Mixed Feelings

While I feel that divorcing Ex was absolutely the best choice, there are still times when my emotions get the better of me.  Today is one of those times.  After weeks of little to no communication from Ex he suddenly started emailing me.  His written communication has always been difficult to read, understand, and follow.  These were particularly bad.  I'm starting to realize just how mentally ill he really is.  He hasn't called nor contacted anyone in his family.  His mom is understandably worried.

His sister and my sister work at a bank together.  I've been passing information to his family via that network...yes...I am a weasel, why do you ask?  My sister asked if they should file a missing persons report on him.  I told them when I'd last gotten an email from him.  I then emailed him and told him to call his mom or she was going to contact the police to file a missing persons report.  As far as I knew my email had no effect.

Yesterday he sent me six emails.  Part of it had to do with finding a renter for our old house.  Part of it had to do with his rants about his family trying to put him in prison.  "Why" I asked "do you think your family is trying to put you in prison?"  After much back and forth I realized it was because of what I'd told him about the missing persons report.

Part of me still wants to fix it...as I did for our entire 28 year marriage.  I wanted to go to him, reassure him and call his mom and make him talk to her.  I feel badly for the state he is in.  I want him to be "normal" again.

Another part of me wants to run away as fast as I can.  I remember that he looks like a homeless person, that he isn't bathing, and that just having him near grosses me out.  I often wondered why someone who was so paranoid would drive around a car that looked like he was living in it.  Why he'd engage in behaviors that caught police attention.  He was patted down multiple times and his car searched for drugs.  I've never had that happen and it never happened to him when I was around.  I lent an air of normalcy to him when we were together that he couldn't maintain when he was alone.

He never cared about anyone's appearance,  He never cared about the state of anyone's home.  He judged no one.  I liked that about him.  However he thought that everyone was like him and that his own appearance and the appearance of his home would matter to no one.

One of the worst things for me was that multiple times we got letters from the city or county about the state of our home.  It drove me nuts since it was always the piles of junk he had everywhere on our property that caused the complaints.  The worst thing was that the letters would increase his paranoia that "they" were out to get us.  Not once did any of our neighbors ever ask "Hey, do you plan on cleaning this up?"  If just one of them had come to him just once and let him know that the piles were not okay it would have made him aware of the social contract he was crossing.  Because not one of them was willing to ask him to clean it up face to face he didn't believe me when I told him how much they hated it.  He called me a liar.

I want to fix things but I know that this is beyond my capability.  I don't have the knowledge or training to deal with mental illness.  I've contacted a lawyer and have started the divorce ball rolling.  The separation needs to be complete because I cannot fix this.

Decluttering My Life

One of the things I gained by being the one who chose to leave was the freedom to decide what to take with me.  The kids, of course, were at the top of the list.  Next, what furniture did I want?  I left the king sized bed with the hard mattress on it and took the queen sized bed that my son had been sleeping on.  I bought him a new full sized bed.

I left the sofa and love seat that smelled of the mold that filled the studio apartment they'd been stored in.  My in-laws gave them to us, I hoped the smell would go away.  No go, they still stank to high heaven six years later.  I tried everything, trust me, there are things even Febreeze can't help.

All of the tchotchkes that were given to us by friends and family for our wedding or for birthdays and Christmases for the last 28 years...I went through those to see if there was really anything I wanted.  Most of the time the answer was no.  I took one set of dishes, one set of flatware, one set of mixing bowls, cake pans, cookware, and just the things in the pantry that would be used by the kids and I.

I took the furniture that I would actually use.  After living nearly 30 years with a hoarder to actually have empty space in my home feels so incredibly free.  I bought a sofa off of craigslist from a sweet 87 year old woman.  I went to a thrift store to find a couple of silk flower arrangements and a painting to put on my walls.  But after 10 years of not being able to use the left hand drawers in my dresser because there was furniture and piles of junk in the way it feels so good to be able to just vacuum my floors without having to move piles of stuff.

I have to admit here, that it isn't all his fault.  My depression and the pain caused by my fibromyalgia coupled with his hoarding made it nearly impossible for me to keep up with the stuff he brought in.  The kids were never taught to clean up after themselves, the mess grew daily and I hid from it.  I bought organizers, I tried cleaning one small area only to have it messed up before I finished the next. But when your house is overloaded with stuff, cleaning is next to impossible.  My house was a pig sty.  Flylady.net and aslobcomesclean.com were no match for this impossible task.  Especially when I'd say to Ex "Why don't we get rid of the moldy smelling loveseat to make a bit more room in the livingroom?" and he'd say "I don't smell anything and I like it."

Now I have my wide open spaces (well not in the kids' rooms, but everywhere else) and I can stay on top of it because I didn't bring everything that I didn't need.