up and downs

 There’s no way any of this was ever going to be smooth sailing. The truth isn’t a magical cure for all the hurt that was caused. It doesn’t erase the feelings of sadness, anger, pain. It doesn’t erase the distrust, the doubts, the fear.

It takes digging very deep within myself to find the courage and strength and love I need to get us through this. And it’s exhausting...I’ve been living in this space for weeks, months now...and I’m so tired.

Sometimes, like right now, it’s all I can do not to just curl up in a ball and cry. To shut the world out and just grieve and cry until I have nothing left. But I don’t have that luxury. And even if I did, I couldn’t because my husband needs me more. I have to be brave and strong for him.

But what happens when I waiver, when I don’t feel strong, or like I can’t emotionally handle much more? What happens when I feel like all these things have broken me, too?

It’s just a phase, it will eventually pass and somehow I will summon the strength to keep going for both of us, until we can both hold our own again.

It’s just that right now I feel like I’m sinking. Who’s gonna save me from drowning?

the truth shall set you free

 Thank you to everyone who is reading and following along with me on this journey. I have felt the strength and love and prayers I have been sent by everyone. I’ve had some very intense experiences with feeling the love and peace and calm and knowing where it came from. But this post isn’t about that.

What happens when you open Pandora’s Box and take a see dive into the past is that sometimes there are truths that pop out that are pieces of information...but it’s like opening an old chest in an attic and sifting through lifetimes worth of stuff that is basically like dumping a 1000 piece puzzle out all over the floor. The pieces are there, but it takes a lot of time to sort the edges from the middle, and the bit of info are so tiny compared to the big picture it can take a while to see what’s supposed to be there when all the pieces are sorted and put back together the right way. But sometimes it takes trying a whole bunch of different pieces to find the ones that click together. Sometimes there are so many pieces that even ones that seems to fit together isn’t always the right pieces in the end.

So that’s what happened...I had all the pieces but they didn’t fit together, even though they seems to at first. I had pieces together that didn’t fit, and the big picture I got still didn’t look the the picture on the box. So I pulled what I had put together all apart and tried to rearrange the pieces so that the true picture became clear.

One I spent my time grieving and writing and hours upon hours of talking it was so obvious that the truth had been sitting right in front of me the entire time, the pieces were just  put together wrong. What snapped me out of it was my old friend who was there the night I met my hubby...she sort of initiated the entire thing. She’s know me over half my life now. She said to me “I’ve know you since you were a 19 year old little brat running around the hospital, and you are one of the strongest people I have ever known, so act like it”. And I was l like “Oh yeah...I am strong. I forgot who’s daughter I was for a second there, but I got it now.” And I took a step back at my puzzle and realized it was all wrong.

The truth that came out because of my unrelenting quest for the truth, and the inability to reconcile the person I knew with the lies he had told, the things he had done. Something wasn’t making sense. I took myself back in time. Remembered everything from the day we met onward. And one thing I kept thinking of is how I’ve looked into my husbands eyes millions of times over 21 years. I’ve seen his soul, especially in those very intimate moments where we are connected as one as we keep our eyes connected...and I remember a sadness I’ve seen come through sometimes, almost a pleasing look in his eyes begging me to know the truth. The night we met and our eyes connected across the bar for the first time, I saw it then to. The pleading in his eyes that said he wanted me to know the truth but that was the only way he could communicate that, he didn’t have the words or if he did he couldn’t say them. And I remember small hints that have been dropped like little Easter eggs in movies where they don’t broadcast them, but really in tune people figure it out and find all the easter eggs, and feel more connected to the movie and walk away with a better understanding of the plot.

We spent hours and hours this week talking. I had switched to night shift this week to help with coverage, and I’ve had such little sleep since last week. Once my friend pulled me out of the darkness and we talked and talked the events of the past and all his little Easter eggs he was leaving me started to Be some revealed, he showed me where they were all hidden. And as it usually is, the truth lies somewhere in between the two extremes of my life.

