Never Ever Ever....Getting Back Together!

The hardest thing to ever do is let go of a dream.  When that dream walked, talked, laughed and cried, it's even harder. 

For the last 5 years since his affair, I have been fighting for a dream that wanted to leave, but didn't.  A dream that had decided that I was no longer their dream.  A dream that unceremoniously and without my permission, came to a heartbreaking end.

Since then, I have grappled with my identity, my worth and my confidence.  For five years, he treated me like I didn't matter, I wasn't worth fighting for and that I wasn't good enough.  Someone else replaced me and I had my worst nightmare replace my dream.  

I feel like Jennifer Anniston's character in Bruce Almighty, praying for relief from the hurt and the anguish.  Relief from wanting him and loving him and needing him to come home.  I pray for God to please heal my heart.  Help me let him go. Help me to move on and find myself again.  I pray every night for God to find his heart and to help him realize what he has done to our family. But mostly, I pray for strength to live in a world where he is no longer in my life. 

Letting go is so hard.  Coming to terms that I have a new chapter to begin by myself is even harder. 

Having such amazing friends who remind me in these times, that what I thought I had wasn't real.  Remind me of the betrayals, the emotional and mental abuse, the lying, cheating and deceit that broke us. They remind me of who I was and who I can be again. I have family who call me to talk and to remind me how much I am loved and missed.  I have a daughter who is there to talk me off the ledge and when I start to question what happened, tells me what DID happen.  She was there.  She shows me the truth. 

But in the dark of night, when I am at my loneliest, I am flooded by the memories of the good times, the love, the laughter.  How safe I felt when he put his arms around me.  How he was the first person I wanted to tell things to and the one person I wanted to be with.  And that's when my heart breaks a little more.  No matter how I build myself up during the day, occupy myself with activities, friends, events and church, the night time is the hardest. 

Again, I say a prayer and ask for continued strength to heal.  A prayer to let go of what was and what will never be.  I ask for help to stop loving him. I ask for continued guidance to show me the right things to do and to help me help our daughter who is also struggling with her own emotional trauma from all of this. She too lost her family.   I pray for forgiveness for my errors and shortfalls and I pray for the ability to overcome those and be a better person. 

There is a lot to overcome.  

I recently read about trauma bonding and realized how in the last years of my marriage this became a HUGE issue in me.  I was looking for any kind of attention, good or bad.  I was looking for a way to trust him again and to feel that connection again.  He withheld basic needs to the point I was literally begging for him to just hug me. To break free of this, I journal, I try to step outside my own feelings and look at things with a new perspective.  I try to do self-care as much as possible, removing myself from situations that affect me negatively or limiting myself during situations where I am overwhelmed.  

The biggest step was going no contact with my husband.  An action that was so foreign to me that it took everything I had to block him in my phone, email, social media (Facebook, IG and X) .  I was cutting those ties to him so that I could heal.  Up to the point that I went no contact any time I saw him, talked to him, texted him, I would fall further and further into the hole that I was trying to climb out of. It was so painful to see him, to hear his voice in a message or worse yet, to have him treat me like the enemy.  He was the one who decided this, but somehow, he blames me for everything. Having him treat me like I am public enemy #1 was more than I could bear. 

Now that I don't have that, I can work on me.  I can work on regaining the person I was.  Lately, people have commented that they are seeing the spark come back.  My smile is reaching my eyes again.  But for all this progress, there are backslides. Days and sometimes a whole week where I just can't get past anything.  Where I feel defeated, low, and worthless. 

My sister by choice, Cherie told me to ride the feelings like waves, but don't let them carry me out to sea. So during these times, I give in to the tears, the pain and work through it. I journal it and I set it aside because life goes on. 

But at the end of the day, when I am alone, I realize.  We are never, ever, ever....getting back together.