Why

Why can't I just be allowed to enjoy the (very brief) presence of one of my best friends in the world? Is that really so very much to ask?

Why do I have to have an ex who manages to screw up all my plans (or as many as he can) and make me feel like shit?

You guessed it: my ex phoned today. And he had a rather strange request. He asked me to set up a meeting - "an hour or two, though two would be best" - between my friend J and her husband, him and me, so we can talk "about the girls' future". He claims that I'll "most likely agree with what he has to say", but I can't help but think he's up to something. And freaking the shit out of me.

You have to remember (even though I don't think I've ever mentioned this here before) that he actually phoned J before he walked out on me and TOLD HER, putting her in a horrible, horrible position. Luckily (if that's the right word) he did the deed a very short amount of time later, but still.

I just can't understand him any more (if I ever have, in fact). This is one of my best friends, and I rarely see her - usually no more than 3 or 4 days a year. By some kind of miracle, this year I might actually see her a couple of days more thanks to this holiday. And he wants to come and ruin it by forcing us into some weird, deep, religious (I'm guessing) discussion about how to bring the girls up.

I'm freaking out, possibly unnecessarily, and I'm angry and seriously pissed off.

The fact that the girls were uncooperative today and screwed up my plans to get things done didn't help.

We're off to see J and her family tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it, but I'm not looking forward to bringing this strange request from D up, and I'm looking forward even less to whatever arrangement we come to with D to meet up for this "hour or two".

Why does he interfere in my life in this way?

WHY?

Funk

So, yeah. I'm in a bit of a funk tonight. Quite a lot of a funk, actually. I would never have imagined that one day I'd find it so hard, so uncomfortable, so unpleasant to have to be in the same room as D for an extended period of time. But it is. Or at least, it is NOW.

The PTA thing was my thing. It was the thing I invested myself in, the thing I did. Since we split, D has started coming to all the meetings too. And I HATE him for it. I know it's his right, and I know there's no argument I could ever put forward that would justify my feelings, but still. I do, I HATE that he comes.

I also hate that he's got "M", a nice, reliable, solid, respectable (so it seems, I barely know her) woman he knows from his church. He claims they're not an item, and that may be true. But he sees her all the time, he drives her car, she picks the girls up from school, they've stayed at her place (without D, to be fair), and will now be staying at her place with D while she's away. I HATE him for this, too. I feel like he's replaced me, with some mild-mannered church-going type. She's great with the girls, and they really like her, and to be honest, I've got nothing against her - apart from the fact that she does more fun stuff with my little girls than I do.

I'm alone, every night, every weekend, all the time. I'm more lonely than I've ever been in my entire life, more isolated and scared and miserable. And he's limpet-ed to this M woman. And they spend more time (more "fun" time, anyway) with my girls than I do.

So yeah. Total funk tonight. Watching Mad Men didn't help, either (I find this series strangely compelling, yet unbelievably wooden and depressing at the same time. Can't explain why I keep watching it at ALL).

Sorry. This wasn't meant to be another moan-fest, but that's what came out when I started typing.

List

This is likely going to make for pretty dull reading (no change there, then) but Swistle did a fantastic post listing all her problems of the moment and I thought maybe I could get some sense in my life if I did the same... More likely, though, is that it's going to be a long list of moans and complaints. Tough shit.

OK, on to the Things That Are Making Life Difficult Right Now

1. Work. Oh God, there's so much! I'm not really complaining as I need it and I need the money it'll (eventually) produce but Lordy, there are only 24 hours in a day and what I've got lined up for the next 5 days is pretty close to inhuman...

2. Money. Always, ever. I don't know how it always seems to be that I'm broke. Right now, I've attained critical mass, so to speak. My direct debits are all being refused, one of my credit cards won't work, the other most likely won't either, clients are taking forever to pay me, I'm too submerged in work to get my invoices done (16 still to do, though admittedly at least half are for the end of this month and a few others needed extra information from the client that took it's time coming. But still), I haven't done food shopping in 3 weeks so there is almost literally NOTHING to eat - even the freezer is almost empty. I'm not sure how to deal with this.

3. Household crap. So much mess everywhere, haven't done housework in as long as I can remember, laundry (clean) piled in a HUGE heap in my bedroom, never folded or put away... My desk is covered in tottering towers of crap, there are more piles of STUFF all around me, the girls never put anything away, the floor's covered in dust bunnies, the kitchen's a mess, the bathroom's a mess... GAH

4. D. This is the biggie in that there's not much I can do about it. Sometimes we get on fine enough, though my anger at this whole miserable situation is never far from the surface to be honest. Now he's requesting (reasonably, I know) his share of my flat back. 24,000 fucking Euros. Plus (according to the solicitor I saw) 11,000 fucking Euros to get the deeds redone in my name only. I'm not sure even my dad can fork out 38,000 motherfucking Euros in one fell swoop, just like that. Especially as all that money will do precisely NOTHING to help my own financial woes. I know D is wholly entitled to his money, but the fact that he's not taken any of the advice I've ever given him about finding work etc., hence perpetuating his own dire financial situation, makes me mad. It all makes me mad, actually.

