As I stated in my last update, my ex made one impromptu connection only to disappear again entirely. We went months without hearing from her. Even her parents hadn’t had any contact with her. It became so alarming for them that they filed a missing persons report with the local police department. Then they reached out to me to see if I could hire a private detective to find her. The PI found her on the East Coast and for her parents sake, asked that she be “checked up on” every two weeks to make sure she was ok.
Then about 6 months ago she disappeared again and wound up on our door step. She asked if we could all have dinner and catch-up. Just like that.
We met the next day and she was incredibly lucid and forthright about her last year. She moved away from everything and everybody to NC. She took an office job, had an apartment, went to night school and took counselling. We were dumbfounded, these are all the things she has never done on her own.
This is the way it started. She started coming by to “catch-up”, infrequently at first, never overstaying her welcome, always returning home to her apartment. The visits became more frequent and longer. I think I was cognizant of the turn in events, to some degree, but my daughter was reveling in the contact. I would come home and dinner was done, my daughter’s homework was done (not that she needed help but her mother was taking an active role). Slowly, I began to notice the longer gazes, the “accidental contact” and lengthy stays.
One night my daughter and I are having movie night and she starts mentioning how much my Ex has changed, how responsible she is now, how she is doing all the right things and how nice it is to have her around. I know what’s coming. She asks if I have forgiven her; she asks if I could ever see myself getting back together with her, so we could be a family again. I couldn’t tell if this was being coached or if it was a genuine perspective.
I explained that although I had forgiven her mother for what she did, that forgiveness and repentance are sisters, and repentance for what we went through has never given to us.
I could see the wheels turning in my daughters head and told her that her match making services wouldn’t be required. I explained that there was no scenario where we went beyond the relationship we now had.
I pretended that the conversation never happened and continued to monitor the situation but fully aware that my Ex could be manipulating the interactions. I came home late one night, to my Ex alone in my house. It turns out a sleep over at a friends house had been arranged, and my Ex dressed to kill (all of my favorite dress items) and an intimate dinner planned. Honestly, it was hard to remember that this was a plan. I explained that I appreciate the attempt but any romantic notions I had for her died long ago. She wasn’t going to let a little “No” dissuade her, so he upped her game a bit, until I got more forceful.
Her response? I can’t believe I wasted a year on this! She didn’t mean to say it out loud but she realized she did say it and that I heard it. The look of bewilderment locked on my face while I said, all this, the move, the night school, the disappearing act was all that, just an act? An act to get me back in some sort of romantic relationship? Never mind, I don’t want to know, just don’t fuck up the progress you made with your daughter.
She stopped coming around for about a week, the next time she showed up some guy showed up just after her and asked me if my name was YHGTBKM? It turns out I have been served. She is suing me for mental cruelty, and a few other things pertaining to the way I “tossed her out without giving her what she was due”.
Again it all comes down to money for her and here I entertained the slimmest of chances that she had actually changed.
