It's just another New Year's Eve, It's just another Auld Lang Syne...

 

Oh today is just full of ghosts for me.  I am struggling with memories and regrets and feelings of absolute desperation and sadness.

I know everything that he's done to deceive me and lie to me to cover up his bad behavior and affairs. I know how he made me promises that he didn't keep.  How he played on my insecurities and used me for his revenge on his first wife.  How he never put me first and how he downplayed everything he did to hurt me, like I was always over reacting. I know how he talked about me behind my back and how he made me out to be the world's worst wife and mother.  I know how he conveniently left out his bad behavior so that he could be the victim.  I get all that.  I get that I am better off, that I will have better peace, but so far, none of that has happened.  In my head, I'm still working through and deprogramming and my nature has always been to forget the bad and remember the good.  It's what got me through my childhood with my narc father. 

But I struggle to turn off the love. I have loved him nearly my whole adult life. I struggle to turn that off.  Even now, I want to send him a text or an email or even call him, but I know if I do, it won't work out the way I want or hope it will. 

And this brings about another question....WHY do I want to contact him?  Why do I still feel the pull toward him?  Why, after all that has happened do I still feel this way?  Why TF do I miss him so much?

Because when it was good, it was really good.  We were unstoppable, the amazing duo. And then something happened.  I wish I knew what.  I wish I knew what I could have done better to fix it.  But as time went on, I became more and more terrified that I had lost him (I couldn't face that he was already gone) and the more terrified I became, the more erratic my emotions grew.  It spiraled and unfortunately, I fell into his web, giving him all the ammunition he needed to label me as crazy, horrible, psychotic and suicidal. I began having panic attacks multiple times a day.  He would purposely give me the silent treatment and he would never engage when I was trying to tell him my fears, my feelings and how his betrayals hurt me. He made wall paper out of me and withdrew all his affection and his love while giving me the WORDS to make it seem like I was just imagining things.  I went crazy trying to sort it all out and so terribly desperate.

Why do I want to put myself through that again?  And this all leads me to think that there is something horribly wrong with me.  My therapist calls it trauma bonding. She assures me that this is totally normal and deprogrammng is going to take a bit.  I need to be patient with myself and I need to keep focusing on my new life.  

Dammit!  I didn't want this new life.  I didn't want this lonely, new condo and I didn't want this feeling of abandonment.  My friends tell me to get back out and start dating.  I don't want to date!  I want what I had.  I don't want to forge through another discovery process. I don't want to have to date a dozen men to find someone who MIGHT or might not cheat on me later.  I now have severe trust issues.  I am skeptical when someone pays me a compliment. I don't believe a person when they tell me they love me. I have cocooned myself in a safe place where there is only me. 

But I really want to write him or talk to him to let him know that I still feel this way.  That I still remember us and I miss that connection and I miss him.  That I miss our life and our laughs and how good we were together.  I miss our home and our friendship. 

And then I stop and think...how much of it was really a lie?  And I just spiral into a depressed and weepy heap.

Happy New Year.  Maybe this is the year I break through. 

But more than anything else, I'm sorry for myself...cuz you're not here with me.

This Christmas was difficult.  The day weighed heavy on me as I spent most of it alone with an injured dog and while friends and family sent gifts and treats to brighten my holiday, I was missing my daughter terribly.  

Add to that feeling the sense of loss and displacement I was feeling.  I felt out of character as I am usually the hostess or the planner.  My holidays have been spent prepping, shopping, wrapping, cleaning, cooking, baking, decorating to make the holiday fun and festive. It was just expected of me to host ALL holidays and no one seemed to want to take it on.  I wondered this year with his family, who that fell to and I assume it was probably his one brother and his wife who is now the new favorite.  

I had Christmas day plans but I really struggled with getting the motivation to ge into the shower and to get dressed.  I struggled getting mascara on while tears ran down my cheeks. 

And I don't know why I feel this way.  I should be happier than I am.  I am rid of his petulance and pouting because at the end, he didn't want to be with us, he wanted to be with DEBRA.  He would lay in bed Christmas morning after I got up and was making breakfast, and he would text her.  We would have to call him down to get him to participate and then he would just sit there, watching TV while we opened gifts.  He was so emotionally detached, it wasn't funny.  