5. Life. That sounds ridiculously trite, right? But really, my "life" sucks so badly right now I'm in a total funk just about the whole time. I'm lonely as hell, miserable as hell, resentful as hell. And that makes me irritable with my sweet girls, it makes me sad, it makes me cry, it makes me wish everything were different. The thought of spending the rest of my "life" like this depresses me beyond belief.

6. That's actually it. Can you believe it? Only 5 things on my list! This must be your lucky day!

OK, now, let's try to be positive...(I may not reach even 5 on this list...)

1. My dear friend J and her husband and 2 kids will be holidaying near here this summer and WE WILL SEE EACH OTHER. That may not sound like much, but holy crap, I miss this chick... Spending 2 or 3 days together once a year is just CRAP. This will be lovely, and I'm really looking forward to it.

2. My little girls. They bug the shit out of me more than I care to admit, they drive me batshit a fair amount of the time but oh, how I love them! They're bright and beautiful and funny and loving and fun and so perfect... My big aim in life now is to make sure they have a better life than I've had.

3. Tom. Stroking his silky fur is unbelievably soothing. I love when he curls up next to me, I love his there-ness, his reliability. He keeps me sane.

4. The internet. Seriously, without the internet I think I'd die. Not only do I need it for my work and almost all the shopping I do (food, books, clothes, DVDs, CDs, presents, toys, travel arrangements...), it's also my lifeline to a better world, a world where I can forget all the crap in my life and enjoy things. There are a number of blogs I read regularly, that allow me to make contact (albeit in a pretty one-sided way given that I mean nothing to their authors) with other people, people who make me laugh, or cry, or whatever. It's kind of like living vicariously (like I'll be doing with BlogHer this summer), but hey, it's all I got right now, so bite me.

5. That's all, folks!

Getting all down in writing

Where to begin?

D has decided that he wants us to separate. His basis for this is that he needs his "independence" (well, yeah, OK, I can understand that the whole middle-aged-guy-with-virtually-no-income-living-off-his-"wife" thing might have got to him. Yeah, I can go with that) and that, as I have been trying to poison him (or otherwise do something to harm him physically and/or mentally, though nothing concrete has been stated), and trying to shag guys found on the internet and all other kinds of rubbish, irrational and deeply upsetting crap, he can no longer trust me about anything. According to him (on his "bad" days when he totally seems to hate me with a passion) I'm a compulsive liar, tyrant, hypocrite, bitch... who has, apparently, needed slapping on two separate occasions in the last couple of weeks. He told me (though he later retraced it) that he regrets everything about our 14 years together except for our beautiful daughters. He's seen a lawyer to get "official" separation papers and joint custody papers drawn up. He is now vaguely talking about wanting his share of the money we put down for flat back (24,000 euros!). He's irrational, unreasonable, totally unrecognisable and, on occasion, downright odious. At the ER the other night with C (she has a persistent, horrible cough and complains of headaches), the doctor examined C very superficially and then focused all his attention on D, recognising what I've already thought myself - that he's mentally ill, that his brain isn't processing information correctly, that he's misinterpreting what he believes are facts. Of course, D refutes this vehemently and refuses to see a psychiatrist. I've spoken to his pastor, who's given me the name of a counsellor that I'm going to try and see really soon (though probably not before the dreaded meeting with the lawyer). He's alienated some of our best friends (who totally agree with me, so he wants nothing to do with them. And no, I can't be blamed because he talked to them first), he's sent hideous e-mails to my best friend, M, in London saying odious things about me and refuses to retract them, he's all sweetness and light and lovey-dovey with the girls, all whilst ignoring me, he hears something I say and cackles at some private joke, as if I've once again proved his "theories" to be right.

He hasn't slept here for over a week. We've had endless "discussions" - often arguments - but neither of us will back down. I refuse, outright, to admit to any of the utter crap he accuses me of. And he refuses to accept that I'm telling the truth and says he can't trust me.

I'm trying to come to terms with the idea that I'll be spending the rest of my life alone, and that in the very near future I'll only be with my beautiful girls every other week.

There are times that I want him to come back, that I yearn for our happier times. And then there are others, when I hate him so much I could scream. He's destroying our family, he's hurting the girls, he's hurting our cat, he's fucking up our lives, all because he believes CRAP that isn't even remotely true. I'm 100% convinced he needs psychiatric help, but there' s almost no chance of that ever happening.

