I think one of the reasons that B and I waited as long as we did to divorce is because we didn’t ever want to be at the point we are at…asset and spousal support. This part really sucks because all it does is bring out all the hurt and anger that were brewing before I left on the part of both of us.
One of the things B has said to me numerous times is that my attorney sucks so I have decided to take his advice and yesterday I hired a new attorney at a large law firm…we shall see how well B likes dealing with THE FIRM. Thank you B for pointing this out to me. I think that YOU will be forever in my debt.
We have been trying to handle this ourselves and use the lawyers sparingly but alas I think we are past the point on no return and we will be pulling out the big guns now. This makes me sad, confused, and hurt. I guess I feel like if you are really as sorry as you have claimed then this should be a slam dunk. Just give me what I want after all I am being fair and reasonable. When I went to get my things I left him almost everything except my personal family heirlooms, some artwork, and my personal items like books and clothes.
Part of the problem with settlement is that B wants me to sign an agreement which would allow him to stop paying alimony in 2025 but I won’t do it. Obviously. Here in the State of California, after you have been married over 10 years, the court is always in your business in regards to spousal support basically for the rest of your life. This means until one of us dies we can go back into court and, in his case…try to stop or significantly reduce support…or in my case…try to increase support. Needless to say, the rest of your life has significant meaning and I suspect we will see each other in court many times in the future.
Yesterday I received an email from B stating that unless we came to an agreement by May 26 that he was beginning the process of getting jurisdiction changed to Texas. I think he did this because: A) the CA court just set out divorce hearing now to NOVEMBER and from what I understand it is because of COVID. B) Texas is more favorable to him and only grants spousal support for 3 years maximum. Well, good luck on that one. The court fight would last for years.
Another thing that this divorce has brought on is a major increase in the severity of my fibromyalgia. Last Thursday and Friday I was in so much pain I spent the days pretty much in bed. Obviously, for me stress increases the number and severity of the flare ups and I don’t like it one bit. My anxiety is also high which makes looking at anything B sends worrisome because I feel as if he is always trying to be sneaky and underhanded about what is ever on the table. This isn’t surprising since he lied to me just about everyday for five years. With him I don’t trust what appears to be real anymore because most likely it is not.
The good news is I am spending a lot of time on the coast with my daughter and our new puppy. Since the coastal house is going up for sale due to the divorce and this is where my heart feels safe and warm; I am trying to spend every minute that I can here. Being here helps keep me centered and I don’t ruminate over all the lies and deception that B spread like manure over our marriage. Here I am free.
Tomorrow I leave for Texas. It will be wonderful to see my kids but it will not be wonderful to see their dad. Every time i am there I am terrified that he will do something…what I don’t know but I do know that I do not feel safe. Physically I feel safe but mentally I do not. When someone has screwed with you for five years and everyday was just new lie waiting to be inflicted on you…there is no way to feel safe ever again.
I did make it to the doctor regarding my Fibromyalgia. She prescribed the usual Cymbalta and was concerned about how my legs were in such crippling pain. I have some blood work to do and back to see her in two weeks. My therapist had an interesting take on the matter. She said I needed to honor my fibromyalgia in that it was telling me to slow down and take time for myself and that the more I try to deny my anger at this situation I find myself in regarding the divorce; that the worse the Fibromyalgia is going to get until I give myself the mental and physical rest it needs from five years of mental abuse. I guess she should know. She has been on this journey with me from the start and she knows exactly what B did to me and just how conniving and destructive it was to me and the kids.
In a similar vein, someone I love and respect sent me this video of the new Dixie Chicks song, Gaslighter, and said, “How fitting. Someone made a video of your marriage just change the words from “we moved to California” to “We moved to Texas.”
Even more true to just how much B’s affair and our impending divorce has just about done me in over the past five years. I can relate as Maines sings. “I’m your mirror, Standing here until you can see how/You broke me.” Just insert my photo in Maines place and you can see how broken I really am. In fact, this song feels like a personal anthem dedicated to me.
So I leave you with this wonderful new video and if you have your own gaslighter in your life I hope that you get some strength knowing that you are not alone in the situation.
P.S. Thank you for all the lovely responses and comments. For whatever reason I am unable to respond or reply. Just know that I so appreciate your support.
I have had many of you write and ask what is going on in my life. Thank you for that.
