Hot mess

I’m such a mess at times. I try to look and act mostly sorted.

But having periods is definitely messing with me in ways I never have been before. Not having them was GREAT! I’ve had a needy week.

I’m not generally needy.

I warned BG. “I’m feeling bizarrely needy this week.”

Pretty direct. That’s usually me. But since Roger cheated…not so much.

So, yeah. We had one of our most intimate and honest conversations last night. And again this morning. I’ve held my cards closer to my chest than ever before with this darling man. I’m sure his past makes it happen for him, too. I’ve been very aware of how he had held things together.

We talked about how being single forever, or without a partner often, makes you less reliant on sex. You have no sure supply. So you deal.

We talked. Big time. He’s getting as “missy” as me, I think. Distance is good. And bad.

He asked me if it is possible to last another year? Living apart? Can we cope?

Anyway. I told him some of my BIG stuff. I even admitted that his lower libido, whilst not a deal breaker in any way, does trigger my not good enoughs. But that I’m careful not to make him feel like he’s not doing enough. I am far more adventurous, but one doesn’t want to intimidate. How fucking stupid, I know!

And I did say that I have followed a very petite, blonde, conventionally pretty girl in his life. Overtly sexy. I’m neither petite, nor pretty.

He took it all really seriously, didn’t dismiss my stupid. He said Chrissy took a long time in the bathroom to look that good, she did not wake up looking like the photos I have seen. That I never take a minute to get ready. (I said maybe I don’t try hard enough. Lol.) He talked about his ex, and our friend, Colleen. She honestly takes about an hour and a half to get ready for a coffee!

He calls be beautiful ALL the time. Without it being lame or forced. And it is lovely.

I’m not.

I’m interesting.

Maybe? At best.

I get my attraction.

He just said that Chrissy hated him drinking, drugging, having fun with the boys. But was a sneaky drunk herself. Wrote herself off all the time. He says he just never met someone who chills like I do. (Yeah, read my blog. I’m SOOO chill 🤣🤣🤣) So if I feel antsy about things right now, for the first time, that’s just fine. And understandable.

I think it’s hormones. I’ve never had them before, lol! Period. Ugh.

But waking early, taking about real stuff before I had to drive home. We haven’t done that before. And it was fabulous. I didn’t want to leave.

BG has now glimpsed what Roger did. How his rejection, physical and emotional abuse, and lies changed me from a strong, confident, feisty young woman, to a self doubting, nervous, under-confident …

He told me that whilst he greets Rog with a broad smile and a firm handshake, he wants to punch his smug grin off his face, for his abuse of me.

Once upon a time, Roger was that very champion of mine. Jesus. What a mindfuck.

So, how can you believe a thing a man ever says?

Good point

Key tip. Seems obvious to me. But obviously needs repeating.

If he still lives with his partner… it ain’t over. His wife/partner does NOT know he is “single.”

No matter what convincing lies he tells you!

I believed him too, when he promised me he’d never do it again. That he’d love me forever. That he was gutted he had hurt me and made me sick.

He even admitted after Leanne to me, that he was amazed at what an accomplished liar he is!

How sweet?

Naw. Just sitting in the club (drove over to BG’s tonight) and lady I don’t know at all came up to me out of nowhere and said, “just wanted to let you know how beautiful you looked the other day at Jim’s funeral. Best dressed.”

How freaking cute are people, huh???

The damage

Most people do not understand the trauma of gaslighting, betrayal, lies, etc when your most ultimately trusted, best friend is unfaithful to you.

I admit, I didn’t.

I thought it would be painful. But that you “get over it” in time.

Unfortunately, there is surprisingly severe and permanent trauma. Your entire belief system crumbles around you. Devastated doesn’t begin to describe the agony, and the extreme confusion.

In recent years, this trauma, the way it manifests and affects us going forward, has begin to be more researched.

I’ve never felt a pain like it. To lose massive amounts of weight in very short periods, to lose over half of your hair, to be in total shock. To beg another woman not to “steal” your man! These are things I could never imagine myself experiencing! Especially the ultimate indignity of driving to meet an affair partner and telling her your story, nervous AS FUCK! Trying to remain dignified as the woman your love – your safe space, your most trusted and beloved person (yeah, right) – has been dick and muff diving into???

Lord. It was so horrific! I still can’t believe he put me under so much pressure that I did that! I honestly thought a cheater, you just leave!

Like, yesterday!

But look at fuckwit Paula over here who went and begged for the slut to stop fucking my partner and love of thirty years.🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️

Jesus. H.

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Kristin M. Snowden writes of The Trauma of Betrayal thus:

“You cannot experience betrayal where there is not a deep sense of safety and trust. But when there is a deep sense of safety and trust and you uncover an unknown addiction or infidelity, it can be the most debilitating moment in your life. These forms of betrayal are extremely traumatic, and you can experience devastating mental, physical, and emotional consequences.

