Another update!

Well, I am probably blogging into the wind, but I got bored at work and decided to check in. And again, I remember some of you (CD posters) fondly. And some of my posts still get reps, so *shrug*...I dunno! Maybe somebody will read this, maybe not.

But here goes!

So let's see, last April, I was doing poly with the quad plus one other boyfriend, and I had moved into the apartment with my younger son and my cat. Life was looking grand!

Well, sometime in late May, for reasons utterly unknown to me, I started to get the big feelings for my Sadist, the one guy I was just dating by myself. He lives close to my home and work, we could see one another easily, and he more frequently came to visit my apartment, and he just started feeling like not only part of my life, but a part I did not want to live without.

I post and blog in another site now, and I refer to him as "Zen" there, short for "Zen Sadist." We do BDSM stuff, met through the scene here, he is not my Dom or Master, but it's...well, it's stuff we enjoy and do. So I fell in love with him bigtime.

And at the same time, I was living further away from my "quad" and seeing one of them less often due to some of his life stuff and the other two, the married couple I was involved with, still every weekend... but it started to feel like I was going on vacation every weekend. Like, my Zen felt like part of my life, but those other relationships felt like I was a tourist in their lives. At some point, I got stressed because I didn't feel like I was really living up to the title of "girlfriend" in their lives, like I was stretched too thin, trying to do too much, and in danger of dropping all of the things I was juggling. So in July, I guess I "broke up" with the quad. I felt like we'd been drifting more towards friendship anyhow, sex with any of them was infrequent, so I didn't see why we couldn't call it more or less what it looked like from where I stood...but I may have underestimated the emotional connections that they had to me. They processed it as a breakup, the two men in particular I think were hurt, which I didn't really mean or want to happen...but it all went by with, what I'd say was minimal drama.

So then it was just me and my older man, my Zen Sadist, who is my father's age, but feels like a kindred spirit. I did not used to really believe in soul mates or happily ever after...but I never have had anything like this. We agreed to exclusivity, and I went back to being monogamous. He didn't want to ask or demand such of me, but I asked him pointedly what would make him more comfortable, and being my only man was his preference, so I decided it wasn't too much to ask and I agreed.

And so, since July, it's been just me and him.

We have been a relationship since November of 2015, and are planning to move in together next summer.

My younger son is doing so much better in the apartment with me now. He's got friends, he's happy. The cat is still an adorable villain.

As for my older son that I left living with my mentally unstable ex husband...well, he's doing pretty well, too. He's been spending a lot of time with a family who have been "close like blood" family-friends of ours for quite a while, and he did really well in his most recent semester of school, and he's on track to graduate. He is applying today for a welding trade school, which would really fit well with his skills and interests. This school would require that he move out of state, and frankly I think that'd be a great idea. Go forth, young man, and make your way! I'm very proud of him.

My ex, meanwhile... Our divorce was final in late October, and his plan is now to pretty much default on every single term he agreed to in the court docs. I stuck around in that damn house, putting up with all the crazy and using my credit to support the household, until he could get a job and pay for the house he demanded to keep. Now, he's failed to refi my name off the mortgage as court ordered to do, and is behind on payments, and says he's just going to abandon the property and let it go to foreclosure. I'm thinking bankruptcy is probably my only recourse to save myself from liability on this whole train wreck. There WAS a woman he moved here from Tennessee with her family and animals...they left right around the same time I did, in spring of this year. Haven't heard hardly a peep from her. But the ex reconnected with an old flame right before we broke up, and even though THAT woman is in a long term committed relationship (20 years) he plans to go live in her house, in the hopes her relationship will break up and she'll be his woman, or maybe he can intimidate or harass the boyfriend into a fight and win the woman or whatever. He is basically still a mess.

I went back and read the thread that I wrote that was more like blogging, that got me finally fed up enough to leave this site, and noticed one person at least questioning why I still cared about what became of my ex. I was not fed up enough or something. All I can say is that I am a very kind and very patient human being, I'm a caregiver by nature, he was a mentally ill family member, and I'd just spent half of my life with the man and we had two kids together. I was with him age 18 to 36. I grew up with him for godssakes. We were not some screaming, shrieking, throwing things, hating each other people. I still don't hate him. I still love him, in a way. Like family. I still care. I don't think that will ever change. If he defaults on all of his agreements and I have to go to court to get support on his kids, I won't hate him, and I'll still care. I wouldn't go back to him if you offered me a million dollars, or held a gun to my head, but I do still care.

I never stopped caring. I never stopped loving.

And that has a lot more to do with who I am, than with codependency or victimhood or...whatever. And just the fact that we went through a lot together. I hated to give up on him. I wanted to help him and I tried, but it just didn't work. Do I wish I'd pulled the plug sooner and left sooner? Oh, yeah. I had no way of knowing that my attempt to wait until circumstances lined up would just make my financial situation a lot worse (debt) and wouldn't save the house in the long run. But I felt like I had to do what I could, so...I tried.

Anyhow, all's well that ends well, eh? And while things have not ended up well for my ex, he has only himself to blame for any of that, and it's not my problem. I'm happy as can be. My life is looking great.

I still go back down to his house occasionally. My older son is there, my younger son visits his dad and brother sometimes, and I will take food down, because my ex isn't good at keeping the house properly stocked and I want my kid to eat. But I don't mind giving a bit of aid to the ex either, if it's a container of leftovers and an hour of my time listening to his problems. But I don't give enough of myself to cause me harm anymore. The financial stuff is upsetting, but hey...drop the bomb. Bankruptcy, foreclosure...then there won't be any further harm he can do. He no longer makes any violent threats. His attitude and behavior has been...almost reasonable. Sad. Depressive. And determined to wallow in it. But not violent or scary anymore.

So yeah. That's where everything stands, just in case anybody was curious. Nowhere near as dramatic as it all was a year ago.