I have not written about what has been going on with me and B because…I have been afraid…afraid that I look weak…that I appear small…worried that I appear to be less of a feminist than I once believed myself to be and didn’t want to be a bad example for my daughters. I have had my doubts…afraid that what I have done was not the right thing, the smart thing, or the best thing. Afraid that I am a poor role model. But now that I have gotten my bearings and some time has passed; I know how I feel about the choices I have made for myself and my family. For many women it would not be the right decision, and I get that…but for me, at this time in my life, my choices have been the right thing for me to do as I enter my sixties.
A RECAP
After separating and filing for divorce for four months, an unexpected job offer came B’s way which entailed moving to Texas. He walked the Pacific Coast Trail trying to decide what he wanted in life…his family or HER. Of course, I had no idea that was what he was doing. Therefore, I found it interesting, that when he returned from the great walk, he appeared to be a changed man. He sat me down, apologized over and over again, admitted his mistakes, came clean, and told me that he wanted to make me and our family the foremost thing in his life once more. After proclaiming all of this, he immediately called HER with me sitting beside him and he told her together that we were staying together as a couple while explaining her that the five year affair was over. Well, her stripes came out for him to see in full glory. This woman, who had told him numerous times that she wanted to see us together, began sending me conversations that they had had in which he was not overly kind in his assessment of me and our relationship. It was painful to say the least but also very eye opening for both me and B to read these texts and it gave me some insight that I so desperately needed.
And so it was in the month of August when I literally found myself with the shoe on the other foot after all this time and I was the one choosing whether B and I would be together again. Being together is what I thought I wanted for the past year-and one-half, yet, faced with this unexpected change of his heart, I found I was unsure what I really wanted for myself. Did I want to start a new journey on an entirely different path or did I want to try again with a man who broke me into little pieces but also knew where the glue went to help put them back in place? Would I be making a decision out of fear or would it be because whatever decision was truly the best for me?
Confession time: Soon after separating, I joined a dating service…not so much because I was ready to date (I knew I was not) but because I felt that it would help me find me again and what I wanted or did not want in my life. And after much discussion with my therapist, we found that for me, it was the right thing to do. Frankly, I was surprised at the number of men who found me funny, sexy, beautiful and more importantly just plain interesting. And it felt good to have my worth acknowledged even though we all know the person who had to acknowledge that worth was really only me. I also rapidly found that I knew after a few emails that certain qualities in a man no longer interested me. In truth, I only met one of these men in person but I have never laughed so much in my life. He helped me to view myself in a way that was more realistic with who I actually am and it felt lovely. No, he was not who I would want in my life on a permanent basis but he was a lovely and wise diversion and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to give that up for B.
So I debated and wrestled with myself. I worried and fretted. I witnessed the pain the upcoming divorce was having on my kids and one of my teens was given a diagnosis of schizophrenia which brought me to this truth: I knew I did not want to traverse that diagnosis alone. So I went to my lawyer and tried to protect myself to the best of my ability…and we moved as a family.
Of course, moving has not released me of all the distrust and pain I have felt over the past five years, but then again, I knew that it would not when I made the decision to try and rebuild our relationship and our lives again. At times, it has been a deep and dark struggle but I also know that it would be an skirmish if I was with ANYBODY because betrayal is a difficult thing to overcome. I think the worst thing about being betrayed is that you stop trusting your own perceptions and have to re-learn how to trust yourself again which takes guts, time, and determination. In addition, I knew that when I made this choice that trust would not come easily…and it hasn’t because…. TRUST=consistency/time …. and I have not had enough of either to let go of the hyper-vigilance that the affair has instilled in me. And yet…happiness and joy has arrived again. My ruminating about the affair has decreased. The trust still has to be earned but with each act of love, each moment that we carve our for our relationship, and each time we have a deep conversation, I little smidge of it arrives to take the place of doubt.
So we have been here for over two months and so far it has been pretty darn good. We have done a lot of traveling to local sites as a family and B and I have had many date nights…some good and some not so good…but we are trying hard to listen to one another again. Yes, it is early and with the chaos of a move comes a time where real life and true feelings are suspended and now comes the hard part…day to day living without the excitement of a move impinging on our daily lives. But for the most part, I am happy with the decision that I made and if I made the wrong one I guess I will have to live with the painful consequences. But if I made the right one…I see a better life together before us that will sustain us in our old age. Don’t get me wrong an affair is a horrible thing… but maybe… just maybe… it has been the catalyst for changes that needed to be made in order for our relationship to survive and flourish over the next 30+ years. We shall see… but in the meantime I am determined to become my true and best self, let go of the anger and disappointment and if B doesn’t like it, frankly, he doesn’t have to live with it. For I am no longer living in fear and never will again.
