From House Wife To Film Maker

You know how in elementary we were given weekly spelling lists? Well, I would take my list home and proceeded to break those words apart till I fully knew each one and not just by heart. By the time I finished memorizing the list I had formed an intimate intertwined relationship with each word. When Imemorized a spelling word I took it apart, I saw what other words co-exist within the boundaries of the word, I associate it’s spelling to other things, and I often create a rhythm of sing songy syllables whereby I said the word to myself.(I still do that today) I love words. I loved learning new vocabulary words(and still do today)–now don’t confuse this with me loving the process and time it took to learn them back in the day. I down right resented it. Don’t want you thinking that I enjoyed the time it sucked from my life. If you did then you’d be clinging to an illusion and I don’t want you painting a false image of me in your mind. No, no, no! It was the end product I loved. The putting new words to use, when I talked, wrote, and read. Today I craft words together into story’s and blog posts. Attempting to share a part of me. How I think, feel, and see the world at large. Sometimes it may seem different, but it’s mine just the same.

Where am I going with this? Well, to a comment that was left by one of my wonderful followers that I think should be put right out here in the open rather than hidden behind a “click here to read the comment”. I know you have no earthly idea, but I actually started warming up to this answer the day before. In the post about my boys arguing. The bit where I mention calling their father. I intended to round that out and continue onward to answering her question, since it was concerning their him, Scott, the father of my children, my ex, and our interactions. However it just didn’t flow for me. So I pushed pause. Which BTW is hard for me to do. Being a lingering perfectionist and a mother at heart, I want to tend to things and people right away. So that either the thing gets done or the people know I care. But I’m learning it’s okay to not press a matter. Sometimes it’s better to wait. To examine, take it apart see what’s inside. To then put it back together again. Then what is given is even more valuable, it’s interwoven. That is what I’ve done. I’ve processed. I just hope I put together the way that I would really want it to come out.

First here’s Kelleen’s question:
“I just read your blog where you were inviting questions. If this is too personal feel free not to answer. How do you manage getting along with your ex-husband? I feel very indifferent about mine. I honestly don’t think I ever loved him and I don’t waste energy on hate. I just know that I am glad I live in a place that I will never run into him. I really feel I wasted 13 of my good years staying in an unhappy marriage. I do understand that you have kids together and for their sake it is great that you get along. I just don’t feel like I could get to that place.”

Now the answer: Keeleen, I’m more than willing to answer this question. And the delay in my response comes from my having to really step back and think about this one. How to answer it truthfully, and fully. There is no easy, snap answer to this one. I really needed to start from ground zero and build the picture. Where to start? What to say? Take a very detailed answer and do it relatively briefly. To express it to outsiders required me to probe more than I have already myself. Your question forced me to go deep.

So, how is it that Scott and I get along? Well, I’m going to say right off the bat that although we do talk or text nearly daily, and often times repeatedly, about the children, or at times even swapping general information, and I freely go in and out of his house without a hitch throughout the week, we do struggle at times. We still do bicker and at times fight. I can still huff and get totally annoyed as can he. We can, at times, say to one another that we’re looking forward to the day when we don’t have to deal with each other. So it’s not all grins and giggles, ha, ha, don’t we have the best friendship following divorce. What I can say is that we have a lot that does work. We want to improve what doesn’t. We do try to achieve that goal. And there are real results.

That said, I’ll slip into the past, some history is required here, then go on to what works and why I think it does. Before Scott and I married we were friends in high school. Not close as can be friends but we knew each other. We went to the same high school, and then the same church and youth groups. So we had a lot of casual contact. I think familiar would be a good word, from 7th -12th. Then in 12th grade we fell for each other. We dated. We fought and disagreed about a lot then. We could have seen the end from the beginning if we had had been looking. Our marriage was never one of lovey doviness. Just familiar comfortability. There were no real love sparks that flew between us. No hand holding, cuddling, flirting, excited can’t wait to get you bed… However I’ll tell you I loved Scott. Deeply. I wanted for him to love me. But there was never depth coming from him. Not before or after our marriage. Overall we did enjoy being together, like friends. We worked together very well when there was a task that needed tackling, any task no matter how small, and we do until this day. Give us a problem and watch us fuse like we’ve never been divorced. At first the children tried to use it to pit us against each other to overstep one or the other but they soon discovered that overall we bond as two married parents, with their best interest, and they couldn’t and can’t pull that. It also startles and puzzles people–you should be a fly on the wall during parent teacher meetings and so forth, it really throws them, they don’t know how to deal with us. There are times I have to suppress laughing.