But this year, he is living his best life, as if to prove that he was SO miserable with me.  That I was SO horrible.  He was SOOOO abused.  He's doing everything with her that I begged for.  He's doing his best love-bombing and she thinks she won the lotto.  Just like I did.  But I have loved him since I was 16 years old.  I thought a dream came true when he finally took notice of me.  I thought I had it all, forever.  But it was all fake. It was all a lie.  I was his scapegoat for decades because I would forgive him anything.  I believed his lies. I believed his excuses and I gave him slack for his bad behavior.  I also begged for love, for attention and for basic human needs.  I became invisible and I spiraled out of control because I didn't know what I had done wrong to fall out of favor.  I was blamed for everything.  I was too critical, I was too demanding, I was too controlling, I was too sensitive and too emotional.  I was TOO MUCH.  

Now I am angry.  I am angry at myself for staying after I got the email from his co-worker about his affair with a woman when my daughter was 4 years old.  I am angry at myself for believing his lies when I had proof right in front of me.  I am angry at sticking by him when our house was nearly sold for back taxes FOUR TIMES and he lied to me about everything.  I am angry at myself for seeing the red flags but not knowing what to do about them and for believing I was asking too much for transparency and honesty. 

And it all hit me hard Christmas Day.  

 

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart

These are the stockings that my Grinch Ex-husband stole from me and my daughter.  Why?  Because his even grinchier and vindictive mother made them, gifted them to us and then in true grinchy fashion, stole them back.  Apparently, we didn't deserve to keep them, even tho they were a gift.  To be truthful, had they asked for them back, we probably would have happily agreed, but he went through all the christmas bins...I'm sorry, that's not true....HE RANSACKED the bins, breaking items as he recklessly searched before I walked in on him and caught him.  Did this in the dark of night.  He did this with deception and unscrupulous motives.  He was sneaky and vindictive.  He broke ornaments, nutcracker decorations and other items. But then when caught (my bedroom is right above the garage where these bins were stored) he tries to tell me the bin he currently has down with the broken wreckage of his search were laid to bare, that the bin "fell".  The bin that was tucked above the garage door and the ONLY bin out of 7 up there that magically moved. I didn't believe him.  And he was mad that I didn't believe him. 

These stockings were stolen without regard to our feelings on the matter.  They weren't asked for.  They weren't negotiated for...just taken.  I'm sure my name has been ripped out of the header and DEBRA has been lovingly sewn in its place.  But does Debra know that this is a regifted stocking?  Does she know it was mine before she magically got it?  Eh, who knows.  It's just amusing to think about.

This made me wonder what else he has done in the name of "RECLAIMING" what he felt was his?  He tried to take other things that were gifts.  Like our daughter's luggage that, again, his mom gave her for Christmas. (Do you see the theme here?)  When we were to divide up property, he took a painting that was given TO ME from his Aunt's estate.  It was a painting I really liked.  But he took that claiming it was HIS aunt's.  Yeah, but it was gifted to me.  That's ok.  There are other things he left behind that ended up in my boxes when friends came to help me pack.  I'm not in a rush to return them.  After all, there were things he took that were mine (Fencing gear, dishes, my self esteem) and he didn't bother to return them.  

Just shows what kind of person I was married to.  A narcissistic, momma's boy with a penchant for vindictiveness.  Did I mention he has been living with his mother for the past 15 months?  I didn't?  Oh, well, how about that. 

I know you're lyin', your lips are movin'

When I read this meme,  I laughed. You know,  in one of those uncomfortable, but it's still funny kind of ways.  In my case it was so true!  When my daughter found my NEX's secret second phone that he used to talk to Debra, while telling me he wanted us, I lost it.  He came home one day and made this grand gesture to destroy it. I was touched.  I believed he meant it when he said he was sorry.  But later, when he left the house, I dug it out of the garbage.  Something was nagging at me because I didn't really trust his gesture. It felt dramatic and forced.   I felt horrible for the way I felt about it but I did it anyway.  Once I had the now destroyed phone, I looked it over with the careful attention of a CSI Agent.   The SIM card was missing. It had been wiped clean. There was nothing on it, no evidence or trace of what it had been used for.  I left the phone on the counter and when he got home, I confronted him about the missing SIM card.  How did I know he didn't move it to another phone?  He immediately got angry and said..."I knew you would snoop!  I was testing you! " 

I was dumbfounded.  He was testing ME?  Wtf?  It was absolutely amazing how he flipped his deception around on me.  He put everything back on me, about how he couldn't trust me to accept his apologies.  Wait, what? 

