Moved And Living Out Of A Suitcase

So, it has been a crazy month between arriving home and immediately working on packing my house, finding a storage facility, trying to learn a bit of Spanish and finally getting gone. Some of the things I will miss the most include watching the marine layer lift from its banks, sitting in my garden, the warm laughter of friends and seeing the ocean whenever I wanted. Truly, there are very few places as gorgeous as the Southern Oregon coast.

After my house closed in early May, I proceeded to a friends house for close to two weeks. We took a final fly fishing trip together and while I did not catch any fish I enjoyed the Umpqua River and all its beauty. I am so thankful that this ex-lover introduced me to fly fishing which has given me hours of pleasure and taught me the value of patience. I also reconnected with a past lover who made an evening memorable and made me laugh heartily which I desperately needed. During this time I also turned 64…an age that is immortalized in that Beatles song…the lyrics finally ring true at this age!

On May 21st I left Oregon and headed to San Jose where the Gracie graduated from San Jose State. Hard to believe that my 20 yo young woman is headed off into the big wide world on her own. She’s come a long way since when she left as a 17 year old girl. Almost the entire family attended the graduation except the oldest and I spent two days in the company of my ex. It was a test for me of sorts but I have found that enough time has passed with very little contact so that the intense feelings that were felt when I left five years ago have mellowed with time and therapy. Do I trust him? NO. Do I like him? Only for what he has done for our children in the past year. Do I hate him? NO because hate only serves to hurt the hater and not the one who those emotions are direct at. I have come a long way, worked hard and am happy that I have reached a sense of neutrality about him whereas five years ago that would have been hard to imagine.

Yesterday, I flew to my oldest daughters home where I am visiting with the grandkids. Next week I head to Michigan to visit with my almost 89 yo father. While we have not always gotten along as I would have liked; I am reminding myself that this will possibly be the last time I see him which allows for a perspective that is entrenched in visions consisting of love and compassion. From there I head to Las Vegas to stay with my best friend for almost two weeks until I leave for Queretaro, Mexico for two months. After Mexico I head to Costa Rica to housesit for six weeks. While I am elated about these prospects, I am also facing a health issue that is concerning and that outcome will determine if I am able to keep traveling or if I will be forced to change plans and face surgery…or worse. And the worse is what stops me in my tracks. So often, we put off living for kids, mortgages, and retirement only to find when we reach our Golden Years disease robs us of our dreams for our future. I have been lucky. I have lived so many of my dreams and done many of those things that are important to me. Yet, I know of many who have not. It matters not if you are young or old. You have the choice to decide that now is the time for you to start really living your life in a way that is meaningful and authentic to you. You are alive NOW so use your time wisely and start making a promise to yourself that each year you will accomplish one thing that you believe will be important to your personal growth and benefit the world/people around you.

Queretaro, Mexico

Send me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four – The Beatles

Divorce Gets Uglier…How Is That Even Possible?

Well, as this divorce drags on my Fibromyalgia grows more painful too. I guess this is a direct manifestation of stress.

Recently B stated he would be coming to CA with our 18 yo son Paul. He wanted to see Gracie and take her with him. Problem: he refused to sign a short two paragraph document stating that we both had joint physical custody and she lived with me. That she would be with him from x to x and that he was not allowed to leave the state with her without my permission. He refused to sign. Our eldest daughter and friends who know B said do not allow him to take her. He will take her back to Texas and if she is back there getting her home will be difficult if not impossible. We all believed he might not bring her home because he stated he was going for full custody of her and that she left the state without a good discussion.

He bought the tickets last week. He still wouldn’t sign and I had no idea what I was going to do. After thinking about it I realized that he had left no time for Paul and I to see each other except during the time we would exchange Gracie. This was unacceptable since both Paul and I had told him many times that we wanted to spend extra time together. I called Paul. He told me that his father had told him he would have to spend time with me another time.  I asked him if he wanted to spend more time here after his father’s visit ended and he said yes  and immediately sent me a message that read:

Hi mom! I would like to spend 10 days with you. That would mean alot to me!!

