Difficult Conversations

Nobody likes a difficult conversation.  I wish Gene had been man enough to have one with me so many years ago.  The story goes a little like this:

Gene and I had been dating long distance about six months and I flew to see him and spend a week.  Our visits were somewhat infrequent, so I was pretty excited.  I arrived at the airport and found him standing with a large teddy bear and box of chocolates.  I didn't care much more either of those - I was just excited to see him.  Gene's parent's home was about three hours from the airport I flew into and he had a special evening planned.  I'll just say it involved a restaurant, a hotel room and a diamond ring.  He had put the ring in the chocolates and finally got me to open the box and he proposed.  We called my family and ventured the next day the rest of the way to his parent's home.  Everyone was excited - Gene and I had a history beyond the prior six months and we seemed destined to be together. 

Being an old-fashioned Christian family, his parents forbade us from sleeping together in their home.  Gene had a better plan - we would camp on the family property during my stay and have the best of both worlds.  We made love.  By the end of the week, I knew something was very wrong.  I was sore "down there" beyond anything I had ever experienced.  We stayed in another hotel on the way back to the airport and I was physically incapable of any contact, much less intercourse.  I hurt, Gene cried.  I thought that was a weird reaction at the time but came to be very telling of what would come.  I flew home the next day and by the time I arrived, I could hardly walk I hurt so badly.  I made an appointment to Planned Parenthood for the next day. 

If you haven't figured it out yet, Gene gave me herpes in that tent.  The doctor could tell how much pain I was in and how shattered I was with the news.  I asked if there was any way this could have been dormant in my system and just came out (no, Gene was not my first).  She said by the severity of the breakout and length of time since my last partner, there was no way this had come from anyone but Gene.  She gave me pills, advice, encouragement.  I called him and told him the news.  His reaction told me that he already knew.  He wasn't shocked, depressed, mad or expressive of any other emotion you would expect in the situation.  I didn't speak to him again for a week or two. 

I waited tables at the time.  I can't tell you how bad it hurts to wait tables with a raging herpes infection.  It was a constant reminder of his betrayal.  I didn't wear his ring.  I believed then as I believe now that he knew he was having an outbreak and that he would give it to me.  I have some idea what a man trapped by pregnancy might feel.  Except with herpes, no good thing comes from it - just shame, feeling dirty and wondering if this was God's punishment for my premarital sex.  (The first two remain but no, I don't believe God punishes us in that way.)

I had to decide what to do with Gene.  I started thinking.  My train of thought went something like this:  I have a disease that I will never be rid of and will continue to flare up and haunt me, nobody wants someone with herpes, I just entered my late 20s and wanted to have children, having children meant more to me than almost anything, I guess I'll just marry Gene.   I failed to see that if he loved me at all, he would have had the difficult conversation and told me what he had.  All I could see was a future alone because nobody would ever want me.  I put our wedding invitations in the mailbox and threw up immediately.  Our wedding is mostly gone from my memory and always has been - I don't know where I went but I definitely checked out. 

That's the saddest part of everything that has happened:  Gene showed me who he was and I failed to take note, pay attention, and see him as a lying, manipulative, unloving, thoughtless, selfish man.  Herpes ruined my honeymoon and much of the first years of our marriage.  Gene would get mad that I was having an outbreak and complain about his "needs."  If he had an outbreak, he would almost always deny it.  I would often discover after sex that he was having an outbreak and didn't care enough to avoid sex and then of course an outbreak of my own would soon follow and the cycle would continue.  Even on medication, the outbreaks were frequent those first few years.  All along, the greatest pain was my truth:  he did this on purpose and I was willing to still marry him out of desperation. 

The whole story is bathed in tears and pain.  Pain to my very core.  Now I want to date but am so afraid of having a difficult conversation.  It's easier to be alone than to imagine falling for someone, telling him my truth and having him leave.  That particular fear is what my fat pad covers.  Putting this down in words is the first step to removing my extra layers.  It also helped me discover another reason I hate camping.

Peeking Out

I don't post often and forget when I have.  Reading through this blog makes me so happy to see how far I've come.  I remember thinking I would drown in my pain but like Dorie, just kept swimming. 