There were two revelations that are things I had suspected or known a small part about, but not to the extent I needed to in order to understand. People can make us believe what they want if the truth is too hard to face.

The first thing is that when he was 12 one of his stepmothers sexually assaulted him. He never said anything because he was afraid he wouldn’t be allowed to see his dad, who left him when he was a kid, he watched his dad drive away and waited for him everyday at the window for weeks.

2 years after that he met a boy who needed up becoming his best friend and so much more. He told me “I fell in love with him in the biggest way. I didn’t fall in love with him for any other reason but him. I loved him without it being about gender. None of that even mattered.” This continued on in absolute secret until he met me, through all his girlfriends and through his marriage, which was all just a way for him to try to cover for himself, to hide it, to try and forget that he loved someone he couldn’t fully be with, not in the way he wanted. He didn’t know how. And how pressure from his mom and bra mom when he was just 18 to marry this girl, for family optics. He said he knew it was completely wrong and he hated that he felt so trapped. It was all a family cover to prevent people from finding out about his being with another guy, because by that time people were starting to find out and talk about it and they got less and less good at hiding how they felt about each other.

I watched his face change as he recalled the story. He would get a wistful smile when it seems like he was remembering a good memory. But after I searched his face I met his eyes, and I saw all that pain and emotion and bottled up love he held for so many years, trying to deny himself. His lies and coverups started unraveling when he would let loose and tell a story, and hints were sprinkled throughout. But I think the thing that really punched him is that over the last year I have been really working to get back to who o really am. And since the summer, and each season brings even more of this out, but I have been able to be my authentic self again, I found my way back. I’m still rough around the edges but my mental and emotional states have evolved along with me, making me feel like a badass super hero.

“I think that’s amazing.”

That was my reply to his confession. And I smiled at him. It broke my heart to hear his stories, to imagine how painful that must have been for him to have been ever able to tell his best friend and lover how much he loved him. And it was instant, the soaring love I felt for him, the extreme need to wrap my arms around him and protect him. And for the first time in his life he cried over this. I could feel 30 years of sadness leave his body. And I admitted my truth.

That I have never felt like I was enough. Like I wasn’t girly enough for guys to date, but I wasn’t male-like enough to be in a relationship with a woman, either. I just felt like I didn’t fit in. And from the moment I met him, he always made me feel like I was perfect. And he still does.

And I know that it had to happen this way. That we had to tear down every brick and talk about every hard and uncomfortable thing in order for me to finally see his entire truth, the whole picture, with the pieces all fitting neatly into place. I knew exactly how he felt and why everything happened. I filled in words for him when he didn’t have any.

I told him that I think it is amazing and beautiful because he was able to full and freely love, that he has the capacity to love like that. That I would always be his safe place. And he said that I was only the second person who had made him feel like that...the first being his best friend. But they never got to tell each other how they felt.

I know now that it had to be like this. That I had to be strong enough for both of us to find my authentic self again, in order to help him feel ok about his.

A week ago I had told him that it would be a long time before I ever felt like I could be intimate and trusting in that way with him again. And a week ago it felt like the impossible. But a funny thing happens when you let the love and empathy and kindness and compassion shine through, you are rewarded a million times over.

I thought it was going to take a long time for me to feel like I could be close and intimate with him again. But once he revealed his true self to me for the first time, it’s like my whole heart opened wide towards him. And we lay there last night with our bare chest pressed hard together, holding each other tight and staring into each other’s eyes, it was like we were transferring everything we were each  feeling separately and ended up making a big huge love, breaking unconditional love that transcends time and space.

And I know that with my help and strength and love that he is going to be ok. And that now that we are living the full truth with no more lies and guilt and doubt, that there is nothing that we can’t handle and that would ever tear us apart. 

We’re graphene.

That’s what happens when you let love lead. The past has healed the present.

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.

