another piece of the puzzle

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, a stray, random thought popped into my head, and I went "a ha, now that makes more sense." When I woke up this morning, I had no idea what that thought was, or what it was I finally connected together so it made more sense. I know it was something about ex cheating, leaving, or how he viewed the marriage, but I don't remember whatever it was.

Oh well, guess that just goes to show how irrelevant the remaining pieces of the puzzle have become. Sure, it's nice when it happens, and I get that moment of clarity about something that previously hadn't quite made sense. But I don't care if this puzzle never gets finished. It no longer matters.

anger

Just when I think it's gone for good, it's back. I'm so, so tired of this damned roller coaster of emotions. I guess it's progress, though, because now I'm maddest at myself. Probably not for the best reasons, but it is what it is.

I'm mad at myself for seeing what I wanted to see, believing what I wanted to believe, and for allowing that to put me in the situation I got in. I'm mad at myself because once again, it feels like I'm accepting responsibility and blame for something that was done to me. I'm mad at myself because life is particularly stressful right now, and I'm not coping with the stress as well as I think I ought to. I'm mad at myself because I keep thinking I'm making excuses for myself.

I thought I'd worked through all this. It sucks to find out that I haven't.

I read once, somewhere, that depression is anger turned inwards. I dunno, maybe there's something to that, and when I thought I was done being angry, all I had really done was turn it inward, gotten depressed, and didn't have the energy it took to get angry. If that's the case, then the anger is erupting again. If it's not the case, then the anger is erupting again. Either way, it's not healthy.

So, here I am, 'talking' myself out of being angry...okay, so  it's more like an argument I'm having with myself that's not making it from my head to the keyboard. But I'm aware of it. I've acknowledged it. And now I can start working on it constructively.

Go me! :-\

battling old demons...

the feelings of being "less than," of not doing "good enough," of not being capable enough...

Intellectually I know better, and yet the word failure keeps flashing through my head.

I feel myself sinking into the old "can't get anything done right so why bother trying" mode.

I know this is just a phase. I know I will snap out of it. I know things will get better. I know I will manage to get everything done that needs to be done, and it will be good enough.

But right now, I don't believe it.

struggling, more than I expected

I'm hoping it's simply a case of holiday blahs and year-end tiredness combined. Or maybe that it's because I've just forgotten to count my blessings lately. But more than likely, it's just more residual fall-out from the shitstorm of 2008-09.

At least I know I'll get through it, whatever these feelings are right now. I've made it through so much worse, and this is small, compared to that.

But I'm ready for things to be...different.

baby steps, baby steps

woot! younger son asked me to take him to an activity he wanted to do tonight. if he has a good time, it will become a regular event. it'll require some juggling of my time, after work in the middle of the week, but it'll be worth it to see him getting out of the house and being social again.

there has been so much collateral damage...

I hope this means some real healing has begun.

kids are resilient, huh?

This has got to be one of the biggest lines of shit that ever get uttered. Seriously.

Resilience: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change (thank you Merriam-Webster.com)

Recover from or adjust easily....  seems to me that people who say kids are resilient forget the "easily" part of the definition.

What kids are is adaptable. (adapt: to make fit, often by modification). Adults too, for that matter. but I want to talk about kids tonight. Specifically, kids who through no fault of their own, have to suffer through their parents' divorces. These kids are adaptable. They make modifications, to make life somehow fit once again.

They do not recover from nor adjust easily to these changes.

There is nothing easy about divorce, especially for the kids. No matter how old they are. Nothing is easy.

And it sucks.

Tonight I logged into faceback, and there in bright blue letters against the white background, the son of one of my friends is now going by a new last name. My friend's maiden name. The name she took back after her divorce.

I don't know the reasons, and I don't know if this is a permanent change or just the anger of a young man coming out in a public "fuck you" to his dad/dad's family. But I do know that if someone has recovered from or adjusted easily to the divorce of his parents, if he is resilient, he doesn't willingly relinquish his father's name.

People who think kids are resilient are deluding themselves. Kids are adaptable. They will make changes. But it doesn't come easily. It comes at great cost.

