I won’t give up

After 15 months I am still grieving the loss of my relationship.  It sucks!

I was told by someone who said that  it will take me eight more years to get over my relationship. Eight more years of thinking about what would have been.  Eight more years of having memories just snoop in and take control.  Eight more years of looking back, analyzing, criticizing and reliving every moment like it was yesterday.  Eight more of this torture?  I can live without that.

I have lost so much through this separation. I have lost family members, sister in-laws, nieces, aunts and parents. I have lost the opportunity to attend weddings, family reunions and showers.  I haven’t just lost my ex, but I have lost every other person that he was connected to by blood or otherwise.

I don’t think we are ever prepared to lose people we love.  Furthermore, we are never prepared to lose the people who have tagged along into our lives alongside this person.  When someone we love dies, we can grieve that loss, say good-bye and try to function as best as we can. We have to go on because we know that this what this person would have wanted from us.

But, when you lose someone through a divorce or separation, the grieving process seems to never end.  You may have to see this person when you exchange your children, or in court or in the mall.  It seems that everywhere you go, there are memories that you must deal with.  Are they now taking their new beau to the same restaurant they took you to? The constant fear of running into them looms behind you as you don’t know the separated person’s etiquette yet.

At times you wish that they would drop off the face of the earth.  No, I am not talking about anything illegal.  It just would seem easier if only one of you still existed separately because learning to transition as a sole person when you were a couple for decades is so difficult.

It just seems unfair that you must go through the process of learning to let go of someone who let go of you before you even realized. You are playing catch up and you are in dead last and this person is already at the finish line. You just wonder, how did this person get so far ahead of you?

When you see them, they seem so happy and you can’t understand how they can look so happy when inside you are falling apart.  How is it that they can get out of bed every day, or how is it that they can smile and move on, when you are clinging to yesterday.

You want to smash them upside the head and yell “How can you be so happy at this devastation that is our life?”  You want to take them by the shoulders and shake them and yell at them and make them listen to you. But you don’t say anything because if you even open your mouth you know that you will fall to pieces.

I often imagine what it would be like if my ex asked to come back home.  How will I respond in that moment?  Will I trust him if he came back? Will we act the same towards each other?  I can’t even imagine that day because it seems so far out of reach.  I don’t know what it would feel like to have him home. I don’t even think he wants to come home and that is the saddest part.

I am not sure if I still love him or is it what he represented that I love so much. Most days, I am not sure how I feel at all. What I do know is that I want my children to be raised by both parents. I am not sure at what costs this would happen.

Everyone tells me that once a cheater always a cheater. That a leopard never changes his spots and that I am better off never entertaining the idea of returning to a relationship with my ex. All, this is great advice and I listen to what I am told. I respect other people’s opinion on this matter because sometimes we make foolish decisions when only our hearts are thinking.

I am no way near going back to my ex. We currently do not like each other. This is what I tell him, so that he does not catch on to how much I do miss him. I lie to him because I do not trust him to not manipulate me to get his way in court or out of child support. He is after all the devil.

Maybe at the end of the day, it’s in my best interest to entirely let go and move forward. But how do you do that when once upon a time, you found the next best thing?

Third Time’s A Charm

Box Up Your Dreams And Wait For A Miracle

Over the course of the past two years, I have gained many lessons on love, life and relationships.

It’s been over a year since I officially became a single mother.  The first year that I separated from my ex, we parented our children together.  My cheating asshole ex provided financially for his children and never complained about doing it.  He also would help me with things that I couldn’t do on my own.  We still remained partners and parents.

We would try our best to make amends in our relationship, but for some reason we couldn’t get past all the ways that we had hurt each other over the years. We tried to remain friends, after all we were each other’s best friend for 16 years. We couldn’t stop pointing fingers at each other.

In year two of our separation, my cheating asshole ex met the woman he is now dating.  A woman who has slung racist comments towards me.   A woman who accuses me of being “greedy” and wanting child support.  A woman who sat in family court and winked at me, believing the break up of my family and the ongoing battle between my ex and I were some joke.

My ex is now verbally abusive and intimidating.  He also got lost in a world of booze and drugs and no longer cares about anything else. My ex has lost a job making $100 grand annually, to being unemployed.

My ex has moments of regret where he would apologize to me for all the mistakes he made.  These lucid moments do not last very long and when his new girlfriend is around his mean streak is over powering.

