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I have said before that K works for a Methodist church. They are not crazy right wing, but they are not exactly open and affirming of the gay people and their families either. I can't speak for the people in the congregation, I met with the pastor and he is accepting or me and my situation.
When I attend services, I look around and I try to guess what the people there would think about me if they knew who I really was. I wonder if they would vote no on gay marriage based on their religious beliefs. Based on their personal interpretation of the Bible. I have this recurring fantasy about being asked to preach to group on religions people about why it is wrong, and in fact dangerous for the religious people to force their beliefs on others through legislation.
I would to get them to think about what it would be like to for them if someone forced their morality on them. I do not know why the pro- gay marriage groups do not use this argument but I think it is a powerful one. If anyone want to use it, feel free to pass on to anyone who you think could make a difference.
I am not sure how I how kick off the sermon, but my core message would be this:
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Church and the government should be separate entities. The reason is simple. The government has the power to force people to do certain things, under the threat of punishment. There any many different religions in the United States and which religious beliefs should the government follow? The Jewish faith is the basis for Christianity so maybe we should use that. There are a large number of Baptists, so maybe that is the way to go. But there are a lot of Catholics too and lets not even think about the fastest growing religion on the planet, Islam
While you are thinking about that, let me set up a scenario and I would you to think about how that makes you feel. More than half the marriages in the United States end in divorce. I think most people of faith think that it is better if a couple can stay married for life, after all that is what marriage is for, lifelong partnerships. As much as we do not like it, we know it happens and we generally offer the people involved in divorce our love and support.
Many of these divorced people eventually find someone else and often get married. We are usually glad that our friends and family have again found happiness. We support these new unions so much, that we perform the ceremonies in many churches across the county. We rent halls and throw parties for the newly re-married couple.
However, this is not the case in all churches. The Catholic church, for example will not perform a second marriage. If you are involved in a second marriage, you may not receive communion and may be denied other sacraments. You might even be denied burial in a Catholic cemetery when you die. While this may sound cold an unfeeling, this church policy did not come from nowhere. There is Biblical scripture to back up the churches position.
This passage from the Gospel of Matthew, in the New International Version is pretty clear on second marriages.
31"It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.' 32But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.
Jesus seems to give a little wiggle room if there have been affairs on the divorce side, but the re-marriage part is clear. Don't do it.
Now let's move into hypothetical. The Catholic church is very active in trying to enact laws that ban gay marriage. What would happen if they decided instead to ban second marriages. After all second marriages are against their interpretation of the Bible.
There are millions of Catholics in the in Unites States. They are a powerful voting block. What is they successfully got a law passed, based on Biblical principles that the Federal Government would only recognize one marriage for any one person. If you are divorced person, you must remain single for the remainder of your life. If you do fall in love again, no matter how you feel about each other, officially you and your new love are not related.
How many people in this room are sitting next to someone who is not their first spouse. If you are still in your first marriage, you probably know someone who is in their second. Maybe a friend or a family member. How would these people be effected.
They are not regarded as a family. Perhaps they could be fired from their jobs. They would have to pay higher taxes and if one of them dies, they would not be able to receive for their partners social security benefits.
When they get old and one of them is sick they may or may not be able to visit them in the hospital. Your partner faces the real possibility of of dying alone. Because you are married, doctors may not be able to talk to you about your partners condition. If he or she die, you may not be allowed to claim the body for burial, since are not really family.
These are some of the stresses that gay and lesbian Americans face every day.
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I don't know how I would wrap this all up either, but again this is core message.
I wish those fighting to marriage equality would use this argument sometimes.
I got an anonymous comment on my "Mulligan??" post from yesterday. The comment came from a woman says she is in a similar situation that K and I are in. Early 40's, 4 kids and best friends. She says her husband is still coming to terms with his sexuality.
I would very much like to talk with her, privately, about her situation. I am not suggesting I have all (or any) answers for her, but just talking to someone who knows what you are going through, is helpful for anyone. Also, I believe I would get something out of the exchange. Every time I talk to (or even hear about) someone who might have first hand experience with how my life has turned out, I feel a little less alone.
