I know my recent posts have been tough. I am cognizant of the fact that these activities I plan, and push for, which are totally necessary to keep moving, keep trying to heal, do give me time to overthink. I am so, so physically sore today. I’m alone. I travelled hours listening to music, being triggered by song lyrics, driving past landmarks of our past, our love story.
So, tonight, we go to one of my favourite bands, in a new-to-me destination. Yes, I will have seen these guys live three times in 17 months. Yes, I did introduce them to Rog. Yes, he enjoyed them too. Yes, my daughter and I listened to some awesome sounds last night on the turntable her Dad sorted for her. That is so perfect. We are a family who have connected over music.
So, tonight, I know I will recall seeing these guys, the day after the seven year DDay anniversary, dancing up front, our bodies rubbing up hard against each other, him looking at me longingly, winking at me as I danced madly.
But now, instead of us wobbling back tipsily (it’s a word, okay? 😂) to our beach town accommodation, to make love, my daughter and I will drive home from a city venue, unlike the beachy vibes of late May 2017.
And tomorrow, I have the day off work to meander home at my leisure.
I am going to mindfully appreciate the past, but try hard to embrace the now, my future. What better way to do that than with family, good sounds, good food, good vibes?
Took my time with my little canine passenger on my road trip to the other end of the island. Stopped and ate on the way, etc.
It was a surprising trip down memory lane. Firstly, I called in at our friends’ place for a cup of tea. This was one of the two mates of Roger’s whom I blurted the story out to, one night in deep shock during those first weeks.
Ugh. Mistake. Embarrassingly HUGE mistake.
But I have since learned to shut my mouth and just be ‘normal’ around him (and everyone, actually, pretend, pretend, pretend) and he seems to be good again. His partner is a sweetheart. Have always liked her a whole lot, but we were never super close at all, they have lived a few hours from us for twenty years. Today she greeted me with a warm hug and said I look great, hope I’m okay. Of course, I lied, and said, oh yeah, great thanks. We chatted for about half an hour, she follows me on Instagram and said she thought my home looks beautiful. She wants to come and visit. Says she will when she next drops her daughter off at boarding school near me. Her partner, whom I have always loved, came in and gave me his usual bear hug. He was good but, I felt, a little affected. All good. I did scare him a few months earlier when I told him about the extent of Rog’s historical cheating and love addiction diagnosis, lol. Men. They are a bit touchy 😉. It was a bad judgement call on my part. He was never the person to tell. I was just in such a state, shocked, bewildered and didn’t know where to turn.
Just glad they were happy to see me, etc.
Then, driving down, I was approaching a small settlement when a very vivid memory popped up. Rog and I were that couple who rarely spent nights apart. We pined for each other, he used to say he couldn’t wait to get back to me when he went on hunting trips, etc. Same. We LOVED sleeping together, being close, kissing, touching. Just after the affair with Leanne was outted, Rog went down south on a pheasant shoot one day. He was very aware he was driving past our lake house, and that this was a huge trigger for me, as they did a lot of their fucking there. I drove down to stay there the night he was going to be away.
Instead of staying further south, with his mates that night, he decided at the last minute to do the huge drive up to me at the lake after a long day’s shooting. He stopped and rang me from this small settlement, still some hours from the bach, very late at night. He was exhausted and needed cold air and coffee to continue. I asked if he was safe, should I come to meet him, or should he sleep rather than keeping on driving. He decided to keep driving, arriving to our bed around 2.30am. I didn’t sleep, worrying about him, and he was determined to make it to me, to be with me. It was such a lovely gesture, but I thought a little foolhardy.
That was who we once were. That tender couple, who loved and cared for each other. That was who I believed he was, that he had made a mistake with Leanne. (And made it again and again and again…😂)
Further south again, the memories of road trips to watch our horses race.
In the last few months of his affair with Leanne, he rang me excitedly at work one day. Our trainer had just bought the highest priced colt at our national yearling sale. We should buy a small share! I was in. We were never wealthy, but I calculated the share was about the value of a new car. We’d once bought a brand new car, but didn’t really care about cars. So, easy decision.
