It’s been a LONG time Steppers!

Last we spoke, I was leaving town in my RV, headed across the country.

Well, I ACTUALLY did it!

I was gone a glorious 6 months and logged 6,000 miles on the road!  It was phenomenal and life-changing.

DH realized I didn’t need him anymore.  I think he even saw that I didn’t want him anymore.

It took me a solid 3 months to even start feeling human again.  At the three month mark, I got tired of feeling angry and stewing all the time over the same thoughts about the skids and the whole situation. It was habit.  I was willingly giving over my life to ruminating about DH, BM the skids.  I was focused on everyone except me.

I had to start over in my own life.  What were my dreams and desires?  What did I even like to do?  Now that it was just me and the road, what was I doing out here?  I started eating right, cooking and exercising again. I bought a bicycle. I became social again and met great people.  I tried new food and went to festivals.  I spent most of my day in nature, reading and recreating.

I flew DH out to see me a few times while out on the road.  I regretted it EVERY time.  He was the same mess of course.  Sometimes even meaner to me because I had deserted him.  FINALLY, the last 2 1/2 months of my trip, I elected not to see him at all.  Even calls and texts became few and far between.

When I did go home, I did not live with DH.  He was living with his dad and I had banished him from my house and had then rented that house.

For 3 months I stayed by myself at a family home I had access to.  Nothing had changed with DH.  It was the same old thing.

He pointed out how very much I had changed though.  He said I was lighter and happier.  My brother remarked that this was the best he had seen me in years!  Everyone said I looked younger, happier and more at peace.   That is how I felt.

But being back in the locale and being in range of DH and the skid stuff, I felt myself slipping into the same awful feelings and patterns.

Soon I was fighting about DH letting me see the texts between he and BM.  I was mad the skids were coming for so long this summer….it was a big mess again.

There was no way I was going to let my 6 months of progress die!  Without even talking to DH about it, I bought a house 5 hours away in an area I have always adored.  (It’s all my money. He’s never put in a dime to my life.)  “Don’t you think you should talk to me, your husband about this!?”  He questioned.   I simply said, “No. If you ever start doing things that actually qualify you as a husband, then sure.”

I was deserting him again.  Fast forward.  I am living alone in my new piece of heaven.  I love it.  DH sees that I am happier and he is beginning to acknowledge that the reason I am happier is because I am not around the skids and BM and all of that.  I know that is brutal for him to swallow because it puts him in the middle of me and his kids.   But I have not said ‘me or the kids.’

I have proposed that DH and I see each other when we want (because we actually get along that way) and he sees his kids when he wants/has to.  That entire part of his life is separate from mine and he’s earned it.

I left the door open by telling him if he starts acting like a husband and a responsible person, I would re-consider having some kind of relationship with the skids.   Obviously I don’t think anything will change.  Skids are now 10 and almost 13.