Love you.
I sent the message stating I would buy Paul’s ticket and that he was now an adult and I urged him to talk with his sister, his Dad and watch the news and make a decision that was best for him. B who responded with:
I have his ticket already purchased.
Long story short within a few hours B canceled their trip “due to the Corona Virus.”
A few hours later he sent this:

I told him we would take the trip when things calm down. You and Gracie are welcome to come here and visit, I will pay forGracie’s flight. Give it a thought, it might be a better solution.

So yeah, you already bought tickets won’t come and then offer to have us visit you….that makes sense.

I called Paul the next morning. B had not even told him the news that they would not be going. Paul started crying. Paul was upset stating his father had already told him they would come no matter what the status of Corona was .
I wrote Paul the following :
I know today you said you were very upset about not coming out to visit. I found some direct fights from Austin to San Francisco and there is also the possibility of a flight from Austin to Sacramento. As an adult you are able to make your own decisions but I would urge you to talk to Dad, your sister and listen to various news outlets so you make a decision that is right for you. I know that you are going out to eat and last week were at the Pearl. Here they may be shutting down some restaurants tomorrow so if you were to come know that there would be limited opportunities but there would be plenty of time for us to spend together. I am not going to urge you one way or another because I think that this needs to be your own decision. So if you decide to come, I would love to have you. If you decide to stay in Texas, know I love you and we will get together another time.
Love
Mom
Long story short:
  • 1. B refused to sign the temporary custody visitation agreement regarding his trip to California.
  • 2.B bought tickets for himself and our son Paul July 8, 2020 knowing that the COVID situation was getting worse but is still taking the boys out to dinner and in public in San Antonio which has a high rate of COVID infection. I have pictures of these outings.
  • 3. A week later on July 15, 2020 when B realized that I offered to let Paul stay out with myself and Gracie for an extra 10 days he canceled the trip to California without informing Paul. He was away in Oklahoma at that time and has no problem traveling.
  • 4. The next day B sent an email stating he would pay for Gracie to come to Texas instead and I could go too. This makes no sense as:
  • A) B had already bought tickets for himself and Paul to come to California and told Paul he was not concerned about COVID
  • B) If Bis really concerned about COVID why would he ask Gracie to come to Texas which is another COVID hot spot. Why should she travel when he already had tickets purchased for himself and Paul?
  • C) The real issue is that Mr. Dieter wants to deny Paul and I access to one another and is afraid to have him stay in my home for 10 days in case he chose not to come home to him or COVID shut things down. Paul is not enrolled in college at this moment and is doing nothing that should prevent his traveling to see his family in California.
  • D) Paul is an adult. He should be able to make his own decisions without having to worry that his father will be mad at him for choosing to come and see his sister and I. This was one of Paul’s concerns that he expressed to me.

Going Back To The Gaslighter

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.

Running On Empty

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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.

OIP

 

 

Funny The Things We “Think” When We Leave

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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.

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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.

 

Don’t Tread On Me

When we moved I took money from my private account and bought several Persian rugs for pennies on the dollar at an auction held at a rug store that was going out of business. I love those rugs… all hand woven and hand dyed from far away lands. I love to imagine the weavers and where they were weaving. I love to imagine their happiness when they sold one after all their hard work. I like to imagine the smells and the scenery that these rugs saw and all the people who have walked across these rugs and found them as remarkable as I. I also wanted something of value to pass on to my kids that they could remember and then enjoy in their homes someday.

When I bought these rugs I asked B to go with me to the auction but he wouldn’t. I asked him to go so we could spend time together and to keep my spending in check because I knew that if cheap enough I might bring home too many. Well that day I came home with four rugs and I have been hearing about it in anger from B. That I went and spent MY money even though he didn’t want me to. Frankly, his carping about it these 4 or 5 times in 6 weeks started to ruin my enjoyment of these beautiful treasures. Finally, I had had it. I told him if he ever said another word about it I would burn them…after all they are only things.

So Tuesday once again the words came tumbling out of his mouth. Imagine his surprise when he walked in the door last night with our son and saw the rugs in a pile at the front door.,

“What’s going on with the rugs?”

