Moving Back, Part 1

He shattered me when he made the decision to move back. He broke my heart into a million little pieces. I don’t think things were ever the same after he made that decision. He had broken a trust. Oh, I tried. I tried to get past it. I tried to treat it like it was not a big deal. 

Hey, it’s not goodbye! It’s just going back to the way we did things for four years while we come up with a new plan. 

On some level I think I knew it was over. It was over the moment he chose to go back. I think that’s why I cried as much as I did. You don’t get engaged and start planning a wedding and then say, “You know, I really don’t want to get married but we should totally keep dating.”

There was a part of myself that said, “You need to just set him free. He needs to find someone local, someone who doesn’t ever want to leave his town, and someone who can move in with him.” The tears streamed down my face as I envisioned myself ending things and telling him he would find somebody local and she would be the luckiest woman in the world because he was absolutely amazing.

He chose his kids over me. That was the bottom line. The funny part is it’s not like his kids were asking him to come back. T loved having the house to herself. He’s spent more time with his middle son than he probably has in the entire time we dated because he’s busy running over to his new house and helping put up fences and insulation and all kinds of household tasks. And Matt was so happy to be able to do this for him.

“That’s why I moved back!”

Yeah, he moved back so he could be free labor for the kid that could spend every holiday with his in-laws and carve out time for a weekly dinner with his mom, but couldn’t spend a moment with his dad. 

I knew it was just a matter of time before he realized that if his kids meant more than me then any warm body would do. I wasn’t anything special. It was a small leap from “My kids are my priority,” to “You’re really not all that great. Anybody local will do.”

I was there so many times when he broke the news to people, telling them he was coming back. He was so happy. It was always about his kids. He missed them so much. I was an afterthought. “Oh, sure I’ll miss her but it’s been really tough being away from my kids.” I know in my heart that he wasn’t that giddy when he was planning his move up here.

I tried to convince myself that everything was okay. It was just like before except different. This time I would move when all the parts were in place. But it was different this time.

Some of it was little things, like the fact that we no longer spoke at lunch. I pulled the plug on that. I will admit it. But he was working for his brother. He wasn’t independent like he was when we met. He couldn’t decide to pull over in his truck and spend an hour talking to me. Sure, he might be behind a little but it wouldn’t matter because he owned his own business. Now he had 15 minutes to eat. Otherwise he would have to clock out. 

My job is very demanding. I don’t always take lunch at the same time. I figured it would just be easier to cut out the lunch time chat, which was usually only 5 or 10 minutes anyway. Maybe he felt like that was me pulling away. The first arrow in the body of our relationship. I don’t know though because he never said anything. 

There was also the fact that he had co-workers now; before he was an independent business owner. He might see the same people over and over again but it wasn’t every day. He wasn’t spending the entire day with them either. Now he was hanging out with people. He was doing tons of shit with his brother. At one point he talked about joining the Eagles. I feel like once he moved back he realized this was his home and he was going to start getting involved and living life. He was building a life and I wasn’t a part of it. It was really hard because it felt like I was being pushed further and further behind in priority.

We didn’t get together as much. Four times in seven months. Four. Again, I didn’t push. Maybe I should have. Apparently the only reason we got together as much as we did the first four years was because of my constant nagging and insistence on getting together. When it was left to him it turned out he didn’t need to see me much at all. Nevertheless, once tax season ended and we got together in November I thought we were back on track.

You know, I didn’t push because I knew moving up to Indiana and then moving back had caused a severe change in his financial situation. I thought maybe financially he couldn’t afford the every 2 or 3 week visits. I felt responsible for that. He had moved for me.

He made almost as much, if not more, working 3 days a week up here as he did working 5 and 6 days down there. But when he moved back he said he didn’t want to get another route. His plan was to work for his brother, at least in the beginning. We did the math together. He’s making less than half of what he was making before. He said it wasn’t a problem because he’s still getting money from the person who bought his route and really all he needs is enough to cover his bills.

Here is how much he wanted to move back. The person who sold him the route is the person who bought it back. He lowballed Matt on the price. Matt still took it. He wanted to get the sale over and done with and he knew this guy could do it. Then it turns out good ol’ B isn’t as flush with cash as Matt thought. So the new plan is B will pay him weekly over a period of months. They notarize this agreement. Matt doesn’t get a copy of it. B has started skipping payments. He’ll tell Matt he’s going to sell his building and pay him with that, or that he always has a surplus of money and he uses that to pay himself a bonus at the end of the year and if he hasn’t paid him off yet he’ll take that money and use it pay him off, or he’s going to take out a loan to pay it off. Yet none of those things happen. Last time I talked with Matt B had sent him something like $5500 as a payment. I’m not sure how much more he has left to pay. I’m not going to say B won’t pay Matt what he owes him, but I won’t be surprised.

He was so eager to go back to Virginia that he acted against his own best interest. He would rather take payments from someone than wait another month or two and find a buyer who could pay for it in full.

He did the same thing with his truck. He sold it at a low price because he wanted to get rid of it. He probably could have asked for another $5000, even $10,000, and the guy who purchased it from him would have still bought it.

The man is not good with money and I knew that. We didn’t share finances though so I didn’t care.

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