K and I were just talking about something like this earlier today. We were in the car going to pick up the kids from a day camp they are in for a couple of weeks. We talked about last night when AJ came into the house for the first time, while I was there.
K bought herself ticket to a musical she really wanted to see and the show was last night. She went with AJ and his daughter. (She asked our older kids and they did not want to go.) AJ came to pick K up, but first his daughter wanted K to do her hair. So they had to come inside.
I been home when the daughter has been here before. I know she is uncomfortable around me and I don't blame her. She is 15 and for most of her life, her mother was very sick and about 18 months ago, passed away. She is very much hoping this thing with AJ and K works out. While she was here, I said something, and I can't remember exactly what it was, but I remember she gave me a funny look. I did not think much about it at the time. AJ came in the house too and we exchanged a little small talk. K quickly finished the hair and they were off.
What made me think of that was when we (K and I) talking about her feelings for AJ, I jokingly asked if she was sure he was straight. She assured me he was and then said, "I think you creep him out a little."
I paused a moment. I was not sure if it is because I am gay, or because I am still married to K and we continue to life together in the same house. It is probably a little of both. He is a pretty conservative guy on most topics, but has a "live and let live" attitude about gays. I suspect he does not personally know any gay people.
K pointed out that this situation is new for them. (It's new for us too!!) Both AJ and daughter know divorced couples. Most of them can't stand each other, fight all the time and some have been very messy. With K and I remaining close, it is a very unusual situation indeed.
I think it will be OK in the long run. It was progress that AJ even came inside while I was there. I also think it was an effort to make the bit of little small talk he did. What is important, however, is he made the effort. I think that is a really good sign. I do not have any expectation that AJ and I will be friends, that would be nice, but maybe not realistic. But I do expect that if K and him are going to be together long term, that we can be friendly. I feel the same way about T. I while it would be nice if they could be friends, I think that is too much to expect. What they have to be, is friendly. They have to be able to be together without being uncomfortable. This is the only way that my Thanksgiving-with-the WHOLE-family fantasy will work.
I know this will take time. It might even take even years, but I am sure it will happen.
Who would thought when I started this blog 11 months ago, I would have such an optimistic outlook. It feels pretty good.
K and I were talking the other day. It was at the end of a long and busy day. She was saying that she wanted to have a mulligan. I asked if she wanted to do over just today or her whole life.
This got us to talking about changes we might make in our lives if we had the chance. She said there were some things she might do differently, but she did not think she would drastically change much. I was a little surprised since she ended up marrying a gay guy.
I thought about this too. What would I change? At first I was thinking I would have come out sooner, at least to myself. I would not have married a woman and maybe found a man I could have been with. At first, I thought about a lot of wasted time pretending to be someone else.
The I started thinking about how the good things in my life happened. Before I met K, I knew people that she knew, but there really would have been no reason for us to meet. It was only because I was looking for a girlfriend, that our paths crossed and eventually merged. If we never met, we never would have become best friends (and more). As much as she means to me, I simply cannot imaging changing anything that would cause us never to meet.
My kids would not be here. I love all my kids and I try not to play favorites, but my daughter can light up my world like no one else. Her innocence and 5 year old view of the world can just melt my problems away. I love my sons and they each have added a unique richness to my life. Again, I cannot imaging making any change that would result in them not being born.
Had I come out earlier, there is a good chance that my path would have not crossed T's either. I might have found another. I might have even fallen in love. But it is just a likely I would have spend my life playing the gay dating game. Drifting from one man to another. One random sexual encounter to another. At this point in my life I feel like I am very lucky to have his love. Why would I want to change anything that might screw that up.
