But still it's farewell
And maybe he'll come back
To the US, who can tell?
I guess there is no one to blame
He's leaving ground (leaving ground)
Will things ever be the same again?
It's the final countdown
The final countdown 🎶
I couldn't resist.
After less than 18 months in the United States, John is heading back to South Korea. It didn't take much. High inflation, housing prices, lack of connection with his children, all of these things pushed him to decide it just wasn't working out here and he would do better as a parent sending money from afar.
Not that he really did all that much to try and connect with his children while he was here. But really, being here just kept him from doing what he enjoyed which was experiencing another culture, learning another language, and teaching ESL.
It's hard to not be bitter about it. It's hard not to feel that this is his way of punishing me for ending our marriage, by making sure I had to take care of the children and everything on my own. However, it sort of backfired on him because leaving for almost three years, the girls and I have become quite close and he lost the relationship he had with Isabelle. He blames me for that, that he's not close to either of them but even after he returned, he didn't make that much of an effort towards their relationship. He expected it to be easy, just as he did with our marriage, and he took them for granted.
And now he's leaving again. The girls are happy about it. I have a lot of mixed feelings. Nothing towards him personally, those feelings are dead and buried six feet under. But I hate how easy it seems for him to just leave, with no concrete plans as to when he will return. I strongly suspect that one of these times, he is not going to come back. He's just going to stay over there forever. I mean, why would he? Things aren't easy here right now. Over there, for him, they are much easier. As far as that all goes, I can't really blame him. It just puts this huge ass load on me that at times is just completely and utterly exhausting.
But he never really did take on his share of the parenting. It was always on me to do it all and usually while also making sure he functions so that he didn't lose his job and out is into an even worse situation. So at least over there, he's a little more stable. Over there, he's not my concern so long as the child support gets here.
I know I got through all of this before and Natalie was the age Isabelle is now and Isabelle was in middle school. I was still working in the office and I had a lousy car and there were a lot of things I didn't know them that I know now. I have gotten through it all before and I have no doubt I can get through it again. I mean, we got through a pandemic for crying out loud. But it is definitely not going to be easy. There will probably be a lot of tears and a lot of anger towards him I won't be able to express to him. The resentment at times will come up and those will all be feelings I will have to deal with. I will have to juggle my job and the girls and figure out how I'm going to do it all when there really isn't anyone there for me to rely on.
And at times, the utter loneliness will be hard as fuck to deal with. Because that's one of those things about having a co-parent and a spouse (if you're lucky), having someone to help carry some of that weight of day to day living, day to day taking care of the kids. Without one, you're just swimming in that vast ocean of life on your own, trying not to drown in the waves.