It was in this year that I became a single mother and where I mark our separation.  It was no longer a team effort on our part, but rather me a single person left to raise two other human beings.

I guess nothing lasts forever and I still struggle with the idea that my family is broken and will never be the same.  I feel anger because I want my children to be raised in a two parent home, but I know that this will never happen and I am left to sort out all these emotions on my own.

I do miss my ex, because he represented what I thought a family should be.  I miss that I knew or I thought I knew what the next few years would look like.  I thought it would be him and I against the world.

I have been struggling with the idea that my relationship is over.  Maybe it’s because our anniversary of breaking up has come and passed.  Maybe its the one year mark, since I had to drag my once caring, supportive, loving partner and father into a courtroom to pay child support.

Maybe it’s because I was going in front of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and I felt so damn alone and wanted him there. Maybe it’s because he should be there and he has chosen not to be.

I usually get tired of dealing with so many emotions on my own. So I put them on the doorstep of my friend.  I didn’t have to go on and explain to her the relationship ending or how lonely I was feeling.  She gets it.

My friend told me that he probably does not have any insight into the depth of the impact his leaving has on me and our family.  She went on to tell me that I was probably a reminder of his own shortcomings, he  knew he wasn’t good enough for me and when he looked at me, he was reminded that he was flawed and that I was  so much more together than he was.  Finally, she said that he found somebody who could look up to him and make him feel better about himself.

What my friend had to say about our relationship, made me feel more alone but at the same time, I understood.  It does make a bit of sense, because he was always telling me that I deserved better or I was better off.  If only this man knew that having a broken family and a broken heart, is not better off.

I don’t know if I could fall in love with another man.  There is trouble on the horizon with the man I am currently dating.  I don’t know if I could fall passionately in love with him as I loved my ex.  Maybe the fact that I am pulling away from my boyfriend is that I may be totally falling hard for him and it scares me.  Or maybe I am fearful I am settling because I was want so badly to be in love.

I don’t know.  I still believe in love. I still want to fall in love, be loved and stay in love.

I think I still am in love, but it is not with the man I am dating. I feel horrible about this fact.

Relationships are like fruit, once it goes bad you have to throw it out.  Can it be salvaged? You could eat a rotten apple or swishy orange but it just won’t taste the same.

At the end of the day, you have to throw out the old fruit and replace it with new fruit.  I guess the same can be said for relationships.

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Whose child is this?

I don’t think my brother’s son looks like him at all.  I think his girlfriend cheated on him and is trying to pass this kid off as his. I never liked the girl and now I like her less.  If I can tell the kid looks like some random dude, my brother must be able to tell too.  I think it is horrible for a woman to cheat on her partner, not use protection, get pregnant, decide to keep the child and then pass the child off on someone else.

I feel like calling her out on her shit.  “Hey, that is not my nephew.  No way in hell is that kid related to us. You young lady is a home wrecker, a low life, a cheat!  How dare you try to trap my brother with a child we all know is not his!” I would stand there in front of her with my finger shaking in her face.

But, I can’t be a party pooper. Every kid needs a father, even if the father and kid are lied to.  I will not be getting close to that kid or building a relationship because one day my brother will find out and when shit hits the fan, I won’t have no child ripped from my life.  But he is the cutest little thing in the world…I guess I could love him just a little bit.

Riding The Bitter Bus

I haven’t spoken to him in fifty days! It has been the longest that we have gone without contacting each other since we met in 1997.

The idea of texting him came into my head when one of the men I am conversing with asked me to be honest with him.  I don’t know how we came to the conversation, but he said, “I want you to be honest with me.  If he came back apologetic and was willing to work on the relationship.  Would you take him back?  No BS.”

I believe in honesty especially if you’re trying to develop a friendship of some sorts with people.  “Yes, I would.” I responded.  “But I don’t talk to him because of this reason.  Because he is no good for me.”

Then this sweet man said, “Then why are you not working on it? He will come back.  They always do.  I don’t even really know you, but I can tell you that they always come back.  Don’t kid yourself.”

I held my cell phone in my hand and thought about what this man had just said to me.  Could he be right?  Would he come back to me and my family would be back to together?  But at what cost? Could I trust him again?

I did not sleep well that night.  That morning, I spoke with another friend and told him about my conversation the night before.  He agreed and said my ex would be back.  We texted back and forth about how I could potentially test the waters while protecting my heart.  We decided that I could open the door of communication, by checking up to see how he was and to tell him the kids really missed him.