When married we were unified on the common cause of having a successful life. This was where Scott was comfortable and since I wanted our marriage to work I fell into line with that, always hoping for more. There wasn’t more, but overall we did have a successful life. Scott went to college and today holds a noteworthy position, and earns an incredible income, and I was a successful happy to be a stay at home mom.

We both pretty much got what we wanted separately from life. But our hearts never fused. Honestly Scott kept me at an arms length, never opened up to me, let me know him. I wanted more. To be shown love. To have it freely expressed. I would cry and get upset. He would matter of factly say he loved me, than add it was just who he was and I needed to except him the way he was. So, over time I did. Mostly. I would have my moments of flaring up. But it didn’t change anything. I would ask myself if it was worth leaving him over being “who he was.” Was that fair? Or right? There were children. There was the thought of being alone. Starting again. Fear because I wasn’t college educated, and a lot of other reasons too in-depth to deal with now. So I stayed. And frankly I dried up as a woman. When we divorced I was hollow inside but somehow my heart continued to beat. It had to, I had my children. I loved them. I knew no one would ever love them like I would or could. So I did all I could to press on to make life beyond divorce work.

I went through a lot of hurt and resentment with Scott the year and 1/2 before the divorce and years after. I blamed him for so much. I thought once as you, that I wasted 23 years of my life with a man who never really loved me. But I don’t think that today. I’ve healed. I went to a LOT of life coaching, teaching, and training to cope and heal. Read a lot of books–see my Shelfari shelf. This was a big part of my healing, it assisted me to see life as it really was, to step outside of my illusion. This system I use for healing works. Without it I dare say I wouldn’t be here typing away. I’d likely be dead. Either for real or in my heart and life. So my system for healing has been a very big factor in keeping me from not having a thing to do with Scott and hating him for never really loving me or expressing it to me more than you would a pretty good friend.

Through my inner healing work I came to see that I was the one that chose that life, I decided to marry him, I was the one excepting less than I wanted, I was the one that put up with what went on, I was the one that kept painting an illusion of what wasn’t there. For the most part Scott expressed and showed what he was willing to give. I was the one deceiving myself. I could have left. I didn’t. And there were plenty of signs pointing my way to the door, many, man times tiny blue lights were lighting the path. So in the echoing childhood words of my father, “You have no one to blame but yourself Theresa.” How true those words are.

Something else . . . Scott and I grew up together, we were 18 when we married. We learned to be adults together. We experienced a lot of learning about life together. He went to college and I worked putting him through, he finished college and we walked away with only a tiny debt, we buried our daughter together, we went through other traumatic deaths of friends, and family, we lived on nothing for years and made it, we lived far from family for 5 years early in our marriage and then for most of the rest, there were accidents, and successes, and a life that we lived together beyond the reaches of our families supporting net and more often than not all we had were each other since we moved a lot. We come from the same hometown, knew many of the same people, thought alike in a lot of ways, even if not in others, and we had 8 children together, well nine counting our daughter that died… And we did share the same priority of putting our children first in many ways. Caring for them. And being successful as I said before. So why do Scott and I get along? I think it’s a lot of reasons:
-I think it’s because after all that I wrote above how could we hate each other?
-I’ve done major healing.
-He’s worked on his healing
-A few times we’ve sat down and talked about what’s going on and where we’re clashing. That helps.
-We’ve had a lot of life lived together where we’ve had to “get through” and I guess in some ways this is the same.
-And it helps that for all those years we really were nothing more than friends. So it makes it easy to continue as we always have, as friends that just happened to have been married for 23 years, and went through a lot.

Today I see that nothing’s a waste. I FINALLY see that the skills I learned as a housewife, stay at home mom have great value and I wasn’t some mindless housekeeper, rather they are serving me today in my business. Skills I wouldn’t have developed otherwise. And I also know now that another reason I didn’t leave was I had things to learn to assist me to grow in ways that wouldn’t have happened elsewhere. And more than anything I have 8 beautiful children that I wouldn’t trade for the world. You know . . . being able to clearly see what I’ve come to see has given me my freedom and peace from resentment, anger, and bitterness. It is what empowers me. Because through this I know that if I could create that disappointing marriage then I can create something of beauty, filled with joy, that brings me life. Of course that is also a choice. One I have to watch and ensure I do and that I don’t fall back into old patterns. Overall however today my choices run along striving to create beauty and joy.

Theresa Jane

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