Then my thoughts turned to regret. I have had a lot of regret over the past couple of years. Now I have come to see how unproductive that was. Regret itself is in unproductive emotion. It's almost as if it was designed to make you stuck in some kind of a feedback loop. The other (negative) emotions I have felt over the past 2 years at least can lead to something else. Emotions like fear, sadness, guilt and anger at least will, eventually, cause you to act on something. Regret is like a circle, when which there is no escape. It keeps you trapped in the cycle of wanting to change the past, not being able to and then feeling bad that you can't change the past.
It all seems so simple now, but I was stuck in that cycle of regret for a long time. I can see how easy it is to get trapped and how difficult it is to get out of.
While my life is not perfect and there is still much to do, I have past the stage where I regret. Now I am looking forward. I can't change the past. The pain I have caused K (and may continue to cause to some extent) is not changeable. I cannot stop being gay. I cannot pretend to be straight. I cannot return to the closet.
I have come to see that all of these experiences, good and bad have come together to make me who I am today. It is the same for everyone. You are the sum of your experiences to this point in your life. Had those experiences been drastically different, you would be a different person.
If given the chance to make changes, would I? Maybe. But honestly, I hope I never the chance. I am starting to like myself again and why would I want to change that?
Both K and I got to go on dates tonight with our respective boyfriends. I have been home for a while, but because on the drive home from T's house I drank 2 bottles to soda to help me stay awake, I am now still awake. I figured I would make good use of my time.
AJ's daughter came to our house to watch my younger kids so K and AJ could go back to his house. My older kids got some action movie and sequestered themselves up in their bedroom. K made dinner for him and I suspect did some other cooking too.
I met T at his office. We went out for a really nice dinner at a place I had never been to before, but he has several times. Most of the time when we go out, T makes me choose the place where we go. He does this for 2 reasons. First, he really wants me to enjoy where we go and second, he does not really care about food that much. He is just glad we are together. Where we actually go it quite a ways down his priority list.
What I liked was he pick a place that he liked and he wanted to share that experience with me. That really means a lot to me and I had a great time.
As we were leaving he told me he noticed a woman watching us over her menu. He figured she knew we were there as a couple. I generally don't care about that sort of thing and I told him that. But he pointed out something that was different about tonight. I think to be gay and go out as a couple, you need to have a certain I-don't-give-a-shit-what-you-think kind of attitude. If you don't, I think the fear of being discovered would take the fun out of everything. T said we usually have that attitude, but tonight was different. For tonight, it felt like we were the only people in that restaurant. We were so absorbed in each other, there was almost no notice of anything else.
After dinner we... well... My mother reads this blog from time to time, so I am not going to say what we did next.
Suffice it to say, it was a night to remember.
Back when I was straight, my life was simple.
Yes, there was stress sometimes, but it was normal stress. Things like money, kids stuff, work and family. You know, all the normal things that people deal with all the time. But at the end of each day, when I got into bed, I knew that things were OK. The people who love me were there, and would be there tomorrow when I got up. Because my stress was like everyone else's, I could talk to be about it and listen to their stress. When you can compare stress and share it, it makes it more manageable.
Of course, it was not really normal. There was all kinds of stress that only I had to deal with. I had to deal with it alone. I had no friends or family I could share it with. I could not talk about it with K at that time. I was straight on the outside and gay on the inside. As many people in my situation, that causes it's own special kind of stress.
Many nights after K would go to sleep, I would quietly get out of bed, go the my porn stash on the computer and ... well ... I would have a private moment. I got caught a couple of times and I know she was not thrilled with the idea of me ... having a moment ... while looking a pictures of men when there was a perfectly good woman (and perfectly willing) upstairs who would take care of my needs. Looking back it is hard to imagine how I maintained the straight (or more accurately bi) delusion as long as I did.
Now that I am out (partly out anyway) I have different stressors, in addition to the old ones. And at the end of the day, I am sleeping alone. I know the people who love me still love me. I know there will be somewhere in the morning, but they will all not be right there with me. I guess I am getting used to that idea. Now I have to coordinate schedules for everything. If I want to see T, and I am averaging only a little better than once a week, I have to coordinate my schedule with his, then mine, then K's. When coordinating with K that also means coordinating with AJ and by extension, his daughter, and I don't even know them.
