Archive for the ‘Relationships’ Category:
Various and sundry or, An Update
I apologize profusely that I have not been writing regularly. I’ve been feeling very blocked lately and it’s been something of an effort to even write in my personal blog and I’m not doing very well with that either. This represents me making a conscious effort to put something here today that is more substantive than bragging about my Google ranking or reporting how much I weigh. Hopefully the logjam will be removed soon.
Site design and content issues
I really, really need to work on these. The logo looks amateurish and the pages are outdated and the latter don’t really say what I want them to say at this point, either. I am not sure when I will be able to concentrate on working on this stuff so if the appearance of this blog annoys you, your patience will be greatly appreciated. I haven’t gotten any complaints yet, including links from other blogs saying stuff like “Wow, get a load of how much this blog sucks,” but maybe my readers are just polite.
Health issues
I still have no self-control about what I eat. OK, that’s not entirely true. I have some control, but not enough. Some days I keep my eating fairly low-carb, and others I don’t. It doesn’t help that I feel like I’m being sort of swept along with someone else’s day, like I live only to wait until they get off work and then according to their dictates. Even my grocery shopping hinges entirely on them and I’m kind of sick of it. But this is one of those aggravations I just have to live with for now, and I don’t think it entirely explains why I can’t seem to stay on plan, even a half-assed plan.
Housing issues
Still sort of apartment-hunting, although I feel as blocked about that as I do about blogging. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get a place, which makes it really dumb that I’m not trying hard enough, which guarantees I won’t get a place. However, rumors that landlords are tightening their standards around here are not helping my mood any. Yet one more reason to roll my eyes every time I hear someone complaining because they bought too much house and now they have to rent because the bank foreclosed. You’re taking my potential home, dude–I can’t buy a house at all. Cry me a river.
Money issues
I have at least caught up my cell phone bill and still have $300 in the account of the $400 I got last Wednesday, and most of the $100 decrease was due to catching up the cell phone*. I need to plow through and catch up as much else as I possibly can today, and somehow manage it without spending all my laundry money. Sigh.
I just checked out a whole bunch of library books about starting and running a home-based business. I remarked to my little girl’s dad that I don’t know why anyone buys chintzy e-books off the Internet that tell them maybe one-millionth of what they need to know for a tenth of their rent money when they can just go to the library for free. He reminded me that our library system probably ranks in the top ten of United States public libraries and maybe even in the top five. Still, there’s interlibrary loan. And of course, just because we check out books doesn’t mean we’ll learn from them. It’ll be interesting to see if I find the time to glean anything useful from these books before I have to return them.
Meanwhile I also job-hunt but… yeah. Still hung up about putting my daughter in preschool. I think at this point that if I do it, it’ll be Waldorf because at least they won’t treat her like a miniature computer on legs. And the only reason I’d do it is at least she could be around kids and get a lot of playtime in, and not be hung up on the TV all day. It wouldn’t be because I thought it was her only option for getting an education, like so many parents seem to think. But it’s my absolute last option, and I’ll hold out as long as I can. I’m also hung up about not being employable. It doesn’t really matter at this point whose fault it is; I’d be just as unemployable after four years’ unemployment due to disability as I am after four years opting to stay out after years of job-hopping and impulsive behavior. (I.e., quitting at the drop of a hat because I didn’t like working somewhere.) What matters is whether I’d be able to pick up the slack if something happened to my little girl’s dad. Yes, she’d be entitled to Social Security**, but it wouldn’t kick in immediately and we could be evicted in the meantime.
There’s also the point that I still need to pay off my debt and start working feverishly to ensure that I’m not destitute in retirement. Hello? McFly? *knocks own head*
Relationship issues
Something… interesting is happening. I do not wish to label it for fear that all is not as it seems, but there’s also the point that the last time I was this mistrustful about this particular person, I lost him for thirteen and a half years. So I’m trying to be patient and hang loose and just wait to see what happens. I’m better at this than I was even five years ago, so I suppose there is something to be said for extreme relationship adversity when it forges you and makes you stronger. But I’m still not totally OK with the way things are going. We’ll just have to see how they play out.
