The Courage to Love Again
Beginning again
Dating After Divorce
I know it is too soon for any sort of serious relationship. Realize, please, that I am mindful of this fact and think about what a mistake it would be to even consider the thought after all I have been through with B and my total lack of trust of men and myself. That said, with eyes wide open I have entered the dating world…and I think it probably sucks more than I thought it would.
Gracie was gone for a week so I made myself a promise that I would at least go out once and dip my big toe it the water…turns out that I stuck my entire foot into the pond.
Date #1. I had my doubts before even leaving the house for coffee…I should have listened. He was nice enough and so is his mother, I gather. He lives with her after a temporary financial setback.
NEXT
Date #2. A real Casanova this one but there was real chemistry…dangerous chemistry. Light your hair on fire chemistry BUT a rich man with no allegiance to anyone but himself. And so I came home, took a cold shower, and went to bed by myself.
Date #3. Didn’t look like his picture…need I say more?
NEXT
Date #4. Nice enough man with a history of a nervous breakdown. This girl has been a care taker all her life. Doesn’t want to be one again and is eliminating any man in which I see any possibility of reassuming that role.
One nice thing about dating is that after a tearing down of my ego for years it is rapidly being replenished. Each man I have been out with has said the same thing: You are easy and wonderful to talk to, You are pretty, You are intelligent. You are a happy fun person to be around. Guess what? I am beginning to believe them!
This weekend I have a date with a seemingly nice man who is driving all the way from Reno to meet me and will stay with his friends in a town nearby, He makes me laugh until I almost pee my pants….that’s a good thing, right!
And so I have ventured into single life kicking and screaming all the way but who knows, maybe there is someone out there for me…a damaged by divorce 59 year old woman who is finally happy to be just where she is at in life!
The Irony Of Being Prepared
I confess.
I am one of THOSE people.
For years I have been overly prepared in case of a disaster.
I HAD enough freeze-dried food saved to feed my family for a year.
A water purifier that you could siphon water from the lake (had that siphon too) and have clear clean water? Yes, I HAD that.
Portable solar generator with solar panels and lights. Yep.
Stockpile of seeds. Check.
Portable greenhouse. HAD that too.
Crank radio and generator. One of my earliest purchases.
Rope, flint, fishing hooks and tackle, water proof matches, books on how to make your own soap and butcher a cow…I HAD it all.
You name it and I HAD it.
Be prepared was my motto It is the motto that I am pretty sure that the Boy Scouts stole from me way back when.
You will note in the above writing, that the operative word is HAD. As in I HAD this or that; which I find to be the biggest irony of all in the cheater saga of the past five years. It is ironic that B has “custody” of every survival item that I ever bought in order to “save” our family sitting in OUR home in Texas while I work my ass off in CA using a breaker bar to pull out all the HUGE rocks in order to install a vegetable garden. The food, the generator, the purifier… he has everything. And while I find comfort in the fact that I know my boys will be well taken care of … it doesn’t help Gracie and I out here in CA not one little bit. Let’s only hope I never find out if he sends the food to his mistress but why wouldn’t he when he sent her $50,000 so she “wouldn’t get gray hair with worry” according to her.
The other day I texted B and asked him to send out the seeds so I could, should times get worse, ensure Gracie’s and my survival. Here is his response:
And so I learned quite a bit from this exchange. First and foremost is that he does not give a shit about us and frankly that is the most important thing. That is what will stick in the front of my mind when we go to court. The other 10 things I learned from this text just aren’t as important as that. Just a friendly reminder to myself that it is all about him. Nothing has changed but then again usually nothing does for a selfish liar.
I hope you are all doing well during this time of social distancing. It is a good time to catch up on all those things that we have been putting off.
May your day be joyful. May you learn something.
As for me…its time to go move some boulders!!! My Fibromyalgia is still kicking my ass so prayers would be welcome that this doesn’t do me in.