It took him hours to respond.  He said he wanted to see them.  It had been over fifty days since he saw our daughter.  This has been his new pattern ever since he started dating his new girlfriend.  The conversation was pleasant enough. Then out of the blue, he tells me he plans to move away and accused me of not giving him access to the kids.  Remember, he is a liar and a (cheating ***hole).  

It seemed nothing has changed with him.  Still the same old drama and ability to deflect his own shameful infidelity onto the person who he harmed.  I used to yearn for him to explain why he was the one who was so angry at our breakup when it was him who cheated, lied and destroyed our family. I was not sure what I was looking for in this explanation from him.  Maybe I wanted to know that he felt guilty for what he had done.

The wish for my (cheating ***hole) to understand and comprehend his behaviours and impact on people who love him is fruitless.  It is a complete waste of my time to argue or engage in anything he has to offer me at this time.  It is like the man, I fell in love with has died and has been replaced with a complete stranger that I want nothing to do with.

Over the last few days, he has been on my mind.  I feel sorry for him.  I feel sorry that he is wasting his life being angry at himself.  It is not me or anything that I have done that he is mad at.  I have come to the conclusion that he does realize what he has done and how much it has hurt someone else.

He has to face himself in the mirror everyday.  He has to live with the thoughts that he is not the great, wonderful and caring person that he wants to portray.  He is a bitter man and if he does not have it in him to forgive his transgressions he will forever live in agony.  It is up to him to make amends with himself in order to make amends with me and our children.  I feel so very sorry for him that this is how he will move forward into his middle age.

He is still the same.  I tried.  He is just not ready to change.

 

I Love You, But I Am Lying

This is a revised version of a post I wrote in September 2013.  Here is the original post.

I really despise seeing people in love, especially now that I am a single woman after 16 years of being with (cheating ***hole).  What does it really mean to be in love? I think people fall in love too quickly. I certainly think that people tell other people that they love them, when in the depths of their soul they don’t.  It’s like they are crossing their fingers behind their backs, hoping the other person with whose heart they are playing with won’t find out.

Love is over-rated and at this point I have a suspicion that I want nothing to do with it. I never really want to fall in love again with anyone.  The idea sounds great, having someone with whom you can turn to and grow with.

When I tell my friends that I will never fall in love again, they all say “Oh of course you will, give it time”.  Is that all we need to stop loving the person who touched the edges of your soul? Time?  I don’t necessarily agree with that.  And I find that this is the problem.  That it seems to be so easy for some people to just get over someone and to stop loving them so quickly.

I have a feeling that I will always love (cheating ***hole).  It has nothing to do with the fact that we have kids together, it’s the fact that  I was and I still am in love with him.  At the time, he was the best thing that ever happened to me.  I don’t regret sharing my life with him, even if it did not turn out the way I believed it would.  I do regret that he turned into a lying, cheating heartless soul.

About a month after (cheating ***hole) pulled my heart out of my chest with his bare hands, threw it in front of a truck and stood back and watched it get pummelled, I met rebound guy. I don’t know what I was thinking getting in a relationship with anyone at this point, but I did.

I wanted to prove to myself and to (cheating ***hole) that I did not need him to love me as much as I loved him. Actually, I wanted him to see me with someone else and come running back to me, with his tail between his legs and beg me to take his cheating ass back.  Then, we would live happily ever after.  Since I am writing this, it hasn’t happened.  Plus, I have realized who wants to really be with someone who lies about love.

I digress.  Back to rebound guy.  The first signs that this guy had a few screws loose was when he told me that he loved me after two weeks of us “dating.” I don’t quite remember how I felt being told I was loved after two weeks of knowing someone.  All, I knew was that this guy was not from my planet and in no way did I feel the same way about him.  I celebrated the day that I told him to hit the road.  I never loved or could love him.

My (cheating ***hole) told me he loved me too. I can recall the first time he told me he loved me.  It was 1997.  We had been seeing each other steady for a few months at this point.  We were in my apartment and had been listening to music.  He was sitting on the floor and I was laying on the couch.  My (cheating ***hole) looked at me and told me he loved me.  I told him I loved him too.  Remember back then, he was not a (cheating ***hole) but the love of my life.

I used to believe everything that came out of his mouth. I had never questioned his loyalty and commitment to our family and to our relationship.  I now question everything he ever said to me.  I think this is pretty normal after someone recklessly plays russian roulette with your life.

