Happenings.

I’ve been spending every spare minute I can packing up my stuff and cleaning, preparing for the big move on Saturday. I’m almost finished, just have the last minute stuff that I will still need throughout the week. I am not looking forward to moving during the Phoenix summer heat, but it is what it is. I would rather endure that than one more minute trapped in a house with this man.

He seems pretty determined to move out of state with his new girlfriend. Yesterday, he was texting me, telling me to look out for certain items in our storage unit on Saturday and to please save them for him. Then he was telling me how where he’s moving they will have the woods right in the backyard and might get tornadoes. Good for you, buddy. I absolutely do not care. He’s just bragging, trying to tell me in a passive aggressive way that he’s finally getting what he wanted; out of Arizona, living in the forest, being in the great outdoors. I.Do.Not.Care. I didn’t even bother to respond to any of those messages.

He has already gone back on his word regarding vehicles. We have two cars and a side by side. One car is completely paid off, the other car and side by side are still financed. Of course, he wants the vehicle that’s paid off and he wants to keep the side by side and I can have the car that still has a loan on it. The vehicle he wants me to keep just happens to have expired registration and needs to be emissions tested. The registration has been expired since May. He has purposely not renewed it because he didn’t want me driving anywhere. I told him I would take over the loan, but he needs to take care of the emissions and registration. He said he would. Now, he says he can’t afford it, all because I forgot about something that was on auto pay from Amazon out of our joint account that he insists I remove my name from. It was a whopping $13, by the way.  This vehicle also needs an oil change and will eventually need the timing belt replaced. So, we made a new arrangement, he gets a temporary tag for the vehicle and takes care of the oil change and then I will handle emissions/registration when I can. He agreed, but still has done neither of those things and expects me to take the vehicle when I move on Saturday. The other problem, though, is that both vehicles are registered in his name only, and my credit is absolute shit right now so there’s no chance of switching the loan to my name, and even if I could qualify, the interest rate would sky rocket. I’m fine taking over the loan, the payment is pretty low, but if he gets some wild hair up his ass (which he is known for), he can simply report the vehicle stolen and then I will be fucked. It doesn’t matter if it’s considered community property by a judge. To the police, whomever the vehicle is registered to is who owns it. He has threatened to report me to the police before. Of course, when I asked him how can I trust that he won’t do that again, his answer was, “Of course you would think I’m that petty.” Well, history has taught me, dude. So, since I work from home and rarely leave the house, and my sister said I will be able to use her car whenever I need to, I’m half tempted to just leave the car and he can deal with it. I work from home, so I don’t need to worry about a commute. But…I’ve gone years without a car before and it absolutely sucked. The car is almost paid off…I just don’t know what to do at this point. If he would just get a notarized letter saying he gives me permission to drive the vehicle and will transfer the title to me immediately after it’s paid off, I would feel better.

Typing out that paragraph made me feel stressed and now I’m itchy all over.

He’s basically told me I can take whatever I want from the house and our storage unit, with a few exceptions. I know that’s only because that means he will have less to deal with when he moves. Still making his life convenient even in divorce.

I’m sure nobody wants to hear me complain about this.

I am really looking forward to moving. I’m looking forward to having my own safe space, being able to decorate exactly how I want, my space staying clean (he never cleans up after himself), not having the stress of what mood he will be in when he gets home from work. I’m so looking forward to peace. I’m moving in with my sister and her two kids, they are 14 and 16. They’re great kids, they do chores, get good grades, and they are looking forward to me moving in. My niece is giving up her bedroom for me and she’s excited to help me decorate. I bought myself a new bed, one that he would absolutely despise and I’ll be getting new bedding when I get paid again. I can’t wait to have my little gothic library full of plants, haha.

I don’t know what I would do in this situation without my family. They are my saving grace and I am so lucky to have their support, especially my sister. She is really pulling through for me.

Oh, here’s a story. November of 2023, we knew we would  have to move. We lost a roommate, our rent was going up by over $400, and my brother who lived with us at the time was behind on rent. We made plans to move in with my friend (where we are now) in December of that year. We gave my brother his 30 days notice to vacate and he was extremely upset. We overheard him on the phone (caught on Ring camera) saying he would break in and cause tons of damage to the house. I know that he was just talking shit, but husband didn’t appreciate it. So, while I was working from home the next day, husband leaves the house for a while, doesn’t tell me what he’s up to. Comes home a few hours later, shows me the court paperwork he had just filed and to be ready because the sheriff was coming to serve my brother with a restraining order and they would force him to evict the property. I was not happy, my brother was devastated…he had absolutely nowhere to go. The look he gave me, ugh…it kills me. He just started sobbing and asked me, “Is this really fucking happening right now? You’re serious?” and there was nothing I could do. I would have never done that to my brother. And after he left, all I ever heard was what a piece of shit my brother is, how he totally fucked us over, how that’s all my family ever does to him…they all just use him. And I was so ashamed I let him get away with that that I didn’t speak to my brother up until last week. I texted him and I told him how sorry I was for that situation and apologized for being a terrible sister and not sticking up for him. He forgave me immediately and he is happy to hear I’ve finally grown a backbone. If I had ever done anything like that to his brother? Oh, it would have been the end of the world. I couldn’t even say anything when his brother was selling drugs out of our house. I was told to shut up and mind my own business.

Jesus, the more stuff I remember, the more I wonder how fucked in the head am I?

I was talking to my mom on the phone the other day, in the middle of a breakdown, asking her if I was making the right decision. She told me to shut up and reminded me when I was working somewhere years ago and how he wouldn’t even let me buy myself lunch, he wouldn’t give me a ride to work on his day off, or wouldn’t pick me up on his way home. I had to take the city bus. Just so many things like that you think I would have realized, “Huh, this isn’t love…” Every “favor” he ever did was so he gained something in return. Nothing was ever done out of the kindness of his heart. Even now he tells me things like “You would have never gotten to see Montana and Wyoming if it weren’t for me.” We’ve gone on a vacation to those states a few times because his mom and brother live in Montana. I like to take landscape and wildlife photos as a hobby, and even that he will say “You would have never gotten into that if it weren’t for me. I took you to those places, I bought you that camera, I did this, I did that…” It’s exhausting.

I may not know what love is, but I sure do know what love isn’t.