It’s funny. I have been thinking a lot about the last and only conversation I had with you (the five year mistress) since finding out about the affair. You know the one… during which my husband told you it was finally over while I listened and Skyped with the two of you… you being fully aware of my intrusive presence and witness to your heartbreak. During this conversation, with all the contempt you could muster, you said to me “Congratulations, Winner!” and over the last few months I have thought about this often. This is because far from being “The Winner” I believe I have been the biggest loser of them all in this sick love triangle, except perhaps for my children who have lost their sense that the world is a safe place now and forevermore. And for that and that alone, I will never forgive you, try as I might and as a result, I end up hurting myself each and every day. For this sorrow, as we both know, only hurts me and doesn’t begin to touch you because you are not a part of their lives and you don’t have to bare witness to their pain.
Yes indeed, I may have my husband back but there are so many things I have lost forever or have yet to regain. I have lost my innocence regarding the 30+ year relationship I have had with my husband. I lost the notion of true love and happily ever afters. And unfortunately, I have learned that the man I once trusted with my life is capable of deceitfulness and lies so deep that the Grand Canyon is not big enough to hold it all.
Sadly, I have lost all belief in myself: the idea that I can discern truth from fiction, that my perceptions are to be believed without question and that my feminist stance is a in-dwelling part of me which I honor no matter what. I have even been stripped of parts of my dignity. For those who know of the affair and the fact that I went back to a cheater, judge, I have somehow given up on my own sense of self, and my self- worth….and they pity me for it, thankful that they aren’t a spineless me. Yes, now I have whole pieces of myself that have disappeared as I tried to preserve my children’s lives and my own no matter the cost to my own sanity and ego.
Further, where once I believed that my husband was incapable of certain behaviors; I find he is capable of so much more than I could even conceive that it makes me feel emotionally unsafe. I may have him but I often feel alone as I wonder if he is still thinking of you when he closes his eyes while we are making love. I have lost my sense of joy and gratitude that I am alive because I no longer feel fully alive in this shell of myself which I now inhabit. A shell that my oldest son no longer talks to because he is angry at me as he feels I have turned my back on everything I have always professed that I am and he says I am no longer a role model for his daughter, a fact that may indeed be true. Now, the ground that once held the foundation of my marriage strong and steady is soiled and has turned to quicksand and what is left of the foundation is so unstable there are days that I don’t know if anything can be built on it to last no matter how hard we try.
But mostly what the two of you have taken from me is a sense of peace and all I am left with is an anger which rides a broomstick like a witch on Halloween. Here one minute, gone the next, casting spells and leaving behind ghosts which haunt me and rise suddenly out of nowhere their shadows throwing themselves throughout my life in the most unexpected places and ways. It’s the peace I miss the most. That sense of security which dwells inside your soul… quiet, restful, content contributing to a persistent belief in yourself and all you can accomplish. That stolen part of me hurts the most and at my age I worry that I will never find it again… keeping me in death tied to this thing I lost in life…forever searching and becoming a ghost myself. Oh, I do all the right things. I read the self-help books, I meditate daily, and I try to practice forgiveness, but sadly, this sense of peace I once had is now elusive and I equate it to trying to find a lost diamond in the forest after you have walked a thousand miles. Although you re-trace your steps it is nowhere to be found. It’s the same with peace.
Even more bewildering than all this is that there are days that I still obsess about you, and while these obsessions are less frequent, they still interrupt me and my life at the most inconvient times. Like when I am finally finding peace in my husband’s arms, or while I am in the check out line at the grocery store, or while gassing up the car. Sadder still, I believe I think of you more than my husband thinks of you and it makes me scratch my head in wonder that you take up any single part of my day when you don’t deserve being thought of again for one measly nano second. And yet I do. I resent that you now rent a room in my head when I never gave you permission to move in. I also find that when I think of you I find myself trying to I hate you, just so I can live with him. For the truth is that if I spent the amount of time thinking about what he did to me…to us…to our family,; then there are times I think that I could probably never live with him again. And so the blame lies solely at your feet.
