When Your Ex Becomes a Stranger 

So my ex never responded to my request that he increase support of our daughter to include paying for half of her lessons and health insurance. Actually, he did respond. He e-mailed me that he would answer me on Sunday. Well, it's Wednesday and not a word. I can't say that I'm surprised, but I also can't say that I'm angry. I figure I will let a little time go by and then ask again. I figure it can't hurt and, for now, I'm no worse off than I was before.

Back when he wasn't paying me at all, I would get so angry and frustrated with him. At the same time, I think I liked that it was all under my control. What classes she took, where we lived, what activities she went to. He didn't participate so he didn't have any say. I have friends that can't even choose what church or synagogue to belong to without their ex's approval. Or like the situation with Amy and her ex trying to prevent their daughter from moving into advanced math. I hear this stuff and think that if the price of avoiding this was my having to spend more money, but it kept my daughter from having to suffer through a parent that tried to use her as a pawn, then I got off easy. I'm not sure her dad would have tried to get in the way, but then again, he did take me to court for insisting that she be allowed to go to her friends' birthday parties when her dad was visiting, so there is a high probability that he would have.

I remember the judge asking me if there was any reason that he couldn't take her to and from the parties. I said that other than it being embarassing for me for him to meet her friends' parents, many of whom were my friends, there was no reason he couldn't take her. To this day when he occassionaly takes her to activities and meets her friends parents, I feel embarassed. I feel like he is such a different person than the one I married and I don't want anyone to think that I married this guy. But the truth is, he was probably always this guy, I was just blinded by love and youth at the time and didn't see the full picture. It's strange to look at him and not be able to picture us together. I'm certainly not the same person I was back then. I can't conjure up the love and devotion I felt toward him no matter how I might try. And I certainly can't remember what it was based on. It seems like it just was. And when it wasn't anymore, there were no remnants of it left.

The feelings of total and complete dispassion and distance from him are ones that I couldn't have imagined I would ever feel when I was in the throws of heart break. There's a quote from Andy Warhol that I really like; "They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." In my case, I think that the combination of time and my own work to change the things that led me down the path to a bad marriage, made the difference. It took time to be ready for me to change and it took persistance once I was ready to change my patterns when it came to relationships. It's why I always tell people that are going through something traumatic, 3 months from now you won't feel the same, and in another 3 months it will be different again. You just have to keep going and move through it.