I don't want to give the impression that this stress is out of control or it is something I cannot handle. It's not and I can. It's just of those things I am thinking about. Now that my life has moved out of perpetual crisis mode, I have the time to look back at how things have changed over the past 2 years.
In many areas of my life, nothing has changed, in fact it is surprising how little they have changed. My relationship with my family (parents & sister) is basically the same, in face we may be a bit closer than before. My relationship with my kids in unchanged. They know K and I will eventually divorce and they seem to be OK, probably because I am still living here in the house. He have not gone over the gay thing, so things may change then, but I will worry about that later.
Other things have changed drastically. I am in love with a man. And not just any man. I'm in love with T. (I hope he doesn't mind that I posted his picture here.) I fell in love with him 2 years ago, but I did not allow myself to embrace that feeling at first. I denied I was feeling it. I resisted feeling it. I did feel it. Now I don't have to resist it anymore. I can embrace that love and love him openly now. Not that I am shouting it around like I'm Tom Cruise, but I am now able to feel the feelings within myself and even tall a few others about it.
My relationship to my gay self has changed too. I am now openly and, more importantly, comfortably gay. I am still not out to most people yet, but in my head there is no longer any question about who I am. I am gay and that's OK. I still struggle with past choices and what is means to me and other around me that I am gay after living the straight lie for so long, but I no longer struggle with wether I am gay or not
My relationship with K is a mixed bag. On many levels, much about it is the same. We are still partners in parenting and we are sill connected on the more practical matters of living together. We are still best friends. She tells me about and discusses most every aspect of her life. She tells me about how her relationship with AJ is progressing. I know they are having their own ... private moments ... but she does not tell me the details (and I really don't want them) aside from knowing he is an unselfish lover that make her feel like she wants to feel. I am REALLY glad she has found that in him. I know it was very frustrating for her.
Other things with K have changed a lot. For one thing we are no longer having ... private moments. We are no longer sleeping together, meaning we now have separate beds in separate parts of the house. This is creating a level of separation that I am not really used to. It is getting better. Even thought we stopped having sex a long time ago, I was nice to not have to sleep alone. I am slowly getting used to it and eventually it will be OK.
I have been thinking about the right wing religious people who are opposed to homosexuality. I have been thinking about the things they seem to want us, as gay men to do.
* Do not engage in gay sex or relationships.
* Supress your same sex attractions.
* You chose to be gay and you can choose to be straight
* Marry the right woman and you will be OK.
It is this last two points that have been bothering me lately. Not so much because they are destructive to gay people, which they are, but they are destructive to the straight women we end up marrying.
I have been wondering if the Family Research Council and others like them even think about that. My guess is they don't. Once they "cure" the homo, and point them toward a woman, they think everyone will be OK. But not only is the gay man in pain, but what happens to the woman and the children, if they have any? What happens in the long run? Nothing good.
Why do gay men marry straight women? If you have been reading my blog or many of the ones I follow, for any length of time you know the answer. We do it because we are in denial. Why are we in denial? Because we are made to feel that being gay is a bad thing. It is so bad we must hide ourselves, or worse pretend to be someone we are not.
In the best of cases you have people like T, who realized himself that he is gay early on. He did not attempt to date girls, but he was too scared to come out to anyone. Men like him live most or all of their lives in lonely isolation. They might seek out random gay sex. They probably will not have any real relationships because they are afraid to be discovered. This is a sad state, but at least the effect does not extend beyond the individual gay man.
Then there are others, like me. We are much worse and the damage we cause is far reaching. Those who have the feelings for other men, but are so scared or ashamed that they might be gay they "choose" not to be. The decides that they will not be gay. They may attempt to live a life that is like other men they know, or men they see on TV, but it is a lie. Deep down they know that, but do not admit it, even to themselves. They probably will meet a woman and develop some feelings for her. She may fall in love with him and because he has never been in love, he assumes the feelings he in feeling are "in love" too.
