summer

 Quarantine made us closer. We transformed our front porch into this really cool beach scene with real sand and shells we had collected over the summers past, and backdrops, twinkle lights, a small table, 2 beach chairs, and a tiki torch blue tooth speaker. It was our little oasis, the place I couldn’t wait to get back to. Every night for months, once the little kids were in bed we’d meet out in our porch and relax together, bond, talk, laugh, and love. I can’t remember a time when I felt more comfort, love, and safety in one space.

Our relationship was as close to perfect as you can get...it was completely and totally mind bogglingly amazing. I never knew that kind of happiness and love could be achieved, especially in the middle of a year that is upside down and twisted in every way.

I was happy. Really and truly happy. It was like we got to that sweet spot you hear about, where everything falls into place, no one is fighting, everyone is kind and loving and accepting.

It was like living in a real life Schitt’s Creek.

The level of trust and openness we had evolved into something so much greater, into something bigger than the both of us. Our time out there on our beach oasis transcended time and space. Nothing existed during that time except for the two of us. My best friend, my partner in life, my lover. We had it, we were there, we had the moon within reach.

I should have known that it was too good to last. Nothing good ever does, at least not in my life.

When I opened up the box I did it with my eyes wide open, knowing what I might discover could change everything. I knew there was a chance I was imploding my life. But I had to know the truth. I needed to know exactly what happened. I couldn’t live the rest of my life in the dark, not knowing the truth. It would nag at me and nag at me for the rest of my life. This was the only chance I had to know the truth. There are so many questions I have about my paternal grandfather and there is no one left alive who could answer the questions. What little we found online only left a lot more questions, again and no one left to ask.

I systematically tore down my life and everything I thought I knew about my relationship in one fell swoop. But I couldn’t live anymore with the questions, the uncertainty. I still can’t wrap my brain around the fact that 21 years just went up in flames by the match I lit.

Right now I can’t even imagine a time, a way that we could ever reach that level of happiness again. That I could trust him with my person again. That I could trust him as my person again. At no point in 21 years did he feel like he could trust me enough to come clean...I’m not sure what that says about me. All I do know is that I am so far down into this deep dark pit that I can’t see the light yet.

One of the things I told my husband this summer was that he smelled like home to me, that spot that indents on his shoulder where I would always rest my head and take a deep breath of him and feel love, safety, security, and a calmness I’ve never felt before. Now that’s gone and all I feel is sad and empty, scared and alone. I lost my best friend. I don’t know what I am going to do now. Maybe one day I will be able to feel grateful for that time, however fleeting. Right now it just feels like a cruel joke, getting to experience that level of happiness for such a short period of time, enough to know it exists, but that for whatever reason it can’t last, not for me. But as I continue to process and grieve, my mind and heart keep going back to the summer, where for a very brief moment I knew I was going to be ok. That everything was going to be ok. I have no security now. I feel like I’m free falling with no parachute and no net. It feels like I have been falling forever but the journey is only just beginning. But for a moment there, we almost had the moon and stars, and I got a taste of what true contented-ness felt like.

I guess I should be grateful that at least we had the summer.

Learning the truth, finally

 I’m just going to blog through this because honestly, this story is crazy. It’s like something out of a novel, but it’s not, it’s real, and it’s my life. And I have no idea how to even being to process all of this. So I’m just going to start writing, because if I think to much I literally might curl up and die.

The short version is that after 21 years, I have finally learned the truths surrounding my marriage. I have discovered the person I married was not the person he claimed to be. I discovered that our entire relationship has been based on lies and deceit. And I have no idea how to reconcile that with the life I have now. And I am holding a lot of hurt, heartbreak, and anger right now. I’ve cried more tears than I can count. And I have no idea what to do, how to live with my new reality.

I have long had questions or suspicions that something was never quite right with the stories my husband has told me over the years. Things kept changing, timelines didn’t match, he was vague and always tried to play off any questions I had.

When I met him, he was married, but he never told me. We were engaged and pregnant on purpose before I even found out, when we couldn’t plan our own wedding because he wasn’t single. I’m not going to dive back into the specifics because it sucks to relive. Let’s just say it was a very humiliating time in my life, knocked up by a married man. While he had been separated, he was still stringing his wife along, and unbeknownst to be until recently, found out there was overlap where we were both sleeping with him. She didn’t know about me yet, either. I feel sick to my stomach writing this.

He misrepresented himself and made selfish decisions that took away my choices. I would never have talked to someone who was involved in any way with someone else, let alone married. Separated doesn’t cut it for me. He made me an adulterous. He lied to get his way, no matter who he hurt. He also hurt his poor wife. It makes me sick to think that I was manipulated into becoming an adulterer. He told me anything he though I wanted to hear, truth be damned.