I'm being destroyed by the thought of only spending half my time with my babies. I can't bear the thought of it, it makes me feel sick inside. He doesn't have his own place yet (no job, no income, no benefits; he's staying with unnamed friends every night - though I know for a fact he stayed with someone in this building last night because I saw him come in at 10.30 pm and leave again this morning at 10) so the joint custody thing can't happen just yet, but it will, because he wants it so badly and isn't open to any kind of reconciliation process. This separation is "doing him good" and the fact that it's killing me and making the girls aggressive, tearful, withdrawn and unhappy is irrelevant.

My father's come (he barely knows the half of what's going on - it would kill him to think that I'm being accused of such horrors, that I've been slapped, that I've been treated so fucking badly) to stay for a whole week, which is sweet, but really tough. We're not, and have never been, a touchy-feely kind of family. I don't share emotions with my father. So, along with the fact that I'm totally overwhelmed with work, I also have to try and act as if this separation thing is actually super and fun and wanted by both of us. I'm exhausted, bled dry, a wreck.

I yearn to see my two closest friends, M and J in England, but can't afford either the time or the money to go. I booked us all a week in a gîte in Italy and have had to cancel (no return of the deposit, either, so that's 140 euros down the drain), so I probably won't be going anywhere this summer. I'd love to go and spend some time somewhere relaxing with the girls, my sweet babies, my angels, but I can't. I have to try and save up so I can take driving lessons, so I can use the car and gain in independence.

I feel like my life's in tatters right now. I'm finding it hard to concentrate, hard to be civil to D when he comes round, hard to forgive him for this totally craptastic situation that he's put us in. Of course, he blames me for it all and sees himself as the total victim. But he's a delusional, back-stabbing, mother-fucking liar. Yeah, I'm a little bitter.

I've got good friends, friends who care and who can help me, but it's the "garde alternée" that's doing me in - my babies don't have the same surname as I do, C's British passport is out of date, and L doesn't have British nationality. I swear, if D ever tries to take my babies away from me, I'll pursue him straight down to the gates of hell and back, I'll use every trick in the book to get them back.

Oh, Lord, this is such a mess. I love my dad so much, but can't wait for him to go home (next Wednesday) so I can just collapse in a blubbering mess on the floor in the evenings instead of having to make small-talk.

It's my birthday on Tuesday, and I'm dreading it. The girls want to come home from school for my birthday lunch, and I'm delighted that they do. What I don't want is D here, fouling up the atmosphere with his pointed remarks and surly looks and snide comments and private jokes and what have you. Right now, this evening, I would be quite happy for him not to do anything about my birthday whatsoever. But my father's here, so I'm not sure what's going to happen.

I'm a wreck and I don't know what to do, what to think. I feel horribly alone (yes, I said I've got friends, but the two best ones are in England, and the ones here all have kids, and work, and have their own lives, own hassles...), horribly in need of comfort, horribly scared about the future. I want my babies, I want to be with them, I want to be with them all the time.

Oh, Lord, please, stop this year from being such a suck-job, please help me find peace and happiness and freedom from all this crap, all the money problems that persist, persist, persist...

Please, help me!

Over the top

Maybe I was a little over-dramatic in my last post... I'm not in such a funk today, partly because the tidying up is actually starting to show signs of success, partly because I'm just in a better frame of mind. And D and I have been getting on pretty much fine in the last few days. And the story about him I mentioned the other day happened in 1998 and hasn't been repeated. He's a great father, a kind and considerate man. He's generous and funny. And I'm pretty sure I'm no picnic to live with either.

Moving on, then.

A commenter asked why people (meaning me, I guess) are so willing to put such private information on the net for complete strangers to read... It's a tough question. I spent a long time reading blogs (many, many blogs) before I started writing one. Firstly because I never really thought I'd have that much to say, but mainly because if D found out (or read what I write), I suspect we'd end up having the mother of all rows. You see, D is one of the most profoundly suspicious people I've ever met - he's all about giving out minimal amounts of information, using codes, false names (not for anything serious, just for ordinary stuff like restaurant reservations or what have you)... If he read some of the private, personal stuff I've written on here (about me, a tiny bit about him (though what a story to blast over the web!), a lot about his mother...), even though it's pretty anonymous, he'd have a fit. A real fit. He might never talk to me again.

But it's not some suicidal mission of mine to do this. It's loneliness.

I've lived in France since July 1992. Over the years, I've made friends, lost contact with friends, made new ones. I have some very good friends here. But they're not J and M, my two best friends, both back in England and whom I've known since I was 18 (more than half my life...). I miss them more than anything else about Britain (OK, them and Cadbury's chocolate, particularly Crunchie). I miss the hysterical laughter that bubbles out whenever we talk. I miss our shared youth. I miss our common memories, legends, myths. I miss our shared traumas, dramas and sadness.

We hardly ever see each other, rarely e-mail, almost never phone. But we celebrate each others' birthdays, we celebrate those of our kids. I am the godmother to J's daughter, she is godmother to L, and M is godmother to C. Our lives are linked, we are a group. Friends.

