Catch Up

Wow.. time just flies and I haven't been posting.

First things first. If I hadn't been there for the actual birth, I wouldn't believe that Audrey is my child. She doesn't like chocolate milk!! I am completely boggled. We went out to eat and got her some chocolate milk, just to try it out. She started drinking, stopped, looked confused and let it all dribble out of her mouth onto her bib.. thank heaven for bibs! She must have got her chocolate aversion from her dad.... and here I am with a can of Almond Roca and Ghirardelli White Chocolate at my fingertips... sigh.

My Rant: What is all this I keep hearing about people "Compartmentalizing" their lives?? The line usually goes something like this: "Well, you see, he/she is compartmentalizing his/her life so that it's more manageable and that's why he/she is behaving that way." It sounded a little shady to me... but wait, here is the back story, with the names changed to protect the losers involved.

John and Mary have been married for many years. They have 5 children (all young enough to still be at home) and seem to be relatively happy (at least in public). Don't get me wrong, they have had their problems like all married couples do. Fights, comfort spending & eating, etc... But, overall, they seem to be trying to have a good marriage and raise their kids right. I, personally, look up to them as examples of good, moral people who have something to teach to others by way of example and experience.
An unfortunate conversation with Mary reveals that John a few years prior participated in an indiscression with a female coworker, but that he confessed to Mary and they have been working it out (with the assistance of some councelling). The result was the birth of their 5th child and everything seemed to be hunky-dory again. I mean, would you have a child with someone you don't want a relationship with, really? (Maybe I'm just naive.)

Anyway, when everything blows up, a bunch of us are having a party. We're all having a good time and waiting for everyone to show up. Mary and the kids are already there and waiting for John to get off work to join us. We're starting to get worried because it should only take about an hour to drive and it's been several hours.. we're just about to send out a search party, when he finally shows up. At this point, the story gets fuzzy for me because I was in the back yard and got the story second hand. Apparently John says that he is late because he was at his girlfriends house... at his girlfriends house!! So, things just go downhill from there and I won't get into any of the gory details, but everyone is shocked and Mary is especially distraught.

This all happened several years ago, so the usual stuff has already happened, divorce, yelling, shouting, awful things being said about both sides of the marriage. Mary decides to move to another state that is significantly far away and John says he thinks that is a good idea. (Several of us disagreed, but we weren't able to comment as it's really none of our business after all.)
Through the years, John has made a rather feeble effort to visit his children, saying that it is difficult to get the time off work and drive up there (flying doesn't seem to be an option for some strange reason). He also says that calling is difficult because Mary keeps moving and doesn't give him the new numbers/addresses. (To our knowledge, she has only moved once and there are several people who she notified of the change.)

All the while, John is living with his girlfriend who, incidentally, is the female coworker from several years ago. She has a little girl, who I feel awful for because she really is an innocent in all of this drama.
Anyway, so for the past few years, anyone who knows anything about all this is trying to ignore it and John has been pretty successful in avoiding everyone. So, my feelings on all the goings on are still pretty raw since I haven't had a chance to deal with it all.
Come to find out, John and "the other woman" got married in Vegas last weekend. Thank heaven I wasn't there, I would have had some choice words.. small miracles.
The whole thing just disgusts me. Okay, so if you don't love your spouse anymore, be honest about it and go about it the right way. Sneaking around behind their back, and then letting it slip at some point.. just horrible.

AAAAANYWAY.. the whole compartmentalizing thing. I was talking with John's mother about how weird it was that John wasn't making much of an effort to deal with the issues in his life: seeing his kids, etc. She said that he was "compartmentalizing" his life. She said that he puts things into little boxes so that they become more manageable. The idea, she said, is to deal with each item separately from the others. It sounded kindof hokey to me, so I got an unbiased opinion. My mother, who knows nothing about the situation at all.

She said that people like to put "cute" names on their bad behavior to legitimize themselves. She also said that he is trying to get others to buy into his delusions and that his mother is rationalizing for him or that she feels guilty. Ben said something of the sort when we were talking about it. He said that this mother doesn't want any of her children's behavior to reflect badly on her, so she excuses it the best she can. She doesn't want to take responsibility for the possibility that her parenting may have had an effect on this man's ability to deal with problems or responsibility.

I think what makes me angry the most is that I really looked up to this man and went to him for advice, especially as a new wife and possible mother. And now, I have to look back at everything he ever told me and analyze it to see if his skewed moral outlook tainted it in anyway. It makes me angry that I trusted him. Sorry, this is a super long post, but I do feel better for venting it out.. I'll be on happier topics next time.