My Ex Part 1 of 7643

Before I met the wonderful Joe I had been married and divorced. I know, scaaaandalous. I have some friends going through a divorce right now and it is bringing up a lot of stuff for me.

When I first met the ex (we'll call him T) I really hated him, and thought he was an ass. We worked together so we had fairly regular contact, and we hung out in some of the same circles. I knew he liked me but I wasn't interested. We started hanging out as friends and I started thinking I had misjudged him. One thing lead to another and eventually we were dating. A few things pushed all of this along, my best friend had been married for 4 years, and I just found out that my last boyfriend of 3 years had gotten married. I was feeling like I would never find anyone. (I was 23 and a bit stupid) Anyway we got married just a bit more than a year after we started dating.

I do remember during the ceremony wondering how much my family would hate me if I turned and ran away. Not a good sign. Funny thing, I mentioned this to my mom the other day, and she told me how much they all hated him at the reception. T wouldn't dance with me, other than the traditional dance, but he did dance with a whole group of his female friends. So that was a good start.

So much of what split us up seemed like little stuff, when I tried to explain why I was leaving him it seemed so petty. But most of it was a sign of a much larger problem, he was just a self-centered person. For example

• He would come to bed hours after me and turn on the light to read. Even though I had been sound asleep.
• A new job required me to go to an activity in a very bad part of town. Everyone told me to bring T with me. He didn't want to go, because he needed to take a nap before picking a friend up at the airport later.
• I had been sick for a while and couldn't shake what turned out to be bronchitis. We were out to eat, and I wanted to stop at the urgent care so I could get a prescription so I could maybe finally sleep. I wanted to go after dinner because they closed early, he wanted me to drop him off at home first so he could watch TV. He said I could always go the next day, if they were closed when I came back.
• At another time I was sick I really needed to catch up on sleep, so I asked him not to wake me in the morning. He woke me up at 6:30 to ask if I wanted eggs for breakfast. When I got pissy, he was all "hurt" because he was trying to do something "nice".
• During college we had just one car. But when we moved to the Big City we needed a second car. We got in a huge fight about the new car. I was raised that the wife drives the newer more reliable car. He wouldn't hear of it. I was told that he was driving the newer, nicer car, or we would get a clunker and I would drive that. My dad, an alchoholic abusive son of a bitch, made sure my mom drove the more reliable car.

I am already pissed off again. These probably seem like little things. In the next episode I will get to some bigger stuff.