But that's how he handled whenever I caught him in something.  It was MY fault.  Why didn't I just TRUST him.  I should just TRUST him because he was telling me to.  Not that he had to earn my trust back.  Not that he should maybe have some remorse for doing what he did.  Not that he was actually supposed to be ACCOUNTABLE for his actions.  No.  Place all the blame on me.  It was my fault. 

Bitch, my pockets extra large...

It's so easy to live large when you have abandoned your family and responsibilities. When you have turned your back on your own flesh and blood for some Older woman who is your next supply. It's easy to spend your money when you live with your mom and you no longer provide for your daughter. You can act like you are of means and important when you don't have to support or have accountability to your former life. You suddenly can take time off work, when you never could do that before. You can travel (she loves to travel) because you didn't have to buy a place to live and have a space for your daughter to call home.  

It's easy to live large when you pretend the past 22 years of your life didn't exist. But still torture your daughter with professions of loving and missing her...when your actions speaks otherwise.

It's easy to live large when you are a narcissist. 

Yesterday's gone and that's a fact...No more living in the past

 

I love this Kinks song lately.  I caught myself humming it yesterday as I prepared my Thanksgiving meal.  I had a girlfriend over who also is going through what I went through. We have always led parallel lives, down to our daughters having the same birthday (just a year apart).  She asked me about how things were going and what was it like now that the divorce was final.  I told her that while it may be final, there was the issue of dividing his 401k which he has been purposely dragging his feet on.  I told her how I think I found a work around and I am just waiting on that.  She then told me about her issues and the fact that her STBX is also dragging his feet on providing information to the court and how he hasn't been very forthcoming in his disclosure.  After she left and all the dishes done, I laid in bed and realized I hadn't posted in a while.  I thought about that and realized I was tired of posting about my anger and my feelings of betrayal.  Typing out all the things that he did to me just didn't serve as a good  medicinal solution to my broken heart.  

I shared my story hoping others would find comfort. Maybe they would find inspiration in my trials and it would make someone feel less alone.  But then it became all about whining, serious whining, if I'm going to be truthful with myself.  He did THIS and he did THAT...oy vey.  

However, so much of it came from my trying to understand WHY he did this.  WHY he was being so cruel through the divorce process and it came down to one thing.  He didn't get what he wanted.  He wanted me to slink off without a fight.  Without demands.  Just a quickie divorce.  And he didn't get that. in fact, he got the opposite as the judge repeated ruled in my favor. Once I realized that and I accepted that, a lot of the worry and frustration went away.  It was as if I finally got closure. 

So, what am I doing now to heal?  I am looking FORWARD not back.  I am prepping for Christmas and even if I wind up alone, it doesn't' matter because I DESERVE to have holidays and lights and good food.  My friends and I have plans and I am looking forward to forging my new normal. Every day is a gift and every day is a chance to find me again. 

This Thanksgiving I have an abundance of things to be grateful for, but more than anything, this year taught me what it really means to be thankful. While my world imploded and crumbled around me, I found reasons to be thankful every day. Friends who came to my side to support me through this hellacious year. To lift my faith, my spirit and my self worth as I struggled to find my way. So much loss in so short a time was difficult to navigate through. Losing Elsa, my home, my marriage and my identity. I met challenges every day, sometimes every minute of every day, but look where I am! I have a new home, a new life, filled with amazing friends and family. I have a good job and an amazing daughter. And yes, right now, I don't have a furnace, but I have a condo that stays pretty warm and keeps warm with a space heater. So I'm ok.  

I have learned that things don't have to be perfect to be ok. That I can find joy in the smallest of things. I can find reasons to smile in the darkest of moments and all I have to do is say, "I need help" and a hand touches my shoulder.  

