Bills Bills Bills

I spend a lot of my time sitting in positions not conducive to anything helpful.

I often hurt my back. I am far older than I should be, physically. 

I realized this morning that Stassney has been the second in Myex's life so long that she definitely qualifies as a mistress. This led me to be curious about how often a man marries his mistress, and according to one Huffington Post article that cites a book from 1988, this happens about 3% of the time. I wonder how that has changed in the nearly 30 years since that book was written. Does she have a better chance? Will their love story end grandly because they are special and manage to make it into the fraction of the 3% that has a "good" relationship after their wedding?

I always appreciate when bogus data is on my side. When an article says scientists claim "eating chocolate is as good for you as a 3 mile run" or "people who hate the sound of chewing might be geniuses" I perk up immediately. It's fun to be self-serving on occasion. I do realize this means little in the long run. I am kind of trying to prepare myself as well for losing this very important person in the long run. The friends of mine who are cut-and-dry about things insist that I should move on and just never speak to Myex again. My therapist asked me what I wanted. A few people are understanding of my position and supportive. One person said time away would do me good and did not have to be permanent. They advised it should be a longer time than just a month or a few weeks, though. Time to reconnect with myself outside of the relationship. Time to better evaluate the relationship from a distance. Time to experience other things: get out and travel. I thought this was pretty sound advice, however this friend did also brag about seeing the Power Rangers movie, so who knows if their advice is to be trusted?

It's what I've decided to go with anyway. And my fear is that in my absence he will fall deeper into his relationship with Stassney. Just slide down without thinking about it because it's comfortable and familiar. He has a kid he's raising alone and a pretty demanding full time job so it's understandable that he feels he doesn't have time to put himself out there. I worry the distance will do more for me than for him. At this point I still feel the positives of the relationship overwhelm the negatives, but maybe he was better for me than I was for him. I was pretty selfish. Obviously in some ways he was pretty selfish. 

I've also landed on not wanting anything romantic in my life until I really know what I want in relationship. And until I finish school. I think that school and work is just too mentally taxing on me to keep up a relationship the way I should. So that's about 4-5 years from now. I assume I'll try to have flings in the interim, but I think it would be beneficial to be alone for a long while. To be in a relationship with myself for the first time in 28 years. As soon as I was able to start dating I hopped from one boyfriend to the next until I landed on my first volatile long term relationship with Gilbert. This also included infidelity. Physical on his part, emotional on mine. And, honestly, a deep desire to leave. But romance and love has been a huge focus on my life for so long. So I stayed even after moving away for college. Let him be a distraction. And finally ended things in a mess that led to a spiral of sexual activity. At the end of that I met Myex, Travis and this guy from a pizza place. The guy from the pizza place flaked out on me, but that was ok. I had two other things to play with. 

Then at some point, for some reason, I decided a relationship with Myex would be too serious. I broke things off with Travis mostly because I didn't like his personality, more so than because I chose Myex, but I did also prefer Myex. Then we broke up when he found out I was casually dating both of them. I found out recently that he was just looking for an excuse, but that makes our getting back together seem even stranger because he definitely used a fight between himself and a good friend as an excuse to reach out. We hadn't been together long before we ended things, so he really had little reason to come to me. From there came the years of arguments about his flirtations that would end with accusations about my initial betrayal. The fights about world views, his daughter, our future, the time, what to watch, his affection, and me. They dragged on and through all the happiness. I realize how much could have been better had we both been able to be present. To be appreciative and listen without judgement. If we had both been able to try harder to reach a point of understanding. I don't think many 19 year olds are capable of that, though. 

I know I didn't try understanding my parents until well around 25. It's taken a long time to get to this plateau where things are exposed with little to obscure them. I'm here and it's possible I don't have much time with my parents left. They are both getting very thin. Thinner than I have seen them in several years. Possibly, since I was a child. 

And I don't want to date. I want a good relationship with Myex but I am very cognizant that we both need distance to focus on the harder things that confront us now. I love him but acknowledged that we could not be in a good relationship and be physically and sexually close. I was too angry, too frustrated, too sad, and I would lash out. There was a moment when I realized I had been cruel for absolutely no reason and I said for his sake this would be the end. And I think that's just another way I know how much I love him.

(P.S. The title is related indirectly because my train of thought started when considering how long it's taken to separate our bills.)