Go count your wrinkles – Sweat & Sparkle

I love this quote. It’s like it was written just for me and my husband, because this is exactly where we are right now.

Last month, we celebrated our wedding anniversary at a resort on the beach. As we sat together at the outdoor bar one evening, waves crashing in and out nearby, I sipped my drink, watched my husband a moment, and thought how amazingly far we have come.

We have leapt hurdles, climbed mountains, and battled like warriors simply to be together. We found each other in the middle of our own personal thunderstorms, both fresh out of the most toxic relationships of our lives. With each other, we found peace and learned to smile again.

And that was something that certain other people simply could not stand.

I could go on and on for volumes, describing all the assaults and attacks we survived over the years, and you would think I made up at least half of it. Who’s crazy enough–childish enough–to do all that? As soon as my husband’s ex, Psycho, found out that he wasn’t sobbing in a fetal position without her, and had in fact found happiness with someone better, she devoted every moment of her empty life to harassing, haranguing, and badgering us.

Despite her relentless efforts to push us apart, we moved closer to each other. Maybe because of that, actually. We had each other’s backs, supported each other, fought for each other. We navigated our relationship through an endless battlefield, yet we still enjoyed being with each other. That says so much.

We could have given up. We could have said “Enough” and walked away from each other, just to be left alone. I know that is what Psycho wanted and fully expected. If we ended it because we just weren’t right for each other, I could live with that. But I would be damned if we said good-bye because a vindictive cockroach didn’t want us together. Fuck her.

I still feel that way. And I’m glad we chose to focus on us instead of her hissing and slithering. We quickly learned to block her out and make our relationship about just us, no outsiders welcome.

Sitting at that beach bar with my husband, I thought about our many years in a cramped, teeny apartment, dreaming of a house of our own, a garden, a swing in a tree in the front yard. After all the struggles, all the battles, all the scratching and clawing, we deserve to stand at the top of that mountain now, with our arms around each other, proud, loved, happy.

What does Psycho have after 18 years of resentment, bitterness, and hostility? Exactly what she deserves: nothing and no one.

It’s beautifully ironic. My husband and I are still together, closer than ever, waking up in each other’s arms every morning, dreaming up new things to discover and places to explore together…while Psycho, after years of hatefully trying to bulldoze me away from him, is as unwanted as a scrap of trash, hurling herself at every guy that wanders by, desperately pleading for attention. It’s humorous, fitting, and nothing less than what the stringy-haired, horse-faced bitch deserves.

Oh, I’m sure someday she will manipulate some lonely idiot with no other prospects into dating her beyond a sloppy, disappointing one-night stand. And someday, quickly, when she tires of wearing her mask and can’t keep up with pretending to be even a slightly sane and reasonably decent human being, it will crumble like it always does into non-stop arguing, screaming, throwing things, accusing, cheating, and making his life unendurably miserable, which is the only thing at which she excels.

Psycho foolishly fantasizes that she can drive us apart, when she can’t even make herself like her. (Get real, her own mother didn’t like her.) She wouldn’t lie about herself so incessantly if she is proud of what she sees in the mirror.

Well, when her reflection is a worthless sow who has never stood on her own two feet; who has never independently provided the kids with anything; whose only accomplishment is collecting a plentiful array of mug shots, arrests, and felonies; who exploits and uses the children for her own selfish gratification; who goes home every day to a trailer as trashy, used up, and beggarly as she is, like a scavenging rat returning to its slovenly hole…well, then living a perpetual lie is actually an understandable alternative to facing her truth.

Ultimately, Psycho will never have what my husband and I have. When she isn’t lying to herself, she knows that is why she is obsessed with us and the reason she attacks us. If she can’t have it, why should we?

Because we work for it. We deserve it. We fight for it. We found it with each other when we least expected it, took a chance on it, and we treasure it, protect it, and hold onto it for dear life. And now, we intend, with every beat of our hearts, to enjoy each cherished moment of what we have built together to its absolute and triumphant fullest.