They may get married and for a while the enjoyment of the close companionship feels a lot like love. They may have children. He sees his relationship appears to be a lot like other men and women he knows. He must be OK, right? But he is not OK. When he goes out, with or with out his wife he finds he is watching other men. As he passes them at the grocery store he look at their faces, their bodies. At the gym while working out, he is watching the other men. All the time, watching, and praying he does not get caught.
What about the wife? What about her? Does anyone care about her?
Sooner or later the man is going to be discovered. He will not be able to contain his feelings forever. She will find out. If she is lucky, he will tell her. If she is not lucky, she will discover it herself, or be told by a friend who may not be supportive. What happens to her? She is probably older now? What if she planned to be a housewife and mother for her career? She may be in her 40's now and facing the prospect of starting her life over. She has lost the husband she expected to have forever. The plans for the future are shattered. Her whole life is ruined because some priest told a gay man he should just find the right girl.
I wonder why that story is never told on the 700 club.
I think if a lot more straight spouse came out and told their stories, they would be powerful advocates for letting gay people be who they are and not trying to force them (or shame them) into being something else.
So I have this friend. I use the term "friend" in the broadest sense when I am talking about him. Let's call him "SD".
SD, his wife and 3 kids lived a few houses down from me. We had been in the neighbor hood for a couple of years when they built their house and moved in. The first time I met him I knew he was gay. He is the kind of gay that gay stereotypes are made of.
Anyway we (K & I) became friends with him and his wife. Their kids played with our kids. The would come over and play cards on weekends. We would cook out together. It was nice for about 3 years.
Then one afternoon, SD's wife stopped over and told us she was moving out with the kids. She had rented a house and would be out by the end of the week. They were ending their 10 year marriage. At first she would not say why, only that it was the right thing to do and they would remain friends. That did not last long, like 2 days before she went crazy and outed SD to everyone. She told anyone that was not moving fast enough to get out of the way. It was an ugly mess and unfortunately their kids suffered for a couple of years as they found themselves in the middle.
Fast forward 3 years.
SD has been officially divorced almost 2 years. The ex wife has a new boyfriend. Her and SD share custody of the kids, but they are not friendly with each other. They have reached an equilibrium point of mutual loathing. The only really good news it they have figured out how to stop putting the kids in the middle and they are now reasonably well adjusted.
SD, though is kind of a mess. At least my my standards he is. Don't get me wrong, he is a good guy, he's fun to hang out with most of the time. He works a lot of odd shifts so I don't see him very often. When I do see him, it is usually for a short time, about an hour and then I have had enough and I leave.
He is kind of a slut. He finds men on Craigslist and sometimes answers the more risky ads. He was seeing this guy and it was going well enough that he was living with the guy on the weeks he did not have his kids. I found out tonight they broke up. Not enough in common, he said. While he was seeing him, I know he was still meeting up with other guys from online. Not cool.
You might think this guy is a sleaze ball, why would you want to have any contact with him at all. There are a few reasons why I like to keep in contact with him. First he is the only person I know, who is local, that was married, has kids and has come out of the closet. Aside from his sluttiness, he seems to have successfully come out and is generally happy with himself. He is also out to the old 2 of this 3 kids. I am always asking about how they are adjusting to that idea. He says they are fine with it. I think they may be more stressed that he is letting, so I ask a lot of "clarifying" questions.
He is not the kind of person I would normally hang out with and we have very little in common aside from having been married with kids. Because that experience is similar to mine I am reluctant to cut off contact with him.
The other reason I like to see him once in a while, is to remind myself what not to do. I have seen him over the years, not put his kids first, where they belong. Often when it is his time with the kids he will drop them off at his mother's house and go out for the night, or sometimes the weekend. He is very caught up in the gay lifestyle. He likes to have nice things, but he really can't afford them. He get's them anyway and I know most of it is on credit.