Frankly, it would have been so much easier if you had been a six month affair. Easier still if you had lived down the block but being around the world made you that much more desirable because you were never put to the test, never had to live day in and out with this man or the chaos of our very complicated family. You never had to have a fight because he had to come home to his family or because he put us first. You never had to see us, husband and wife, laughing and joking together while walking down the street disturbing your sense of righteousness at saving B from the “awful” woman that he made you think I was. No, you never had to pick up my boys underwear, smell my husband’s farts in bed, iron his shirts or clean up after him. You got the fantasy relationship that I now dream of. That one that is free of complications because reality never actually touched it. Both of you were each others perfect fantasies because your relationship was just that…a fantastic dream. And therefore, the forbidden kisses you gave one another over the phone were sexier and more exciting than any I gave him. Nothing I did could bring satisfaction because you were mightier in his mind than I. And that mightiness overshadowed his “disappointing “real life with me which was all created in his own head to justify what he was doing and it was egged on by you. And as a result, during your “perfect” five years of Skyping, B got the perfect untested woman who would tell him whatever it was he wanted to hear, would listen and cluck with sympathy, all the while telling him all YOU would do for him once you took my place and how much you would appreciate him. Yes, you made him a King and he found wearing your crown was quite addictive.
Sadly, it was not so much him you wanted but merely to take my life so that you could have my status, my home, my American passport and my “THINGS.” I suppose the $50,000 he paid you for that three day fuck cemented that interest in obtaining my place in his life too. I am sure it gave you hope that you would be lifted out of a life of poverty and uncertainty because of “your” savior and our resources. And I have to say that I “get it.” I understand why you betrayed me, the woman you had over for dinner with your family. You had hopes of permanently securing what you could only get in small very lucrative doses… freedom, security, citizenship, and “love.”
So, while you think I am the winner in this game I can assure you that I am not. No one wins in the game of adultery. Not one single soul. Our children lost big-time. They were hurt in so many ways and now wonder if their father is someone they can truly rely on to be there for them for the rest of their lives. You were hurt and I was hurt… both of us stripped of our dignity, left naked, exposed, and very much alone in an wasteland of empty emotions. I did nothing noble in fighting for B. If the truth be told, I was just a wife and mother who was trying to hold onto our family and our dream of what our life would look and be like all those years ago when we married. I was stubborn and petty and just angry enough not to let you “win.”
No, if there is a winner in all of this it would be B, the man who strung along two women, gave and with held his love as it suited him and who ate both from the plate of the secure and that of the fantasy. He got to feel undeserved admiration from the two of us, and your family, along with the rush that comes from being the prize. And he wasn’t left feeling “less than nothing” whereas the two women involved were.
So sleep well tonight knowing that you were not the “loser” and I the “winner.” This game of deceit and sacrifice did nothing for any of us except to line your pockets and to line B’s head with ideas of who and what he is not. And if adultery is the game for losers as I suspect it is, then the game becomes less about winning and more about just surviving. And all of us are now left just trying to survive the selfishness of two people who thought they had it all but in reality had nothing.
Today’s post is going to be a little like how my brain is reacting these days…a total mish-mash of ideas, art, photos and whatever else happens to come along.
I wanted to share this from last year. It was taken near Yosemite National Park. Sometimes the majesty of a creature just stops you dead in your tracks.
In other areas of my life…my garden is just lovely. The hummingbirds are going crazy as the flit from flower to flower. While I love the flowers I have to confess I hate the weeding and unfortunately doing it in 90+ degree weather doesn’t motivate me in the least.
In other news, I went to pick up one of my kids and saw this
A Ford Econoline Van. That sure brought back memories. The year was 1977 and my first husband and I were traveling across country from Florida to California. I was so young I didn’t drive yet so he did it all. Just as we crossed into Ca on a foggy mountain pass he started hallucinating due to lack of sleep. We were almost killed by a semi but it was enough for him to get his shit together and keep driving. These were my hippie days and I was with him for seven years. Several years later I met B and that is when this oddessy of 31 + years of a marriage began and is now ending.
One thing: B and I sat down to discuss splitting our assets. He told me he will not be going to try to get his father’s inheritance returned to him and that we will split everything 50-50. I hope this is the one thing he is telling the truth about but I am reluctant to believe him after these four years of lies. Frankly, I don’t know if he even knows how to tell the truth anymore. Yesterday, I told him that after he moves out that we should maybe have one night as family night where we all get together and eat but other than that I am no longer feeding him. He is trying to stay close to me and I know that it is not in my best interest. Last night I said I was going for a walk and he asked to join me. I told him NO and that I thought it would be best if I began to not rely on his presence so much and that he didn’t need to call me during the day anymore either. I think it will be for the best but it seems to be hard for him to do…too bad.
