Footprints

I have a high gloss wood laminate floor in my living room.  Its pretty good looking and fools a lot of people who think its real wood. It has one big flaw though: it shows foot prints.  Especially Robbie footprints from his sweaty little paws.  I get sooo annoyed cleaning them up every stinkin' day. They attract dirt and my steam mop turns black cleaning up those danged dusty foot prints.  I get annoyed with little things like this, so I am cleaning the floors about 3 times a day to get out those damned dirty footprints. It colors my opinion of Robbie, too.  I see him as a dirty work maker for me with his paw prints everywhere in my otherwise clean house.

Things have not been going so well with the DM and his Ex. So consequently being part of this little three person dysfunctional group is the pits.  X has mastered the occupation of a PSS (Professional Shit Stirrer).  DM, on the other hand has spent the last 10 months trying to take 'the high road' and be 'her friend'.  He is her manservant when she beckons him over to her(their former) home to clean up after their dogs, fix things with her fountains and any other thing that could be done by this able bodied WOMAN who threw her husband out, but apparently regrets it and conjures up reasons to get him in the same room alone with her so she can rant about how awful her life is now that he's gone.

I am 'the other woman' who is not allowed to go to certain places where she might frequent.  I am the equivalent of the bad girl from the wrong side of the tracks who would be an embarrassment to DM if I were to chance meeting Woman Formerly Known As Mrs.  For months, I have been kept in my cage at times and not allowed to be with him on days off or evenings when we had plans.

I am a total babe in the woods when it comes to this divorce stuff.  The only experience I have had is from the nasty prolonged ordeal my brother suffered.  Even that was not traumatic to me like it would be if I had gone through it myself or had been a child of divorce.  Yes, I know I'm lucky, but it makes me not sure of how to fight this battle that I got thrown in the middle of.  All I did was give a decent guy my number and went out with him!  How was I supposed to know that he was someone else's puppet and that his main goal was to maintain 'friendship' with his whip wielding dominatrix?

Extricating oneself from another person who is so bitter and unhappy with you, yet still wants you around to control is very painful. Painful to be the one in the trap and painful for ME to be the one standing by helplessly and told to keep my distance because its not my fight.

When I was about six, my mom took us kids fishing.  It was the usual muddy adventure on a lake shore with dead fish and flies and the desire to catch a big one.  My mom was casting and I was a good distance behind her.  She tipped her rod and the line back but before she could begin the arc to get the line to the water, she hooked me on my waist instead.  It surprised me at first, then I remember how, without looking behind her, she tugged on the line.  It set the hook and the worm into me pretty good.  Someone else yelled, "Mom!! You've got Marsha!"  After some wiggling of the hook and some painful crying, water was poured on the wormy wound and I was good to go with a band-aid.  I remember the rest of the day was consumed by the catch of HUGE carp.  The big gasping monster was thrown into the trunk as a trophy to show my dad who threw the thing in the garbage.

This divorce is that hook in my side all over again.  It hurts and it stinks like worms and dead fish. This time I am working to get the hook out myself.  I don't want to be even more hurt.  I never asked for this.  Is this what it takes to have a relationship with a decent guy anymore?

Last night I stated my case and my feelings about the whole shitty scenario I find myself in.  I've had enough.  DM listened and apologized to how I am being treated and for his part in it.  He is wading in the muddy stinking waters of Lake Divorce himself.  No one has the answers on how to get free of this in a good way.

I was mad about the whole thing and last night I took out my frustration on poor Robbie. On my walk alone with him, because he and I weren't 'allowed' to walk near the house where DM and X were 'talking', I let Robbie run loose in the field near my house.  I got exasperated with him when he would not come.  I stomped toward my house, two blocks away.  Robbie did not follow.  I got my mail from the box and waited. And waited.  He did not appear.  Pissed, I went back to the field where I found him in the same spot I left him.  He had been eating grass so he could throw up.  His stomach was upset.  Coming to me with a weak tail wag, he seemed to be apologizing.  I was still mad.

Later, when I was voicing my opinion to DM of how this whole relationship is not right, he was horrified that I had left dear Robbie in the dark where coyotes could have attacked and dragged him off.  DM acknowledged, especially after last night, that he loves dogs more than people(especially women).

I left DM's house and went home to Robbie with a renewed sense of what is important to me.  That little dog has been nothing but a loving friend to me.  He loves me no matter WHAT I do to him.  And he makes tracks on my floors. More importantly though, he makes tracks in my heart.

This morning, DM came over before work to pick up the protein shake I make for him each morning to drink on his way to work.  I sent him off with the shake and a Special K bar that I cut into a heart shape.  After he left, I noticed the wood floor.  It had dusty footprints on it from someone's work boots.

<sigh>  Now I have TWO sets of prints to clean up.  And I love both of the beasts who made them.