I don't see him that often, maybe once ever other month. Usually late in the evening after I get my kids to bed and after his are asleep too. I rarely stay with him more than an hour. Just enough to catch up on his life, hear about his escapades, which I listen to with some interest, and hear him trash talk his ex wife. That is about all I can take.
Tonight I stopped over his house. Kids in bed, had to keep it down so not to wake them. We talked for a while. He told me about his break up. The married, black bodybuilder he met on-line earlier this evening who very eager to train SD at the gym. Sometimes I get dirt on the ex wife, which is always fun.
After about an hour, right on schedule, I was tired of him for this visit. I thanked him for the soda and headed out to my car.
I wonder if I go see him for the same reason that people watch Jerry Springer. If you ever feel bad about yourself and need to prove to yourself that you are not a messed up as you think you are, just flop on Springer and you will see people WAY more messed up than you. I sure feel better about myself now.
It also reinforced something else. While I am not part of the gay scene, and I probably never will be, I do have something much more important. I have T. He loves me very much and I love him back.
SD does not have that, and the way he is going, he may not find it.
I am loved and that is wonderful. It is like magic sometimes. When T and I are together, even if we are not talking or even doing anything, his mere presence fills a void in my heart. I know that I fill a void in his too.
I get to spend a few house with him every week, which is a marked increase from before. At that time I was luck to see him every other week. I think as summer approaches and the kids have few activities I will be able to see him more. He is also bust with his new house. He is setting up the inside just like he wants which is taking some time. He also has elaborate landscaping, trees, flowers, plants, along with his coy pond. All that take a while to set up and get the way he likes it.
So between the 2 of us, time is limited. As an added complication, he lives a hour away, so any time I have to devote to him is already 2 hours less if you factor in travel time. It's worth it. Each time I see him, for the first time, he smiles at me. That smile melts my heart all over again, and that is before we even get in the car together.
I am in a good place generally, but in to every good place a little boo hoo-ing must fall. Today is my day for that.
I feel lonely. Now that K has come to accept that I am gay and we are no longer going to stay married, she pulling away form me. Yes, I know, what did I expect. She a AJ are really getting along well, that is good too. I really is, for both of us.
I have a boyfriend who loves me. We cannot spend nearly as much time together as either of us want. I know he wants me to be with him more. He knows that I want to be with him more. In theory, you might think that would make me feel better. And on most days, I think it would. But not today. Today I think it is making me feel worse.
There have been a few times over the past week and this weekend when I have really just wanted to be held. In the past I would snuggle up with K and that contact would make me feel better.
Of course that does not work today for several reasons. For starters I now know I do not have those feelings for K. I am pretty sure that her holding me tonight would not have the effect I am hoping for. There are only one pair of arms that will make me feel less lonely today. They are an hour drive away.
I know that I am OK. I know this is temporary and it will pass. I knew this was something I would have to deal with if T was to me the love with the spark I was looking for.
It is a bump in the road and it will pass. Unfortunately, this road I am on full of, yet to be discovered, potholes.
This used to be me.
In some regard it still is, but to a lesser extent
For years I pretended to be straight, but at the same time, if I ever saw anyone I thought might be gay, I would study them intently. I remember, years ago, seeing 2 guys in the grocery store that I was sure were a gay couple. I don't remember what made me think that they were more than just 2 guys the needed food, but I was sure they were a couple.
I watched them as closely as I could without getting caught. As they went up and down each aisle, so did I, but in the opposite direction. I wanted to be in a position where I could see there faces. I wanted to see how they looked at each other and how they interacted.
I was fascinated by these people.
Now I am part of a gay couple, well, sort of anyway. (That is a topic for another post)
T has a large coy pond at his house and he needs to change the water. So last night (Friday) on our date he asked if I minded stopping at the near by Lowe's to buy a utility pump. We go in together, we do not see them with the fountains, so we head over to plumbing and sump pumps and we find what we are looking for. I carried his pump, he paid for it and I put it in the trunk of my car.
We were in the store about 15 or 20 minutes. We walked across the length of the store. Asked for help from some store employees. Discussed the various pump options I wonder if there was a guy deep in his own closet watching us.