Grocery Store Blues
Almost every morning I arise and recite some positive affirmations which I find brings positive thinking to the forefront and negative thinking into the further recesses of my mind. Unfortunately, I have neglected to do so for the past several days and it all caught up to me today in the grocery store.
Since I left my home and family I find that the hardest thing is for me to do is to go to the food store. Frankly, it is the loneliest place on the planet and I find this is where these life changes that I am facing knock me flat and kick the shit out of me.
I used to like to go shopping. When you have a family as big as mine and cook just about every night; the grocery store is a place of endless ideas. It is a positive place that you can go to show your appreciation to your spouse and your love for everyone in the house by getting foods they enjoy and then cooking them and preparing them with love in your heart.
Since I have been single I have found the grocery store to be my own personal nightmare. Sure I get to pick what I ALONE WANT TO EAT but there is a true emptiness in doing so. I really have no desire to cook a fancy meal for me, myself, and I; so my shopping cart looks barren and desolate like the basket of someone getting over the flu. Few things in it and none of them very exciting or wholesome. Lots of healthy frozen dinners, milk, yogurt, lettuce, carrots and that is about it.
Which is why I became shaken while walking the aisles today. I found that I had a very strong impulse to leave the cart sitting in the meat section and run out the doors. I have never had this happen to me before and it felt disconcerting. At took everything within me to stay and continue what I had come in for. It wasn’t a panic I was feeling. Just an all encompassing sadness. All I could think of as I cruised around was the laughter around the dinner table that I so desperately miss along with the appreciation I felt for a job well done. And all of this exists no more in this life that I am creating. It took everything I had in me not to break down in tears in aisle 13 (coffee) aisle 8 (school lunch snacks) and the produce aisle where golden apples once beckoned like the sun. My eyes were so thick with water that when I opened the freezer door I misjudged and slammed it hard into my forehead almost knocking myself out. WHAP!!!!! Just like something out of an I LOVE LUCY episode.
Some sweet teenage boy looked at me and said, “Hey, lady are you okay?”
“NO, NO IAM NOT. I AM NOT OKAY. I AM NOT OKAY WITH HOW THIS ALL TURNED OUT. DAMN IT!!!
I am feeling:
Sad
Scared
Weary
Lonely
Vulnerable
Excited at times
And pretty much feeling worthless and unsure of myself…like walking the plank over an ocean full of thrashing sharks waiting to nibble at my bones.
I know it will get better. I know that someday I will be creating new memories of dinners with new friends and neighbors which will make perusing the aisles fun again. But for now the grocery store is the loneliest place on the planet and it is a place I just don’t want to visit anymore. It holds too many good memories and its shelves are stocked with expired items that are not mine to put into my cart. I can no longer taste the flavors of life at the dinner table anymore only the cardboard wrapping that protects what is inside.
A Loving Response To My Husband’s Affair
A dear friend of mine read Running On Empty and took the time to write to me. They were loving words, get “off your ass” words and “let’s get with it” words. I appreciated each and everyone so much so that I decided to share it with you.
…. its understandable to feel these emotions and its too early to rejoice in the future. This future offers promise, independence and peace. You’ve had half a decade of discontent, mistrust, suspicion, self doubt and a self image that was devastated by uncertainty and malicious evaluation from someone who saw fault in you but not in themselves. How much more do you have to torment yourself? When do you say, its enough. You’re a strong enough person to realize what has happened here.
B, unfortunately, was snared by someone calculating enough to realize that she found a money pit. Someone who with the briefest of encounters was willing to support her financially, adopt her family and support them as well and to surrender his very existence to follow a myth that she provided.
I hate to say it, but to my way of thinking, B is a temporary inconvenience for her. She’ll live well here, if, she is, as you say, on his list to bring over, but she’d be a queen in her own country and a family matriarch if she were to go back to Vietnam a wealthy single female. B is financially worth a lot to her but I would think as benefactor of his will and insurance coverage, even more. I honestly believe she’s set him up as a gullible westerner who is going to be sugar daddy to her family and friends. The age difference allows an early exit leaving her beneficiary of his fortune, My guess is that he’ll be taking care of her family almost immediately.
