Burdened

Apparently I'm not very happy.  My nieces and nephews have commented that their parents have told them about what I used to be like.  How I used to be happier.  H-er says I'm negative and always "horribilize".    He thinks I see thinks as worse than they are.  I of course think he minimizes.

I remember working in a warehouse one summer earning money for college.  One of the employees L stopped to ask me why I was always smiling.  He never smiled. He wanted to know what there was to be happy about.  I asked him to tell me his favorite childhood song and I would sing it to him.  He smiled and then grumbled as he walked away because he hadn't wanted to smile.

In my youthful naïveté I wasn't shy about sharing my beliefs.  Another worker C talked about how he and his girlfriend were moving in together for a trial period to see if it would "work out".  I thought that was dooming it to failure before it started.

Somehow it came out that I was saving myself for marriage.  B asked me one day "what will you do when you come home from work and find your husband in bed with your best friend?"

I cheekily answered "he'll be my best friend."

But even though it was cheeky I really did expect that my husband would be loyal to me. Never did I imagine that he'd be in 100's of beds while we were married. 

Later after I was married I worked in another industrial environment. We had a fun time teasing each other and made a game out of some curled ribbon.  It would turn up in random places and we'd laugh because the curly ribbon had struck again.  I'd open my desk drawer and it would be in a file.  Or a co-worker would open their lunch and there it was.  It might be found hanging from your rear view window at the end of the day or in the box that held your paper clips.   It was an office full of practical jokes like that. 

Yet two months after I discovered the affair with the 17 year old I laughed at something a co-worker said and they said off handedly "I never thought I'd see you smile again". I put on a pretty good face--at least in public. My kids have noticed and commented.  I have my phone voice. It's bright and smiley.  But as soon as I hang up it all drops away.   My countenance literally drops.

Acquaintances might say I am very positive about things.  In fact potential employees say "you have such a positive energy" or "I love your energy".  It's exhausting though.  I have nothing left when I come home. I don't want to feel beaten, defeated, heavy, weighed down, troubled, down trodden, crushed.

Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Doesn't that sound heavenly?

 

 

 

 

 

Inhibited

"Come dance with me" I said.

He wouldn't.  So I danced by myself. It was at a live band at a biker bar and the lead singer was a co-worker of H-er's friend.  I don't usually go to biker bars.  It's not my scene.  But we'd been invited as a couple so there I was. 

But he was bored and wanted to leave.  So I danced my last dance and headed to the car and my anger built.  "I'm not free".  I thought

***************

I love dancing.  Whether it's jumping up and down, ballroom, swing, country, top forty, I love it.

I never missed a stake dance growing up.  When I was about 15 I was at a stake dance and the DJ jumped down and asked me to dance.  He was a student at BYU and was learning ballroom dance and for some reason he picked me to spend the songs teaching the cha cha and west coast swing. He told me I was good.

Later that summer I participated in the dance scene of the pageant Independence 1833. Guess who my dance partner was.  The DJ. I don't think he recognized me, but again he didn't have any complaints about me as a dance partner.

Freshman year at BYU I was at every dance. I loved being swallowed up in the throng of people dancing.  I didn't necessarily need a partner.  I just loved dancing until my feet hurt.

Fast forward to my second year at BYU. My roommate J was a ballroom dance major.  She would teach me the different dances and took me out country dancing with her brother.  I had so much fun.  For family home evening we had a country dance lesson from some of the BYU ballroom dancers. One of them was probably 6'5 and strong.  So I let him lift me up in the air and flip me over before catching me.

I went to one of the ballroom dance competitions with J and imagine my surprise when I saw the DJ on the BYU Ballroom Dance team (the team who has taken 1st place EVERY FREAKING YEAR). He didn't see me of course but I remembered that he thought I was good-particularly following a lead.

H-er and I hadn't been married very long when we went to a dance at BYU that was held in a barn.  He was excited because he'd dated a girl who taught him a few moves.  It didn't go well.  Within minutes he told me I was a terrible dancer.

When I went to Puerto Vallarta with the ladies of my 12 step group we went to dinner one night and the band that serenaded our table invited us to a dance club.  We went and sat nervously at a table. Eventually I was asked to dance.  I was good enough that he asked me again and then kept asking me and teaching me.  At one point he tried to get me to loosen up a little and I laughingly told him that I didn't know how.

One of the ladies with us was triggered by my dancing with him which I thought was so odd because my intentions were just to have fun dancing. It wasn't a sexual thing at all for me. I was sad that I couldn't dance at home like that -- all joy and no sexual overtones.