Photo credit

If I was standing next to him watching a house on fire and he said “that house is on fire”. I would definitely think that he was lying through his teeth. I tend to think that he had many affairs that I did not know about.  I wonder how he got so good at being a lying cheat, if he did not practice it before.  As they say, “practice makes perfect.”

Just before I found out that my relationship had ended, (cheating ***hole) had another woman on the side and was living a double life.  He already knew that the relationship was over.  It was me who was the slow learner and needed to figure this out on my own.

He never really told me what happened between us.  Things had not been so great between us from the beginning.  The last few years, things were pretty horrible, but true to form people with disastrous childhoods tend to push all that stuff under the carpet and never vacuum up the crumbs that are underneath.

My (cheating ***hole) said something to me about loving me, but not being in love with me anymore. I still have not figured out what that even means. He was probably trying to throw me off from figuring him out.

How do you stop loving someone? How do you go from calling someone the love of your life to your biggest regret? Why is it that some people have to “kiss a lot of frogs” before they find the person they were meant to be with?  Why is that some people fall in love and stay in love forever? Or do some people just settle because the thought of starting over sounds too daunting of a task to undertake?

I really do not think that many of us know what it means to be in love.  People are so quick to walk out on their partners and not willing to work hard to salvage their relationship. Look at the older couples who are celebrating seventy years together. Can anyone in my generation say that they will be with the same person for their entire lives? Do we as a society want to live with someone for that length of a time?

I thought that was going to the (cheating ***hole) and I really thought that I would be sitting by his bed, holding his hand and weeping when he took his last breath.  Or that he would do the same for me.  I imagined us playing together with our grandchildren and remembering how far we had come together as a couple and as a family.

But he sure proved me wrong. He simply did not want to try going to an objective party to discuss how we both sucked at making our relationship work.  We did go to one objective party and the (cheating ***hole) sat next to me saying he wanted to fix our issues and that he loved me.  The funny thing was, he was in a relationship with someone else at this point.  The word love….I no longer trust it.

I guess I am just a bit cynical of love at this moment, because one day I was in a loving relationship and the next day, my whole life changed. Am I still interested in finding and falling in love, I guess I have to or I am setting my self up to be alone the rest of my life.  Maybe I will be settling too?

I certainly miss the love of my life now referred to as that (cheating ***hole).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life Is Like A Blog…..

It’s 6am in the morning and I have been contemplating since last night what I should write for my first assignment for Blogging 101.  The first assignment was to tell my story about why I am blogging and to introduce myself to the Blogging 101 community.  I had already done that on two occasions.

I started blogging in September 2013 when my relationship ended.  I was very angry and I wanted the world to know how I felt.  I wanted my ex to come across my blog one day and see how much he had hurt me.  Maybe he would care. I introduced myself as a newly separated black woman with an ex who had done the unthinkable.  He was unfaithful.

I took some time off from writing and blogging as I made a very lame attempt of trying to get this man back in my life.  I really missed him.  I was stuck in the past with the wonderful memories we had.  I just wanted my old life back as quickly as I had lost it.

Then I woke up and asked myself why I was trying so hard to get someone to love me again.  It just didn’t seem fair to me.  So, after four months of almost losing my dignity, I came back to WordPress and reread my first initial blog entries.

I could not believe what I had read.  I was that bitter jilted ex lover, you hear about in books, in movies and on television.   I did not want to be this person.  I was not this person. I continued reading and the more I read, the more those old feelings came back to me.  Rejection, humiliation, devastation and pain.  I no longer wanted to feel like that.

I wasn’t sure if I should leave my old blogs out there for the world to see.  I spoke with a friend about what I had written in September 2013 and what he thought I should do with those blogs.    He told me, that those stories were part of this journey, part of my healing and part of of my growth.  He told me to leave them up, as they were, unedited and raw.  I agreed.

So I left my first stories that were thrown into blogsphere exactly where they had fallen.   As I began to recreate myself on WordPress(I no longer wanted to be identified as the jilted ex lover), my stories were funnier, had more depth and emotion(good ones).  I did not want to be connected to how I felt back in September 2013.  I am no longer that person.  It’s my ex’s fault he lost a good woman and he will have to live with that decision for the rest of his life.  I decided that I would not delete my initial blogs, I would make them private, just for me and for whomever, I chose to share my story with.

Maybe they will make it into my book that I want to publish.  Maybe they will forever stay private.  Who knows at this point.  Time will tell.  I am not done healing yet.  They say if you can tell your story without crying, then you know you are healed.  I don’t cry anymore.  However, I still feel that knot in my stomach when I think about him, about us and about the plans we had made.