Whether the betrayal triggers the end of your relationship or you are planning on repairing intimacy and moving forward together, it is important that you take the time to understand what you can expect from the healing process. Most importantly, you need to know the following: You are not crazy, emotionally unstable, or unlovable, and you are not alone in the process of healing and recovery.

Infidelity (emotional or physical engagement with someone outside your primary relationship, chronic porn use, etc.) and addiction (drugs/alcohol, sex, gambling, etc.) destroy trust and safety, as they often transpire with severe dishonesty, “gaslighting,” denial, minimization, and manipulation. Those in crisis and distress from discovering these realities are struggling with betrayal trauma.”

Never real love

When the achy days get too much. I need reminding that he never loved me, just used me.

Not sure why he kept telling me that was not true.

You don’t deliberately hurt those you love.

And you sure AF don’t do it again after you saw how bad it was the first time they got so badly hurt!

However, Trinket and Roger’s Great Love Story started with massive abuse and lies. Sure that works out well in the end, right?

Grief, witnessed

My oldest friend, the woman whose young son was killed in an horrific boating accident almost two years ago, posts a lit on Snapchat and Facebook about her boy. It’s healthy to grieve. It’s “allowed” when you lose a child, for people to witness your grief. I’m so grateful that she has so much support, and that people see that she needs her grief witnessed.

We talked about it, in depth, a little while ago. We were going a bushwalk together, that took around three and a half hours.

The first three, she talked a lot about her son. I listened and laughed with her. During a wee pause near the end of the walk, she asked how I was, deep down. J is generally a fairly “surface” person, so I no longer rely on her for those kinds of conversations. I learned who she is, and I know she is generally a kind person. She just is a social butterfly, who has little … discernment. She’s friends with everyone.

She hurt me pretty badly with her lack of depth and support, when I was in my late teens. I learned that she can sometimes be careless. It isn’t intentional. But our close friendship recovered, and she was my very best friend for over thirty-five years.

She never realised how much I loved Roger. She has never experienced romantic love like this. I think she is relatively happily married now, but they have has some very challenging moments. She admits they have never had what she thought she saw Rog and I had. So how the hell could she possibly have a clue about my grief? I worked that out.

However, when she asked me if I was all “over it all now? Happy now, eh, Paula.” I just quietly replied, “no, J. It isn’t like that. I can only say that it is the same kind of intense grief that you have so sadly been experiencing. I lost my person. My while life means nothing. My heart is permanently broken. The difference is, I’m not allowed to express my grief, and you so very rightfully encouraged to. I know you don’t understand. And that I didn’t have my child die. But my grief is very deep. And very socially unacceptable, so very silent.”

She looked at me like I had two heads. Then hugged me hard. And apologised, saying, “I never knew. And you’re right. I don’t understand. He seems like the old Norm. Just a nice guy. I had no idea it was grief.”

I just shrugged and said, “it is what it is. I deal with every minute of every day with it. Just like you have to. That is why I have such enormous empathy for you. I think we, as fellow parents, who support you, all imagine the enormousness of your loss, but most can’t begin to comprehend the magnitude of it really. I’m not pretending that I know your loss, your personal grief. But I do know deep, searing, tearing grief. The kind you can never outrun, nor put down.”

It was the first time I think she started to see me.

But, it didn’t really last. She has never asked again. Or talked about it again. However, we still talk about her B constantly.

People are interesting, and societal norms sure can make some of our journeys even more painful than they need to be.

A moment of appreciation

It takes a hell of a man to be better than no man.

I heard this again today. And realised that this is BG.

He made me feel like it was possible to try again. I NEVER wanted to be with anyone. Roger broke me. Completely.

I keep getting told by my friends that he’s such a good man. They are all a bit jealous! I know his friends love him to bits. He’s a family member, the man who never married, never had his own children. Who gets involved, is genuinely interested in their kids.

I don’t EVER feel like I’m doing something I don’t want to with him. I don’t feel obligated to cook for, clean for, account for him. He’s capable. He cooks. He cleans. He runs a multi million dollar business, runs the figures, analyzes, budgets, projects, plans. He doesn’t need me. I don’t need him. I love that. We get to be ourselves.

I know this space is used to talk about my pain. The permanent ache and lack of self worth that goes with what happens to you when the man you gave every part of yourself to – totally all in – throws you aside for an (older) other woman. That no matter how you tried, no matter how much effort, no matter how pretty you danced, how much, how good, the sex was, he never valued you enough to be with you. I’ve had an achy day, missing the man who never existed. All those beautiful memories. Our experiences, shared life. They don’t matter to him. I don’t matter to him. He prefers a stranger.

