I'll probably take this down in a day or two, but for now...

I've tried to be pretty mum about the ending of my marriage to Rice, but I've found that by staying quiet I've done neither of us any favors. This doesn't mean I intend to lambast him here, but I may be more honest in the future about my experience.

For example, he's been telling people I left him and the kids to go to California and write. (Because I evidently couldn't stay in Idaho and write and publish like I had for the previous 6 1/2 years; I left for California because there were jobs for me and a support system. Idaho had no jobs and a minimal, though well-intentioned, support system.) There is no wiggle room in this -- that I left Rice and the children so I could be a writer in California is completely untrue. But I guess it's easier for him to have people believe this than believe the truth.

I left because I didn't like how he had been treating me for years, and he wouldn't stop. I don't think he knew or knows how.

Today Rice and I were having a discussion over IM, and it seemed like I could ask a couple questions about terms related to a tech writing job I've been pinged for.

Rice immediately assumed it was a testing/QA job and informed me I don't have any experience for such a job. (I guess this means he's forgotten about all the testing/QA I did for him. *shrug*) I told him it was a tech writing job; he talked about how I shouldn't be hired to do the documentation--the testers should be writing their own docs. And it was suspicious because of this and because of that and so on when all I had asked for was what two terms meant to him as a software engineer.

I tried to be polite. I thanked him and left the conversation.

This is the reason why this conversation is significant to me: he behaved this way the whole time we were together. He was always telling me why I shouldn't do this or do that. Why I shouldn't finish grad school or get further education to increase my chances of employment, why I shouldn't get a job, why I shouldn't do volunteer work in the community, what my political beliefs should be, why I shouldn't write what I was writing but write what God wanted me to write, why I should avoid these friends and be friends with these other people he'd found for me...

I'm really glad I don't have to live with this anymore.

It's incredibly difficult... financially... in terms of the kids...

But I haven't been this happy in years. It's conversations like this that make me remember why.