Timeline I, Part I: The Last Straw

(Email and comment response has been pretty encouraging!  I love you all!)

No marriage is perfect.  I don't think that's a revelation to anyone.  I never expected mine to be perfect, but I expected it to be forever.  We never had screaming matches or worse, but on a couple of occasions I had to walk away to cool off.  Any time I considered ending it, I thought that the possibility of not seeing my boys every day was worse than anything else I had to endure.  Plus, the issues were mostly ephemeral.

One issue that was not was the way I was considered.  My opinions or ideas had one thing in common: they were wrong and therefore ignored.

In the fall of 2011, my wife decided that the basement should be redone into a separate apartment or office or place where my mother could move or something.  Fourteen years earlier, when I moved my office down to the basement from what would then be my youngest son's room, I said I wasn't going to move again.

She decided I would move again, perhaps up to the dining room.  At the same time, she reminded me on multiple occasions that I had said I wouldn't move again.  I think it was a kind of "see?  You were wrong."  That would match her usual attitude.

I was adamant and I was completely ignored.  She made plans, had my oldest (who is pretty good at this sort of thing) design the new living area, and so on.  She moved forward, asserting I would move and ignoring my objections.

At the time, I was making regular trips to Sierra Vista for work.  On one trip in September I decided that I was through being ignored and if she told me once more I was moving out of the basement I was moving out of the house.  No discussion; I'd just go.

My oldest had just started college.  Although he was local, he was living on campus and I was getting used to the idea of not seeing my boys every day.  I didn't like it, but it was bearable compared to what had now become the norm.

For some unknown reason, after I returned she didn't mention my moving out again.

I'm guessing it wasn't time (see yesterday's post for my ideas on time).

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