although my ex is not living at my house he does not have a permanent address yet so i still get his mail. i was hanging out with my son who is almost 5, and since he was playing with the mail i tossed him an envelope addressed to my ex that clearly looked like harmless junk mail for him to open. luckily, it contained a second envelope that said EXPLICIT MATERIAL 18 AND OVER so i was able to grab it before he had images of oiled skin and man junk burned onto his eyeballs for eternity.

this was super hardcore, super gay porn. not the type that would show up unsolicited, indeed there were messages all over it with a number to call if you received it by mistake. no, this was the type of mailing list you get on because you want to get on, like a conga line on a cruise ship, because your credit card number was involved, and possibly gift wrapping. naturally i climbed the highest hill i could find and sounded my conch shell to assemble my team of friends and loved ones who have agonized over the gory details of my divorce from the beginning. they let me scream and cry while they sympathetically draped a blanket over my shoulders and heated up soup, i figured they deserved to see this latest insane turn of events.

since i threw him out a year and a half ago i have explored all the corners of the emotional roller coaster.....self doubt, rage, regret, fear, sadness, thirst from constant yelling......but if you had told me i would welcome the idea that he was GAY? well nice move universe, i zig, you zag! again!

i thought i had long given up making any sense out of his behavior. i had reconciled myself to the fact that he treated me like crap to treat me like crap, and trying to figure out his motives had kept me hypnotized for the majority of our marriage and in it longer than i should have been. but if anyone could be a middle aged closeted homosexual, it is my ex. and if anyone could be so angry about his self-imposed prison that he hurt everyone around him, it is my ex. and there is a part of me that wishes so much it were true because at least there would be some small sense of balance, some minor detail of continuity and reason.

i find my brain looks so hard for this satisfying version of our story i don't have the heart to tell it that is doesn't change anything. any excuse given for abuse is no excuse. but it is mighty depressing to realize that i honestly can't say if he could be gay or not because i do not know this man at all, and my poor brain has to live with the knowledge that we were married to a stranger who could be sexually attracted to pork products for all i know. one more thing to throw on the pile of things that will make me doubt my instincts forever.