Since my last post, Gene has essentially dropped off the face of my planet.  He called during tax season, from the office phone so the new wife wouldn't find out.  Great.  Now I am the other woman?  Anyhow, he asked about who was getting which child for deductions and asked me to sign a paper for him to get the deduction.  He asked how the girls were to which I replied, "Fantastic.  They are thriving and doing well."  Thankfully, it's mostly the truth.  He said that the last time he communicated with the girls he left it in their court to contact him.  I reminded him that no, the last communication was "You are no longer my daugther.  Goodbye."  I told him that the girls were as mad at him as could be and he shouldn't expect contact from them anytime soon but that he is the grown up and if he wants to contact his daughters, he could.  He quickly changed the subject and said goodbye.  That was February and it is now August and we haven't heard a peep.  It's actually better this way.  The hurt has subsided some, as has the anger on their part.  They are mostly apathetic concerning him.  It's hurtful when they say things that I realize how much they are hurt or that they realized all along what a lousy father he was all along.  His actions now just fully exhibit the inside of his soul.  What a dark, sad, lonely place to be. 

My state of mind at my last post was well described as "hiding."  I'm starting to think about peeking out.  I'm starting to get interested in possibly starting to date.  I want to get in shape to be at my best for all of that.  I'm not interested in dating a blob so why should I expect someone to accept that in me?   I call it my "fat pad."  My fat pad keeps the vast majority of men at bay.  With men at bay, I don't have to be uncomfortable (other than in my own skin, living within my fat pad).  I don't have to have difficult conversations (more on that another time).  I'm the same size I was when I threw Gene out but I'm thinking it's time to start actively doing something about that.  I really want to climb a 14-er next summer and do the Dirty Girl Mud Run next fall.  I live in Colorado...that's what fit, active women do here.  I really want to be that woman.

What a Road It's Been

I haven't posted for over a year and what a year it has been.  Some of the lowlights (hard to call any of them high):
My divorce was final in March of 2011.  It's hard to believe it's almost been a year!  Very shortly after my last post, in January of 2011, Gene met someone online that has changed all of our lives immensely. He called to tell me about who I'll call Chai.  I told him we weren't even divorced yet and that he really needed to be careful.  He married her after four months - six weeks after our divorce was final.  She quickly took a stand that she wanted him to have absolutely no contact with me for any reason.  No, there was nothing innappropriate between he and I and the only contact we had continued was in regards to the children or property. 
In May of 2011, my eldest daughter was on a weekend with Gene and needed to have an x-ray on her foot and he refused to take her.  I went and got her and her sister from his place and drove straight to urgent care.  She had a stress fracture and found herself in a boot for many weeks.  Because of the "contact" that weekend, Gene and Chai both filed restraining orders against me in an attempt to cease all contact.  We went to court, and because there was no reason to have filed the order in the first place and they both lost their cases.  The children went to the courthouse that day and Gene chose to not acknowledge their presence.  Sadly, it wasn't the first time he ignored they were in the room.  That weekend in May was the last time he saw them.  He's made no attempt to see them.
In July of 2011, he wrote an email to many family members including our eldest child.  He had her listed in his email address book with my maiden name.  Our daughter chose to respond with an email that had it been received by me would have driven an arrow through my soul.  Sadly, everything she said was harsh but true.  He responded with, "You are no longer my daugther.  Goodbye."  In the midst of it all, Chai sent the eldest a hateful email to a level I have never seen in the adult world. 
Never would I have thought that Gene would choose anyone over his daughters.  I am heart broken for them.  I knew he was selfish beyond anyone I've ever known but I didn't think my "today" was ever a possibility.  I didn't think much of it at the time but Gene signed off on only having the girls a total of 39 nights per year.  I'm thankful for God in so many ways but I'm especially grateful that I received full custody and the child support along with maintenance/alimony at the divorce.  I don't know how I'd make it otherwise.
Both of the girls have had challenges overcoming what their father has done to them.  The eldest may never again have contact with him; the youngest is more forgiving, especially since she hasn't been targeted by personal attacks.   He ignored them both at Christmas and both their birthdays are less than a month away; I don't anticipate they'll hear from him.
That's the kids.  How am I doing?  If I could use one word:  hiding.