That’s just the beginning...I’m pretty sure just about everything he’s ever told me about himself before me is a lie. I don’t know if I can ever trust him again. My heart is absolutely broken in half. Everything I thought I knew and believed about my relationship was all a lie. The lies have continued for 21 years now.

Thanks to the year of quarantine we had been spending lots of time together, my husband and I. We talked about all sorts of old memories  and things. It was during these conversations that new inconsistencies started popping out at me, and the more I asked, the different the answers were, things weren’t adding up, timelines weren’t making sense. He was extremely vague about a lot of things and acted like he couldn’t remember.

And then at some point he talked about wanting to find his old group of friends we hung out with when we met. And when I brought up certain people and friends to find, he got really uncomfortable and acted so strange about everything. And he did some other things to sort of push me into this direction...so I started finding people and asking questions. And I got the same accounts from everyone I talked to, except for my husband.

So I confronted him. And he continued to lie until he realized he was backed into a corner.

And then the first thing he said is “should I leave? Am I getting divorce papers in my stocking?”

His first reaction was to run. And I looked him square in the eye and he knew that I finally saw the truth. And I told him I wished I had never met him. And right now that remains true.

I feel so violated and worthless and broken. I feel so fucking stupid. He probably got a good laugh at our expenses joking on how he was screwing different women every night and none of us knew. He preyed on people he thought were vulnerable enough to buy his shit. And we did. And I have wasted 21 years of my life with him. He took so much from me, my pride and dignity being at the top of the list along with all the trust and love I had. It’s gone. I don’t know if I can ever get it back. Manipulating and lying to someone to get them  to be with you isn’t love.

It one fell swoop I lost everything. My husband, my partner, my best friend. But the ends don’t justify the means. You can’t erase 21 years of lies and sweep it under the rug. I can’t live like that.

All I know is that is the day after thanksgiving and I’m sitting out on my porch, all alone, trying to makes sense of all of this, with tears streaming down my face.My heart is shattered into a billion pieces. I have no idea if it’s even fixable. All I know is I’m unwilling to continue living this life based on lies. I don’t know what that means yet, and I don’t know how I am ever going to survive this.

Revisiting the past

 This year I have worked really hard on myself, all aspects of me that needed improvement. Trying to work my way out of a hole of anxiety and depression has taken much introspection and reflecting, and dealing with all the things as they come up, taking it one thing at a time. I’ve also worked very hard this year to project love and kindness and empathy and understanding. That’s been very easy and fulfilling. But the mind can be a dangerous place, and I’ve realized I have a lot of things in my life I have never completely worked through, because I didn’t know how. Some things are decades old but occasionally when triggered I start to remember things, and it triggers bad thoughts and feelings and sometimes I can’t snap out of it that quickly. That’s one thing I’ve noticed about my mental health meds, all precautions, some pharmaceuticals and some natural from the earth meds, that they have been making my brain fire neurons left and right, and my memory is way sharper now than it has ever been. I guess that’s what happens when the fog of depression finally lifts off. Memories from my childhood are so much more vivid, and I remember things that I had forgotten about, or forgot I remembered, and things I read seems to get etched into my brain and I can recall the whole page of text in my head, or at least important things that stuck out at me.

The downside is that it means I remember seemingly everything, the good and the bad, and Incant pick and choose what my brain decides it’s going to remember. Sometimes a feeling of deja vu with immediately bring with it dread and knots in my stomach. The mind is so powerful.

I have realized I can’t really move forward in my healing and having a more peaceful future if I don’t confront my past. And that feels like Pandora’s Box.

Because the one thing from my past that I know I had to face is something that changed the course of my life, and it was something I really didn’t have control over, so I feel like my choice was taken away from me about the direction my life went in. And it’s something that over all these years I have revisited many times, mulling it over and over and then finally deciding to stuff it away again until next time it resurfaces. It’s been in my face for a while now. I can’t ignore it anymore. Am I happy with my life? Absolutely. Would I change it for the world? NO. It’s not about that. It’s about coming to terms with the choices that were taken from me, hopefully understanding the situation more, so that I can finally make peace with it and let it go once and for all. I will be all the better for it.

But. (there’s always a but.) But it’s a little like uncovering some long buried secret. The answers on the other side could also be devastating and life changing. But I have already put the plans in motion. I have no idea if this will even pan out, if I will even get anywhere. There’s a chance I may have to dig for answers. And the answers might be worse than what I’m already imagining, and then that will be another whole thing I guess I will have to work through somehow. But if I want true healing, true wholeness, true peace I have to follow this down to wherever it takes me. They say the only way out is through. Here I go.