All of this is conjecture, you don’t know for certain but regardless….he has his life to live….good or bad. But be more than a bystander with yours. Your offerings are more than just what B provided you. Dig down and rediscover yourself. Be Lynn. There was another person before B, you know. Find her again. It may not be easy but there is someone there, just look. You’ve been a genealogist and expert on others lives… how about reading about your ancestors and realize someday one of your heirs will be looking into their history and stumble upon your name. Show them something. Show them something good. Show them what you are made of and what they inherited from you. Make them proud but mostly make yourself proud and become who you were meant to be.
Running On Empty
And so I start my new life. A life that once offered such promise and now I know not what it brings. One could say we never do…know what life brings. But when I was married for 32 years, I know that life brought me hope, assurance, and feeling appreciated. Now I feel nothing…but empty. An all encompassing emptiness like the lack of sound around you as you stare wide-eyed at the snowy silence in a forest. That surreal reaction that feels so other worldly because it makes your ears hurt with the nothingness that fills them. That is kind of what leaving your children to get away from your cheater “I’m in love with our tour guide who is 20 years younger than you” feels like when you finally put your foot over the threshold. All the remains is a vast and unending silence. And while I am glad to be away from B’s constant lies, the price I am paying for doing nothing but believing in him…in us… in our family… is a heavy price to pay. He cheats…he has our kids. She cheats…she walks into my life and I am replaced. Everything I have poured my heart and soul is gone. Everything I loved into since I ran out my door at 15…never to return…gone. There was nothing to return to then and nothing to return to now…but emptiness…vacant hearts…desolate times in which I could not compete with the forbidden kiss of a woman across the world. A love, once whole but now dried up… falling apart… flaky and hard… like a day old biscuit.
Yet, every morning I put my feet over the side of the bed refusing to give into grief and pain that pulls at the roots of my insides, snapping like a rubber band against the skin…a wince coming just prior to letting go of the stretch. And so I stand, taking my first steps just like I did 58 years ago when first steps were exciting and everyone squealed in delight. Not terrifying as they are now. Falling when you are one = bandaids and kisses whereas when you are my age it can mean broken bones and even possibly death.
I feel like I should be grateful…I have a place to land unlike so many others in this world. But I feel no gratitude. Only the emptiness of once abundant touches…gone. “Hey, mom…I’m home!”…distant dreams. I miss my kids. I miss my life. But most of all I miss me. Who I was when I was their mom? When I was someone’s wife? When I thought I knew what I was and what I wanted. Now I look in the mirror at a stranger. A person’s whose eyes flash like a loud neon sign, ” Vacancy!” There is nothing here because I don’t even know the place that I am at, the language that is spoken, or the resources available to me. Life on this side of the aisle is so different and full of unknowns. Like being dropped off on a desert island with one match and being told, “Okay, now go make a life for yourself!” Does striking the match guarantee fire? Where to I even begin?
I have been reading Joan Didion’s book The Year Of Magical Thinking in hopes of reacting to grief in a normal way, yet, there is nothing normal about this. Grief when someone leaves you alone due to death protects the mind. While all encompassing you know that the person who left you didn’t have a choice. They didn’t want to leave you. Grief when your husband is in love with someone else is different. They had a choice and they choose someone else. They wanted to leave you or wanted you to leave. Either way it makes no difference. You are rejected for who you are and all you ever hoped to be. You are not enough…never will be. This kind of grief doesn’t allow for “what if’s.” It just allows for the coring out of your heart and soul…all that is left is dry dusty bones held up by pieces of your life that fill in the joints making it possible to remain upright like a medical skeleton hanging in a med school dorm. Something hanging there that no one even notices anymore in the age of the digital life. Something regulated to the obsolete.