This Thanksgiving I am not only grateful, but I am blessed by all of you, by God and by all the lessons I am learning every day. My identity isn't being a wife. I did that and it dissolved in an instant. My identity is who I am, and I am a survivor. I am a DOER and I am strong in the storm, even if I don't feel like I am. I have dark days that drown me, but I have learned to tread those days and not let them carry me to sea. I have people who love me and will help me if only I ask. I have people who love me in spite of me. And I have a daughter who can brighten my day just by saying, I love you, Mom.  

Today, I feel joy at all I have accomplished, of all I will accomplish and someday, maybe these walls will come down and I can trust again. Day by day, I move further away from what tried to destroy me. Day by day I can do hard things. Day by day I laugh a little more, smile a little more and find myself a little more. 

To anyone who is going through this, know there is light. There is another side and you will find it.  

To anyone who went through this, I encourage you to share your stories. Because your story might be someone else's inspiration.

To anyone who is alone this holiday season, you DESERVE joy. You deserve a holiday....make it YOURS!

To those who are with family, enjoy, love and forget the fights. Life is short, and one day there will be a few less at your table. 

Happy Holidays, my friends. Thank you for all you have done to keep me here, keep me sane and for just reaching out to let me know, I am not alone. 

I love you and am so very grateful.

Do you believe in life after love?

Life goes on but not the way we thought it would.  

Colors seem duller and the world feels frightening.  

We feel hopeless about love and lost in our everyday activities.  

We know we're different but it's not by choice.  

We try so desperately to find that happiness we used to feel but we can't because our innocence was stolen from us along with basic human trust.  

Because we no longer have that trust,  we live in constant fear of being hurt again, of being taken advantage of by the trust that loving someone manifests.  

We are damaged by evil. 

So when you gonna tell her...That we did that, too?

Dear Debra Owens Galvin.  All his lines (when Harry Met Sally)  KTD, songs, restaurants,  pet names, jokes, movies and books...he did with me.  I was there before anyone.  So you may think you are making new memories but they are recycled.  He doesn't do new material.  In fact, that was a joke between us, that he needed new writers.  He isn't that clever.  He claimed you as his soulmate.  He's leveling with you.  He is telling you how awful I was. How I didn't satisfy him.  How hard he tried. How his mom and brothers ADORE you. How he finally feels complete.  He is using all the lines he used with me...that I watched him use with Angela, Lisa, Christine, Patti and the others who weren't important enough to remember their names.  I was there through ALL of them.  I should have seen it but I was too in love with him to see it.  Until I couldn't not see it.  It will happen with you.  You broke TWO marriages to be together.  He can't be alone.  He dropped a 48 year relationship to be with you.  He turned away from his daughter and disowned her to be with you.  I'm just thankful you are too old to have kids so that you don't bring another innocent soul into this horror show you are in. 

As for me?  I am thankful to be out of that mess.  The financial lies and mishandling.  The lack of loyalty.  The mental manipulation.  The inability to accept accountability.  Have at it.  You will lose everything.  He is selfish that way. 

Right now you think you hit the jackpot.  He lives with mommy.  He bought a car with over 120k miles on it and financed it with double digit interest rate for 5 years.  He has nothing.  But he will take all of yours while pretending to be the world's best guy.  Until you challenge him or his mommy on something.  Until you question him.  Until you see it's all a facade.  Then you will be discarded and thrown out.  When you are too old to be fun he will trade you in.

Good luck.  Yes.  Im sure you are the one to change him.  Yes.  You ARE different.  Yes.  You are the one.

I get it. I thought so too.

You Give Love A Bad Name

Monday night I had to face my ex. Part of the decree was that I had to provide him with all electonic pictures and videos in my possession via an external hard drive which he provided. (No he still hasn't completed his parts, but I am complying because it is my moral obligation to do so)

So we had originally set for Saturday at noon. Late Friday, I get a text "230, please" with nothing else. I would have to change my afternoon plans, which normally I would have done for him, but not anymore. Plus, he just barked it at me, using *please* as a way to show he is attempting to be polite. But he didn't APOLOGIZE for the change, didn't ask if it worked for me and he also didn't offer an alternative. Just barked at me expecting me to jump. So, the next morning I said back, "Morning! So if you are unable to make noon, we will have to reschedule. I can't make 230. Sorry."

To which he replied, "Reschedule it is." And offered zero options.