I do know that he called a week or two ago and my little girl’s dad was here and didn’t even tell me the phone rang (it was one call out of many, so ultimately it didn’t hurt anything, but still), and my little girl’s dad has said a few other things that make me wonder what his take is on this whole situation. So I may get to deal with ugliness soon. On top of that I had a mean jealous streak about five miles wide in the immediate aftermath of his and my breakup, exacerbated by post-partum depression and worry that he was going to abandon our daughter like he abandoned me. It meant that every time I saw a woman being friendly to him online, I got snarly at him about it. I’m pretty sure I’m going to hear about this any day now, even though the situation is different. (And it really is. That’s the sad part.)
It makes me think there is some wisdom after all to setting up a certain distance between unmarried parents so that each can have their own life. Although if things had gone sanely and smoothly during the pregnancy and after, even if they had still resulted in him and me not being together, I think I would feel a lot better about the traditional visitation routine. But my daughter was too young for that kind of thing anyway. Babies and toddlers need to be with their mothers, assuming no abuse or neglect is going on. They’re not ready to visit with an absent dad for more than a few hours here and there until they’re at least three years old. Still, she’s three now.
And yet I hate it when she’s not here. I feel completely wrong and lost and don’t know what to do with myself. I mean, I do find things to do, like clean house, but the place is empty and I feel empty too. And I’m hardly going to send her off just so I can date or whatever. So it’ll be interesting figuring this out.
OK, I guess I had more to say than I thought. Let’s hope it is not another week before I post again. 
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*My cell phone is my primary phone and I have no landline. In fact I had my original landline number ported to my cell phone and completely switched over back in 2006. It would be a better deal to have a bare-bones landline and DSL rather than a cell phone and cable Internet–assuming I didn’t use much long distance. These days, unfortunately, I have to use long distance if I want to talk to anyone besides my little girl’s dad, because most of my loved ones and some of my best friends are not online regularly or don’t write well. So as long as most of my conversations take place on nights and weekends, I think I’m still saving money.
**Oh, but Social Security is just a failed retirement program and we should replace it with the stock market. Whatevs. *eyeroll*
Where I’ve been lately: burying old ghosts
I have really been letting this blog go slack lately and I apologize. I know I don’t have that many readers in the first place, but at the rate I’m going that’s hardly going to change for the better. Know that I am still here and at this point I have no intention of letting this blog die.
It’s just that sometimes I get caught up in personal drama and it diverts my energies away from more positive ends to become a Sucking Vortex Of Doom™. And that’s what’s happened in the past several days, I’m sorry to report.
I think I mentioned here several weeks ago that I had signed up for an account at Reunion.com and discovered that someone had been looking for me, and that upon plugging a certain person’s name into Google and locating him at Classmates.com, I realized I had been searched for by an old lover and Army buddy. (OK, I might not have gone into that much detail on who he was, but now you get the idea.) So I left a message for him at Classmates and about two weeks ago, give or take, he left me a response.
I was actually pretty excited at first. Now, when we got involved back then it was not under the best of circumstances, but that was pretty much the story of my life at that point (in fact, it was the story of my life until fairly recently where “romance” was concerned), and I figured that with thirteen and a half years of life under the bridge, anyone can change in that amount of time.
If only.
It’s a sad, sordid tale, and if you’re really curious I suppose you can go dig up my personal blog and read it for yourself. The main point is, I think, that being faced with the possibility of seeing him again disturbed what emotional equilibrium I’d managed to achieve and sustain for the past several months–again, where “romance” is concerned–and it rattled me to the teeth. I am someone who gets all sappy and schmoopy and miserable and depressed when it looks like I am about to be rejected in some way. I thought I had grown a bit beyond being this kind of person but I found out otherwise in this particular situation and it was an unpleasant realization to say the least.
(I know it’s normal to feel disappointed when one is rejected. I go well beyond simple disappointment, I’m afraid. We’re talking endless obsession coupled with self-loathing and constant second-guessing of myself, him, his motives, my motives, what it all means, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum et ad nauseam. It is disturbing to watch, and even more disturbing to experience.)
I suppose I achieved some small victory, however. I found that I could accurately assess the situation for what it was, call him on his shit, cut the “reunion” short and cut off all contact with him–and I’m more or less OK in the aftermath. Considering that I used to face situations like this by making all manner of excuses for the guy’s behavior and then pushing myself very hard to change my own desires and expectations to make myself more appealing to him even at the expense of my own self-worth (which, of course, never works–even the biggest schmuck can smell the lack of personal integrity a mile away and is repelled by it), this is progress.
If I could now evolve to the point where this sort of episode doesn’t hurt anymore, that would be better still.