Filed and Waiting

Gene and I walked into the courthouse together as planned and jointly filed for divorce.  We are in a state with a ninety-day "cooling off" period, so nothing much happens in the meantime but for a status conference here and there with a court facilitator.  What was depressing at the last status conference was the other fifty people in the room and the generally somber tone of it all.  You'll never see a more depressing group of people in one place, except for maybe a funeral.  However, in a divorce courtroom, there is more angst, anger, frustration, contempt, and general distaste for at least one other person in the room.  I overheard one man say to the court facilitator when it was his turn, "She has a restraining order against me.  Is it okay for me to be here?"  I got a smile out of him and the degree of his knuckleheadedness and also in gratitude that I'm not married to HIM. 

Since we filed, Gene finally brought his financial information to me with quite a bit more in retirement funds than I even imagined.  Twice what I thought he had.  So we go back to the drawing board and go to a mediator to solve the problem of how we should split property.  This is the part of divorcing Gene that I'm not very fond of.  He is generally selfish and has no concept of 50/50 in a relationship or property.  His selfishness is a very large part of the reason I finally had enough and moved towards divorce.  He was too selfish to be a partner to me in our marriage, too selfish to honor our wedding vows, too selfish to think of anyone but himself.  I have come to see this crystal clear over the last couple months. 

Closer and Closer

The big day is almost here.  We are scheduled to file for divorce, together, in two days.  There is no happiness, no jubilation, no party.  Gene spent the better part of yesterday here with the kids and me.  At one point we talked about the divorce papers and of course, he is hung up on the maintenance section.  How long should he pay maintenance?  I said, "Until I finish school and can get a real job, until our youngest leaves home, or until I remarry."  The look on his face when I said "remarry" can only be described as haunted.  I think some part of what is happening has finally settled in with Gene.  I have been deeply aware of the reality for some time now. 

Soon after he moved out, I wrote myself a note listing the reasons Gene and I are divorcing.  I wrote it more to look back upon, should I ever waiver in the finality of my decision.  I haven't waivered as much as I have realized that initial list was just touching the surface.   That list had eleven bullet points.  I gave it to my therapist, should I ever come to him with doubt in my decision.  I sit in the quiet sometimes, pondering choices, past and present, wondering how I ended up where I am. 

I look around our house and there are his collections of this and that, filling entire rooms - model airplanes, scooters and parts, tools galore, electronics.  I have asked for one "frivolous" gift every year for Christmas and/or my birthday for the last fifteen years - a Kitchenaid stand mixer.  Needless to say, I never got the mixer.  It's not that we didn't have the money - that is apparent by Gene's collections.  Getting his wife the one gift she asked for was as much a priority as was the wife - nonexistent.  More often than not, my "gift" was a dinner out or flowers brought home from the store.  Things that should have been an ordinary occurrence were so out of the ordinary that they became gifts.  Going out on a date, doing something thoughtful, and spending time with those he supposedly loved became a part of the relationship only in the way I would complain of the absence.  Even in the best of times, the simplest gestures of love and affection were absent. 

Again, I am left wondering if my entire marriage has been a lie he's told himself to the point of believing it.  I know I did.  Having my head out of the sand has been painful - I think I got used to the pressure of the sand.  One minute, one hour, one day closer to the rest of my life and I know only a few things - I walk into the next chapter with God, my girls, my family, my friends and with my head held high and not a speck of sand to be found. 

Snap

I've been miserable.  Really miserable, for a long time.  I kept trying to tell myself that I would stay for the kids, that I would stay for the lifestyle, that I would sacrifice my own happiness to give my children the life that they know.  I wouldn't talk with Gene about the future, partially because his future plans rarely included anything that I found interest in and partially because in my mind...he wasn't in mine.

He bought a motorcycle this Spring.  Over the summer, he's spent more and more time away with his newfound friends.  He'd choose to go on a ride after working a 65 hour week and not seeing his children all week long.  He'd choose to go on a ride and then go to a bar to watch the football game instead of coming home for dinner and watching the game with his daughters.  Over the months, it became painfully obvious that his priority would never lie with me or his girls.  It was also becoming clear to me how painful this was for me and the girls.  All three of us wanted him to want us, wanted him to love us, wanted him to desire us.  He never has and he never will.

