Heal me Today

This post leans a bit heavier than usual, but I feel the need to share it. Over the summer, this situation brought me moments of sadness, anger, and deep disillusionment. More than anything, it was a painful reminder of just how different my ex-husband and I are—and how differently we felt about each other.

I try my best to believe he isn’t a bad person. I tell myself that he simply didn’t know how to love me the way I needed and deserved to be loved. Sure, I could spend my days bad-mouthing him to anyone who would listen, but that’s just not who I am. Even though our divorce still stirs up anger and disappointment, I refuse to feed into hatred. If he chooses to talk about me, that’s on him.

So, here’s the core of what’s been weighing on me: my ex-husband bought a house with his new family in the very next village. It’s literally a three-and-a-half-minute drive from my front door.

This was the one thing I begged him not to do, yet he went ahead and did it anyway. When he broke the news and saw my dismay, he immediately flooded the conversation with excuses—asking where else they were supposed to buy a house, and so on. Honestly, I didn’t care where, as long as it was a comfortable distance from me.

Only after about five minutes of empty excuses did he bring up the one good point: that he’d be closer to our daughter. But let’s be honest—any reasonable person knows that if that were his primary reason, it would have been the first thing he said, not the fifteenth. Deep down, I know that wasn’t his real motivation.

I don’t know what he’s trying to accomplish or what he expects from this, but it hurt. Every time I think about it, my stomach turns into a knot.

Yes, he has every right to live wherever he wants. But I find the whole situation so strange—even from his new partner’s perspective. If I were in her shoes, I would never agree to move right next door to an ex-wife, let alone go on vacation to the exact same spots, eat at the same restaurants, and retrace all the steps of a former family. Yet that’s exactly what’s happening. I honestly don’t understand either of them.

At any rate, I just needed to vent a little about the unresolved dynamics that keep resurfacing, even after the divorce is finalized. I hope I won’t run into them often—ideally, not at all.

The only true silver lining in all of this is that my daughter is thrilled to have her dad so close by. And for that, from the bottom of my heart, I am genuinely happy for her.