It's been a year since L moved out!
A week ago, it was a year since L announced she was leaving. She didn't waste time: she called her parents and arranged to move out a week later. She also decided that she would do whatever it took to not tell me "why?" Her approach was unfortunate: during our time together, there were two incidents of serious flareups of her mental illness (I don't know what the actual terms were). During that week, she started claiming that she was experiencing those flareups again. It came out that week that she was faking all of that, to run down the clock and avoid answering me. This made me wonder: did she fake those flareups in the first place? I was forced to conclude that yes, she had faked it.
I expected to be heart-broken. L was basically saying that she agreed with her parents, the people that had despised me from day 1 and had threatened to kill me. It was clear that L had just been using me, and that she genuinely didn't think I deserved better. I knew her well enough to know that she was not doing without the attention of men. She left me to pick up the pieces of my life ten days before Christmas.
I was expecting to be heart-broken, but that isn't what happened. I came home the day she had moved out. The house was empty except for my cat. She was gone. And I felt a huge feeling of relief. There was no more struggling with her. There was no worrying about what was happening with her. There was no more need to take care of her: she was someone else's problem. I was free of her, for the first time in five years. It actually felt good having the bed to myself!
She owed me a great deal of money, and her father left a check to cover that (actually, she owed me more than that, but given how quickly she moved, I had to put together the numbers in a hurry). That meant I could go out shopping for Christmas presents. High on my list was an iPad!
My ex-wife, seeing that I was suddenly alone, invited me to Christmas dinner with her and the kids. I had the kids for New Years, and we went to see a show together. And, a few weeks later, a month after she moved out, I met Jen.
After meeting Jen, she and I chatted online the next week. She then mentioned she would be in Pennsylvania the next weekend: would I like to get together? I mentioned on Facebook that I had a "date". So many friends came out of the woodwork, excited for me. After the date, people were anxious to know how it went, and were thrilled to see me happy. It would seem that L wasn't as well-liked as I had thought. I discovered how many people seriously disliked her!
I haven't seen L since she moved out. We conversed via e-mail. She would ask to stop by to pick up some things she had left. I would put the things in a bag and leave them on the back porch: I didn't want to see her. She did e-mail me about some of her bills from when she had moved out -- the electric bill and the cable bill were under her name. I took my time, but eventually covered them. With that, I told her: she is to not contact me or my family ever again. She agreed, but still went to see "42nd Street", knowing full well that my kids and I were in the show. None of us saw her in the audience and she left quickly. I hope to never see her ever again.
I've had my ups and downs this year, and none of it had anything to do with L. On the whole, though, I've had a fabulous year! I didn't just survive this year: I'm actually happy!
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