************

This is who I had become though. Walls up against everything.  Feelings bundled up and carefully contained.   In all aspects of my life.  It took dancing for a moment like the old days--uninhibited, carefree, innocent, joyful, free--to remind me what was missing. 

 

 

 

Delusional

"I'll consider it."

My mother in law had just asked me to bring the kids for Thanksgiving.  In my mind I'm trying to convince myself that I can spend a whole weekend with his sister who participated in covering up H-er's affair, that I can pretend that I am all smiles and sunshine. 

I tell people that I am trying to keep things amiable. 

I think we can attend wedding festivities for an entire day and be pleasant and serene.

First we have to get through dinner.  

I sit down and he immediately turns to me and asks me if I'm going to put money back in the account.  It's a familiar argument.  I try to explain and quickly realize it's futile.  So I agree.  That should be the end.  But it's not.  He continues. 

And just like that...I want out.  I want out of the literal and figurative corner he's backed me into.  I push and squeeze my way out past him until I'm free to leave.

I spend thirty minutes driving to multiple banks to put the money they way he wants.

*****************

"Why can't we watch it down here (the BYU football game)? Will you sit by me?  Will you hold my hand? "

Let's see...because if we watch it in your room we have to sit on the bed that you had sex with another woman less than a week ago.

Because you said you broke things off with her at the end of May and it's the middle of October and you just had sex with her less than a week ago.

Because I'm divorcing you.

****************

Pure delusion that I believe I can make it through a wedding much less Thanksgiving.

Vindictive

I unblocked H-er on Facebook and changed my status to "end of relationship".  I knew he'd see it eventually.  I wanted to hurt him. 

He was still cheating, feeding me 12 step crap, promising he was trying.  He called and asked permission to go to a concert with a guy friend when really he was going with her.

Yes.  I wanted to hurt him.  I didn't expect people to like the status. And leave comments like they were a cheerleading section.

I was on the phone with him when he discovered it.  When he said "thanks for humiliating me in front of the world"

And I felt a rush of satisfaction.  Humiliation?  That's not even a taste of the humiliation I've lived with year after year.  His whole family, his whole circle of acquaintance knew and met her.  And smiled and lied to my face as if I wasn't the biggest fool in the world.

Year after year as people quietly and vocally looked at me in pity wondering why I stay.  Year after year I had to present pathetic defenses justifying my refusal to grow a pair.

Of course it was a vindictive white trash jerry springer move.  Now that he saw it I didn't mind making it private. It served it's purpose.  Of course who knows how many silently judged me.  Let them judge me.  20 years baby. 

I hope it hurts

*I don't feel this way now but I'm still posting this entry because it was how I felt when I wrote it.  searching and fearless moral inventory.....

 

Tragic

Tonight H-er's current mistress called me.  She claimed she was feeling guilty because they are still carrying on.  I don't know if she was expecting me to fall apart, start screaming, or what.   Her responses to my suggestions that she seek help were those of someone who had an agenda.  They didn't match her supposed need to unburden a guilty soul.   So when she hung up I confirmed with a second source that H-er had contact in the last week with her.   That was all I really needed to know. 

So I called him and told him that I was for sure proceeding with the divorce.  His response. "Well you were going to anyway"

No remorse when caught.  Just defiance.

I can now proceed without looking back.  Freedom.

Once the adrenaline wore off I felt the first wave of sadness.  Really it's tragic that his lies and addiction and absolute inability to get help is how this story ends.  That all of his texts are just new versions of him scrambling:

"could you please not divorce me. I am trying very hard.  Angel emoticon"

"the other stuff is gone and I never want it back"
"as co-parents I would like to go to counseling...I would like to be part of the solution going forward"
 "I especially want to stay close to you.   I know it looks bad, but my feelings for you have not changed at all."
"don't be cold-hearted to me...there is still a strong bond between us, just need to figure it out with a looming divorce"
"we still have a chance if I can unburden myself from this terrible addiction" 
"we are a family"
"I will be alone for a while and I will get help and become better"
"we need to talk.  I won't lie"

And then the spin begins:

"The thing you don't realize, is that the reason you are hearing from J is that I spurned her once and for all.  So it actually a good sign that she called you.  I have always chosen you over her and that is why she is so pissed. If she is honest she will tell you that I have always told her that I wanted to work things out with you.  She has always been there saying that she accepts me how I am with all my problems...it is very flattering, but it is not what I want.  She is not who I want.   I have been very hurt and very vulnerable and I finally got the courage to dispatch her once and for all.  Feel free to call her and verify anytime.  She will never be part of my life again."

