One week in...

Week one of the separation is complete. We all survived. The kids were at my stbx’s apartment for the weekend (the first of our alternating weekends). I was really dreading this weekend. I tried to stay really busy all weekend. Went out with friends Friday night, did a lot of yard work, went for some long runs, worked out, took the dog for multiple walks, did laundry, did the shopping. There were a few emotional moments. The house was so quiet and empty. However, it actually ended up feeling good starting to get back in touch with myself. It’s been a long time since I’ve been alone. I’ve read multiple posts that one of the hard parts of separation is getting comfortable with being alone. I have NOT lost sight that this is only one week into the separation, but I got pretty comfortable. One of my friends keeps telling me that he’s seen me work my ass off to give her the perfect life. He saw where she never made it easy for me to do things outside of the family (softball, going out with the guys, etc.). There was a heavy guilt trip. I never looked at it that way because I genuinely enjoyed hanging out with the family. I can see that now. For example, something as simple as watching football was done guilt free. I had both football games on today while I was doing stuff around the house. This would have usually been met with “is football going to be on all day” or “what do you mean this is the first game.” I was able to focus on raking leaves, trimming hedges, weeding…things that just needed to be done in the yard without worrying if I was spending too much time on it.
Looking back on everything I think there was a lot of catch-22. One of the things she complained about when this all started 8 months ago was that there were some home repair things that weren’t completed. If I started to work on something she would say it took too long. If I didn’t work on it I would hear that something wasn’t done. She recently said that I should have hired someone to do some of things. She knows I have a mistrust of contractors. I know there are plenty of good contractors out there, but I have worked in construction management and I see bad contractors all the time. She hired a friend’s husband to help with our kitchen. What I didn’t know was this was his first kitchen. He would bring his kid and then leave early because he had to get his kid home. Then his family moved without finishing the kitchen but my stbx paid him in full. I ended having to finish installing cabinets and fixing all his fuck ups (like the kitchen plumbing that was assembled wrong so when you turned on the disposal it shot straight up out of the drain). We did a lot on the house…new roof, new windows, new carpet, painting, new garage door, new bathroom. Sure there is more that can be done, but it’s not like nothing was done. Another one is homework. She starts off with helping homework and I get the harder stuff when I get home. That’s OK with me. My stbx ends up getting frustrated and will give out answers. I will make them try to understand the concept so they can learn it. My stbx would say I spent too much time on the homework, but if I didn’t spend time helping on the homework I would hear about that too. This kind of dichotomy coupled with a more than full time job is probably why I’m so exhausted.