So what began as a personal diary has now become a lifelong dream.  I want to be a published author.  I want t o inspire people. I want my “voice” to be heard.

So, keep reading I am not done yet.

 

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Over the last few days, I have been overwhelmed with the fact that there are many people in my life who I have not forgiven for the pain and the hurt that they have caused me over the years.  I hold a bitter grudge and a dangling chain of animosity and anger when the thoughts of their actions, words or at times their existence even crosses my mind.  To be honest, when I think of what they have done to me, my anger is so overwhelming it can take me a week to push it aside and process my pain.  To be more honest, my angry towards these people have forced me to make some very impulsive decisions that I wish in hindsight I could take back.

I am not an evil person. I want to say that I am kind, generous, loving and caring.  That is the person, I strive to be and the person that is hidden behind and below the surface of my pain.

But when it comes to forgiving those who have crossed me in any way, I wish them double the pain and anguish that I went through at their hands.  The men who raped and molested me, my mother who abused me, my father who did not protect me, the ex who cheated on me and the grade one girls who teased me, it is these people who I blame for the anger that seethes below the surface.

But my anger and my inability of not being able to let go of my pain, has nothing to do with these people but everything to do with me.  I have not forgiven myself.  I cannot forgive all those people who hurt me, if I have not forgiven myself for whatever faults or mistakes I have made.  And it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Did I need my mother to apologize for being horrible at parenting me?  Did I need those men who raped me to know how their actions have impacted me?  Do I really need my ex to look me in the face and say he was sorry?  What would change if I got all of these things?  Sure, I think I would feel somewhat liberated to know that for once, my voice was heard and my pain was revealed.  But what would be next, would I be a different person, would the walls I built around my heart, my life and my spirit come crumbling down and free me?

My struggle with forgiveness begins with me.  It is up to me to forgive the mistakes and choices that I have made on my journey through this life.  I need to forgive the shame I feel for being a semi survivor of child hood sexual abuse.  (I will explain this later). I need to forgive my mother for being physically and emotionally abusive towards me. I need to forgive my ex for infidelity.  It it only through doing these things that I can truly be free from my own painful childhood.  It is only through doing these things will I be able to forgive those who hurt me.  Without self forgiveness and self love, I will always be a caged gorilla, beating on my chest, screaming out…look at me, see my pain.

I don’t know about you, but forgiving yourself is not an easy task to undertake.  It begins with really evaluating every aspect of yourself, your life, your choices and your mistakes and coming to terms with all of that.  It is about realizing that you are not perfect, nor should you strive to be.  Its about coming full circle with the fact that not only have you been hurt and injured but you have also hurt and injured other people.  I really want to forgive those who hurt me, the anger is only a mask.  So, the journey begins with me being able to say and accept the fact that I made some horrible mistakes along the way.  But I am ready now.

“Can I be forgiven for all I’ve done to get here?
I want to be.
I can.
I believe it.” 
― Veronica Roth

 

Why I Blog

I  having been thinking the last few days that I wanted to come up with a way to close the chapter to my initial blogs.  After four months, I came back to WordPress to see what the community had been up to after my departure.  I read a few blogs from people I follow and from some that I hadn’t come across yet.  Life had gone on without me and the stories and creativity was overwhelming. I felt inspired by the honesty of being open, and I wanted to get back to what motivated me.  Writing.

Then I read my blog, every single post I had ever made to date.  That is when it hit me, I didn’t feel that way anymore.  I wasn’t sure, if I wanted to keep all that bitterness, angry and pain out there for the world to see.  I contemplated removing my posts, copying them and storing them somewhere else, that only I could have access to.  Was removing blogs cheating in the blogging world?

After some contemplation, I have decided to leave my posts up, as is in the rawest form.  They tell my story of what brought me online to share my pain with the world.  They have been a huge catalyst for the change I HAD to make in my life at a time, when I felt I did not know who I was and what I had to offer this world. I was a heart broken woman, a mother, a newly single parent and most of all a lost soul.

It’s been a great journey so far.  I have heard of people finding themselves at different points in their lives and that after a break up,  finding out who you are is even more important.  Whether you believe in God, the Universe, Universal Magic, the Field or whatever name you want to label it, I have found mine.  It’s taken many books for me to find my purpose of why I was here.  I have read God’s gonna make you laugh, Power of Intention, Bastard Husband, Why Men Love Bitches,  The Power of Now, Esquared…and many more which have helped me on my journey of self discovery.