I will be okay. I keep telling myself this because if there is one thing I have learned in life it is that it will be okay…eventually. It always gets better…eventually. And when my eventually comes I will kick up my heals and dance celebrating who I am and all that I have created. But for now I sit quietly contemplating the same life questions I did when I was 15, 20 and 35. Who am I? Who will I become? What do I want? How do I go about achieving this? The devil is in the details and the details have yet to be revealed.
Driving a U-Haul Across Country
So I made it home safe and sound in record time. If we count the near misses ( the car almost falling off the tow dolly and the freezing temps when I could not find a hotel and slept in the truck) well, I guess I can count my lucky stars that I am still in one piece racing across the country like Mario Andretti.
Driving across half the United States in a U-Haul by yourself gives you plenty of time for self reflection and a lot of time to release all the hurt and anger. Mile upon mile the conversation went something like this:
‘HE DOESN’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE! GET OVER IT!!!” (add loud screaming while this was being said out loud as I passed a million truck drivers looking at me like I was nuts)
“So this is your opportunity to craft a new life for yourself…how are you going to do that?”
THAT FUCKING PRICK!!!
I HOPE SHE GIVES HIM A DISEASE!!!!
“You have got to let go of this anger. it is only hurting you.”
“Maybe China would be a good start.”
THAT ASSHOLE! HOW DARE HE REPLACE ME!!! (He will marry her when our divorce is finalized)
When he realizes our kids are probably going to move to be with me at the end of the school year then it will hit him all that he has lost due to his thinking with his dick!
“Okay…cancel, cancel, cancel….Look at the pretty blue sky…anything to get your mind on something else!”
Gosh, I can’t believe that trucker wanted my phone number…ain’t happening dude!
“NHI YOU FUCKING CUNT. HOW DARE YOU DESTROY THIS FAMILY. I GET IT…YOU WERE SELLING CABBAGE RIGHT BEFORE YOU MET US. I GUESS THE BOOKS I SENT YOUR DAD AND THE MONEY I SENT YOU WASN’T ENOUGH AND YOU SAW THAT B WAS A MUCH BIGGER CATCH. BUT YOU HAVE TO LIVE WITH YOURSELF…ONLY YOU DO AND YOU HAVE NO CONSCIOUS.”
“Okay, you can’t blame her. She was just trying to lift herself out of poverty and it was B who broke his vows to you…not her!”
Let’t try this again…concentrate…what do you want to be when you grow up and reach 70 in 11 years? How are you going to achieve it? How do you want to be remembered? What is your legacy?
FUCK THIS LEGACY STUFF! I DID HAVE A LEGACY AND NOW IT HAS BEEN TURNED UPSIDE DOWN AND BACKASSWARDS!
HE DOESN’T LOVE YOU AND HASN’T FOR A LONG, LONG TIME. ANYONE WHO HAS CHEATED AND HURT YOU OVER AND OVER AGAIN DOESN’T LOVE YOU…GET THAT THROUGH YOUR FUCKING HARD HEAD!!!!
“Okay, he doesn’t love me. So what? I am still loveable even if he doesn’t!”
“I CAN DO THIS!!!”
FUCKTARD…FUCKTARD….FUCKTARD…(must have been said 10,000 times)
“Okay, you have a lot of offer the world. What do you mean what? Well…I am funny, persistent, hard working, adventurous, fun loving…hold a decent conversation,,,and I look hot in thigh high black boots…I mean really how many almost 60 yo can pull that one off!!!”
“Maybe a tummy tuck?”
Nipple piercings?
“Maybe now you can finish your novel…hey….that thought for a new novel is brilliant!”
SLOW DOWN FOR GOODNESS SAKES…IF A COP PULLS YOU OVER YOU WILL START CRYING AND THEY WILL PROBABLY THROW YOU IN A CELL BECAUSE YOU ARE ACTING LIKE YOU ARE OVER THE EDGE….OKAY…THAT IS BESIDES THE POINT!
“I like it…maybe joining the Peace Corps isn’t a bad idea…and look at that…an assignment in Madagascar….now that would be exciting! If you are going to have to start working again at this age it has to be meaningful work!”
