Accpetance

It’s Over And The Cheater Is Gone

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment

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 :QZPR4BfKQaaYBR%pcPhmqg

“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.

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Talking about “the groom” (my husband) on Facebook with others

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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.

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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.

This is where I am at. You must listen … and now Fia

 

 

 

 

 

Religion’s Impact On Marriage

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

Religion

My husband and I come from very different religious backgrounds. He was raised Catholic with a mother who fought for the anti-abortion movement. His father, in his later years, returned to the church where he attended on a daily basis with truth and conviction on his side.

I was raised Methodist. My father is an agnostic who doesn’t have much time for “religious nuts.” His term not mine. He met his current wife at church while still married to my mother. A divorce ensued. For this reason and others that have occurred within my marriage religion to me often feels problematic, unsafe, and hypocritical.

Anyway, B is much more of a straight line liberal Christian believer and I am what I would call a seeker of religious tradition from several faiths. I attend a liberal church with B and our family but I also like attending the local Buddhist Temple and the Unitarian service. This has at times caused issues in our marriage. B believes we should go to church almost every week and feels if I do not attend with him it sets a bad example for our children. He believes church should be a family affair not two people going to separate services at differing religious institutions. And while I agree that might be ideal I don’t want to be bound to convention or ideas of what one must do to prove that they are indeed religious a/k/a a “good” person. I want to be free to explore/learn those things that meet my spiritual needs whatever they may be that week.

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Along these lines it has recently occurred to me that if we are indeed a unique creation of God then that must carry through to all parts of our lives. I am unique. I like books, horseback riding and meditating every day. B is also unique. He loves to play his bagpipes, he rarely reads a book, and he wakes up in the morning (every morning) to read the Bible. It seems to me that while religion gives a nod to the uniqueness of us all that it should follow this would also be true concerning religious preferences and beliefs. Why is it we expect that because we are all unique we will have different preferences and yet somehow, for the most part, couples are suppose to have almost identical beliefs when it comes to God? In almost all areas of life this is not expected but in regards to religion the expectation is there held fast and tight by society and often by couples themselves. I mean up until recently people of differing faiths were often ostracized by their own families if they married outside of their religious traditions.

Personally, I like to think that by exploring different religious perspectives, I have the kind of faith needed to fill in the cracks that most people find exist between the discrepancies  in what they personally believe and what they are taught they must believe if they are following their religious traditions “correctly.”

Sometimes I wish that B could just accept that for me attending church with him is a gift for us both. It shouldn’t matter why I am there just as long as I am and I want to be. My reasons should be mine alone and not some sort of test regarding whether those reasons are “good enough” or if this makes it so we are not “compatible.” And while, for the most part, B is not that uptight when we don’t see eye to eye on how we both practice our spirituality; I know that he wishes that we had this common bond in which our ideas meshed together in a way that would strengthen our relationship instead of  emphasize our differences.

Perhaps someday my spiritual believes will align more with B’s… or maybe not. But one thing I do know is that I don’t want religion to further divide our marriage. It is foolish to expect that we will be thinking and feeling the same way at the same time. So I just hope that God’s love will shine bright enough to light the way along both of our spiritual paths, whatever they may be, as we journey through live/marriage together.

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