I have developed some great friendships with people I met online and I plan to keep these friends for the rest of my life.  We have been through the highs and lows together.  They have kept me from falling apart, when at times it seemed like the only reasonable solution.  Although, we are now moving into different stages of our life and we have never met in person, our friendship has been the most important thing to me over the last few months.

I have stopped being angry at my ex for cheating on me.  I will never understand how anyone can do what he did to another human being.  I have learned it is not up to me to understand his choices, it’s his cross to bear and it is he who must look at himself in his own mirror.  I have learned that I may never trust him again in my life, the way I used to and unfortunately, I may never like the person he has become. If there is even an ounce of the man, I had met in 1997 left in him, I doubt he even likes the person he has become too.  But none of this matters, because he will have to face these demons on his own terms and at a time when he is ready to make changes.  I wish him luck on his own self discovery.

I haven’t forgiven him for some of the things he has done to me and to our family.  I know that to be totally free and to let go of what has happened,  I must forgive him completely. I still struggle with this idea, am I giving him justification for what he has done and would I be letting him off the hook?  I have forgiven some of the things he has done, but there are still some, hanging around, trying to tighten the noose around my neck.

I wish I could be free of him, but we shared a life and a family and we will always be a part of each other’s life. I plan to keep him at arms length…he doesn’t deserve my love or affection anymore.  We both deserve better than how things fell apart, but none of this matters anymore.  Or does it? I choose not to worry so much about it anymore, I have a train to catch and I have the most incredible ticket in my hand… the freedom to choose who gets to hurt me and who gets to feel my love.

I do wish things had worked out for us.  I wish we had been strong enough to talk to each other, to fight for each other and to not give up on each other.  But, nothing last forever anymore.  Divorce and separations are an  easy out these days, when life gets difficult.  It seems people are too weak or too scared to fight for each other, to love each other through the good times and the bad.  It’s a sad reality and a high statistic and I never imagined that my life would change so significantly and I would have to start over on my own.  I keep, our good memories in tack and I can laugh at some of the crazy things we had done together on good days.  I try to live as honestly as I can and honestly I miss my family as it was.  Oh well, it was good while it lasted.

I started this blog in darkness, trying to cope with a loss so huge and so devastating, that I wanted to share my pain with the world.  I will leave my initial blogs as they are, written in fear and uncertainty. As you read my story, you may come across some of my earliest pieces and it will remind you how fragile humanity can be.  Love each other deeply, but love in honesty!

 

She Got Her Groove Back

It’s been awhile since I sat down and had the motivation to write something inspiring.  There has been lots of changes in my life, but I will write about those later.  I guess you can say, I have been going through a grieving process and as of late, the universe kicked me in the ass and said enough whimpering and whining about hows my life should not be the way it is.  Well of course not, I am destined for a great life, but it really is up to me to go out there and do it.

I have learned a lot over the last few months I have spent hibernating.  I have learned when people show you who they really are, you need to believe them the first time around.  Some people, don’t get second, third or fourth chances to hurt you.  I have also, learned who some of my friends are and I have stopped contact with people, whose friendships were one way.  Over all, I have learned who I am.  As William Shakespeare said, “she may be small but she is fierce.”

“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles.” – Charles Chaplin

 

We are Eighty

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/daily-prompt-surprise/

They met in university, she wanted to be a teacher and he wasn’t too sure why he was there, but his parents went to the school and he felt obligated to do the same. 

They had mutual friends in common; who thought the two of them would be a perfect match for each other.   She was told that he had never lived in a city before, that he didn’t have any family around and that he had a great sense of humor.  He was told that she had one serious boyfriend in high school, that she was quiet until you got to know her better and that she had a beautiful smile.

They fell in love.  The kind of love, that was passionate and extraordinary.  I guess some would say a world wind romance.  Some people did not think it would last, saying that they moved too quickly and that there was no such thing as love at first sight.  But they proved all of them wrong.  She got pregnant and had to drop out of university.  Then they got married and he found a stable job.

They had a few more children along the way, a few disagreements and financial difficulties like any other family.  But through it all, even when things were falling apart before them, they loved each other even more.  They watched as their friends divorced, separated and remarried.  They held on tighter, never wanting to become one of those broken families.  They both knew their love was solid.