And so it went for almost 2000 miles. By the time I got to my home I was hoarse from all the shouting at myself, asshole and mistress. My eyes had a permanent bloodshot and glazed look about them after all the tears. But I also had released all five years of deception, lies and destroying myself as I tried to be someone that would make B happy but couldn’t because it really wasn’t about me at all. It was about him. A man who is a coward. A man who thinks fantasy is reality. A man who didn’t tell his therapist after two years of seeing her that he was having an affair. A man who couldn’t share his feelings and blamed me for it. A man who on the second day of meeting NHI said to her as I was taking their picture together on the steps of the palace “You are going to be my second wife!”
And me? I am sad. I am relieved. Not living with a liar is a gift. I have a chance to become whatever and whomever I want to be. I can do some really great things for myself and others that will bring happiness and meaning to my life. I get to discover who I am at almost 60 without kids, spouse, and cats. I get to lead my own parade with clowns, floats and big brass bands.
Most importantly….I got another page in my book…. and I will use it well.
Funny The Things We “Think” When We Leave
I arrived back in California early in the morning. I had nothing at my home. No beds, no chairs, no spoons…no nothing… except lots of memories and heartache. This is the house where I first separated from B and the place I would leave in order to “rekindle” my hopes and dreams about our marriage. And it hurts to know that soon I will return as single person after 32 years of togetherness tricked into believing in a carefully crafted mirage. But I digress…
The only thing that was open at 12:30 a.m. was a Walmart in a town about an hour away from my house. I stopped. If you have ever been to a Walmart at that time of the day it is depressing. The buzz of the automatic floor cleaners greeted me while nary a person could be found. Silence permeated a place that usually roars during the hours of 8 a.m.- 10 p.m. It reminded me of the hours that teens spend locked away in their rooms avoiding their parents.
I wandered through the aisles in a daze…on a autopilot…aware…but not really…of what I was doing. It was as if I was looking through glass…seeing the light shining through but what was behind the glass was GONE. There was nothing to look back on and no future to look towards. Just a vast empty place…the place where my heart once beat rapidly whenever I saw B. A place of comfort and security. A place that no longer existed except inside my head.
Soon I came to the aisle loaded with dishes, cups, and silverware of every shape and color. I picked up one of each thing to put in my cart and then, just as quickly, put them back onto the shelf. I just couldn’t commit to anything permanent. The bowl in my left hand seemed too weighty, too purposeful. Even though this is what I needed…TO BE GONE…it didn’t seem real and I wasn’t even sure that I wanted it to be true yet. It felt like a commitment to being forever single and baking lots of bread that I cold never consume all by myself.
“Maybe living back in my fantasy of how it once was is better than how it is now,” I thought as I fought back tears.
So I headed over to the paper goods with a mission. It’s a place full of throwaways…things to dispose of…items not to be kept forever… just like my marriage. It felt comfortable but sad. Cheap plastic cutlery, paper plates, and red DiXIE SOLO cups stared me down. I picked them up, the weight of them almost bringing me to my knees. I went to the self-check out (a very lonely place at 1 a.m.) and scanned each item checking my cart for any items left behind. All I saw was my heart, lifeless and barely pulsating…. according to B it wasn’t worth much… so I left it there at checkout #8 quivering on the conveyor belt. After bagging my necessities, I headed out the door with my twin-sized blow up mattress. It sat high in my cart advertising my new single status like a Vegas neon sign to the homeless man and his dog sitting at the cart return.
Two days later I felt stronger and headed down the mountain to Goodwill. There I found some 1980’s juice glasses, a variety of mis-matched silverware, and a nice set of four matching bowls. This I could do. It made my departure a little more real but not so real as to overwhelm me. This GONE thing was becoming more doable. Yet, I am homesick…missing my children and feeling guilty for “Abandoning” them…when I really haven’t.
