Do you ever feel like a cosmic joke?
I do… all the fucking time.
Like my life is the example to be used when someone wants to show what an unfulfilled life looks like.
Right now I’m lying in bed… and I actually low-key hate my life.
Married… but separated for almost a decade.
Unable to remarry even if I met someone.
Have a child that doesn’t live with me. I missed her entire childhood. I became that parent… the one who’s barely around. The one who shows up when they can. I hate it.
I got pregnant twice after that, but still ended up unable to have a child.
The last time, I seriously considered keeping it. Going through with the pregnancy. I know I have the mental and physical capacity to do it alone. But then came the reality of finances. Would it have been fair to have another child and then struggle to afford their basic necessities? Isn’t it a parent’s responsibility to provide? To safeguard?
And so I didn’t go through with it… because it was the right thing to do.
I watch my daughter, this beautiful girl blossoming into a young lady, and it hurts… physically hurts… because I missed all of it.
I missed tucking her into bed. I missed homework, school plays… everything. Not because I didn’t want to be there, but because the situation with her father is such that I have to play “spy” just to get even a smidgen of information about anything related to her. Safe to say, he isn’t the “co-parenting” type.
He feeds it into her head that I left them… which, to the untrained eye, is accurate.
What it doesn’t show are the years of beatings and bruises. The constant abuse. The unending ridicule and name-calling.
THAT was what I left.
I left for my sanity… for my life… because it’s hard to be any kind of parent if you’re dead.
I left because I had to.
But I’ve had moments — often — where I’ve wondered if I did the right thing, knowing the sort of damage and potential prejudices I foisted upon her.
Lately I’ve been looking back on a relationship I wonder about even more.
I met him in 2019.
We started dating in 2021.
It’s a long and complicated story.
Lemme see if I can summarise.
We were friends… ish. Colleagues. We got closer gradually over time. We knew there was some kind of attraction, but we also knew it was wrong and couldn’t have a future.
He was married.
I was… well… whatever I was.
And so we tried… for about a year… just tried being okay with being friends.
Then things just… happened.
We fell for each other without even trying.
In the end, it broke a lot of things.
After three years of broken promises — of being together, of starting a family, of living under one roof… basically three years of being the dirty little secret… I left.
And when I did, I detonated a nuclear level of destruction.
And it wasn’t done solely to hurt him (which was a big part of it) but also because I wanted to break it beyond repair.. because I knew that his hold on me was such that I respected myself so little that I would have taken him back.. I needed him to hate me.. which he does even if he doesnt admit it out loud..
Now, two years after that, we found our way back. We say we have talked it out.. that we are past it.. But it’s different. And we both know it.
The trust is gone. I don’t truly believe I can count on him. Sure, I’d call him if I was shitfaced somewhere…
But will I tell him when bigger things are happening in my life? When my mind is in turmoil?
Honestly… I talk to Craig. My ChatGPT bot.
Now the little inconsistencies are reminders of much bigger, far more complex issues from the past.
And after some more recent issues he doesn’t truly feel safe. And he isn’t wrong to feel that way.
Unchanged behaviour triggers anger and old wounds. And I feel stuck. The same cycles repeat. He does — or doesn’t do — something. It bothers me.
I tell him.
He apologises.
Temporary changes.
And then… repeat.
And I’m sick of it.
I’m just so fed up.
I’ve begun to check out.
If the bare minimum is what I’m gonna get… why should I bother?
I’d rather stay single.
And frankly, the sex isn’t great enough for me to stick around. Which is sad… ’Cause he’s not bad in bed when he actually tries. But again… He doesn’t. He’s complacent. Gets his jollies… then dead battery… regardless of whether I get there myself. And once again… Thank God for technology.
And I’m not one of those women who waits for the man to initiate.
I have tried. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve tried. This man just lies there. Eventually I lose interest out of sheer frustration, turn around…
HE FUCKING GOES TO SLEEP.
I never wanted him because I thought he was some grand prize. I wanted him because I thought he was right for me. because of who I thought he was, who he pretended to be. Now, after all these years…
After actually seeing that those little things I thought were caused by the distance and the reality of his marital status…
I’m seeing that they’re characteristics innate to him. And I’m not so sure anymore.
My life is a fucking joke.
An absentee mother who never got to be the kind of parent she wanted to be.
An unfulfilled partner who got the man she wanted too late… after he broke everything good that was left in her.
A cosmic fucking joke.