There is nothing that is easy about a kid surviving their parents' divorce.

facing down, well, not exactly a trigger

My van got totaled in the wreck I was in Thursday morning. So now I have to buy a vehicle, on my own, all by myself. The last, and only, time I did that was 26 years ago, when I was 21. I found a really cute little Mustang 4 cylinder, 4 speed. I was so pleased with myself. I thought I had done a good job negotiating the price, and more importantly, the car was just me, kwim? Hey, give me a break. I was a 21 year old girl. Looking good in the car was important. :laugh:

My mom took me to pick it up, and when I was just about home (I still lived at home with my mom), my exH who was my boyfriend at the time, drove past me. He turned around and followed me home. And with the first words out of his mouth, he sucked the joy of buying my very own first car away from me.

It quickly turned into all about him. Why didn't I ask him about it? Why didn't I have him go and check out the engine before I bought it? etc, etc. He looked it over, and finally deemed it okay. But by then the damage was done. The joy from having done this myself was gone, the doubt in myself had begun, and the need for now-ex's approval grew stronger.

The next time I bought a car, ex was my fiance, so it seemed natural that we'd do this together. Except, I pretty much let him pick out the car I was buying. Oh, I decided what type of car I was getting (another Mustang, this one with a V-8 5 speed), and I had veto power, but I let him decide the trim package, and even the color. Because he knew so much more about cars than I did. Because I thought it meant I was special, that he wanted me to have a car he thought I looked good in. Because he loved me, and wanted me to have a nice car. Truth be told, he did a good job. I loved that car, until ex wrecked it a year later. But that's another story.

Eventually, along came the van that was just wrecked. By the time we got that, we had been married for years, had a couple of kids, and had to get a vehicle to replace one totaled in a wreck. I needed a kid hauler, but didn't particularly want a van. I wanted an SUV, but I didn't want the price tag that goes with SUVs. I also didn't want to go car shopping with now-ex, with 2 small kids in tow, so I backed off completely. Let ex handle everything. Again, he did a good job, and got the vehicle we needed at the time, at a price we could afford.

I abdicated my responsibility, my choices, my decisions, so easily. I let my husband handle it all because "he was so much better at all of this than I am."

That's the lesson I learned, so many years ago, when I bought my first car. That my decision making when it comes to buying vehicles cannot be trusted.

And now all these years later, I have to buy a vehicle all by myself. Granted, I'm not even close to the same person that I was at 21. But the...fear...in me is that it will be pointed out to me that I screwed up, or could have screwed up, that I chose wrong, and that any joy I have in whatever vehicle I end up getting will once again be sucked away.

What a horrible legacy to have from the purchase of one's very first own car...

rolling with the punches

so here I am, on a perfectly wonderful weekend with my boyfriend, and during a bit of downtime, I decide to check some of my "social" networking sites.

yeah well, turns out one of them shows you who looks at your profile.

*sigh*

yep, the ex or someone using his name searched for and looked at mine.

I so did not need to know that. I really didn't need to know that this weekend, and especially not today.

he walked out on me 2 years ago, and in doing so gave up any rights to check up on me, be concerned about me or in any way, shape or form, know about my life. it's just none of his damn business.

yeah, I know. it's a public networking site, I agreed that people could see my profile when I signed up for it...blah, blah, blah...

but I don't want to know that 2 years after he left, the ex is still looking for stuff about me online. I just don't want to know about it. I found out months after the fact that not only he but his psycho bitch from hell OW was reading what I wrote on SI. sure, that's another public online forum, and god knows there are thousands of people on any given day that I don't know about reading what I write. same thing goes for the blog, except the thousands part.

knowing that the ex and whore deliberately went looking for what I wrote - that's what makes it different to me. it wasn't to help me, it wasn't to empathize or try to understand the utter devastation they caused in my life. no, it was to keep tabs on me. it was to use what I was posting against me, as if in some strategic defense. it was cyberstalking.

and now, 2 years later, I can't help but feel that here we go again. I really hope I'm wrong. 

adding some links

you may have noticed I've been adding some links to websites and books on amazon. just wanted to say I'm getting nothing from that, no affiliate programs or anything like that.it's simply books I've either read (so far all but 1) or had highly recommended to me (the 1 I haven't read) that may or may not help someone else. take from it what works for you, if anything.