Three days later I was feeling even stronger and more sure of my decision then ever. I was contemplating buying a matching set of dishes at a store a step up from Goodwill. The fact that a complete set of dishes is now a thought although not yet a reality is encouraging. For picking out a set of dishes signifies permanence to me and I have not felt quite ready to admit defeat. But each day I am stepping out and dipping my big toe a little deeper into my new life. It is a re-birth and it takes time. And this time around I want to craft a life for myself that is purposeful and meaningful in all areas of my existence…emotional, physical and spiritual. And while Goodwill is a good place to start this adventure… I know I do not want to begin with the left-overs of others. This time I will choose exactly what I need and want to nurture myself and my new beginning. I deserve to give this time to myself and I will. For I am worth it.
GONE
If I had to name all the occasions that lead up to the moment of my leaving last week; it seems as though the list from the past five years might be endless. A small part of it might look like this:
Maybe it was the fact that you told our tour guide (TG) the second day you met her that “you will be my second wife” contributed to the demise of our marriage. For you have worked very hard to make that statement come true by putting TG on a pedestal while you wiped your feet on me as you dusted and shined your Vietnamese FANTASY. You know, the fantasy whom you have spent five whole days with over the past five years. Maybe that led to my leaving.
Or maybe it was the fact that you sent her so much money that it was the equivalent of 20 years salary in Vietnam. With that much money she began living high on the hog…fancy dinners, beautiful clothes, fixing her father’s home… while I bought shirts at TJ Maxx for $14.99 to which you would comment, “When did you get that?” as if I had done something wrong.
Perhaps it was all the time and care you took into ensuring her needs were met and picking out gifts for her. Necklaces, perfume and oh yeah,,,that engagement ring that she wears on her wedding band finger.
Maybe it was all the lies…thinking that you had ended it so many times after your assurance that you did…only you didn’t. The phone call you had me witness and participate in telling her it was over. The letter you wrote to her saying the relationship could never be.
Although it might have been the daily “I love you’s”, the hugs, the great sex, and the kisses that were so faked (according to what TG told me) that you could have made Vivian Lee swoon.
Maybe it was making me feel “less than” while you struggled to choose who your heart would belong to….a competition that I could never win. Making me feel as though I could never do enough…and I couldn’t… because in your mind TG would always do more. Or the fact that you were hiding a quarter of your take home pay in a private account and couldn’t understand why I would wonder if you were sending money to TG and then getting upset when I mentioned her name.
Yet, another fact could be the day that I opened an envelope from J.P. Morgan stating that you changed your beneficiary of your investments with it going half to your sister instead of taking care of your kids. You said it was so she could divide it among your siblings because they had been left out of your father’s will 15 years ago but if that were true why not divide it with 33 1/3% going to each? Instead I believe that she was instructed to give it to TG. Frankly, doing things like this without discussion with your partner seems kind of suspicious and slimy to me.
But it really boils down to was a few days in which clarity arrived like a freight train as it plowed into my ears through my mind…its horn loud and piercing my heart until all the blood from my body seeped out of itself, spilling onto the tracks, along with all of the love that I once had for you. And like a bullet train, my love was here one minute and gone the next and I was left standing, suitcase in hand, on the platform of life deciding which direction I wanted to take. And now I am here ….alone….without my children….my heart breaking. Yet, I have been wise enough to put that suitcase down along side those tracks and refuse to drag it along behind me for the rest of my life. For you and your lies are packed in that suitcase and it is has been a heavy load to carry around with me the past five years. Now, I never want to open that suitcase again.
But really what drove me to leave were these few things that all happened within the past ten days. The first was the night that I told you how I had been working with my therapist to come up with what a needed to feel that we were working towards healing and that our new life together was on track. You know, that night I told you, “Honey, I need a new symbol of our commitment and would like for us to go on Sunday to pick out new rings and re-new our vows on our anniversary.” And you said something along the line of “I am not sure that I can do that because I don’t know that you can change to love, honor and OBEY me. ” That was definitely the beginning of the end because if you loved me you would have said, “Whatever you need to make you feel safe in this relationship. I will do whatever it takes.” Yet, you had never, once, throughout these two years of me knowing about the affair been willing to do whatever it takes. And you should have. I deserved no less.
