It's amazing how little things have changed in the last several months.

I've progressively gotten used to being a single dad. J will argue that I'm not and that she's merely spending less time at the house, but she comes once a week and she largely sees G for about 6 hours. She phones for story time most mornings. Helps pick up around the house.

But no. I am distinctly and completely alone in being the primary caretaker.

By "used to" I emphasize that. In something after cognitive dissonance, I've come to be alright with looking after G and his upbringing, trying not to be as quick-tempered or authoritarian, and enjoy his company--even when he rattles on about Transformers, Mario and Luigi, and a lot of the same stuff I did when I was his age. Things have gotten streamlined. Smoother. Not easier...but more predictable.

Minor depression is a constant handmaiden. I am cold, pained, and embittered by my loneliness, at the sheer quiet of everyone who knows my situation. I am silently screaming until I can bite back the tears, then I measure out something more constructively complaining or in need of succor.

Admitting that death would sometimes be welcome compared to this would just invite scandal.

Things are the same with Katherine. She indicates she doesn't believe in primaries or secondaries, swears I'm the former, and that I'm her primary focus.

G and I visit Omaha more weeks than not in a typical month. He watches K, the eldest as an 8 year old, play games or watch videos. They roughhouse often and blame each other for it, frequently getting hurt and crying. G and Z roughhouse some, but Z is a delicate girl who is also utterly pigheaded, stubborn, not terribly bright, and has OCD. The youngest, also a G, is on the one hand very cute and thoughtful, but also is utterly co-dependent and constantly demands his mother's attention. Come to think of it, all of them are co-dependent to varying degrees. They get it from their mom, I think.

Which is ironic.

It is ironic because, were it not for sharing 3 children with her husband, M, and she indicates that "almost certainly" she would have changed her mind and moved to be with me, I rarely hear anything meaningful from her when I'm not physically near. Oh, FB messages are sent now and again, and short conversations are had, but there is rarely any sort of longing or need or pressing affection. It's largely when she's horny (or "hungry" as she euphemizes it). Which is frequently.

No, the codependency is focused on remaining with the same guy she's been with for 17 years, despite it in her words not being good for her emotional well-being. So I am a dick in a glass case, "the best she's ever had," meant to be pulled out and played with when she has some unfulfilled lack, where by comparison her husband is atrocious in bed, apparently. Quite literally someone to have around in case her marriage finally falls apart. Not because of her decision. No, that will never happen unless physical abuse is involved. No, because he chooses to end it--which gets threatened more often than one might think.

I have been down this road so many times I could close my eyes and still know the chip in the lower cobbled wall, just before the gravestones and wrought iron fence. Why do I bother, you ask? Isn't this Julia all over again? Or Erin, if perhaps much more sweet? Or Hill, though I intentionally never went down that dark sepulcher of winsome maladroit pain?

Katherine is a good woman. She's a good mom, though she is too soft on her children (and I'm too hard on mine). She's intelligent and charismatic. She's kind. She's also absent-minded and stupendously thoughtless about anything not immediately in front of her. In other words, she's human. She also wants another child.

And that is my primary goal: a daughter for me, a sibling for G. I could give or take the mother part. I certainly don't believe anymore in life partners, and barely in the concept of marriage past insurance and taxes.

It's not ideal. Frankly, the idea of dealing with her 3 codependent, attention-whoring children makes me cringe sometimes. But I would do it. If she got off her ass, finally admitted to herself that her marriage is a sham and the present circumstances don't do any of us any favors, then maybe things could proceed.

But for as much as she likes to talk about "tying things up," I don't buy it. Not for a second. Her moods and thoughts wax and wane with her cycle, and she certainly doesn't seem any closer to wanting to change things.

So lately I've gone back to dating locally. That has been alright, I suppose. After a few false starts, I met Non-Profit Girl (NPG). We met on OKC, went to a delightful play (Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder), and have so far established a pleasant if shallow relationship mostly based on watching Penny Dreadful, having pretty decent sex, and light texting. I feel bad because I really don't feel much for her at this point. I'd like to. She's sweet, thoughtful, texts about as often as I wish Katherine did, but is a bit too cloying for me. Too nice.

I like women with a little bit of horrible in them. I'll keep trying, but Central Iowa is not the greatest spot for an alternative minded single dad to find great prospects.

There's work stuff too, but that's less important right now.

previous - next