Back and forth we go

It's late, so I don't think this will be a long post. We just got done watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I am trying to watch a Christmas themed movie every night with Tyler from the start of his break through Christmas. But since he was determined to watch The Simpsons and Family Guy tonight, we got a late start.

But I did want to blog tonight because something has been happening lately that has been bothering me. I shouldn't say it that way, but I don't know any other way to say it.

Tyler has been talking about the ex, a LOT lately. Almost constantly. At first, I thought it was random and didn't put any stock into it. But now, it's almost bordering on obsession. I was thinking about it the other night, trying to figure out where it's coming from, and I think it's because it's now been almost a month since Tyler has been to his dad's to visit or stay. I think, the more time that passes and the further Tyler drifts from his dad, and the more separation there is between them, the more he is thinking about and missing my ex.

All of a sudden, he is overly interested in his guitars again. Where for months now, even before the breakup, he hadn't touched either of them, he now plays them constantly. When I had to go get him reeds for his clarinet last week, he asked me to get guitar picks, too. He had asked me about a week before that if I had found any of the ex's picks when I was unpacking boxes. I had, but I threw them out. When I told him that, you would have thought I told him I killed a puppy. He looked heartbroken. I tried explaining that with the ex gone, and Tyler having little to no interest in his own guitars, I didn't see any reason to keep a bunch of plastic picks. That, and those things have been the bane of my existence for the last few years. I swear to God, those things were EVERYWHERE. All over the house. In every room. And forget about vacuuming. I would get SO PISSED because I had a $450 Dyson vacuum, and I was constantly sucking up plastic guitar picks. I told Matt if one of his picks broke my Dyson, I was going to break his neck! So, I was all too glad to throw them out. Since it was so upsetting to Tyler, I did get him a few at the music store last week. I had to admit, I didn't really know what I was doing, though. The guy helped me and I got a few different thicknesses, but it's brought on a whole other issue. The kid now sits in his room, playing his guitar, alone. It's so sad. Before, he would mess around and talk to Matt about it. Now, he doesn't have that. It's awful.

And now, he wants to learn to play the drums. He told me that, for Christmas, he would like a pair of drumsticks and a practice pad. He never really had any interest in it before, even when Matt was around. He would mess around on Matt's set every now and then, but he never really seemed super interested. I know that part of the interest comes from his desire to join the school's jazz band next year, but I'm not sure if he realizes he's probably going to need more than 6 or 7 months' practice to be able to be the drummer. But I don't know how their program works, so I might be completely full of shit. They might be thrilled to have him, if he's interested and willing to put in the work. But that makes me doubly sad, because Matt would have loved teaching him how to play. At least, I think he would have. Well, the Matt I fell in love with and lived with for the first 4 years would have.

In addition to taking an almost obsessive interest in everything Matt used to enjoy, he's also been asking me about him. Things like, do I know where he lives now? Where he works? What he's doing? I told him I don't know, and I don't want to know, but I don't think he believes me. I think, for some reason, he thinks I am holding out on him. Protecting him, somehow. And maybe, even if I really DID know those things, I WOULD keep it from him. Because it seems like he's to the point where he is trying to get past how badly Matt treated him (and us) at the end, and is remembering the Matt we loved and had fun with. Which, I guess is a good thing. I had always hoped that he would get to that point, but I didn't expect it to be now. And truthfully, I think the only reason it has come now is because of the way things have gone with his dad. He's trying desperately to have some kind of connection with someone he knows loves him.

Today is Tyler's dad's birthday. Tyler and I talked, a lot, about how he would feel or react if his dad came today to try to pick him up for a visit. His father has custody of him from 9a-9p on his birthday (just like I do on mine). I could tell he was torn about it. It was obvious to me that he wanted him to try, because at least them it would mean he cared. Especially after what his dad said last week about Christmas (did I mention that? I'll go back and re-read and if not, I'll post about it tomorrow). But he wasn't sure he wanted to leave with him, even if he did try to come. I told him it was up to him, but it turned out not to matter.

His dad didn't come, didn't call, didn't anything. So I tried to get Tyler to call his dad and wish him a happy birthday, and he fought it. He said no a hundred times, and when I asked him why he didn't want to call, he just kept saying things like "he doesn't want to talk to me" and "he wouldn't care anyhow". Finally, at dinner time, I convinced him to send him a text message from my phone. He did, and his dad didn't respond. Tyler looked at me a couple hours ago and said "did my dad ever text back?" and I said "no". He said "I told you he wouldn't care". What do I say to that? It's not my job to try to convince him how much his father loves him and/or cares about him. But it kills me to see the kid's heart breaking. Effectively, he's lost two fathers in the past six months. This is bullshit.

So, right now he's focused on the ex. Because, even though the ex abandoned us both and never even gave Tyler the respect to say goodbye to him, face to face, or consider his feelings and the fallout from how he left, Tyler still loves him. It's not that I want him to hate him, but I would be lying if I said it doesn't get under my skin to see how much he still loves him.