The only question now is whether I keep his old photos or consign them to the circular file, I suppose. I think I’ll keep them. I haven’t been disrespected, lied to, or taken for granted yet by a piece of paper and I don’t anticipate it happening any time soon.
Checking account woes pt.2, and other money grumbles
So I have gone through my checkbook register and a printout of my checking account history from April 1 to May 2. Lo and behold, I forgot to fill in a Kroger transaction from the 24th. *gasp* Not an insignificant amount either: $12.03.
But. That’s not the best part. So am I balanced now? Nah. Nope. I’M STILL OFF BY EIGHT CENTS!
How does that even compute? I swear, I had the stupid thing balanced! Now I’m eight cents off! And, specifically, I think Kemba’s system believes I have eight more cents than I actually do! And I have no idea why!
I’ve got half a mind to do an eight-cent adjustment in the register and just cope with it. But if I do that then inevitably somebody or other will notice an error and I’ll overdraft by eight cents.
*headdesk*
And yes, I know it’s a stupid idea to spend the account that far down. Yes, I’m aware of that. If you have income such that you have a spare couple hundred to leave in there. May I remind you that I am not one of those people? Yes? Good.
Meanwhile, the day before my little girl’s dad got paid I wound up taking most of my savings out of my savings account to feed us all. Why? Well, I had laundry to do and had mentioned it to him and since he was loaning me his car for the afternoon for my daughter’s speech therapy, he suggested I come over to his place afterward and start the laundry early. This was good advice, because far too often I have started laundry too late and kept my daughter up way past her bedtime, much to our collective sorrow.
There were just a few problems:
- His ex-girlfriend, who thinks for some strange reason she’s still his girlfriend even though she dumped him and they never discussed reconciliation, and who sits around on her butt at home because she has fibromyalgia which won’t let her stand to do dishes but will let her walk to get her meds and go to her doctors’ appointments, had not done a decent load of dishes in days.
- As a result there was virtually nothing upon or in which to cook, although he had planned to fix dinner for us all.
- Their hot water heater is developing a leak.
- At the same time, their washing machine picked that time out of all the times I have ever used it to develop a glitch that kept it filling and filling and draining and draining but never progressing to the next stage of washing.
- As a result there was no hot water, which made it extremely difficult to wash pots that had food caked and dried on them.
- So, as I was the one with any money left before payday, guess who got to treat everyone to dinner?
Out of pure cussedness I decided that since I was being tapped for this dubious privilege (OK, I volunteered, but I didn’t have the heart to let them fall on their own sword, and I didn’t want to leave my laundry at their place–although I wound up doing that anyway), I was going to stay in the goddamn front seat when we went back from withdrawing my money to pick up the ex-girlfriend. So she got to sit in the back next to my daughter and get her legs squished for once. And I’m not the least bit sorry.
Maybe next time she’ll do what she’s supposed to do instead of expecting him to be her life support system even though she has a master’s degree in creative nonfiction and has been here since 2003 and still has no writing career, but now has plenty of time to develop same and isn’t bothering.
And I expressed my displeasure at him that I can’t ever seem to keep money in savings. Maybe he got the message and maybe he didn’t. But mostly it is my responsibility and I need to just pretend the money in savings isn’t there if I want it to ever get anywhere at all. Especially when I’m not 100 percent sure where my daughter and I will be living by the end of July.
And I’m pretty sure that was more of a glimpse into my personal life than the three of you out there reading this blog wanted to have, but whatever.
Marriage and combining finances
I was reading a certain blog for other reasons and ran across their entry about whether married couples should combine finances. This is definitely an emotional issue and as a result, people become very opinionated about it. Predictably, I’m sure, I have my own opinions, and I thought I’d do better writing about them here than letting them get lost in someone else’s comments.
I am divorced, so obviously I have been married before. My experience then was that we combined our finances. We had a joint account, and when either of us got paid it went into that account. Now, after my son was born (I think; I don’t remember for sure), I began arranging for a percentage of my income to go to a savings account I had back home that had been open since I had started high school in 1989. I got married in ‘95 and I think I started doing the savings thing in ‘96 or ‘97, so do the math. But I thought it would be stupid not to put any money away for a rainy day. No specific reason why, and we were military and so eligible for various emergency aid programs–I just vaguely felt it was something I should do.