The Children We Couldn’t Have

 As my hormones have made apparent, my baby days are over. Not by choice or decision, but by nature. And as more and more baby and maternity gear gets unearthed from its hiding spaces of my closets, being either given friends who will loving use it, or saving for hopefully one day grandchildren...I mean, my eldest is 20 now and I was 22 when I had her.... I’ve been working through a lot of deep thoughts and feelings about this process, struggling of the natural-ness that it’s supposed to be vs the actual mess of hormones and emotions that it actually is. Combined IF and loss into that mix and it’s a lot.

Mel of @strirrup-queens highlighted a post that had a line something to the effect of “we regret the children we did not have, not the ones we do” or something close. And it made me think...

Saying children we DID NOT HAVE somehow implies to me a type of failure. Thinking about the babies I lost, the pregnancies that barely got started, if at all. And more than just mine, but the embryo’s and babies of friends of mine, friends of all of us in the amazing community.

I couldn’t have the babies I wanted...many, many women I know couldn’t have the babies they wanted, many had babies that they couldn’t keep, who went to heaven all too soon. The babies we couldn’t keep.

I am personally opposed to abortion for myself personally, deep in my soul, regardless of religious teachings,, Scientifically, and as a woman in the healthcare profession. But I have many, many friends who have had abortions and I love them without judgement. This isn’t meant to be a political or prolife post, or one meant to stir up any trouble, so haters can go fuck off here.

The Babies We Couldn’t Have.The babies we couldn’t keep.

And I don’t think this has to be a “we regret the...” type of post. People can’t have babies for a million reasons. Not Every creature on this earth can produce and sustain life, even if they were biologically meant to.

My first girlfriend gave up her baby for adoption. We were 18. So many other people have had failed adoptions where they couldn’t keep the baby.

The babies we couldn’t have. the babies we couldn’t keep.

I MOURN the babies I couldn’t have. We mourn for the babies we COULDN’T have. No matter the reason or circumstance.

The babies we couldn’t have, and the babies we couldn’t keep. It sounds so much more inclusive, don’t you think?

🌈

20 years

 

It’s amazing how fast 20 years goes by. I can’t even remember a time when it wasn’t he and I. From being poor newlyweds with our first baby at 22, to secondary infertility, to the loss of grandparents and parents, to job losses, anxiety/depression, tearing down and rebuilding our marriage to the fortress it is now, to infertility and loss again, to celebrating 20 years on July 7th, we have experienced so much together and more importantly, survived and became stronger than ever, together. It literally felt like we walked through fire together at certain points.

I am so proud of how far we have come, and all we’ve learned, and how close we are. Years ago we did a book called The Love Dare and we still use everything we learned to this day. The first chapter is literally “Be Kind”. It’s amazing how it’s the simplest thing but sometimes so hard to remember. We have been living on the principle of being kind, and talk about it everyday with our kids, especially during these crazy times where a smidge of kindness goes a long way. If you start by being kind, things don’t have to become a fight, and rarely do. We still have times where we but heads, but we usually can get through that in a matter of minutes.

This man, he’s the greatest. He even listened and let me cry on our anniversary when my period showed up, and I told him I had been having a recurring baby dream of twins, and in my dreams that helped fill all the baby-shaped holes in my heart. We aren’t even ttc or anything and I’m definitely sub-fertile. I cried that I wished this feeling would leave me, that I don’t know why I can’t let it go. And he said so gently “maybe that’s just who you are.” And I have never felt so safe  or so comforted, or so understood ever in my life. And trust me, he doesn’t really want more kids, but he doesn’t hold it against me from feeling so differently.

Holding on for dear life because this time goes so fast. 2020 has definitely upset the balance in the force, and nothing feels certain anymore. So damn thankful I have such a strong partner to share this life with.

Photo cred: our amazing second daughter, nearly 16. She wants to be a professional photographer and got a new top of the line camera system for her bday. This was shot in her iPhone 7 during an impromptu photo shoot last Friday for my husband’s bday.❤️💜