Keep in mind, this is HIS demand. He doesn't give a flying flip about the pictures. He never has cared. But it was a way to make me go through them all and erase myself from 20 years of family memories. Can you understand how hurtful it was?  

Anyway, I let him know my availability...again. Unfortunately, I am forced to orchestrate this if I want to remain within the terms of the agreement. He chooses Monday, but doesn't set a time. So...that night I lay in wait. I see him pull up...park in a handicapped spot and then walk around.  He actually kind of strutted and walked all the way up to the garage entrance and stood there maybe 2 feet from the door, arms crossed.  Finally he texts me that he is here. Ok. Good. I can do this. I can face him. But what I expected and what I got were two different people. The past few times I have seen him have been in court. He has been arrogant, brash and intimidating. He has stood tall and looked at me with smugness. However, this time he slumped. He barely said a dozen words. He wouldn't look me in the eye. He spoke to my feet. When asked about the transfer, he became annoyed. Its almost as if we flipped. I was standing tall. I was trying not to show him any sign of weakness. Lucy, our dog treated him as she would any other stranger. However, she also wanted to see the fire hydrant. She didn't cry or whine like she does with me or Dana or anyone else she knows. She seems to have forgotten him. 

We parted and he got into his car and slammed the door shut. I don't think he liked seeing me this way. I think he had hoped to get the scared and devastated wife that he hoped to destroy. And that isn't what he got..

No tears. No shaking. He was just someone I used to know.

However, since seeing him, I have been going through the whole self doubt again.  Having dreams where I am tucked in under his arm again, hugging.  The feeling I used to have when I did that.  I am back to crying at the drop of a hat and I don't know why.  

I feel I have come SO far since the separation a year ago.  I feel like I have made such strides in healing and building up my self worth.  Yet when I said to him that I had hoped everything was going well for him, he dismissed me and snottily said, "Have a good night."  That dismissal did something to me.  It was a delayed response, but his tone, his manner, cutting me off and sending a very loud and clear message that I am no longer worth his time.  That I am no one to him.  He has his life and I am no longer welcome.  Someone who I have loved with every fiber of my being, no longer welcomes me.  He no longer includes me in his world.  But then as I thought back, when did he?  He had so many secrets. He had a secret life that I wasn't a part of.  He would talk with his family and his mom and have dinners that I and Dana were excluded from.  He had affairs and other events, that excluded us.  He would make BIG decisions without me.  And that's when I realized that I truly was NEVER a part of his life. I was NEVER anyone important to him.  I was a means to make his first wife jealous and angry.  I was someone comfortable that he knew would put up with his shit no matter what.  I wasn't ever anyone important in his life.  I was only a convenience.  Throughout our marriage he was always testing the waters with other women.  He was always searching for someone better.  That is a very hard pill to swallow when you love someone.  He was my everything.

In one session with my therapist, I mentioned how I drove him away.  I was caustic at the end, fighting so hard to get him to see what he had done and how frustrated I was that he had no interest in fixing it but still hung around like everything was ok.  How he would drop little breadcrumbs to keep me hopeful and eager to repair our marriage, but how distant he was emotionally, how he was never around and how he treated me like I was invisible most of the time. How that wore on me, how in my efforts to get him to understand I would literally jump up and down and scream if I had to to get his attention because 90% of the time, he would ignore me, stonewall me and never engage in any meaningful conversation.  Then how he called me abusive, and how that hurt me further because I was not an abusive person. My therapist said, "When you cut off a person's oxygen, they flail, they fight for air to breathe.  They do this until they die."  So effectively, what I took from that was that he was my oxygen.  He took his love, attention, affections away from me.  I was starving for air and my fighting was me fighting to breathe.  Quite a powerful analogy when you think about it.  The panic, the fear, the sense of helplessness is all the same and it creates very strong reactions.  This helped with my guilt with my behavior a little, but what I realized is that he knew what he was doing. Just like a murderer choking their victim, or smothering them with a pillow, they watched the life drain out of you until there was nothing left.  

I have learned to breathe again and slowly my life is coming back.  But there is this void that still exists where he used to be.  Its still festering. Still infected, but it IS healing. Self care is what is going to get me through this.  Self reflection will help me to recognize what I am responsible for so that it doesn't happen again.  Peace is what will come when I accept what my responsibility truly is and not what he wants me to believe. 