Support, belief, a talisman…what got me through the shit-storm

This is going to be long. If you’re inclined to read it all, take a potty break first, grab a drink, and make yourself comfortable first. Yep, I’m that wordy. Oh, and since I was initially writing this to post on survivinginfidelity.com, here's a glossary of terms - SI is survivinginfidelity.com (not Sports Illustrated ;) ). Anti-versary is the anniversary of a not-good event such as d-day (discovery day) or the date a WS/H/W (wayward spouse/husband/wife - in other words, the cheater) leaves. OW is the other woman. NC means going no contact. The 180 is...well, it's a technique to where you change your behavior 180 degrees, and go from focusing on/catering to the other person and having them be the priority to making yourself the priority instead. There's more to it than that, but that's the bare-bones basics.

Now on with the actual post...

I know I was whining the other night about having to deal with a 2^nd anti-versary, but I’m actually just about 3 years out from my 1^st d-day. It’s just that from d-day #1 until the day now-ex walked out spanned almost a year, and then to add to things, it took almost another year for my divorce to be finalized. So my anti-versaries are spread all over the calendar and over several years of that calendar as well. 

Anyway, I whined. Now it’s time to focus on the positives, and what helped me make it through the shit-storm ex dumped on me almost 3 years ago. Not that I’m all the way through it, as noted by my whine the other night. But I’m 3 years down this path and into this journey, and that counts for a hell of a lot, at least imo. 

Brief back-story – caught now-ex physically cheating with one OW and sexting with another. The two OW knew about each other. A month after d-day#1, ex confessed to a prior affair. I thought we were trying to R, but ex took the affair way underground. Nine months after d-day#1 I found the secret cell phone. A month and a half after that, he walked out on me and the kids. Turned out he had a vacation planned with the OW, so he had to walk out on his kids with no good bye, no explanations, and no apology. Yeah, he really is a chicken-shit ass. 

Before I found the secret phone, one of the OW somehow got my credit card info, and committed identity fraud. She ordered a bunch of stuff online with my card and had it shipped to me. I filed a police report, and named both OW as possible suspects.  The probability that my then-WH supplied my credit card info to the OW did not go un-noted, btw. 

Oh, and when I found the secret phone, I also found out that not only was then-WH reading everything I was posting on SI, he had also told his whore about it, and she was cyber-stalking me. I’ll admit, once I knew about that, I had a little fun with it, mostly by posting misleading information. It may not have made any difference, nor had any impact, but it amused me. And that’s all that mattered to me.

Okay, so onto what got me through this shit-storm. 

I told my sister almost right away, within the first week of catching xWH. She’s my big sister. She’s got my back no matter what. Hilariously, at one point xWH actually thought she’d understand and take his side, because she knows how much of a bitch I can be. Yeah, like that was ever going to happen. XWH really is an idiot. 

I told some friends irl, about a month after d-day#1 but before d-day#2. I hadn’t intended to tell them, but we had a mom’s night out and I ended up just blurting it out. It was early days, and as it turned out, I didn’t have most of the truth anyway, but I ended up getting empathy and support from my friends that I hadn’t realized I needed.

I also found SI about a month after d-day#1. I still did almost everything wrong, including the 180. But I read, and read some more and kept reading, and finally what I was reading began to sink in. How else do you think I knew to go looking for a secret cell phone? All while I thought pretended to myself we were in R, the red flags had been waving, and when I was finally ready to see them, what I had learned on SI clicked in. The 180? I mastered it. Going NC? Got that down too.  

Not only had I learned about the lengths cheaters will go to continue cheating, but I learned what remorse truly looks like. I learned how to tell the difference between remorse, and guilt. I saw that anonymous people online were more concerned about my health and emotional well-being than the man who was my husband was. I saw that my reactions to then-WH’s actions were normal. I saw that then-WH’s actions were not unusual. In fact, what he was doing and how he was acting was pretty much straight out of the cheater’s handbook. It wasn’t just me. I wasn’t the crazy one. 