I’m not sure if I told Mike what I was doing. If I didn’t, it was because it was my paycheck and I wanted to save something out of it, and didn’t think there was anything wrong with that which needed reporting. If I did tell him, Mike didn’t think anything of it until 1997 or later when we had moved to a different state with a different job market and had bought a house and were having financial problems. At that point Mike got aggravated with me for having put money away in savings when we had credit card debt to pay off. He insisted that I withdraw some of it to help catch us up, so that’s what I did. But when I called my stepmom to arrange the withdrawal (this was in the days before widespread Internet banking), she insisted on leaving some of the money in the account.
I was to be very thankful for her forethought later.
As it was, I had over two thousand dollars in that account when Mike told me to withdraw from it. I don’t remember how much my stepmom sent me, but I wound up with less than a thousand at the end of it. Had I had the full two thousand I could have had a much easier time starting over when the marriage finally imploded and I had to leave the state and go back home suddenly because I didn’t feel safe around him anymore. I might have even been able to keep my son.
Since that time I have been acquainted with a man who suffered outright abuse in one of his own former relationships–with a woman, just to be clear. I am not one of those people who feels threatened by feminist women’s discussion of domestic violence because they’re not discussing the miniscule percentage of men who are attacked by female partners, but Bill’s pain was still very real. To make matters worse he had virtually no assets and did not own a car, so unlike most men who face domestic violence from a female partner, he couldn’t get away from her and make a clean break. Having his own savings would have been an immense help there too.
“Keep your own money” is old advice handed down from mothers to daughters because it is a well-known fact that divorce often leaves women destitute to a degree that it does not often leave men, even when accounting for child support owed. But it is good advice for both genders.
I believe marriage is a social contract, nothing more. It is a legal acknowledgement that two people have joined together to form a family where there was none previously. It sets down each party’s legal rights and responsibilities and offers a certain level of legal protection in case of catastrophe. When cynics say marriage is just a piece of paper, they’re right; it’s a legal fiction symbolizing a cultural or social reality.
As such I think it’s pretty silly to enter into a legal agreement completely open and vulnerable and trusting that nothing bad will ever happen. In no other legal arrangement that I’m aware of do people enter into the agreement on a spit and a handshake with no provisions made for self-protection in case the deal falls through. The end of the marriage relationship is an inevitability, whether through divorce or death; pretending nothing will ever go wrong will prevent neither.
Each member of a married couple having their own assets goes a long way to make sure that the only pain suffered in a divorce or death is the emotional fallout from that event. If a relationship doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t work out; that doesn’t merit punishment of either party beyond the obvious consequence of the breakup. And of course if the relationship ends in one or the other partner’s death, why make the survivor’s suffering worse by forcing them to jump through all manner of legal hoops (such as waiting through probate, which can drag on for months) just to remain financially solvent?
Someone pointed out in the comments to that post that it’s tedious to keep up with two accounts to pay one set of bills. Fair enough, so find a happy medium. Let each spouse have their own financial accounts and set up a joint checking account from which mutual bills are paid. In fact, if the spouses’ income is widely disparate, like the husband is making three times the wife’s salary for instance, the couple could work it out such that each partner’s contribution to the expenses is proportionate to the percentage of total income they bring home. There’s no reason a spouse should pay fifty percent of the expenses if she’s making only twenty-five percent of the income; it’s not like she doesn’t contribute to the marriage in other ways.
If I were to get married again, that’s how I’d do it. Once of having my account drained at my husband’s demand was more than enough for me; if I had it to do over I wouldn’t have told him about the account at all. As it turned out I was left with the credit card bill about which he so bitterly and so often complained (and helped run up), so I don’t know what he was complaining about in the first place.
Until we Muggles learn Legilimency, it’s our responsibility to look out for our own well-being. We can’t expect our spouses to want to look out for our welfare if we won’t do it for ourselves.
Aside: I’ve been reading about Islam for the past six months or more and was interested to learn that under Islamic law (by which I mean religious law, not secular law in Muslim countries), the husband is obligated to spend his income toward taking care of his family, while any income the wife earns is hers alone to do with as she wishes. At the same time, when a parent dies, his sons inherit twice the amount his daughters inherit, to make up for the marital discrepancy in financial obligations. But ideally, I would rather see men and women taking their marital and familial obligations seriously from both ends, contributing as equitably as possible to the well-being of the family as well as looking out for themselves. I don’t see why they can’t do both.