Don’t worry, Psycho. You can still watch jealously from the sidelines when you oh-so-sneakily use the kids’ Facebook accounts to stalk us and make yourself even more bitter by gorging on our happiness. What else are you possibly going to do while you rot in your shitty shack, spin more lies, steal more shit, creep your exes on social media, sprout more wrinkles, and futilely, frantically, and pathetically wish you were anyone but you?

There are less than two months left of this school year. After helping my husband raise four kids for so long, it seems unreal that monitoring grades, asking about missed assignments, emailing teachers, and following school calendars are rapidly drawing to a close.

My youngest stepchild is a senior this year. The kids have always been my husband’s ex-wife’s built-in mechanism for forcing contact with him, and she seems to be acutely aware that the sun is setting on her long-trusted gimmick.

Recently, out of the blue, my husband was invited to dinner with my youngest stepchild, and oddly, with Psycho. Mind you, for 17 years, Psycho has made a career out of militantly withholding information from my husband, coercing the kids to lie to him and hide things from him, requiring an act of Congress for the kids to spend any time with him, and badmouthing us like she gets paid for each ridiculous, jealous rumor she concocts, yet now we are to believe she has spontaneously sprouted basic thoughtfulness and manners…yeah, nope.

Could it be any more obvious? Her days of extorting contact by using the kids are dwindling, and she is desperately flinging out anything she can to beg for scraps of attention before that window slams shut.

I know my husband. He will go, to be with his daughter. He will joke around, put everyone at ease, make everyone laugh, include everyone, so no one feels left out.

And I know Psycho. If he smiles, laughs, or casts even one casual comment in her general direction, she will greedily lap it up like a stray dog slobbering over wayward crumbs. Her narcissistic delusions will ratchet up to full blast, convincing herself of covert meaning where there is none.

My husband is nice to everyone. But after being disappointed and disgusted by Psycho for so long, he interacts with her much the same way he does a stranger in a store or someone randomly passing by on the sidewalk: generic politeness. That is all she warrants (and more than she deserves), by her own choices and actions.

As the final day of the school year approaches, I anticipate there will be even more of these calculated and hopeful invitations, strategically presented as can’t-miss father-daughter moments, with Psycho just coincidentally and inexplicably tagging along, tail and tongue wagging with eager delight. She knows my husband will do anything for his kids, and she will shamelessly milk that dry to her own advantage.

My youngest stepdaughter was quite little when I first met my husband. Here she is, ready to graduate high school, and Psycho obstinately, absolutely refuses to move on and get a life.

The fact is, I realized, Psycho can’t move on. All these years later, and she has nothing to show for it but a string of annihilated relationships, a ratty borrowed trailer, even more desiccated furrows in her moth-eaten leather-flesh, and a pitiable existence, clinging to the kids’ achievements for attention because she doesn’t have any accomplishments of her own. Every breathing creature in the tri-state area is comically aware of her pestiferous reputation, her classlessness, and her attention-whoring instability, so she needs airfare and chloroform to rustle up any semblance of a viable dating pool. Where can she possibly sink from there, besides the grave or an asylum?

I can’t fault her for clinging to my husband, actually. He loves his children and is a tremendous father. He’s an adoring husband. For all of our many and indisputable differences, this is one thing that Psycho, despite herself, and I apparently agree upon: my husband is a damn good guy.

I suppose I can charitably spare a dinner or two. Let Psycho pretend what she pleases. I can graciously indulge her puerile games and adolescent fantasies. It’s sad that she still uses the kids this way, but let’s get real, she was never in danger of being mistaken for even a passably decent mother, and this is obviously the only way she can con anyone into passing time with her. Maybe she can manage to corral her crazy just enough for my husband and stepdaughter to at least enjoy some time together. While Psycho’s ego, delusions, and selfishness leave no room for consideration of anyone else, least of all the kids, my husband never forgets what truly matters. Can I blame her, then, for desperately–yet so futilely–missing him?