Amused frustration

There are always loose ends.

My divorce was final over six weeks ago, and yet my ex has yet to send me the money he was instructed to. This is the second time in three months a check he has supposedly sent to the P.O. box has gone astray. His comment mentioned something about how ‘Frankly suspicious’ he was regarding us not receiving it, but he would resend one anyway. (I know him well enough, he would not send ‘a new’ check if he thought I had access to both. He attributes his own level of maturity and vindictiveness to me. Which is to say, a very little and quite a lot respectively.)

He then proceeds to snark at me for not contacting a group to sign documents which will allow them to work on doing away with a portion of our mutual debt. Does he provide the contact information? No. Has he? No.

This, after throwing a tantrum that he can’t reach me directly through our one e-mail. It is grating on him, that he doesn’t have direct access to me. He keeps suggesting I change the protection order, and I can’t quite understand what he thinks I think that will accomplish. I am quite happy with someone else vetting all communique’s.

I have a confession to make, and it is one that I am not entirely proud of. My excuse is that he knows where I work, and I need to know his level of stability. I’ve been keeping an eye on his public facebook page, which is suddenly active since our divorce finalized. He is all over the place. And he’s referenced me twice in the past 6 weeks. As well as posted information about supporting himself through school, and having no debt, and still graduated. The first is questionable tweaking of facts. The latter two are blatant lies. He never applied to graduate, and he had over 40,000 in school loans.

Wish I could say I dodged that bullet, but at least it wasn’t a kill shot.

I need to stop, I know it isn’t healthy to keep tabs on him. Yet, in some ways, I suddenly began to recollect all the moments he began losing my respect. A year into our marriage I began to learn what a selfish, angry, and vicious person he could be. I kept trying to focus on the good things, and never quite knew how to handle the moments he would veer from Jekyl to Hyde and back again. There were so many moments I covered for him, helped him hide the dark places of himself, all the while trying to force Respect where there was less and less to respect.

It is almost fascinating to me, to see what he says now that I am no longer there to chain him to the truth. He can make up, and does, all kinds of interesting stories.

Growing up in church, there was a push to respect your husband, sometimes even if they didn’t deserve it. (Perhaps that wasn’t the intent of the message, but it was invariably the message that I received, time and time again). My viewpoint now has changed so much, even still considering myself a Christian, I don’t think anyone deserves blind respect. Sure, we should treat everyone with dignity, because that says more about us as individuals than anyone else… but that doesn’t mean someone gets a free pass.

Maybe that is something obvious to others. I’m wondering what core beliefs about marriage or relationships have changed  for you readers since childhood, if any have? I’m finding that I am identifying and adjusting a lot of mine as I go through therapy and process my experiences.