Then one day it all fell apart.  She found out that her life was a fairy tale and everyone was right.  It did not last.  She found out that he was no longer happy with their life; well that was what he told her.  He said that he had not been happy for many years, and he only stayed because, that was what a good man did.  He told her that he couldn’t do it anymore. 

She cried and begged him to love her.  She promised she would change, she would cook more, she would do this and she would do that.  Then, he changed right before both of their eyes.  He looked at her with these eyes that neither of them knew and told her that her “crying was pissing him off and making him angry.”  Then she cried more and he turned and walked away. She chased him trying to hold on to what was left of her life. 

He didn’t want to talk to her and he didn’t come home for four days.  When he did, he went over to her and hugged her and kissed her.  She began to silently cry because she did not want to make him angry again so that he would leave her.  He told her that he loved her and that he would never hurt her again.  They decided to go to talk to a counselor because he made a big mistake and he wanted his family.  He said that he had lots of time to think and she believed him.

She began to worry about where he was going; who was he talking to on the phone, why did it take him so long at the grocery story and he why was he so snappy at her.  She found out again and they repeated the pattern.  This time, he told her that he loved this other woman and that he was no longer in love with her.  He told her, “I told you I wasn’t happy.” He yelled at her again and told her that it was over, that he wanted a divorce, that he was finally happy and that he wanted her to move on with her life. 

He packed all his stuff and she watched tears rolling down her face, the memories of how they met, how they fell in love, how they had grown together, all flashed before her eyes.  She tried to call him to remind him about their love for each other.  She apologized for everything she had done wrong in the relationship.  He yelled at her, and called her names.  He told her that he was done with her, that he could no longer make love to her and he even once told her that she repulsed him in the bedroom.

 She could hear, the woman in the background and it devastated her, to think that the man she loved and created a life with, was in love with someone else.  She could barely get herself out of bed to get the kids off to school, she could no longer look at herself in the mirror, and she tried to keep it together but it was one of the hardest things she had to do in her entire her life.  Sometimes, when the kids were sleeping, or busy playing or at school she would lock herself in the bathroom and cry her heart out.  Sometimes, she found herself, laying on the bathroom floor in a fetal position, staring at the wall, not really thinking and barely existing. 

 Finally, the doctor told her that she had to go to the hospital so that she could get better.  She thought about it, how she would do it, maybe a bunch of pills could do the trick, or maybe driving into a rock cut would do it too.  But, she had the children to think about, they needed her, she needed them, so she went to the hospital and little by little she began to feel something.  It felt like happiness maybe. It was a possibility.  But still, she felt unlovable, she still wondered who would love her again, she felt robbed of her trust in people and she wanted her heart to mend.

 She had to see him because they had these children together.  He told her that it was all her fault that he had to leave, that he was not in love with her and that she pushed him into the arms of the other woman.

 Finally, she began to realize that the man she loved was no longer the same person she knew.  It did not matter how much bargaining she did with herself, the person she met twenty years ago was gone.  Maybe forever. 

 Her days are getting better, at times it was still unbearable, she struggled with feelings of unworthiness, being unlovable, feeling unimportant and feeling inadequate.  The scars from the words her husband told her run deep to her soul and sometimes, it feels that her heart is collapsing and she may not make it. She may not survive, the unbearable betrayal and deceit.  But she knows this much, as she struggles with those negative feelings, she has to rebuild her life, move forward and separate herself from the life she thought she had and accept the life, she and her children must now create.  No one else can do this for her, it’s her choice to either give in to her numbness, or roll her sleeves up and fight.

 Margaret was crying in her sleep.  Margaret woke up and adjusted her eyes in the darkness.  She reached over and touched her husband Ryan; he opened his eyes and saw the worry on her face.  Ryan asked Margaret what was wrong.  Margaret then turned and reached over to look at her baby daughter sleeping in the bassinet.  Margaret had this awful dream and she turned to Ryan, ran her fingers through his hair and she breathed deeply.  Margaret told Ryan what her dream was about.  Margaret had dreamt, that her daughter’s husband had cheated on her.  She looked over at the bassinet, and began to cry.  Ryan asked her if she knew who the man was and she told him, he went to University with her. Ryan looked at her, and wiped her tears away, as he thought about what should be done, to protect their two-month-old daughter’s future husband from betraying her.  “We will move, so she does not have to go to that University. So she does not marry that man.”  They both agreed, that was what they would do.