‘I’m getting rid of them, ” I said sweetly without an ounce of anger in my voice. “I haven’t decided if I will give them to Good Will or just put them in storage somewhere until I die and they can be distributed to the kids.”

Paul was confused, “Mom, I really like those rugs. The house looks bare without them and it is noisy.”

B chimed in, “Put them back. They look good. I like them.”

Paul, “Mom, why are you doing this?”

B, “Why are you doing this?”

Me. “B, do you really want me to discuss this in front of Paul? Is now the right time for this?”

He nods okay.,

“Okay, Paul, here is the story. Your dad has been upset that I bought these rugs out of my own money. I am tired of hearing about it as it spoils the beauty of them for me. So rather than your Dad getting distressed when he sees them I think it is better that he doesn’t see them which is why I am getting rid of them. Relationships are what is important in life, not rugs. I love your Dad more than a rug. Rugs are replaceable but love has no price. If something like a rug if making your Dad so upset then I don’t need it and it is time for it to go.”

B says, “Look I will buy them from you if that means they can stay.”

“Not interested,” I replied.

“Except for the big one. You can have that one for a half million dollars,” I joked.

Later, I went to pick up daughter from dive team.

When I got home the rugs were back on the floor where they belonged.

“They look good there,” said B with a look of embarrassment and a pleading look in his eyes. “I am sorry. I will never bring up the rugs again if you will just keep them here and let our family enjoy them. Deal?”

“Deal”

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Radical Acceptance

I have been reading a book called Radical Acceptance-Embracing Your Life With The Heart of a Buddha by Tara Branch, Ph.D. It has amazed me.

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One of my issues over these last four years of heartbreak and betrayal has been resisting the experience I have had. I have wanted the situation to be something other than what it has been and have denied what was in front of me in order to give the benefit of the doubt or see B in the way he used to be but refused to view him for who he has become. I thought I was doing myself a favor trying to save my family the trauma of divorce when all I really did was just delay it.

And herein lies the problem. Resistance to what IS causes trouble for your body, heart and soul. It creates misery, health problems, and unnecessary suffering. It has made me physically ill. The last four years have probably taken ten years off my life and one reason centers around resisting what was in front of me instead of accepting what was. Given enough time I believed… I could change it…I could minimize it… and I could make B love me again…but of course, I couldn’t.

In her book, Branch advocates using guided meditation techniques and in this case something she calls exploring the POWER OF YES. During this exercise the author suggestions sitting in a quiet place, breathing deeply and closing your eyes. Then she asks you to bring to mind something in your life or a situation that produces strong reactions like sadness, anger or fear. She then asks you to access what it is about the situation that provokes the strongest feelings and be mindful of how that feeling feels in throughout your body…your chest or your stomach of any other place that you may feel tighten or get hard.

Then, and I quote from her book:

“In order to see firsthand what happens when you resist experience, begin experimenting with saying NO. As you connect with the pain you feel in the situation you have chosen, mentally direct a stream of no at the feelings….as you say no, notice what this resistance feels like in your body.” p87

So I followed her instructions  and immediately began to feel so stressed that I began to feel ill. My stomach clenched so hard that I felt nauseous. My head started pounding and my chest felt tight making the air flow to my lungs decrease. It was awful now that I was really paying attention to the reactions my feelings were provoking. How I had lived for all these years saying NO to my grief, NO to my anger and NO to my sadness? More importantly did I want to feel this NO for four more years, four more months, or even four more days? Obviously, the answer was NO.  Now that I was aware of and could really feel the impact that this denial or resistance to my emotions was having on my physical body I knew I could no longer live this way.

This now lead me to the second part of the authors meditation. After directing NO at your emotions she asks you to once again think about that painful situation and to remember the words, beliefs, and feelings that are associated with it. But this time stream the word YES. Say YES to the words, the thoughts and the beliefs that come forward.