Once ex left, I told anyone who would listen. I also joined an irl divorce support group, because I was tired of dumping my shit on my friends. They were still willing to listen, and they continue to be supportive, but I needed the time with them to be about something else, at this point. 

One thing that was a bit unusual though, was that my self-esteem didn’t take the hit that many BS’s do, after d-day #1. It actually improved. I look back now, and see that I had taken that hit, before I found out about ex cheating on me. But it was as if finding out answered some question I hadn’t known I had, and something started making sense that hadn’t made sense before. It had a lot to do with me having taken on blame and responsibility for things in my marriage that suddenly I knew I wasn’t responsible for. I remember wailing to my then-WH that I didn’t understand why he didn’t like me as I am, that other people liked me, why couldn’t he? And that was it. Other people liked me and accepted me for who I was. I liked the me I was around these people. But then I’d go home, and become this other me, and I didn’t much like her. That me acted differently. I kept parts of herself tucked away, because I was afraid to let them out and be the real me around now-ex. I was afraid he wouldn’t accept me for who I really was. And I was right. But then again, he didn’t accept me for who he wanted me to be either. 

I realized I had been basing my acceptance of who I am on my then-WH’s opinion of me. Well hell, he was a liar and a cheater. His opinion lost all its validity in my eyes. I couldn’t trust anything he said, so why should I believe his opinion of me? I started looking at myself through my own eyes, for the first time in a very long time. I like myself, and I finally let it show to everyone, but especially to myself. 

Alrighty then, where were we? I think I pretty much covered support, and the belief part was about accepting myself and believing in who I was even though ex didn’t, or maybe especially so because he didn’t (yep, I’m kinda contrary that way too). 

So, on to the talisman part. I didn’t intend this to become a talisman when I bought it. But it did, and I’m incredibly glad something compelled me to buy it when I did.  Several months after d-day#1, I had to do my Christmas shopping. Long story short, I ended up buying myself a necklace that had a small charm on it. The charm says Dream on one side and Live Your Dreams on the other. When I got home from shopping, I put it away in a drawer. It wasn’t until months later, after ex left, and as I was heading back to college for the first time in 25 years, that I took the necklace out of the drawer, and wore it for the first time.  I found myself reaching up and touching the charm, a lot. And every time I touched it, I would remind myself that I was strong, I would get through this, and my dreams were worth pursuing. 

Do I believe my necklace has some magical powers? No, I don’t. But it is something that allows me to focus my thoughts and energy, and reminds me that my dreams aren’t foolish, and that I’m worthy of having those dreams come true. 

And now I also wear a bracelet that matches my necklace, because the man who is now my boyfriend heard the story of why I wear my Dream necklace. He found a bracelet that finishes the Live Your Dream quote, and gave it to me on our first weekend together. It is such an incredible feeling to know that someone cares about you enough to want you to follow your dreams, and succeed. 

I don’t know that I actually accomplished what I set out to write this morning. This was originally going to be a post for SI, to offer some encouragement to those who are much newer to their journey of dealing with infidelity. But I ended up even wordier than I expected, so it’s going to be just a blog entry now, instead of being posted both places. I guess I’ll come up with something else for SI. But I have accomplished something – peace of mind, maybe…a bit more clarity of thought…perhaps simply a release of some of the negativity I’ve allowed to take hold of me lately.

My horoscope today on dailyom.com talked about letting go of fear and focusing on the joy and blessings in my life. Not really much of a horoscope, but it is advice that makes sense. I know I’m still dealing with residual abandonment issues, but ya know what? It’s been 2 years since ex walked out on me, and I’m not only still standing, I’m standing taller than I was before he left. Why should I have fears about abandonment when it’s already happened, and I know I can, and will, survive?  

this whole week sucked...

I am finally feeling better today, but man was this week tough.

I'm coming up on the 2 year mark of when ex walked out on the kids and me, and it's triggering me a lot more than I expected it would. It's not even about him. Not really. It's not about missing ex, or caring about him, or wanting him in my life. I truly cannot picture that man as part of my life anymore.