Did I mention that Gene is a pathological liar?  Well, at least in my definition and Wikpedias:

Lies when it is very easy to tell the truth.

Lies to get sympathy, to look better, to save their butt, etc.

Fools people at first but once they get to know him, no one believes anything they ever say.

May have a personality disorder.

Extremely manipulative.

Has been caught in lies repeatedly.

Never fesses up to the lies.

Is a legend in their own mind.

Yup, every single one.  It was the lies that ultimately brought our marriage to an end.  A friend described the moment hers ended as a shade rolled up between them and she looked him and realized he would never change.  I confronted Gene on what I believed to be a fairly serious lie, one involving another woman (!) and he actually admitted the lie.  He wasn't the least bit apologetic but blamed it on me.  The shade went up with a 'snap' and I looked at him and knew he too would never change.  I told him to go upstairs and pack and get the f**k out.  No, I wasn't calm about it - I screamed it at the top of my lungs.  He didn't argue and he hasn't since.  I am fairly sure our marriage has long been one of his concocted stories, just another lie. 

The next day he stopped by to get a few more things.  He had greeted the girls while at the house but as usual, they had gone about their business.  He went to leave and began to pull out of the driveway.  I walked up to the car and knocked on the window and said, "Do you think you might want to say goodbye to the girls?"  He was actually going to drive away without even saying anything to them.  He then turned off the car and came back in to say he was leaving and would see them soon.  He left and they essentially had a meltdown.  The girls weren't upset because he left but because he came back.  I realized at that moment that the road I was on was a one-way road with no detours.  Regardless of how he felt, I would divorce him.  It wasn't so much a "snap" decision but it certainly started with one.

Three Things I Know For Sure

Living through a spouse's affair will affect your weight, your faith, your trust. 

I lost weight when I first found out my husband had cheated, about twenty pounds on top of the fifty I had lost just prior to his decision to cheat.  I looked great but emotionally felt like hell.  Unfortunately, eighteen months later I have gained back all that I lost.  I wish now I had chosen to continue to "forget to eat" instead of trying to stuff away my pain.  I struggle with losing weight again because there is a piece of my mind that is very aware that he cheated at a time that I looked physically better than I had in years.  Does he deserve to have a thin wife?  Should I struggle that much to lose weight only to get to my goal and have him figure out that my weight never has been or never will be the solution to our problems?  How can he expect me to lose weight (and believe me, he bitches about it OFTEN) when he can't even give up coffee for a day?  I'm not exactly ginormous - a size 18.  My fat is padding and protection from him.  I can blame a lot on my fat. 

My faith in God has never waivered in thirty-five years.  My interest in a relationship with Him has been a roller coaster for most of that same timeframe.  My husband has little interest in guiding our family spiritually and I am just plain worn out.  Somehow I doubt God wants my excuses but it's really all  I have at the moment.  I am thankful for the preparation that He gave me for finding out about the affair but also mad that being the "good wife" got me essentially nowhere.  I find that I am jaded in a number of ways and admit that my spirituality is one of them.

Trust.  I didn't just lose trust in my husband (and no, eighteen months later I have not managed to achieve any level of trust whatsoever) but also in a number of friends and family members.  A group of our friends knew about the affair with "bar girl" and went through most of that with me; however, they all questioned the truth of the story and had suspicions about the husband's boss/mistress all along and discussed it among them.  The worst part of the affair was me thinking I was dealing with one thing and reality being something totally different.  Had any one of those friends pulled me aside and shared with me their feelings/suspicions, I think things may have been very different.  I couldn't have stopped the affair but could have come out not feeling the ass end of others' conversations.  The saying about "finding out who your friends are" has rung true with me and I have since distanced myself from this group of friends.  My family has been mostly supportive of my decision and tolerate the husband as much as they ever did. The friend that showed herself to me wanted to know how I was doing for real and asked me first - she didn't wait for me to bring it up.  She doesn't bash the husband too much, or at least any more than he deserves and supports me 100%.  She's the only one I trust through all of this and I thank God for her every day.  I distance myself from those not in my inner circle, knowing that I have a secret I'll likely never share with them and it makes me feel false.  I find that my trust is the most jaded thing about me and I trust few.  Thanks, husband.