This is my latest piece of artwork that I did for my therapist. I tell you I am amazed how doing this allows my feelings to be felt and bypass the possible sting of my words.
And this I call temptation
Well, that is it for today. Hope you have a great day filled with joy and many blessings.
One of my biggest fears in regards to the end of my marriage is that I worry that I may never trust again. Frankly, I don’t even know how or where to begin to even attempt such a feat which feels on par with climbing Mt. Everest without oxygen. For up here in Betrayal Land the oxygen is so thin that my guts often feel as if they are on fire and an ever persistent stress headache looms as vast as when the wheels hit the ground in the Himalayan Mountains.
Here’s the thing. I wasn’t just betrayed in four major ways by my husband over the past several years…that alone I could probably deal with. No, I was also betrayed by:
The mistress whose house I visited in Vietnam. I met her parents, siblings and had lunch with them. Upon returning home I sent her father books, I sent her money many times and I tried to find a way to get her father over here for a visit as he had been in Texas during the Vietnam War and wanted to return before he died.
My husband’s sister who began her own relationship with the mistress. They emailed and she commented on mistress’ FB page telling her she was “So pretty.” This is a woman whose crack-head daughter came to live with me and i got her clean. The woman who I supported emotionally for years.
So two of the most important people in my life betrayed me and mistress’ whole family that I was trying to help. How does one get over that? EVER?
I have tried asking for help in forgiving. I have tried to let go of the hurts of the past year. I meditate. I read books about joy, letting go, and the like. I pray. I beg. I plead. I bargain….nothing helps.
For quite a while i was doing okay but in the last week I have gotten angry. I mean really angry and all of a sudden all these betrayals feel like I am dancing on hot coals…my feet and soul being scorched and burnt black as the earth itself. And with all that anger comes feels of disbelief and distrust that feels so vast, so tall, and so unending I do not know how I will ever cross it or get over it.
I want to trust again because I think it is so much healthier for you. Living in a cloud of distrust slowly strangles you. As a result our soul becomes parched and drier than the Sahara Desert until it is so dried out it just blows away like the dust that you have become.
I want to trust again. I want to trust men, women and most of all myself because with betrayal I have lost the ability to trust my own perceptions and all aspects of my reality. I have lost my ability to discern, to see clearly, and to read between the lines. I no longer trust what I see or feel is genuine or meaningful. I have become damaged in a way that I wonder if I can ever come back from. Does BETRAYAL=BLACK HOLE?
I want to trust again and I know that it starts in some way with forgiveness…but how? How does one do it successfully and let go in ways that are not detrimental to oneself?
It doesn’t work that way despite what you might believe.
Going through this divorce I am finding out a lot about the laws of this state and frankly in this case, after 31+ years of marriage I am going to get law fucked. In California, the law is regards to divorce is this: what you inherit it is yours alone if you leave a good paper trail.
So, say you inherit money as a 20 yo and you divorce at 70 (you were married 50 years) if you can show a paper trail of where your money went (we bought a house, etc) then it is all yours 50 years later. It doesn’t matter if you co-mingled funds or put both of your names on the deed to the house, you get your money back. So if you put $100,000 down on a house and 50 years later the house is still worth $100,000 you get it. If you put $100,000 down on a house and 50 years later the house is worth $200,000, you get your $100,000 back plus 1/2 of the $100,000 increase in value.
Thirteen years ago, B’s father died and left him some money. Out of the 6 sibs he was the only one who was named in the will because the other children had nothing to do with him (except for one who a few years before he died began to have contact with him.) Only B and I had a relationship with him. We talked on the phone, went to dinner, had him spend time with us, etc. When he was sick I took him groceries and made him meals. I spent more time with him than B. And after buying two houses, I find out that I am not entitled to them. Even after years of being on the deed, paying half the taxes, utilities, etc. which means in the divorce I am going to come out a loser. Big time. Worse, I think he elected to stay in Ca instead of move to WI or Tx when we had the chance for just this reason.
Really, I never thought that this would happen. Here my husband has been having an affair for four years, sent the playmate approx. $50,000 USD in cash, presents, trips, etc. I can’t get that back but he can get back what is in my name and has been for years.