Coming to terms with his opinions of me and how they do  not represent who I am is what will help me to face the future. But after spending so much of my adult life walking on eggshells around him because he was always jealous of anything that took away from him, and dealing with never being the partner or the priority I should have been it's hard to not see myself as a failure or as less than worthy.  But I am getting there. 

It all boils down to the fact he is incapable of loving anyone the way they deserve to be loved.  This includes me, his children and any others in his life. Its not me.  It's him. 

 

Oh darling don't you ever grow up...

September 29th was the last day with my girl for 9 months.  She slept in my bed that night because she wanted to be close.  That night she flew to the UK because she was accepted into a 1 year program studying English Lit  at Pembroke College at Oxford University. She is terrified and excited all at the same time.  This past year has been so tumultuous with my divorce from her father, the abuse he inflicted and us moving out of the only home she has ever known into a strange place we desperately tried to make memories in so it felt like we belonged here.  Tonight she literally flies off on her own...and I am a hot mess.

This isn't how it was supposed to be.  This was supposed to happen with the love and support of BOTH parents.  She was supposed to be sent off with hugs and kisses from us,  not just me. Her father should be helping get her bags,  should drive us, should have been helping her pack get ready... she should have been in the room she grew up in,  she should not have spent the entire summer packing, moving, packing again, moving again, calling the police, looking over her shoulder, listening to my muffled voice through a door as I talk to attorneys, police and friends.  She shouldn't have heard me cry. 

I have done everything I know how to do to make her feel loved, wanted, supported and encouraged.  I have tried so hard to make this a happy and exciting adventure for her.  I've tried to show her I'm OK.  That she can leave me and I will be fine.  That I am settled in the new place and she has a home to come back to. 

But it's so hard.  I am so angry still at the choices her father has made and is still making that hurt her so badly.  Part of me wants to give him an opportunity to say goodbye, but she doesn't want that.  And I struggle.  I struggle because I do what I would want if tables were reversed.  But the tables would never be reversed because I wouldn't have done to our family what he has done. And I stop. I hate being mama bear against him.  I feel like I am hurting him, but can you really hurt a narcissist?  One who only sees her as a means to hurt me and not as his child.

Deadbeat Dad, you weren't there...

As my daughter prepares for her travel to another country to study abroad for the academic year,  I struggle with the absence of her father in her life.  She has chosen to not include him and with good reason, but I am sad that her father turned out to be just like mine...selfish, narcissistic and manipulative.   

I've watched their relationship go from Super Dad to ghost.  He was all about her when he wanted to prove he was a good father.  But he was about being a show dad.  He wasn't there for the hard stuff. The punishment, tears, fights and teaching moments.  He was only there when he could brag about her.  When he could bask in her glory of academic and athletic success.  

As the years went on, he became less and less involved in her life.  He missed conferences,  school concerts, academic events.  He started missing tournaments and family outings.  He didn't go with on college visits and he wasn't involved in helping get her ready...until it was something that made HIM look good.

My daughter watched how he treated me.  She saw how he was mentally abusive.  How he bragged to her about his affair.  How he let go of her.  

I've watched as she wrestled with him not being in her life in favor of someone who wasn't her mother.

Now as she prepares to embark on this scary but amazing chapter of her life, he is not present.  He throws manipulative texts her way that are of no purpose but to plant guilt in her for her choice.  To show her how HE is the victim.  

He showed up at her work just to stare at her.  He plays victim.  But he forgets his actions that put her here.  How he disowned her financially and cut her off, but still demands that he gets all photos and videos of her.  When she stated that only photos up to high school, he pitched a fit.  But she's 20 now and has a right to say what gets shared.  She wants him to have nothing past the affair.  She has blocked him in every way possible now and if he knows she's leaving it's because someone else told him.  

He only wants to be able to show what a great dad he is.  What he doesn't tell people is part of the reason she has cut contact is because every time she asked for something from him, it came with strings.  Not that she is his responsibility too, but he uses his affection, his help to manipulate her.

I sit here writing this, trying so hard to keep mama bear at bay.  Going off on him just serves to his victim card.  It's much better to just stay silent.  But it's so hard.  I have to remember she is now an adult.  She has to deal with this without me as a shield.  And I have to let my baby fly.