Finding the love letters between the two of you and the naked pictures of your time in Singapore didn’t help the situation especially as I ran through my head the number of times you told me that you had nothing left from the affair.
But really it was the butt-dialed conversation I heard between you and your sister that drove me away. Hearing the distain you have for me in your voice just about did me in. Hearing the two of you laughing at and about me was one of the most painful things I have ever heard. You know that conversation:
“…I asked her what she was seeing her therapist for and she said PTSD.”
“…from my affair?”
“and she said yes.” (chuckle, chuckle, laugh. laugh)
“…oh that is the new diagnosis. Everyone has it. But if anyone should have PTSD it should be YOU from living with her!” (chuckle, chuckle, laugh, laugh)
Or maybe it was hearing her say you were lucky to be living in Texas now… for the divorce and hearing your answer. Your words made me finally realize that there was a strong possibility that you had brought me to Texas with you in order to get the kids with you (since they were with me in CA) so you wouldn’t have to pay child support nor spousal support. If that was your plan it was so deliberate and cunning that it sacred me and shook me to my very core. It was that moment that I also realized just why you didn’t want me to come to CA to work on my house until after the 30th. Texas law required that you be a resident six months to file and in just a few more weeks you could file against me for divorce and try to get the jurisdiction of our pending CA divorce changed to the State of Texas; a more favorable state for you. My heart started bleeding with that realization because my intensions to start over and be with you and our family were true while yours were not.
Hearing how you made yourself out to be the victim of the housecleaning wars was also interesting as was when you asked your sister how the TG was doing and it became obvious that your sister was in contact with her for you.
But it is conceivable that what really sealed the deal was how, when the next day arrived and I asked you if you had talked to your sister you said, “No, I haven’t talked to her in at least a week” while looking directly into my eyes.
“Really, you haven’t talked to her?”
“No, not at all.”
“Stop lying to me I know you talked to her yesterday.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You butt-dialed me (or did he…maybe it was intensional?). I heard every word!”
“No, I didn’t.”
How…how can you stare into my eyes and continue lying? And at the moment I realized the price I was paying was too high and I didn’t want to pay it anymore. That my sanity was worth more than I could ever lose remaining with you.
So I have left your fantasy land. Mine too. Our “trial” reunification in Texas is done. I have been stripped of everything I thought was true about you, about me, and about our life together. I no longer know what was true the past five years and what you made up to appease me and to protect your guilty self. In fact, upon reflection, I don’t know what was true EVER. And that makes me angry. I am angry that I was so stupid and trusting. I am angry that you set me up. I am angry that you and your girlfriend fucked up our lives and that now I am left alone…our kids living with you because I loved them enough not to just take them with me.
Why?
Well, Paul is in his senior year of high school. He will graduate in four months and is finally doing well in school. His high school has worked hard to help him succeed and feel good about himself despite all the challenges his disabilities present. No…I could not pull him away from that because of my own needs. And Gracie? Well, she has two more years of high school and loves her new coach. Finally, she is getting great coaching which is paramount for a kid wanting to go to college on an athletic scholarship. No, I couldn’t do that to her either. And Andre…well autism serves him well. He doesn’t care if we divorce or who he lives with as long as he gets to remain in his room.
I am back in my house in CA. It had not sold while I was in Texas. Unfortunately, about six weeks ago it also flooded due to a sump pump failure which insurance would not cover. So I am spending close to $50,000 to repair this house and living in at at the same time. This week I am going to try my hand at tiling a bathroom floor as well as get back to studying my textbooks so I can have a “career” again after I divorce at 59 years old. (I mean who starts a career at almost 60…let’s be real…it won’t be a career like you have had rather it will just be a job). And with it my lifestyle will go from vacations and having to worry much about money to cutting coupons and shopping at Good Will while you wine and dine your fantasy.