No, this is about the feelings of being abandoned, of my children being walked out on by their own father, who couldn't see beyond his own selfishness to say goodbye and offer explanations or apologies before he went to work one day, and never came home again. It's about the WTF feelings - I mean really, who in the hell actually packs up their shit in secret, goes off the work after kissing his wife goodbye and telling her he loves her, all while planning to never come home again? It's just all so stereotypical and cliche that it can't help but make you go...WTF?, right?

Anyway, I finally released some of what I was feeling in words last night, and it made a big difference. Today was a better day.

just....weird

I actually told someone today that I hoped ex was happy, and I meant real happy, not the sarcastic all the happiness he deserves with the psycho bitch happy I usually mean.

It was weird to hear that come out of my mouth. I hadn't intended to say. It just sort of flowed out as a natural part of the conversation.

Gotta admit though, the reply back was gratifying, especially since I was talking to someone who didn't know me while married, has never met ex and hasn't a clue what he's like irl. What this person said was along the lines that it sounded like ex was someone who didn't get that he was responsible for his own happiness.

And then to add to the weirdness, I had dinner tonight with a friend, someone who knew me and ex as a couple, and as parents. She's very firmly in my corner, and has been since she found out, which was sometime not long after ex walked out on the kids and me.

The conversation tonight went all over the place - we had a lot of catching up to do. And my friend told me how mad she had been at ex when she found out about him cheating and the way he left, and how she probably still is mad at him, because she thought we were the one couple who were so good together shit like this would never happen.

Sigh

Had several realizations after that. The first one - I'm pretty guilty of rewriting marital history too. Maybe not as intentionally, but it sure was easier to focus on the bad times instead of trying to remember the good times. The second one - I covered up way too much for ex, and made way too many excuses. And three - nobody really knows what a relationship is like, from the outside. Oh, I guess we can add four - that ex fooled a lot more people than just me into thinking he was a good guy.

I feel like maybe I've cleared one of the last few hurdles of this marathon. Another level of acceptance, maybe? Someone suggested I've possibly reached indifference. I suppose that could be it.

Not a bad thing, at all, any of what happened today. Just...weird...

"cheated but not a cheater"

It's funny, in the not funny sense of the word, the lengths people will go to in order to feel better about themselves.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen that phrase "I cheated but I'm not a cheater."  To all those people, um yeah, you are. Once you cheat, that makes you a cheater. No matter what you want to think, there's no erasing that.

There's moving forward. There's dealing with the aftermath. There's consequences. There's counseling and learning better coping mechanisms and skills. There might even be forgiveness. But there are no do-overs. The line has been crossed. Once you cheat, you're a cheater.

Does what they did have to follow the cheater for the rest of their lives? Maybe, maybe not. Guess that's up to the cheater. But it should, because how else can that person become someone who won't cheat again, unless they're conscious of the fact and accepting that they're a cheater in the first place?

it needs to be repeated

Not that most cheaters or those they cheat with would think this about themselves, and only a few will see themselves in it after the devastation has occurred. But it takes a special kind of selfish person to knowingly and willfully inflict the pain and trauma of infidelity on the innocent. And whether they choose to believe it about themselves or not, this is the view from the other side.

“A Word About Adultery” by Bob Lonsberry
Adultery is the most selfish, destructive and hateful thing a person can do.
It’s funny what you don’t know going in.
Or what you choose to ignore.
And it’s tragic that you don’t realize until it’s too late, until
what’s done is done, how utterly wasted a life can be. How hopeless
hopeless can become. How the promise and joy of life can slip like water
through guilty hands.
Hell is merely realizing what you’ve done.
Mostly to others, but ultimately to yourself.
Hell is the flash of memory, snippets and snapshots of a happy
spouse, a newlywed or new mother, pleased and pledged, her future and
hopes tied to you. Her whole life in all its stages gambled on you. The
very nature, substance and quality of her life, through all its years,
depending on a promise you have casually or repeatedly broken.
How you can take an hour or a decade of selfishness and condemn
an innocent person to a lifetime of loneliness and disappointment.
How you can steal someone’s dream and leave it tattered and
stained, unrecognizable and unsalvageable. And not just any someone. The
one person who has given you more than any other. The only one who
truly understands you and cares about you, and who proved it by giving
herself to you. By having faith in you and supporting you. By taking
your name and taking your fate.
That’s the one you destroy.
It’s an emotional murder. The snuffing out of a life that should
have been lived. Not the stopping of a heart, but the breaking of a
heart.
Taking the “happily” out of “happily ever after.” It’s an emotional murder.
And that’s the hell.
For you because you deserve it, and for her because she doesn’t.
Then there are the children.