So. To have this man be so damn good to me. Swoon.

My mum’s best mate, “my real father,” lol, texted me that he and his partner were in BG’s town. Was I there?

No. Work. But call into BG’s work, he’d love to see you, I’m sure.

I then warned BG. To allow him time to cut them off at the pass if he was too busy.

No way! He invited them for a drink, come on in, boys!

He’s just messaged to say it was hilarious. He fed them and they shared a bottle of wine, and just laughed and laughed. Reckons it was one of his best Monday nights in ages.

He’s met PJ a couple of times. The first time was at a party at my place, and he made BG do a twirl, vetting him thoroughly. BG complied, playing the game perfectly. PJ finally introduced me to his new partner maybe 9 or 10 months ago, inviting us both for dinner. BG got on famously with PJ’s new(ish) partner. They are great company.

I’ve just got off a video call with him. He filled me in. PJ raves about me, it’s embarrassing. Proud “real dad.” I’m so very grateful to BG for loving my special people.

Productive

Huge day.

I was a sweet wee hausfrau and washed the linen, made up the bed, ironed work shirts and a pair of trousers, vacuumed and washed dishes for BG as he played golf this morning. I headed home before he was finished, as planned. Leaving a wee ‘love’ note on his pillow.

He called when he got back, so grateful for all I had done to his wee house, and growling at me for doing it.

I had 42 small bales of silage to collect and stack (heavy!) a pile of outrigger wire to wind up, lawns to mow, and 3 heifers to load up at my friend’s house and relocate down the road to yet another single-woman-whose-husband-cheated-and-she-divorced-him’s lifestyle block.

There are a tribe of us, helping each other out! Who knew so many glorious, good looking, hard working, loving, loyal middle aged women would be traded in for a new model in our 50s???

They’re bloody everywhere! And I haven’t run into a single man who has had it happen the other way around! Which is weird. Because statistics say just as often.

My theory is, women cheat earlier. They cheat often because they really are weak people, but work out they married someone who wasn’t right for them, and get out by cheating early in the marriage, instead of being honest.

So, I looked it up. And yes, under 30, the rates of cheating are about the same for either gender in heterosexual relationships.

But, as we age, men cheat more and more than women do. How predictable.

Men seem to cheat because they become more and more entitled as the women who love them smooth all the hard stuff in life for decades. Become their PA’s, taking care of all the boring admin. Then get bored, and think to hell with it, my dick needs strange! Who gives a fuck? I’ll never get caught. And/or if I get caught, I’ll have new supply secured, so who cares? I’ve used up that last one. She’s not enough anymore. Plenty more fish in the sea.

As I was moving stock, my friend asked me how I deal with the OW (dear wee, innocent Trinket) around my kids. I said, it’s the hardest thing. I can’t STAND that the cunt who thought it was okay to fuck my partner EVEN AFTER I TOLD HER TO HER FACE that I was never informed that he was “single,” gets to be around my kids. But they are adults, and I have to eat that shit sandwich. I don’t have a CLUE, how that bitch lives with herself. How she can’t have ever put herself in my shoes. I mean she told me how much she hated the bitches her dead husband cheated on her with???!!! So why would she do it to me, and why would she not get how awful sharing your precious kids with that bitch is? But that you can do nothing. Not a damn thing, about it. You just shut up, suck it up, in quiet agony when the kids are there, playing nice.

L said that he kids are still refusing to meet her STBX’s whore. But she knows that somewhere along the line, it will happen. She’s preparing for the pain of that.

In bath. Soaking the aches. BG is messaging. Night guys, another week, back into Level 2 lockdown here.

Funeral

It was my hometown’s big race meeting of the year yesterday.

I normally go and enjoy myself immensely. But, since Trinket, I struggle badly.

I’m always worried they will be there. Our friends and us used to always hire a marquee spot and make a big effort with divine BBQ food, delicious salads and platter food. Champagne, beer… I no longer have to sober drive home.

Nor have a sober driver.

It hurts. That I struggle. I don’t want to run into Roger’s best mate’s horror show of a wife, either. They wrote me off. After I knew and loved H for over 30 years. After I supported him through his first wife’s cheating and leaving. People are weird.

Anyway. I had a funeral to attend with BG. So could not attend the race meeting.

The funeral of a long term employee. A lovely, quiet, kind, strong man. He worked for BG, up until he couldn’t. A year ago post our biggest Covid lockdown, BG and him decided together it wasn’t safe for him to return to his job. He was 74, and unfortunately, the big C caught him.

I sat and listened to the life story of this good man. Jim.

Good sense of humour. Good sense of justice. Good son. Good brother. Good husband. Good father. Good community man. He wasn’t a saint, but he was what my grandfather would have called a bottler. He needed cloning!

