Last night I took my ex-husband out to dinner. I have not spoken with him much since February of 2025.

Last Groundhog Day, I had him look after our son that evening because I had concert tickets. As is consistent with some types of college age kids, our son experimented with concentrated marijuana–it’s called a dab–and way too much acid. He cried most of the day and kept telling me that I was lying to him and that he’d broken his brain.

My ex-husband drank 7 beers that night. I had stopped drinking altogether and didn’t get triggered by alcohol so I had a six-pack in my beverage cooler area of the refrigerator. I was keeping those around for friends who come over to my house when I make them dinner–I do that all of the time for loved ones. I had told my ex-husband that he could have the Christmas Ale that was there and to be sure to eat the lasagna that I’d left for him too because the ale had high ABV. I never said anything about the six-pack.

He drank everything (7 beers total), triggered the shit out of our son, and was acting bizarre.

Two-weeks later I told him via phone that he has always been an alcoholic. I told him that he needs full treatment. I never spoke to him again. He said, like he always says, that he needs individual therapy and he was going to do it this time. He never has addressed anything. I know that will never happen. I was with the guy 11-years, and married to him for 9. (Just an aside that he’s the only man I’ve ever been with. I’ve kissed two guys including him.)

I used to be in touch with both of my former mother-in-laws. They generally loved me. Because my ex-spouses are the dreamer types they also were glad that their kids married me. I’m not given to anything dreamy or prone to fantasy. I’m always pragmatic.

Anyway, my ex-husband’s mother is starting to decline. I can just tell via text. My son told me that when he called her a few weeks ago for her birthday that she repeated things over and over. Last night I learned that her brother (my ex-husband’s uncle) has early onset dementia.

I talked about his mother and he said that she was fine in person when he saw her in 2024.

He said that he knows that he needs to visit them seasonally.

He acknowledged that he’s unable to make plans.

It’s ok. Those things are not my business at all. Now that my son drives and I bought him a car and insure it, nothing will ever happen again. My son won’t need him for anything.

And this dinner wasn’t transactional. I just knew that it was time that I had some manner of relationship with him again. I’ve known him 32-years. And he has never been able to set a goal or really make any decisions of any kind. That won’t change. Nor does it change that I have his DNA in my brain because we had a child together. I had to get over myself and my anger towards him.

He’s been with his partner for a few years now and they live together. He described parallel play that they engage in. He doesn’t seem happy or unhappy with her. I can imagine that many more years will pass by for him and there won’t be anything that has changed.

We did, however, laugh a ton.

I told him about breaking up with my GF in May and the following morning being in a pool of my own blood on the floor given the difficulty of a restraint that I had to complete for the safety of a youth.

I told him about the old dating app that I used to use and the conversation that I had about race and racism with a person who was using his ex-wife’s identity on a lesbian only service and let him read the bizarre text conversation thread. That whole exchange could be written with some backstory and be an episode or a limited series comedy.

We laughed and it was such an easy dinner. The only obstacle was that the Sudanese restaurant is closed only on Wednesdays and I forgot completely that we have a good Thai restaurant now close to the high school in the neighborhood, so we wound up driving to a suburb to eat at one that is authentic. It was fine. We got a table; although, it was packed.

I had a great time with him. Basically, I grew up with him. He’s the same as I remember him as a teenager. I met him when I was 19 or 20 and he was 18. Honestly, he really hasn’t changed much at all.

I’m so glad that I took him out to dinner.

His binge drinking and overall alcoholism won’t affect me or our son.

I was thinking about transactional relationships generally after dinner.

I had gone over to visit Nightingale one night this month and asked her out of the blue if she was using me for sex.

She paused a long time and said, “I was at first.”

Now that she’s decided that I create an obstacle or perhaps distraction to her finding her life partner that’s really what our thing was. She spent most of the month mad at me because I don’t date someone and state, “You’re going to be my life partner.” I don’t think that stance is real.

For example, I thought that Scorpio and I would travel together forever. I knew that she wants to live with someone again eventually and given that she was almost always talking about her ex-BF I just kept assuming that she would reconcile with him and that would be who she lived with. I would have been so fine with that scenario too. He sounded cool. She and I still could’ve travelled together and I like male metamours.

That didn’t work out. If I had feelings that didn’t match hers, she told me that my feelings didn’t make sense. I had to break up with her.

Prior to Scorpio, I dated another woman for a year who had a young child. This day a year ago I had blogged about a date that she and I had that she completely planned and paid for. Although we had been dating for 10-months at that time, this was the only date in which she had done that. Our relationship was transactional and I got very little out of our relationship. Seems like it was a soft onboarding to relationships in general after my divorce.

Maybe dating is often transactional.

I want to communicate and be myself in relationships.

I couldn’t do that with the woman that I dated after my divorce. In fact, I wouldn’t go on very many dates with a woman now who said that she’s not a sexual person. It shuts off all my physical touch needs that I have. I used to have to ask her to rub my legs or play with my hair. And she was good at it! It never would’ve occurred to her to touch me unsolicited.

Scorpio told me once that she wanted a BF who would fly her to Pfish concerts all over the nation. That would’ve been transactional. Our relationship was uncomplicated. I made her dinner midweek and we talked and connected and then spent one night together every weekend after a proper date doing something specific.

Nightingale wanted to travel with a woman right before her knee surgery. It turned out that her previous replacement wasn’t ready enough to go to CA, so she decided a mountain cabin was fine. After some time together and a little travel, she decided that I’m not worth having around.

I think that if I understand the playbook with women who I date, that I’m flexible.