{"id":2481,"date":"2014-03-26T23:01:14","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T03:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/?p=2481"},"modified":"2014-03-27T16:27:02","modified_gmt":"2014-03-27T20:27:02","slug":"i-feel-like-a-fool-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/?p=2481","title":{"rendered":"I feel like a fool (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I gave up a comfortable\u2014for me<\/strong>\u2014life in Philly and left all of my friends behind<\/strong> three years ago to move to Maine with the man I loved<\/strong> because he wanted to live near his kids.<\/strong> I later realized he was an abusive drug addict.<\/strong> He moved to Los Angeles and I\u2019m still in Maine, so broke<\/strong> that I can\u2019t afford to move back home.<\/strong> I gave up everything<\/strong> and I got royally screwed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the summary. Read on if you want the whole story.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My ex-partner, Derek,<\/em> and I parted ways eight months ago. I posted a while ago that I was terribly angry<\/strong> and that I was going to help work out my feelings by writing about them. I\u2019ve been putting that off because I couldn\u2019t figure out where to even begin. I can\u2019t hesitate anymore.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m still angry<\/strong> today. Shocking,<\/strong> no? Almost every day,<\/strong> sometimes multiple times a day,<\/strong> there is something to remind me of the huge mistake<\/strong> I made when I got involved in this abusive relationship.<\/strong> Of course, I didn't realize at the time that it was going to be such a nightmare.<\/strong> Who does? But I kick myself<\/strong> now for not being \u00a0paying more attention to the signs. More details about that at a later time, though. (Alcohol and drugs<\/strong> were involved and that\u2019s really a story for another day.) This post is about what my life was like before<\/strong> and what it's like now.<\/strong> The differences between those two times of my life and the daily struggles<\/strong> I have today sometimes bring me to tears.<\/span><\/p>\n

So\u2026Five years ago I had been single<\/strong> for almost a decade, and totally happy<\/strong> with that situation. During that time I lived in a couple of places and had finally settled back in Philly.<\/strong> I\u2019m on disability (COPD & AIDS)<\/strong> and I have a limited income (SSDI<\/strong> with a little freelance design work). I struggled<\/strong> for a while but, after waiting two years, \u00a0I got a housing subsidy<\/strong> \u00a0through the City\u2019s AIDS Activities Coordinating Office.<\/strong> My rent on an OK but good-size apartment in West Philly was $213(!).<\/strong> My life was not ideal<\/strong> by anyone\u2019s standards but I was pretty comfortable and I scaled my life<\/strong> to fit my budget.<\/strong> I was pretty content. Considering.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The subsidy had a lot of rules that were really easy for me to follow: pay \u00a0the rent on time, submit receipts for utilities to my Mazzoni Center<\/strong> housing manager (which meant paying those on time, too!), don't do illegal drugs in the house, don\u2019t have a roommate. Simple.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then I met Derek.<\/strong> It had been a long time<\/strong> since I felt that way about anyone. I pursued him furiously<\/strong> and he didn't resist.<\/strong> He is an ex-Mormon<\/strong> who had been married for ten years,<\/strong> had only been out for a short time, and<\/em> he had four pre-teen sons<\/strong> who lived in Maine<\/strong> with their mother. (Yes, I know. Doh!<\/strong><\/em>)<\/p>\n

We dated for a couple of months. Derek had only lived in Philly for a short while because his company had been moving him around. At the time he had an insane roommate<\/strong> who was obsessed<\/strong> with him and eventually we made the decision that he needed to get out<\/strong> of there. He got a sublet near my apartment but basically stayed at my place. \u00a0Eventually, we wanted to move to move to a place of our own where we could live together without my breaking any subsidy rules. (I certainly didn't need that headache.)<\/p>\n

After a lot<\/em><\/strong> of discussion,<\/strong> we decided that I\u2019d give up<\/strong> my precious subsidy and we\u2019d get a place together. It was a huge<\/em> decision<\/strong> for me\u2014not just cohabiting<\/strong> but, especially, giving up the subsidy<\/strong> for which I had waited a long, long time.<\/strong> It was a big step.<\/strong> If I ever needed the subsidy again, I\u2019d go back to the bottom of the list!<\/strong> Derek promised to stop drinking.<\/strong> His emotional abuse \u00a0was really only evident to me when he was drunk,<\/strong> so that promise was a crucial part<\/strong> of my decision.<\/p>\n

It\u2019d be easier financially with \u00a0two of us. His employer would pay for some stuff, too, since he worked from home when he wasn\u2019t traveling.<\/span><\/p>\n

We got a place in South Philly<\/strong> in August 2010.<\/strong> Things seemed to be working.<\/strong> We were having less sex<\/strong> after a year and a half together which is normal<\/strong>\u2014especially since we weren\u2019t drunk every night<\/strong> anymore\u2014but, again, that's another post for another day. We got a couple of cats.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After only two months<\/strong> in our new apartment Derek said that he thought he should live closer to his children! In Maine!<\/em><\/strong> It was a long, long drive<\/strong> to visit them in the town where they lived outside of Bangor<\/strong> and at least one of them was exhibiting some behavioral problems<\/strong> relating to Derek\u2019s being gay. (Derek always called it \u201cthe gay thing\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0which infuriated<\/strong> me but I kept my mouth shut<\/strong> about it.) Again, after lots of discussion, I agreed.<\/strong>\u00a0After all, I heard his oldest<\/strong> screaming \u201cYou left us to be gay!\u201d<\/strong> into the phone a few times! In retrospect, I think he was hoping I\u2019d refuse,<\/strong>\u00a0but I thought I was being a supportive partner.<\/strong> We decided that Portland<\/strong> was the closest acceptable place we could live. It\u2019s a great town<\/strong> and had an airport with flights that worked for his job. We visited for a weekend and found a great place<\/strong> at a reasonable price.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We moved north.<\/strong><\/p>\n

(To be continued\u2026if you\u2019re interested, or even if you\u2019e not!)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I gave up a comfortable\u2014for me\u2014life in Philly and left all of my friends behind three years ago to move to Maine with the man I loved because he wanted to live near his kids. I later realized he was an abusive drug addict. He moved to Los Angeles and I\u2019m still in Maine, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[106,291,288],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-highstrungloner","category-relationship"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ccTA-E1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2481"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2879,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481\/revisions\/2879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}