Innocents whose lives are forever and unfairly changed. Who have a
mommy and a daddy one day, but not the next. At least not in a real way.
Not in the way they are supposed to. No Christmases and family reunions
and weddings and graduations, no family nights around the dinner table
or the TV, it’s all just shattered and broken.
You’d kill someone who hurt your children a fraction of how badly
you’ve hurt them, and yet you’ve done it, and they tell you it’s OK but
you know it’s not and you’ve done it and you can’t run away from it and
Humpty Dumpty can’t be put back together again.
And children cry.
When they are young, and decades later when they are old.
The family died, and daddy did it.
That’s the hell.
Realizing that.
Realizing that you did that to them. That you have returned hate for love, betrayal for trust, evil for good.
You have broken the only promise you really had to keep. And in
the world of cause and effect they reap the harvest you have sown.

Adultery isn’t something you do with another person, it is something
you do to your family. To the hopes and lives of the only people who
will ever really matter to you.
It is a blind and hateful selfishness, a universe out of kilter,
an arrogance of priority and interest. You are all that matters, nothing
else counts, and you have everything backwards.
And it seals you off until you are alone and they don’t have you
even if you are in their midst. Ultimately you rot so much that it
collapses, the marriage and the family, and out you spin, not realizing a
fraction of what you’ve done and who you’ve hurt and what you’ve lost.
But it comes eventually. In the dark of the night, in the realizations of the soul, in the honesty of humility.
And you can’t think about what you’ve lost, because you’re too ashamed of what you’ve taken. Ashamed and anguished and wrong.
And that is hell. The realization of what you’ve done. Of who
you’ve hurt. Of the damage you’ve caused. Of the fact it’ll never go
away.
That is the lake of fire and brimstone.
You realize that life was a test. And you failed. You failed your family.
Adultery brings nothing but sorrow and pain. The likes of which words cannot communicate and imagination cannot conjure.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery” was not a restriction, it was a warning.
Which only fools fail to heed.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2004

too funny not to share

Came across these recently and thought they summed up things perfectly. Maybe it's something you have to be part of the club to truly appreciate, though. WH stands for wayward husband, or the cheater, and OW is well, the other woman.

Our Love Is Real

dealing with shame

I've come through the ex cheating on me and walking out on our children and me knowing it was not my fault and being able to hold my head up. I've told countless people the story, and while I've been emotional about it, I've never felt shame for it.

But recently I've hit a stage where I realized I'm ashamed that I picked who I did to be the father of my children. I'm ashamed that I married this man. I'm ashamed that I wasted 26 years of my life with him, and didn't, wouldn't see him for who he really is.

For now though, the shame I feel is manifesting in anger, and that's not a good thing. I feel as if I've taken a leap backwards in some ways, and I'm not liking that. I can offer myself a million reasons why I shouldn't be ashamed, but they all feel like excuses and justifications to me. 

I'm not sure what to do with this. I'm not big on the whole forgiveness
thing. I don't necessarily think it's something that has to be done.
Accept, yes. Forgive, not always. So is this something about myself I
just have to accept, or do I need to forgive myself for it? Certainly, I
need to learn from it. I'm not quite sure what the lesson is yet, but I
know there's at least one in there somewhere. There always is.

"dirty little secret" keeps running through my head

I'll keep you my dirty little secret

(Dirty little secret)

Don't tell anyone or you'll be just another regret

(Just another regret, hope that you can keep it)

My dirty little secret

Dirty little secret

Dirty little secret



Who has to know?

Who has to know?
~All American Rejects

Yep, that song. The chorus (see above), in particular.

Now, I could have it all wrong. I'm sure there has been plenty of justification about how it's all my fault I couldn't be told. But still...yep, dirty little secret...who has to know?

It's the little things that amuse me. :D