I know it shouldn't. I know they had a very special relationship, and they spent a LOT of time together through the years. But I am not at a place yet where I can look past the things that happened in the last six months to year of our relationship and say "aww, look. He still loves Matt".

The way I see it, Matt doesn't deserve it. He knew what he was doing when he made the choices he made. He knew how close Tyler was to him, and that no matter what I had said or done, or what was happening between Matt and me, Tyler was completely innocent. We had talked about ALL of this stuff a couple years ago, when we first talked about splitting up. Back then, Matt BEGGED me not to keep Tyler from him if we ever did split up. He said he couldn't walk around every day not having that kid in his life, at least in some part. At first, I was like HELL NO. But, I admitted that it wouldn't be fair to Tyler to rip Matt out of his life, either.

At the end of the day, though, none of that matters. Because Matt made the choices he made and acted in a completely selfish and heartless manner. He was determined to do what he wanted, and to Hell with the rest of us. I will never understand how someone who, at one time, was my best friend in the world, and then became the man I shared every day of my and my son's life with could ever do the things he did and treat us the way he did. I will never understand how someone could just turn "off" their love and concern for people who loved him so much. I will never understand how he could know the child was in agony and still turn his back on him.

I text messaged AND called Matt after we split up. I told him how much Tyler was hurting and how badly he wanted to see Matt. Matt said no. He made a million excuses. And when he finally agreed to let Tyler email him, he took DAYS to get back to him, and when Tyler replied again, he never emailed back. No one should act like that. Ever. And no child should ever hurt as much as Tyler hurt because of him.

I do believe in karma. In the same way that Brian spent YEARS acting selfish and heartless and now is reaping what he sowed, I also believe the same will come to Matt. Not that I want it to, but it will. Some day, he will love someone as much as Tyler loved him, and he will hurt as much as he hurt Tyler. And he will sit there, thinking about why this person in his life is treating him so poorly and so thoughtlessly and having no concern for his feelings, and Tyler will flash into his mind. I'm sure of it. Because as twisted and demented as he became, there was a part of him that was a great man, at one time. And that man was the one who helped Tyler through the divorce of his parents and helped me raise him into the great kid he is today. But anyone who can turn on a child, no matter what the circumstances, isn't someone I ever want around my child again.

I only have a few more years before I don't have any control over what Tyler does or who he sees, but even now, as he is more and more independent, and as active as middle school students are on the internet, I imagine it's only a matter of time before he seeks Matt out. That scares the Hell out of me. My worst fear is Tyler having some sort of covert relationship with Matt behind my back. Because I don't think Tyler sees how much Matt has changed, and because he's still a child, I don't think he realizes how much Matt had to do with what happened, and the choices he made that brought us all to the place we are now.

Maybe I should tell Tyler all the dirty little details. Maybe I should tell him exactly who Matt really is. Maybe I should tell him about the lying, the cheating, the disgusting habits and secrets he tried to hide. But you know what? I won't. It's not my job to tell Tyler what a horrible human being Matt is. Any more than it's my job to convince him how much his father loves him. They're both grown men. Grown men who have to live up to the consequences of their own actions. They cannot keep running away from the messes they've made. And, since I'm no longer in a relationship with either one of them (THANK GOD, BUDDAH, ALLAH, OR MOTHER EARTH), I don't have to be the one to clean up said messes or make excuses for them anymore.

I'm hoping this newfound obsession with all things Matt will be short lived, and we can move on. I'm sure that no matter what happens, there will be a time when he will come to me later in life and ask me what really happened. In large part because I happen to know that, based on the lies Matt told Tyler's dad, his dad sat him down and told him a LOT of things that a: never happened and b: even if they had, were none of his business (thanks, Matt, for making yet ANOTHER well-thought out and selfless decision when you made contact with my ex husband). All I told Tyler about the things his dad told him was, none of it was true, and it didn't matter what happened, because it was over and Matt and I would never be together again.

I just hope that, if he ever does reach out and finds Matt online somehow, that Matt will have developed enough sense to do the right thing, for once. To think about Tyler, instead of himself. But I don't know what the right thing IS. I don't know if the right thing would be to ignore it. Would Tyler think that meant Matt never cared about him? Would the right thing be to have some kind of a relationship again? I know I wouldn't want that, but it's not really about what I would want. Maybe the BEST thing would be to take the opportunity to talk to Tyler, tell him how much he loved him and how important he was to his life, and how sorry he is about how he treated him, his mother, and how he acted for the last year we lived together. Even if he didn't mean a word of it. Maybe that's all Tyler would need to hear? I don't know. If I were that smart, I probably never would have trusted someone so shady and manipulative, and I DEFINITELY wouldn't have let him anywhere near my child. Because no matter what happens in the future, we cannot erase the past. And the past will forever shape who my child is and who he will become. I just hope the damage that Matt did to him won't destroy him. I hope that when I fall in love and get married again, that Tyler won't shun that man for fear of being hurt the way Matt hurt him. I think that's the thing I'm the most concerned about.