented A ROOM in someone else’s house because he was starving himself every day to make sure he could take you guys out on the weekends he had you–. She deals with anxiety and is on medication, in order to better prepare her to deal with LIFE, we asked that she get a job in addition to balancing weekends with her mom, friends, and classwork—she has YET to demonstrate that she can deal with all the above! Unfortunately, having a high school drop out for a birth mother, who constantly got fired from countless jobs, isn’t the best example of success to emulate.

I’ve tried to be that example for her brother and her but unfortunately I am and will always be their EVIL step mom, regardless of how many times I left work early to pick them up from school because they were sick and no one else could, gave their mom early child support because she didn’t have enough $ for groceries, or just tried to do more than I needed to because I felt responsible for their well-being. Again—I always take care of everyone but no one takes care of me!

To tie it back to pool boy—today I received an email that thanks to my referral he was  going to be sent forward for an interview. Happy-of course, Scared–even more!!! Signs between us have been clear as water–NOT mud–since day 1! From showing up the same day with cards for each other to text messages saying “are you ok? for some odd reason I can’t get you out of my head” when either him or I were fighting with our spouses. I could keep going with SIGNS but if you know what twin flame signs are and how regardless of how you much/often you keep trying/wanting to push it away, life keeps throwing it in your face this is just yet ANOTHER one. Hopefully the white russian will help me relax and make sleeping easier than last night!

Til next time!

When and why do we decide to settle?

While I cried my eyes out Thursday night, a thousand questions came to mind that I wanted to ask him. This wasn’t the first time that he suggested we put space between us, albeit impossible, every single time we ended up right back where we started.

I remember the very first time he asked. It happened at work in early February. I had moved out of my house at that point and he was going to get keys to his new house with her. We walked out of work like every other day and agreed to not text for a week. The three days we didn’t talk were horrible for both of us. He messaged on the 4th night and asked me to meet him at a nearby grocery store. When we got there, I opened his car door to sit and find out what was going on. He was a mess, I could tell he had been crying before he got there and as soon as I sat down he started crying again. I grew up around emotional men but had never dated/messed with any. We sat in the car and he told me how difficult it was to be in the same house as her, how she kept telling him about things she wanted to do to the house and all he could think was “holy shit, I am not even in love with this woman,” and how he had been unable to stop thinking and wanting to be with me. We both cried like babies that night and realized that we didn’t need a week to figure out how we felt about each other.

So back to the questions that came to mind this week—I’ve always been the kind of woman that gives 150% to everything and everyone but never gets it back. With him being pretty close to changing jobs, I wanted to make sure that my questions were answered and I wasn’t left needing closure. Unlike most people in the situation we are in, neither of us has ever kept any secrets from each other, in fact we have shared more and been more open and authentic with each other than our spouses. I knew that because of our honesty with each other, the answers would be no holds barred and 100% truth even if it hurt. The three questions were: 1- if he were given the choice to start over, would it be someone like her or someone like me and 2- what wasn’t she doing that he still needed? 3- was he in love with her, had he been able to feel for her even a 10% of what we felt, and did he see himself being a wrinkly old man and next to her?

While his answers were what I expected/knew they would be, I was surprised that he verbalized them the way he did. He said that if given the chance he would chose someone with my qualities, that she was still not doing the little things we would constantly do for each other (we are twin flames and would just show up with cards, leave notes, or text each other at the same time). The last was the one I expected him to give me some BS about and lie but he didn’t—he told me “I love her just like you love your husband, but I’m not in love with her. I know that while we are both trying, she is not the one for me and I’m not the one for her. I’m there because I want my daughter to be happy. You know me better than her and I know you knew all these answers already.” All I could do was sit at my desk reading those answers over and over because I can’t blame him for being an amazing dad. I felt extremely sad for him but also for me, for we are both currently choosing something just because.

It’s extremely sad how we as adults get to a point in marriages-whether it be for kids, a house, stability, not knowing anything else, being scared of being alone, or just not wanting to hurt the other person-that we just EXIST! We go through the daily routines, eat at the same restaurants, watch the same tv shows, and ask the same questions every afternoon.

We weren’t put here for just “good enough” and once we settle–We don’t live we exist 😦

 

First blog post

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How do you end?

Well after much internal debate regarding whether I should keep all this personal or write about it..here I am, putting my thoughts and experiences on a rather controversial topic out for the world to read. I have been involved with someone for approximately 15 months.

You might ask yourself what drives a pretty (acknowledged by others), successful, independent, and smart (some might argue against this one because of my choice) woman like me to make such a decision. Well, unfortunately, I was just reminded by my husband – –yes, I was the other woman but he was also the other man— why I made the decision I made.

For a huge part of our marriage I’ve been made to feel like my desires to have him remember my likes and dislikes, my favorite color or flower, how much I hate that we go to the same restaurants all the time, or that I have taken my birthday off from work for the last 10 yrs are trivial and that marriage shouldn’t revolve around that. That talks don’t really solve problems. That hardly ever is there compromise that makes two people happy, someone is always settling. To him, my idea of marriage is apparently a fairy tale, I have always know better and unfortunately someone took the time to show me that I was worth all those things and more. There has been no investment in what matters to me, from a silly happy birthday song to a drive to nowhere.

You see, my husband and I have been together for 10 years. I met him online a year after a pretty nasty divorce, that I found out after we had been dating for a while, left him crumbling. Apparently I saved him…yet I’ve always been compared to her!

85% of affairs begin in the workplace. It’s really easy to relate to the person next to you when you spend 40+ hours a week next to them talking about everything from your favorite sports team to your favorite meal. His marriage, like mine, full of “partner neglect” where he was communicating to his wife his needs, just like I’ve done with my husband, and she was doing nothing about it. He was working two jobs to make sure bills where paid while she went to school and she couldn’t do laundry or cook. Yet he saw me, in the same situation, but in charge of people, cooking, working out, and being a doting wife. We saw in each other what we had been wanting from our spouses.

What started as emotional infidelity was followed by physical infidelity shortly after. We would talk even when we weren’t at work and the lack of interest from our spouses made it even easier. Am I pointing fingers?? A bit. Do I take responsibility and acknowledge my poor decision? Yes.

Unfortunately, here we are, 15 months later, both of us having gone through a separation, both of us now trying to make it work YET being fully aware that this other person who still works with me, whom I see every day, whose cologne smell I recognize everywhere, who saw himself having a family with me (continuing argument with husband), who LOVES me, and in his own words “is settling for the well being of his daughter”  TRYING to figure out how you let go of that one person that for the first time in your life you can see being not only your friend, but also the person you want to laugh with, be scared with, be sad with, be happy with, be drunk with, or to just be yourself with.

How do you let go of that once in a lifetime love to try to make a marriage work that until now hasn’t?