The shining light from the story was his deep, unwavering love for the love of his life, his wife of what would have been 50 years in a couple of months. He totally adored her. Thought he’d got the cream. It was so very obvious.

BG got up to speak, and the tears seeped down my cheeks as he was not there beside me to witness them. I composed myself before he returned, but my heart is still aching badly today.

You see, this was once my story. My future. We saw ourselves as that couple. So close. So in love. We were gonna be that kooky old couple who walked hand in hand down a beach, kissing passionately, twinkles in our eyes for each other. From day one, through his first serious cheating episode, right to the day he drove out of my life, I adored Roger. I kept thinking I was going to wake up from the nightmare he was conducting! Not us! We love each other, right???

So, yeah. I struggle with funerals now. My MIL whose was just about 10 days before Roger drove away. Friends. Strangers even. I only knew Jim less than two years. But I silently, privately, discreetly cried at his funeral.

I always miss my Mum. I thought of what I said at hers, and what I’d say now, 20 years older.

I wasn’t like this before this life. I was always an empath. But I could usually keep it together until I left the venue.

Nope. Now the salty tears arrive unannounced, at the strangest of moments. I hate it. But I accept this is part of the damage Roger inflicted. I can’t easily go places that were once so easily mine. (The lake house. My home town. Etc.) I am glad I didn’t have to mentally shore myself up to go to the races.

Beautifully, BG’s old friends, Marty and his gorgeous wife, Nicki, were here in town last night. Friends of theirs, who we know and love, have just bought a bach (holiday home) here. We went and participated in a fish and chips on the waterfront in front of their new house picnic dinner to welcome them in. Drinks, laughs, my dogs made themselves at home in the moving in chaos.

We took the boys back to the club, to watch a televised boxing match (I loathe the bloodsport…) and Marty, half drunkenly asked me about my beautiful natured huntaway, sitting beside me on the drive home. “How come, Paula, you have this beautiful working dog? What’s up with that?” Marty is a dairy farmer. He also used to work in the fashion industry, has sons in the music industry, he’s a chill, quirky, cool cat. His first wife, mother of his eldest three, cheated on him 20 + years ago. It was dramatic, painful, public, he had no idea until the police showed up to protect him from a jealous, armed, AP! I told him the story of how Roger drove off to his new life, his affair partner, after thirty years with me, where I just loved him to bits, and left his working dog in the kennels. And I realised I was now her mother. She was now mine. Marty was horrified. “Really? Jesus. That guy. WTAF? Look at you here, all glowy, sexy as fuck, BG is smitten you know. Never seen him like this about a woman, he’s so happy, and you’re a bloody amazing chick, with this beautiful dog. Your ex. Is he insane? Why am I even asking? Of course he is!”

I laughed, and said, “well, obviously I’m not his cup of tea.” Marty, “oh, right. I always see gorgeous, funny, fucking clever, youthful 50 something year old women hanging about. You’re a bit like my Nicki. Strong, loving, total babe. And there’s not that many of you.”

I think I need to keep half drunk Martys around more. I’m sure my ego needs it 🤣🤣🤣

Betrayal trauma. An update

https://wp.me/pbiNOL-tQ

Reblogging my wonderful friend, Don’t Lose Hope’s pinpoint accurate post regarding trauma, and the painfully slow process of healing.

I was told to stop talking about my trauma and intense grief – clinically diagnosed ‘complicated grief,’ in fact.

Not always in words. I sensed fatigue pretty early on. You get the social cues quickly. The discomfort. The complete lack of understanding. The reduced or non-existent empathy…(being screamed at like a damn Banshee in public without having uttered a word, by a drunk – the cheater wife of Roger’s best mate – just a few weeks into Dday V2.0: The Tale of Trinket, springs to mind!)

Roger told me constantly to “get over it.” The guilt of what he did was a bit uncomfortable for the poor sad sausage.

More recently, he told me to stop telling the truth. Obviously undermines his story.

Hmmm. I don’t say much these days. It would be an insane thing to do. But this space is my life saver. My sanctuary. My safe space. I can say what I am really feeling. It’s an important part of trauma processing. An important part of the journey I was unceremoniously launched on the first night Roger climbed out of our bed, and into Leanne’s to fuck her. The one he shoved me further down as he spent 18 months secretly texting and “hooking up” (their words) with her. Mostly in my homes, vehicles, and on my property.

The one Leanne gave me another enormous push on, when the bunny boiler texted me after he apparently ended it? Hint, he continued to have contact with her, and fucked her again two years later, how “ended” really was it?

Thank you, DLH. Your empathy, knowledge, education, and constancy have been key components in my healing journey. I accept this will be a life sentence. But I also know I am adjusting the circumstances of my incarceration to make them less uncomfortable, as I continue to do the damn hard work of recovery ❤