Notice how he flares up when I don't buy it.

"I don't need your abuse anymore.  You gave up on us years ago when you didn't move up here even though you told me you would.  I don't have to answer to you anymore.  You've served me.  You've put me in my place.  And you have not respected me nor treated me like a human being for years.  I'm a human being.  And I am tired of your abuse.  I am fine with the divorce." 

Underneath all his protestations of love and recovery and sobriety lies the belief that if I had just loved him and respected him he would never have done any of this.  He truly believes I am the reason he acts out.  And he reinforces that belief every time he says, "If you would just say you will love me and give me another chance you will see a different person".   When he fails it can because I didn't love him enough. 

Here is tragedy.   God sent us to Nebraska where there was an incredible 12 step group and he dabbled.  God brought us to Arizona where he has had bishop after bishop who understood addiction and would have been a great support in love and he waffled.  Here in Arizona was a counselor who could have made incredible inroads in his trauma and addictive behaviors but he dabbled.  God sent us to a ward that had so many men who were not members or struggled and where he wouldn't feel like such an outcast but he refused to reach out.   He is a man drowning in the ocean surrounded by life vests that he refuses to grab ahold of.

It's absolutely tragic when his voice changes and he starts to cry and he says he has no friends.  He has lost all of his friends to this addiction.  And he says I am the only friend he has.  It's tragic because as I work through my recovery I can see that for so many years I've lost myself in his addiction.

 

Obligated

I met An Heritage #1 when he was one.  He reminded me of H-er so he was easy to love.  He was affectionate and loved Winnie the Pooh. He was independent and wanted to do things "all by self". 

So when we were first married and he was 3 we sat down with H-er's first wife and her new husband to talk about visitation.   I still remember what she said:  "Maybe if you prove you are responsible he can spend the night".   I was taken aback.  She  didn't know me.  I was 23 and I considered myself quite responsible.  I can see now that she was reacting to her history with H-er and not me.

I wasn't perfect.  I remember when he was potty training and the first time I helped him I didn't quite get his pants down far enough.  They got wet.  He didn't freak out.  He calmly accepted my apology and promise to do better next time.

Then there was the time I tried to cut his hair.  He was old enough that he remembered his mom told him never to let me cut his hair again. (I didn't-I paid someone else).

We drove across the country and my aunt pointed out the strangeness of him calling me mom and H-er by his first name.

I remember driving 13 hours for his baptism and racing the last hour because I didn't think we would make it in time. I hugged him and cried and he must have thought I was strange.

I remember when he was old enough to start telling jokes and I laughed because they were the same jokes I told in elementary school.  He was fun to talk to now.

When he was 11 I looked at him one day and realized that was how old H-er was when he lost his virginity to the babysitter.  I wanted to vomit.

I drove an hour and a half to pick him up every other weekend and an hour and a half to take him back because H-er couldn't handle the stress or didn't want to face his ex-wife. I drove hours out of my way to pick him up and take him on family vacations without H-er because I wanted him to be part of the family and with his siblings.

Then I filed for separation and I cried because I realized he wouldn't be part of my life again. He was the one thing I was really going to miss.  I didn't go through with it but by then #3 and #4 were approaching baptism age.  I was so grateful he had the priesthood and could baptize his brothers when H-er couldn't. 

Then he went on a mission and I was thrilled when An Heritage #4 read his first letter and seeing that it wasn't the scary thing he imagined to be away from home said "I guess I will go on a mission"

So imagine my shock to learn that he had done things with An Heritage #2. Who was this stranger?  Is there more?  Did he do things with my other sons?  He still hasn't acknowledged what he did in our house.  And I look on him with dislike and distrust.  I took him in and loved him as my own and this is how he repays me?  Do I want him in my future or is he just another person I will have to tolerate because I have a duty to include him in my children's lives because they love him?

 

 

Grief

Grief.

So much grief. 

When I do my trauma therapy I always end up crying.  A few times the grief is so overwhelming that it shuts me down.  I have to concentrate not to let it take over the fighting or the running.

"Why are you so emotional" An Heritage #2 asks as tears stream down my face.  It's fast and testimony meeting and I'm reflecting that my daughter is here sitting next to me at church and not dead.  Of course I'm emotional. 

I'm divorcing my husband.  Of course I'm emotional.

I'm working the 4th step.  Of course I'm emotional.

I can't call my mom because she is dead.  Of course I'm emotional. 

Revelations 21:4  "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

But it is not that last day yet. And in the meantime I am just beginning to grieve the losses that come with divorce.  I know there will be many.