My ex stopped "feeling it" about five years ago when we had a 5 and 10 year old. I was going back to school and starting a new and difficult and time-intensive (at least at first) career, and she had been staying home and really hitting it off with a stay-at-home dad neighbor with whom she went on a fitness journey. They got ripped and we got dumped. Or actually our marriage was fraught from the beginning or whatever else it was she told herself to allow herself to do what she did. She never did talk to me about anything or ever say she was unhappy. She and that lowlife got a good little nestegg in the divorces. Last I heard he's buying a Tesla. The kids are thrilled.

I was talking to a friend of mine today and he brought up a high school buddy of his whose wife went off the deep end and just abandoned him and their two young daughters. Apparently she's been on a years-long bender. They don't hear from her at all but are still close to her family, who don't hear from her either and have embraced his new spouse. I said something to the effect of, "damn, I guess it could be worse." My friend was like "no, yours is worse." That hurts but at least there's one person in the world who won't pretend like abandoning commitments and family for no good reason is okay just like the whole rest of the world does. My most fervent hope is that my children won't have that outlook on life and marriage.

On my youngest's birthday he really wanted a gecko, so we got one. His mother came over to get him for a few hours since it was his birthday and he really wanted to show her. Of course he did. She's his mom and he's only ten. She tells pretty little lies and he believes them. She probably does also. He had just gotten it and we didn't want to be handling it too much so soon so he asked if she could go to his room and see it. I said okay even though it made my skin crawl while she was here. It was the first time she'd been in my house. I'll be sure to make an update with whatever of our once-mutual items she didn't take from me previously and feels like she deserves or the admonition about the state of my house or of his room.

It basically just only sucks.