I have had a stressful week. The bulk of my stress having come form 2 places. K's friend, D's visit (that did not go well) and my overloaded plate at work.
Thankfully D left early Tuesday morning. I do not know about K, but after the 6 days of his visit, I feel certain I will never see him again. Which is just fine by me. I am not going to get into it here, because this blog is about me. :-)
I have a lot of stuff to do at work and the most important thing is assembling a 60 or 70 page, long range strategy document that no one is going to read. Well, I'm going to read it, but after that, no one else.
All that stress melted away this evening when I was able to get to see T. I met him at his office, he got in my car and we had several hours of alone time.
It was not as long as I would have liked, but he works on Saturday morning, I was getting sleepy and his house is about an hour's drive from mine.
The rest of the weekend will be pretty full. We (K, kids and me) are helping at a horse bard that is doing a fund raiser for a 6 year old that need some sort of organ transplant. I don't know the details, but I am willing to help anyway. K is then leaving the rest of the day. Her boyfriend, AJ, had a birthday last Thursday and Saturday (I guess that's today, by now) his daughter is throwing him a surprise party. She is 15 so you can imagine this is not really that well planned out. K's mission is to get him out of the house for most of the afternoon so the guests can arrive and she (AJ's daughter) can decorate. I expect the party to last a while so we will probably not see her until late.
I'm really glad she has him. He is pretty good to her and she likes him a lot. I think she is falling in love with him, but she is "resisting" out of fear of being hurt. I think it's too late. Her fall has already fallen for him.
While my road has smoothed out some, it is not without some potholes.
There is a house that is not too far from my current house. This house has enough room for K and all the kids. It has been completely remodeled and it has a slightly larger lot than I have now. It also has a basement. A basement that has been converted into an one bedroom apartment. It is PERFECT for our situation. I can be at home with the kids, I can have my space and she can have her space.
It is even a price I can afford. It has been on the market and long time and the price has come down. We have been looking at it for over 2 years. But there is one problem. We can sell the house we are in.
Well I could sell it, but I would take a bath on the price. And if it was not hard enough to sell a house these days, it's even harder when there are 6 people living there.
K hates our current house, and now that I am sleeping downstairs, she does not like it any better. The other night she had some stress about it and we have a little fight. She was pissed. I was pissed.
I would love to have this new house, but until we sell this one, we are dead in the water. It is frustrating for her and me. I just deal with it better.
The next morning I did not feel very good about it. I had talked to T that morning on my way to work and he usually can make me feel better.
I really do think that is the last thing we need to work out. Once we resolve our living situation into something we can work with long term, things will be a lot better. One the kids grow up and move out, then we can work out another arrangement. Even if one day she wants to marry AJ (and she is no where near ready for that) she could not move in there with our kids, his house is not big enough. I also don't think that he would want there there until his own daughter is moved away. In any case, K and I will be living with the kids for 4 or 5 years anyway and the the house we have just is not going to work for that long.
By the end of the day it seemed we had reached a better place. I mentioned that she should call a Realtor and she said no. That we should just hang here for now.
It seems the bumps in the road are still jarring.
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T and I took a trip to the lake this week. We rented a house on the far end of the lake, away from where the motor boats and water skiers go. We had the house with a dock. There was no boat, but a small sandy beach and the sand went all the way out to the end of the dock, so it was nice for swimming.
The house was on 10 acres so there were no neighbors to worry about. We were only there a couple of days, but it was so nice. I did not have the kids screaming at me, I did not have K asking me to do things and I there was no work.
Just us.
One morning we got up to watch the sun come up over the lake. Laying naked together in an over-sized hammock, I pulled him tightly against me for a deep kiss as the sun broke over the trees.
As we kissed, I could feel his hand sliding down my body to my...
What the hell is that noise?
Don't listen my love, It's the beating of our hearts, he tells me.
No! It's something else.
It was my alarm clock.
It was just a dream.