To say I am upset at this situation is an understatement but at the same time my hands are tied. I can only hope that my husband realizes that the children will be watching how he treats me, that his father would be disgusted with him and that God might have a few choice words for him too.
For the wonderful people who have followed my blog for so long….I apologize. After I moved and had the SECOND NEW START I decided not to blog because I wanted to only put positive vibes out and go into my marriage (AGAIN) whole hearted. I was afraid that if I blogged it would in a sense be returning to possible doubt that what I was doing was right for me.
So here is the thing. Yes, I have wasted precious moments on a marriage that was essentially over the day B started communicating with our Vietnamese tour guide in April 2015 unbeknownst to me. And all those years he tried to make me small so he could make her big in his mind, where he made me feel less than, when I couldn’t figure out what was wrong; well they were not totally a waste, because I learned more about me and who I wanted to become. Yes, this was damaging to my self esteem, but with my therapists help, I have overcome what he tried to make me believe about myself so he could feel better about himself. But now, nakedly exposed, he doesn’t feel better about who he is for now he is forced to examine himself/ his actions and he is puzzled and embarrassed and in general feels like the shit he has been. He has to live with himself and it will be a struggle.
When I found out about the affair in January 2018, after he was fired for his job as president of his company, in part, I suspect, for sending naked pictures of him and his “true love” over company computers; I decided to continue to try to work things out because that was what I needed to do for me. For our family. We still have three children at home, two with autism, so ours is a challenging household at times. I also found out that he had sent her approx. $30,000 and that during his two years in therapy he never told his therapist about his affair. But I decided that it was best for all involved to give our relationship another shot.
And then when we were getting ready to move for his new job in July, at the end of June, I found out, due to his hysterics at 2 am in the morning, that he had unprotected sex with a hooker three days prior and HAD TO GO to the hospital right then to be sure he didn’t have AIDS. Yet, I still stayed; although I protected myself by putting the new house in my name only and by having 1/2 of the partnership distribution put in my own private account. I did this because he had talked in January about moving to Vietnam to be with IT and I wanted to be sure that I was in the position that I could take care of myself and the kids. (He also talked about having considered having two families one knowing nothing about the other…fortunately… I am not sister wife material.) WTF
So everything seemed to be going well. Every day he looked me in the eyes and told me he loved me…acted like it too. We had a ritual of sitting on the sofa together every morning while holding hands and he would thank God out loud for me and our wonderful relationship together. Our marriage felt new, on track and very loving. And all this worked until April 9 (Last month) when I went into his office and he started acting crazy. Off his rocker. Totally Nuts. He insisted we leave the office due to “thin walls” and took me to the conference room where he told me he wanted to quit his job. How would I feel about that and how would we manage? he asked. I told him we would figure it out and that “I would rather have you alive than dead due to stress.”
And then I went back into his office where I discovered why he was acting so crazy. This :
“What is this?”
“We got it when we were in Vietnam”
“No we didn’t. First of all I wouldn’t buy something like that and secondly every refrigerator magnet we have ever bought is on our refrigerator.”
“No, we got it in Vietnam.”
And all of a sudden my heart knew without a doubt and I said:
“I think it we are done. You need to move out.”
And there is was. Done. The door closed. Forever. That line had been crossed and there was no going back. EVER.
In the weeks that have followed, I have since discovered he has sent IT and her sister even more money. More gifts. And that he started to communicate with her when he went went to work at his new job in July. Which means that his relationship with her was never really over but the one with me was.
Later the day that I found all of this out, a friend sent me the following shots from her Facebook. Funny thing is I had not looked at her Facebook since May of last year because I truly believed in my heart his affair with her was done. Had I looked I would have realized that it was not.
Here she is holding the leprechan we bought for our grandchildren in Ireland on our 25th Anniversary celebration.
Talking about “the groom” (my husband) on Facebook with others
And celebrating her birthday with flowers, presents and a cake with a picture of my husband and her gracing the top of the cake in frosting with the words THANK YOU lovingly written across the top for him to see.
He has moved out at my insistence. Our kids are doing the best that they can. We are trying to split assets without it getting ugly. Everyday, he tells me he loves me and wants to stay married. That this time he will go into it 100% committed to me and our relationship. (Excuse me….isn’t that what you promised before.)
I have a good lawyer and papers are being filed today. I should be divorced in about 6 months.
