queer advice #90: ex wife
"We fought over and over, sort of made up, and then kept fighting, but also kept up some cordial interactions as we dealt with unwinding our marriage."
Hi everyone, I’m back with a new queer advice column for your Thursday afternoon. Today’s question is from someone navigating a contentious relationship with their ex-wife. I had a lot to say about this one.
If you’re a queer person and have a question for queer advice, send it my way. If you like this newsletter and open it every time it hits your inbox, you should check out my entire back catalog of advice columns, TV recaps, and diary entries about dogs, food, and more. xoxo, Maddy
Hello Maddy, thank you for doing this. I don't know if I'd have anywhere else to turn otherwise as a traditional therapist would find this whole scenario a bit odd, perhaps, but it is very...queer. I, a bisexual woman, am one year separated/six months divorced from a woman I was with for a little under five years total. I had my first significant gay heartbreak right before I met my now-ex wife, so when I met her, I fell in love and got serious with her pretty quickly. I wanted the whole partnered life. I had just moved to my city and was anxious about getting settled, and my ex was an extremely settled person eight years my senior, with a dog and everything. We moved in together right before the pandemic and we pulled it off well, so we decided, hey let's buy a house and get married! So we did. And after a year, as our joint pandemic lifestyle transformed into a sort of individual pre-pandemic lifestyles for us as separate human beings, I started to notice that we had merged and while she was able to have her life from her settled days before she met me, I was not. I was swimming around my life confusedly and remarkably unsettled. I was essentially trying to start from scratch building some sort of purpose and community for myself in a life outside my marriage. And that's where things got really messy; we started fighting a lot, I got involved with friends who were men, and I tried to keep both them and all my other desires for this new life in a tiny little box outside of my relationship with her and suddenly that box started overflowing. I wanted to keep building a bigger home for myself in that other life, the one she wasn't part of. That was horribly cruel to her. One of my friends developed feelings for me, which I told her, and I started to get feelings for him too, which I did not tell her, and that took on a whole life of its own once she found out. I was emotionally unfaithful to her and halfway out the door, and she resisted hearing that and giving up on our marriage, but I had made up my mind and there was nothing she could've done to convince me otherwise. So I moved out and subsequently filed for divorce.
We fought over and over, sort of made up, and then kept fighting, but also kept up some cordial interactions as we dealt with unwinding our marriage. There have been a few times where she completely unraveled and harassed me relentlessly over text/phone/email, even after our divorce was finalized. She was and still is furious at me for leaving and especially angry that I left her for a man, something she was always afraid of happening. I didn't tell her directly, but she has pretty much inferred that I am with him, and now my life is basically exactly what I want it to be. I feel like I can breathe in a relationship that is not about being settled, but just about living exactly as we want, without rushing through the milestones. I don't hide myself from him. He doesn't reject my bisexuality. He is incredibly relaxed about dealings with my ex.
It's those dealings that I am writing about specifically. She has expressed hating me, and her anger at me, which is completely fair and valid. I hurt her deeply, and I will continue to pay the price for it literally and figuratively for probably the rest of my life. One thing that we keep in touch about, besides the conclusion of some remaining financial ties, is her dog. She had the dog before we met. There was never any doubt he would remain with her. I love the dog, but I am okay with no longer seeing him due to the divorce. However, even though my ex does not like seeing me or dealing with me in any way unless she has to, she still asks me to watch the dog. I live in the same part of town where her office is, which is quite far from where she lives (she still works mostly remotely). When she goes out of town, or into the office and has something going on where she can't take him, she asks me to watch him. And because I love him and in small part out of guilt, I say yes. I feel weird about this. I want to watch him, but I also don't want to have to pretend like I don't have another life and lie to her when I can't watch him because I'm with the guy I'm dating. I have to be incredibly conscious of myself and not saying the wrong thing and hoping not to upset her. I feel like if she really hates me she wouldn't ask me anymore but since she's asking maybe she still wants to keep me in her life somehow. And I don't know how I could genuinely be in her life while I'm with my current partner.
What do I do? Do I tell her no and set a stronger boundary so I can stop worrying about what to say if I have conflicting plans with my partner? Do I hope she eventually stops asking? Do I hope that someday she will accept my partner and we can be friends? Or are we destined to walk on these eggshells for the foreseeable future, or eventually fade to nothing? And, somewhat relatedly, will I ever forgive myself for what I did to her and/or do I deserve to? Thank you for your insight.
cufa, 32
I put my whole pussy into this column, but I’m not a therapist and getting a response from me is nothing like going to therapy.