42. The Good, The Bad, and the Completely Baffling

While it is true that there has been very much since that Disneyland trip which has been very, very good, it is also true that no one is able to piss me off quite so much as my ex-husband.

First of all, the good.

Via that fateful eHarmony venture, I met a brilliant, kind, funny, adorable, and loving man who is everything I could possibly have wanted in a partner. He's the kind of man I wish I had been smart enough to look for 20 years ago.

Our first date was one of those "it must be fate" ways - that's another story, for another time. Suffice it to say, we met, we clicked, we blended our families (eventually). His children and my Little One blend splendidly. He is a model father, and a good, honorable, and noble human being. I consider myself incredibly lucky.

His divorce was at least as painful as mine, but took nearly 6 times longer than mine did to resolve. To say that we meet on common ground is a vast understatement. To say that we, as a result, appreciate each other is yet another such statement.

Now, the bad.

It's not so bad, really. It's just that I'm stuck with this as-was Jay Daniels for, like, ever. D is trying, he is. He finally got a full-time job (his first in many years), he tries and succeeds in many ways to be a better father than he ever was when he and I were together.

And his child support payments arrive on time every month. Little victories.

But I'm often struck by how inescapably connected we are, by our Little One. It's a maddening proposition, to know that the person who has caused you the most pain in your life also helped you create the one person who gives you the most joy in your life. And separating those two people from each other would be in no one's best interest.

Ultimately, the effect of this ongoing, inescapable, frustrating connection is that I have forgone the idea of ever having a child with anyone else - even with the lovely man I am now with. I'm going to call him LM. I can't think of anyone else I would want to have a child with than LM - and yet, the divorce, and D's continued presence, have taught me that while you can start and end a "life partnership" with another person, you can never, ever end a parenting partnership.

Kinda sucks, huh? Because...

...Now we get to the completely baffling part.

Remember Sally, our ever-present bellydancer? Well, during the affair, the fallout, and the divorce, there was one refrain that well-meaning supporters often repeated to me:

"It won't last long. She'll be gone soon."

WRONG.

It's been over three-and-a-half years. And she's still around.

There are benefits; she keeps D from falling completely off the rails. He's drinking again, and I like to imagine that his drinking is tempered by his need for a roof over his head. (Maybe he learned that lesson with her rather than with me.) Sally is also a good mother to her children, and I like to believe that her parenting skills and style rub off on D in positive ways.

In other words, I've tried really, really hard to find the silver lining to this particular dark cloud.

But the best part? The part that is so baffling, it's hard to believe?

She ignores me. Completely, utterly, and with vigor. It's almost as if she hasn't read any of this blog. In fact, if she ever did read it, I wonder how much of it would match with the stories that she's been told.

D says she wants to "avoid conflict." D says she "doesn't like confrontation." D says a lot of things.

Ultimately, I care, because my Little One is amazed when she realizes Sally and I know each other. This is because every time I am at her dad's house, Sally is either in a bedroom, or in a backyard, or - this was the best one, really - seated at a table facing me, and staring off to a point somewhere 90 degrees to my left. With not a word spoken, even though social graces (and the presence of mutual friends, and Little One, and D) would have possibly predicted otherwise, she stared and stared, purposefully saying nothing, making everyone uncomfortable with her persistent non-acknowledgement of the situation around her.

But here I am, assuming that she has any social graces. D says she does. D says a lot of things.

I like to think - and correct me if I'm wrong here - that if the person whose marriage was ended can get over the ending of the marriage, then so too can the people who were responsible for ending it. Hell, it worked out well for me.

I suspect she believes a very different version of these events.

But then I guess I just have to take the bad with the good, swallow the Xanax, and thank my lucky stars every day for Little One and LM.