Inspired by little bits of my life

Let Me Introduce Myself

I met my ex when I was twenty-five years old through a mutual friend who thought that we would be the perfect couple. I don’t know if we were the perfect couple, but we were perfect for each other for the time we shared.

From the moment we met we were inseparable. We grew up together and most of our life experiences and mistakes were a team effort. I always knew that no matter what was happening outside the walls of our home, there was always a soft place I could fall back on. Him.

When I think about the last year and how our relationship ended by a text message the pain of it still remains. I believed that I deserved a little more respect than what he tossed me. When we met we both had nothing and we built a life, a family and careers together. I hoped with all I had, that the man I had met and spent close to two decades with, would show me something other than a text that he was in love with some twenty-eight year old stripper.

My ex is the biggest coward ever. He had no balls and no guts to face me. It will be a year in July that our relationship officially ended. He has never apologized(except one lame email where he said sorry but never said what he was sorry for) for cheating or walking away from his family. He has never faced me or treated me like the woman he used to profess his love for. He has treated me like a stranger he hates and at times I have done the same.

Sometimes, I do regret that I ever dated him and spent so much of my life with him. I am in my forties and left to raise our children on our own. He not only discarded me like I did not matter, but he has treated our children the same way. Currently, he is evading paying his child support payments because he feels that I should not have a “red cent” from him.

If I knew then what I know now, I may have decided against being in a relationship with him. The good memories are slowly fading. Just today, I was thinking about one of the tattoo’s he has on his body and I could not remember where it was located.

I hate that all I have left is the memories of how spineless and evil he has become. Really, all I want is for my heart to heal and for me to move on with my life. I don’t want to hate him, but he makes it so hard to feel any other way.

 

 

Riding The Bitter Bus

I haven’t spoken to him in fifty days! It has been the longest that we have gone without contacting each other since we met in 1997.

The idea of texting him came into my head when one of the men I am conversing with asked me to be honest with him.  I don’t know how we came to the conversation, but he said, “I want you to be honest with me.  If he came back apologetic and was willing to work on the relationship.  Would you take him back?  No BS.”

I believe in honesty especially if you’re trying to develop a friendship of some sorts with people.  “Yes, I would.” I responded.  “But I don’t talk to him because of this reason.  Because he is no good for me.”

Then this sweet man said, “Then why are you not working on it? He will come back.  They always do.  I don’t even really know you, but I can tell you that they always come back.  Don’t kid yourself.”

I held my cell phone in my hand and thought about what this man had just said to me.  Could he be right?  Would he come back to me and my family would be back to together?  But at what cost? Could I trust him again?

I did not sleep well that night.  That morning, I spoke with another friend and told him about my conversation the night before.  He agreed and said my ex would be back.  We texted back and forth about how I could potentially test the waters while protecting my heart.  We decided that I could open the door of communication, by checking up to see how he was and to tell him the kids really missed him.

It took him hours to respond.  He said he wanted to see them.  It had been over fifty days since he saw our daughter.  This has been his new pattern ever since he started dating his new girlfriend.  The conversation was pleasant enough. Then out of the blue, he tells me he plans to move away and accused me of not giving him access to the kids.  Remember, he is a liar and a (cheating ***hole).  

It seemed nothing has changed with him.  Still the same old drama and ability to deflect his own shameful infidelity onto the person who he harmed.  I used to yearn for him to explain why he was the one who was so angry at our breakup when it was him who cheated, lied and destroyed our family. I was not sure what I was looking for in this explanation from him.  Maybe I wanted to know that he felt guilty for what he had done.

The wish for my (cheating ***hole) to understand and comprehend his behaviours and impact on people who love him is fruitless.  It is a complete waste of my time to argue or engage in anything he has to offer me at this time.  It is like the man, I fell in love with has died and has been replaced with a complete stranger that I want nothing to do with.

Over the last few days, he has been on my mind.  I feel sorry for him.  I feel sorry that he is wasting his life being angry at himself.  It is not me or anything that I have done that he is mad at.  I have come to the conclusion that he does realize what he has done and how much it has hurt someone else.

He has to face himself in the mirror everyday.  He has to live with the thoughts that he is not the great, wonderful and caring person that he wants to portray.  He is a bitter man and if he does not have it in him to forgive his transgressions he will forever live in agony.  It is up to him to make amends with himself in order to make amends with me and our children.  I feel so very sorry for him that this is how he will move forward into his middle age.

He is still the same.  I tried.  He is just not ready to change.