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Upon doing this part of the mediation I immediately felt a shift… a lightness and lifting of the unpleasantness that I was feeling. My chest loosened, my nauseau disappeared and my mind became quiet… no longer racked in pain. And with this YES to the experience came an acceptance. It was not an acceptance that what B did to me was okay. It was an acceptance of this is what has happened. You can’t change it nor can you fight it and more importantly I didn’t need to rally against it anymore. As I allowed these non-judgmental YESES to come forth, I felt a release of some of the burdens, anger, anxiety and fears that I had been living with begin diminish as a gentle form of acceptance began to soothe those less than pleasant emotions. I found I could just BE and did not have to react both physically and mentally to all the emotions that I was feeling about the affair or my impending divorce. Finally, I felt a sense of peace.

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So this is how I start my day. Saying YES. Accepting what is. Finding understanding where I could not before and I feel good. My chronic pain has decreased and I find more joy. Sure I am still struggling but the struggle doesn’t defeat me. It has just become a small part of my life instead of the epic saga it once was. And for that I am thankful.

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Letter To The Mistress

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Boobs unknowingly appear to be compliments of me
So everyday, B tells me he wants to get back together with me because he loves me and wants to be with me. He begs and pleads and I say no.
“Go to Ihn,” I tell him.
“But I don’t want her. I want you. She is just an addiction that will end. I don’t want to let go of her until I know what is happening with us.”
I tell him that nothing is happening with us. We are getting divorced thanks to you. But he doesn’t let go because he wants us both.
And he tells me that he tells you that wants to be with you too. He wants to marry you.
 But here is the thing you need to know. My kids will never accept you. They know that you broke up our family and you are responsible for all of this. So you don’t win. Neither do they. And B loses most of all because the most important thing to him, his children, know what the two of you have done and how you have plotted against me, their mother. How they have suffered the ultimate loss due to the selfishness that you both have exhibited.
And when this divorce is over B will have very little assets/money left and he will hold that against both of us. In essence he will have to start over at 58 yo. and you will be working until the day you die to support him. And if he is smart he will have sign a pre-nup so nothing will be yours anyways.
One truth I do know is this: he will never feel right about your relationship because of all the guilt he feels and will continue to feel because he knows in his heart that what he has done is wrong. He knows that how he has acted is not the man he wants to be.
Further, he will never know if you “Love” him for him or for the money that he has and the over $50,000 USD he has given you to re-do your Daddy’s house (and by the way, I want my half of that back). And he knows this. He knows he can never fully trust you and he won’t. He will hold back because he will never be completely sure what your real motives are. At least we started with nothing but love and we both know that our motive and intensions were pure for the first 28 years anyways.
We are both fools, you and I. Being pitted one against the other with all aspects our humanity ignored. Yet, he is an even bigger fool and because I have been married to him for over 30 years, because we share children, memories and we once had a full and exciting life; I don’t want to see you cheat and manipulate him any more.  You have done enough damage knowing he has a family with two kids with autism who don’t do change and needed our family intact to reach their full potential.
If you really love him, like you say, then you and I will both let him go so he can find a relationship with a woman that his children will accept and that he knows is from the heart, not for his pocketbook. Let him have a chance at a real relationship not just the projected fantasy that you are. He isn’t in love with you he is in love with the idea of being in love with you. Shit, he has been with you for three days two years ago. He has no idea who you really are. He just knows what you show him to entice him and you are an expert at reading men as a “tour guide” from Vietnam needs to be in order to bag a moneybags and lift you out of poverty. As you yourself said on your FB page you and your friend are two well paid concubines.
Yet, the real truth is that you cannot win at this “love” affair with him. You will only end up losing in the long run.  He deserves better. He deserves to find real happiness with a real woman who will love him and who will love his children and who will love her back. He deserves to be happy and frankly he will never find that with you because your relationship has been created in the chaos of lies, manipulation and cheating…that is what he will remember and that is what he will see no matter what you do. He does know what you are capable of and he has seen it on your Facebook.
I hope you do the right thing so that my husband can have a good life. With you it will not be possible. With me it will also not be possible. He needs a fresh start with someone new. I hope that you will be kind enough to step out of the way for him to find it. He deserves some measure of peace at this point in his life and with you he will never find it.