Yes… to many I have wasted time considering the inevitable happened. But my truth is this:
Too many people give up too quickly and then always wonder:
Was I too impulsive? Should I have keep trying?
And they have regrets. Unfinished business. And they can’t move on.
But I don’t. I know in my heart I gave it all I had. I tried my best. I grew from the experience. I became a better me. Further, we started with nothing and came together because we truly loved one another and my saving grace is that he will always have to wonder if his 20+ years younger girlfriend truly loves him or if it is his money she is really after. Karma is a bitch and I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.
So now as I step away from this 31+ year marriage I have no doubts. Time has given me perspective and the ability to step away somewhat gracefully. I know that this is the right thing for me and I am in a place of acceptance with little bitterness. I believe that had I stepped away sooner, I would not have been in this place of acceptance that I find myself in now. And now I have regained my sense of self… myself…I have…and I like what I have found… during this “maybe divorce” of the past four years. I feel complete, satisfied, and most days I am ready to move on. And I welcome with wonder and an open heart all that awaits me in the future. Because anything is better than living lies spoken with such sincerity by a master liar.
Sometimes when you run away from your troubles (a/k/a your cheating husband) you end up in an even hotter corner of hell. But sometimes you end up in heaven and find a little bit of joy in the midst of chaos. Wish I could stay here forever.
So about a month and 1/2 ago I told B that I could not move with him or our children if he was still in love with HER. I told him I was tired of his ever-so-quiet pining for her and that I was done and leaving if that was the way it was going to be. I was tired of being silently compared and tired of
AND FOR HEAVEN SAKES NEVER SAY AGAIN THAT SHE WAS A GOOD WOMAN like he said when the affair was discovered. As I told him, “Good women don’t try to take another woman’s husband. Period. A good woman doesn’t try to remove a man from a family of children whose special needs are significant. A good woman doesn’t take $20,000 from a man who has a family.”
A good woman? Well, I could go on and on about what a good woman is and isn’t.
And so my words were like a slap. I told him that I thought he should go to Vietnam and see what in the hell he wanted. I also said I would most likely not be here when he returned.
“I don’t want to go.”
“I bought you a ticket. You leave on Friday.”
“I love you. Not her.”
Later that day, we took all this to the therapist who told B that this fantasy he has lived was only that…just a fantasy and that he was going to lose the things he loved most…me and his children if he continued to put HER on a pedestal and ignore the goodness that was right in front of him. I think it shook him to the core.
That evening, he cried and apologized for all the pain that he has caused. He admitted that he was being stubborn and wrong and that he loved me, not her, to which I said well you had better start showing it…and he has. It is like the blinders are off and he is seeing me for me and not who he needed to see me as so he could conduct his affair. For the past 6 weeks we have been so much closer and he acts like I am his one and only, is being honest in all those little ways that count, and is stepping up to the plate to really work on himself and our marriage.
Last week I decided that I would move with him. I am happy with this decision. I was deeply in love with this man for almost 30 years until his affair started three years ago and he changed into someone unrecognizable. I am not going into this blind. I know that there is still a lot of work to do. I know that moving away does not solve all your problems. I know that moving with children is a major stressor and that our lives might implode. I am aware of all of this and yet, I have made the decision to go with him because I do still love him. Always have. Always will. But most of all, I love myself again. And…I also know this:
“Fool me once, shame on YOU. Fool me twice shame on me.”
B’s affair was horrid. Awful and he destroyed a part of myself that still needs for me to build it back up into something so strong it can never be leveled again…YES, ME…because I allowed myself to let go of who I was in an attempt to please him. My therapist believes I will never do that again. I believe so too.
So, while the affair and its aftermath has been the most painful thing I have ever experienced I am looking at it in this way…it was the first and only affair he has had in over 30 +years. He deserves another chance. As I do. As does our marriage and our children. And so we are giving that chance to each other and our family.
Will he contact her again or have another affair? I truly believe not because of all the devastation that his affair has left behind. He lost just about everything because of it including his health. And if it ever happens again I will take action immediately and leave. My therapist believes this to be true because I have found myself again and plan on never letting go of who I am in an attempt to please him. Another affair will not be tolerated. Period.
So…he goes. I am jumping off the deep end but this time I am holding his hand as I do it. If he let’s go, I will survive, but if we continue to keep our fingers intertwined I think we will have something to hold on to for the next 30 years.
Gardy Loo Pismire 