He Introduced Himself to the Neighbor as My Husband

Everyone says “We.” I’m the only one still wondering what that means.

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I let him talk.

And observed him, behind the words he said. Trying to match the surface with the depth, and see if I could read him right –this time.

We went for a walk and ice cream the other night, all together, like the kids wanted to. And we’re planning to go to the movies all together, too. “Can we go watch the Odyssey all together?” they asked.

We.

Who’s we?

“We”, the family. Not “we”, the me and him. It can work. But I can’t make it work on my own.

It needs two to work. I know I can be the one, but I don’t know if he truly wants to be the other one. He shows up like he wants to.

During the five years after the divorce, they asked a few times to do something together. It couldn’t happen.

The major reason was not to send them mixed signals. We might have gotten along decently okay all together back then, but the kids were too small, and it was a risk of confusing them.

On the other hand, the four of us never lived together for comparison, so I’m not sure what exactly they would miss or confuse. I still didn’t want to take the chance.

Because when something happened a couple of years ago, and he broke up with his girlfriend, he started showing up again.

He called more often.

He visited twice a week to take the kids to the playground.

He asked me to stay and have a coffee with him while they played. I didn’t.

This lasted for two months. And when they got back together, he became the every-other-weekend dad again, showing up late, bringing them back late, and unfed.

I know it’s hard to move on with someone else when you are tied back to a family you created. It would need an enormous level of maturity that most people lack or don’t want to invest in. So you have to make sacrifices. He chose what to sacrifice.

My mom had said, “At least he didn’t vanish completely; most of them do”, and it didn’t make me feel any better, but note taken.

We ordered our ice creams and the kids left to skate around and explore, and he started talking.

He talks too much. He always fills all gaps, all silence, with such ease. There will never be an awkward moment because he will never give it enough time.

It’s contagious. People love being around him and “he has friends in the whole country”, the kids say. Everywhere they go, he finds a friend.

I used to follow along and jump from one topic to the other, right after each felt covered –by his judgment. In the end it felt okay, but mostly hollow.

Now I didn’t follow along. Because I spent years feeling everything. The hurt, the hope, the anger, the weight of waiting for him to show up differently, to show up as he should.

And now, in this new place, under better conditions, he is showing up differently. And I understand I feel relieved and hopeful, but I also feel careful.

Too careful.

Like someone who has learned, at great cost, the difference between a man changed and a man changing right now. And I don’t know yet which this is.

I noticed that since I didn’t rush to fill the gaps when he exhausted a topic as he is used to doing and always works with others, he now had to fill them himself.

The conversation went back to his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. He explained why and how things ended between them, even though I never asked. I didn’t have to know. I didn’t need to. It didn’t matter.

What mattered then was that he got a girlfriend and his focus was taken away from me, which made my life easier.

He stopped threatening that he would take the kids from me; he stopped trying to make me feel incapable of taking care of them; he stopped begging for another chance to make things right. It was completely pointless to remind him that I begged him for a decade to meet me somewhere. That there would come a day that no matter what he did, it would be too late.

He could transform to any woman’s dream husband. He could show up with millions. He could become attentive, caring, responsible.

It wouldn’t matter.

And as much as it hurt to see him struggle and cry and promise, as much as I witnessed his awkward tries to fix something, anything, I felt nothing for him.

I was more afraid of the time when I would feel nothing, than the end of the marriage itself. Because I knew that meant there would never be a turning point, ever again. That nothing could be fixed, even if possible. That even if by a miracle he changed, I’d still leave him.

He moved in with her the same day, so.

Miserable and sad was the state I lived for years. Now I feel good, most of the time great, with rare and short relapses of sadness, or guilt, or anxiety, or insecurity, and I don’t know how to use this new state of being yet.

I’ve been spending most days unpacking, staring at the walls and imagining decorations, skating around the house, making the kids laugh and enjoying my own pampering: sleeping a lot, eating a lot, smiling a lot and watching 80s and 90s movies.

Their father shows up more often. And more honest. And I don’t know how to use that either.

One part of me feels happy about it. He has helped a lot with moving and unloading the truck, assembled the few furniture pieces we've gotten so far, secured all the heavy stuff on the walls, and calls every day to ask if we need anything.

He also paid all child support he owed for the last three months and promised it was a temporary struggle, that things are getting better for him.

I want to believe.

The other part of me reminds me that I tend to trust and believe and take other people’s word too seriously, too easily.

But the other way around would be not to trust anyone ever at all, and this costs. If I want to avoid all hurt, I would have to shut down completely.

I don’t really want to shut down.

That would take away from me more valuable things than pain. It would take the love I have for my kids, at least a part of it. It would take my noticing the little things that make me happy, like the early-morning birdsong, the weirdly shaped clouds, the calmness of the sea, and a dry, veined maple leaf the wind brought in front of my shoes.

I would stop noticing. I don’t want to lose that.

Our neighbor across the street parks his scooter in front of our entrance. “The house had been empty for months, and it’s the only shaded spot”, he said. He moved it when he saw us unloading the truck. Their father introduced himself to our neighbor as my husband.

“No need to spark gossip; we don’t know anyone yet.”

We.

Who’s we?

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