We haven’t talked since I left except for 40 seconds about a crisis occurring at the rental house. Thirty-two years of marriage and we have sent less than a half dozen texts. And while I hurt like I have never hurt before it is also incredibly freeing not to be living with a narcissistic liar anymore. Knowing that what I see and what I hear everyday is the truth is calming my brain and helping me to experience a sense of peace that I have not known in many years.
My friends are concerned. They are afraid that I will go back. But this time I won’t for it is done. I am done. Forever. Just hearing his laughter and distain did more to drive me away than the past five years that he deliberately tried to get me to leave. And because of his warped thinking he can now tell himself the story that he is innocent….that I left him…that I am the bad one….in order to feel good about himself. Yes, B, you’ve won but so have I in a way that I never imagined…I am acting with a sense of purpose and Dignity and Grave. I am treating myself well.
In fact, the other day I bought myself something very nurturing for my re-birth. It makes be feel very safe and cocooned-like. It also brings relief to my set on “high alert” sensory system has been under attack for the past many years. This gift to myself is contributing to my sense of feeling grateful, peaceful, and calm.
So friends….don’t worry about me… I am cocooned…I am safe… And B can no longer touch me or my heart. I am GONE. And one day I will feel safe and happy again. It can only get better…and it will….one day at a time. Wish me luck.
A Toast…To ME…And The “Quest”
So, here I am 59 years old and back in school…who would have thought! Certainly not I, that is for damn sure. As a stay-at-home mom with two special needs kids; B and I let my professional license lapse as we never thought I would go back to my career. Then during his affair he kept trying to push me to go back to work because a divorce would be easier if there was no spousal support to pay and probably because he was supporting/compensating “affair woman” too. Let’s face it, all he had done became too much for him to handle, and as he saw it, my working would reduce his burden in so many ways. Of course, I didn’t go get a job because with the boys autism issues, school interventions and all the doctor visits there was just no way to do so… but still he kept trying to push me back into the workforce even though financially it made no sense… at least until you calculated in the cost of the expensive mistress…at which point it made perfect sense.
Needless to say, this “about face” on B’s part had left me feeling vulnerable, scared and rather pissed in the face of a “maybe” divorce. No career, no livelihood … no nothing to depend on except a husband with whom we had made joint decisions for the “good” our family… decisions that he now wanted to abandon or amend. Yep, I could count on him looking out for his “affair needs” but not mine and at my age I found it to be a very nerve wracking thing to have staring me in the face. It was definitely a wrinkle I had not counted on and one which Botox could not cure.
Now that things are better between us I decided that I need to secure “my or our” future… whatever that turns out to be… and so last week I started online schooling. This program will allow me to work from home in the medical field and earn $50,000+ per year. While it is not what I am used to living on it will allow me to take care of my family should the need arise. It will allow me to help pay for college for our kids, would allow B to retire early if that is what WE choose and it will allow me to provide a decent living for myself should I find myself alone.
Starting to plan on a new career is a scary thing and goes against what the lawyers have told me. But I am feeling that I need to step out and take a risk for my own sake and safety. While I would like to believe that B and I are healing our marriage with a two steps forward one step back approach; I also know that the time has come for me to trust in myself again and to find a way to be able to be less fearful no matter what comes my way. If we stay together that would be great but if we don’t I am taking my first scary steps to my own financial independence and to relying on myself alone. And while I am still pissed that I have been put into this position in the first place, at this point in time I find I am grateful to have the opportunity to shape my own destiny even though I do not know what the future holds. This truly is my first step to letting go of fear and trusting in myself, my “maybe” marriage, and what is to come.
So, here’s to me and the two A’s I have received on my first two tests. I’ve got this and I finally have my own back too. And with the holidays upon us I am proud to say I have given myself the greatest gift of all…leaving limbo by reclaiming my own strength. While I may have been betrayed by others, I will try never to betray myself again and instead will face the world standing in quiet confidence.
So starts a new journey and quest. This tough old broad is ready. Bring it on.
Gardy Loo Pismire 