And I have no one like that here. Absolutely no one.

So, I keep a written diary (written by hand, with a pen, like the old-fashioned girl that I am), but I'm always wary of other people reading it. And now I have this blog. It's my outlet, it's where I bare my soul, get what's bothering me off my chest.

And the fact that it's strangers who read what I write (albeit very few strangers - I got three comments to my last post and was elated!) is comforting in its own way. What I have to say is often deeply embarrassing (to me, at least), or the kind of thing liable to make me cry (I cry pathetically easily), and that's not easy to accept when you're face-to-face with someone you know well.

When I write here, you can't see if I'm crying (I'm not tonight, but I was for certain posts), I won't feel embarrassed bumping into you because I almost certainly never WILL bump into you, I'm anonymous, lost in a crowd. It's not for nothing that I'm a city girl (who grew up in all manner of God-forsaken villages and swore she'd get out) - it's in cities that you can be the most anonymous. That said, Montpellier is a small city, so maybe I'm not so anonymous here after all.

I've often flirted with depression. I went through "bad spells" in my younger days, and probably went through another bout after my first daughter died. I may even still be suffering - I don't know, as I never go to the doctor, never really talk about my feelings with anyone (hence D's accusations, I guess). But I'm basically OK. And reasonably content with my life. Not fully, of course - lots of wasted opportunities, lots of poor decision-making, lots of spinelessness - but reasonably.

Forgive me if I let myself go on occasion - sometimes, you guys are all I've got for this kind of thing. I'll try to lighten up from time to time (I can be fun sometimes, too!)...

Not quite as planned

But new years never are, are they?

I always, somewhat naively, assume that the start of a new year is going to make me change some, if not all, of my many bad habits. That things will change around me, that I'll suddenly find the happiness I've always seen as being strangely elusive.

But of course it's not true.

The weather - by south of France standards - is crap, I've been up late every night, up late every morning (except today, as it was back-to-school day so I had to get up for that, but of course I was back in bed by 9.30), I've gone back to my eating too much junk all night (chocolate porridge yesterday, crisps and cake tonight) and I feel lousy.

To cap it all, D and I have now had 2 very disturbing conversations - one yesterday, in which he went back to one of his favourite themes: my "lacking something". He claims it's because I'm "the most truly atheist person he's ever met", but then completed that with insinuations that I have no imagination, lack emotion, lack feeling... That I'm a fucking robot, in other words. I was really angry (though we've had this conversation many times before, usually with me ending in tears), but held back from crying and held back from making all the criticisms of him I could make (and there are many - the main one being his total incapacity to hold down any kind of money-earning activity). Bastard.

Then we had another conversation this evening, starting with C's upcoming birthday party. One of the little girls coming has a name I hate. I told D that this girl's mother had confirmed her daughter was coming and he said how he really liked the name. I then said "yes, it's great, if you're into Eastern European hookers or something", which in turn got him on to the subject of one of the times (in our first couple of years together) he was unfaithful to me. And how! It was 1998 and we were on holiday in Bulgaria. He (in my company) got talking to a group of Ukrainian women (all sluts, is my guess, but I could be wrong) and then basically told me to bugger off back to our hotel on my own. He spent the night (so he told me) with one of them (the one with the same name as the girl C has invited), came back, vaguely apologised and then, later on, laid into me for spoiling the holiday and being a bitch. I know I was spineless and pathetic and should have told him to go shove it, but I was getting desperate for a baby, had never met anyone who wanted to stay with me (what's wrong with me?!) and was terrified, at nearly 30, of never getting a chance again. So I took it on the chin and "forgave" him. Except of course I've never really forgiven him for humiliating and insulting me like that. And that means that nearly every time we argue, this hideous incident rears its ugly head.

Yeah, I have a pretty fucked up relationship with D. Sometimes I really don't think he knows me (or cares) at all. And I'm pretty sure he only stays with me because I'm the breadwinner (and always have been). And I only stay with him because I'm more or less sure I'll never find anyone else. Hardly healthy, I admit.

That said, we do seem to get along pretty well, and don't actually fight that often, despite the fact that we spend most of our time together (both working from home (though he doesn't actually work very much)). Maybe I'm just being blind, stupid and naive. But it's all I've got right now. And we have our sweet girls to think of, too.

But those two conversations have really shaken me up, thrown me down and left me in a total funk. It's nearly 3 am and I'm cold as hell, but I'm too wound up to sleep.

And, final nail in the coffin of this new year, money worries continue - many clients are just not paying me what they owe, I'm overdrawn in both my private and professional accounts and, because I'm in a funk, all I can think of is BURNING PLASTIC. Especially as the sales start here on Wednesday.

What a crap start to 2009!

I hope your new year is going better (and that mine improves!).