Once the affair was exposed, I asked him why the hell he was buying such expensive things with me if he was thinking of leaving me? He had no real answer. Total denial, I think. Anyway, this colt was never a champion, but we got some good races out of him, travelling around the country to follow him. One of our happiest trips was to a city on the way to where I am now, and I recall clearly how much fun we had. That very horse ran a very close second in a big cups race. So much fun that Roger obviously had more to drink than I realised, and the trainer had to stop in our driveway to let him throw up when we were nearly home! After a five hour drive! Nearly made it 😂
And remembering all of that, made me tingle, my memories of the tenderness. Even a just a month out from him physically leaving me, he was still being tender with me, often on the couch rubbing my feet, or thigh, or as in the photo I actually took one day below of him lying with me, holding me, stroking my body, my foot, so incredulous that he was doing this, but wanting to be with her. God, it was such a total mind fuck. My darling holding me as he always had, but doing that with another woman, too? I was sure he was having an emotional breakdown, that loving him, sitting it out, dealing with that pain of watching him falling in love with someone else, that our ‘special love’ – we were the loves of each other’s lives, right???? – would trump it all, he’d wake up and realise it was me all along that he loved. So deluded of me. Cuddling me, lying on my chest, smelling my hair… (When he wasn’t knocking me unconscious, of course! Don’t worry, I don’t ever forget that horror.) And I also work hard to remember some bad things about him. Like, how dismissive and monosyllabic he could be. If I would ask him to please do something, “yep.” But then not actually DO anything until I had to ask again, feeling like a nag. That he picks his fingernails. Blows his nose bizarrely loudly. You know, picking the little scabs to try to reset my fucked up brain. That he does what HE wants, and rarely what I wanted. That I had to push HARD for things I really wanted to do, or get done, picking just a few small battles, knowing I would win few. For example, I was adamant that our miniscule budget for the lake house would be best utilised in employing an architect to give a few design flair ideas that a ready-made plan would not include, that kind of thing. He actually eventually agreed that it was money well spent. But man, did he fight and resist the idea.
Anyway. I’m here. And let myself in. Daughter and her partner will be home later. She is working and he is at a work function. Time for me to plaster my happy on a bit more thickly.
I was talking to a friend whose husband abandoned her and their kids. I said, the hard thing is, Trinket took my partner (he was to blame, not entirely her, as he obviously never loved me enough to be truthful or faithful, and has spun some very believable lies to her. But a little common sense and compassion for the woman who obviously still loved her partner, was still trying to make it work, was still believing she was in a long term relationship with him would have been sensible really) and now I have to be bright and happy to a large degree, so she doesn’t steal my children’s affections, too. Her husband died, leaving her with her kids, still at home. Mine left me, just as my youngest left the nest. A time when Rog and I had planned to travel and have some fun! It sucks to have to fight for what should be organic. My children’s love. I do have to be brighter than I genuinely feel around people, so as not to alienate anyone. Fakin’ it ’til I make it, I guess!
Hit the road late last night. Driving to my eldest’s this weekend to catch a gig on Sunday night 🎸
Have my vicious guard dog to protect me
Be afraid!
But. I have slept in our bed. For the first time since he defiled it yet again, with another woman.
Fully clothed 😂.
Have just had a shower to try to scrub the filth off me. But the shower is also defiled. FML. Shower at my daughter’s it will be!
And I have had a small chuckle. I was so upset about her being in my homes. One of the minor things was that I was embarrassed I hadn’t cleaned.
Well. I have arrived here at my holiday home, and she’s (they are, obviously, it is his house, he should clean it) a bit of a pig. Dirty kitchen. Dirty floor. Dirty fire surround. Ewwww.
So, spent the morning wiping down surfaces and will need to mop the floor.
Then off to nearby friends for a cuppa, and on my way.
So, last night was shitty, but I managed some sleep. Of course, I am on a bit of a cocktail of drugs with my cancer treatment not going as well as planned. One of the side effects is reduced sleep, and I know that cortisol from all the stress I am carrying in my body is feeding the cancer.
It scares me. But this is the path I am currently walking. And I am trying to do it with dignity and strength, only letting my guard down here, and to a couple of trusted online, and one real life, friends.
I am doing my absolute damnedest to reduce the stress levels, and get as much rest as I can manage. Last night, a lovely, warm bath, some candles and soft music and a warm milky drink before bed were part of my please-let-me-sleep-and-stop-the-agonising-aches ritual!
All of this is recorded in my diary, and here, for the cancer researcher to take into account for the qualitative part of her study. Very exposing, but I am finding the human geographer in me quite intrigued by a STEM researcher using such a lot of qualitative methodology in her research. She is questioning, to a degree, how much we can actually “measure” quantitatively.
Of course, those numbers are important, but I love that there is room being made for ‘the Other” – that part of recovery that isn’t written on a scale.
My Aussie friend, the one who called Trinket a cunt (YASSS KWEEEEEN!) has been in touch today, motivating me again. I have such wonderful people who get it around me. So damn blessed! I told her that one of my daughter’s friend’s mother died this morning. Cancer. (Ouch…) And her father is also terminal. Such a terrible situation. Parents are immigrants, and as such, these two young women will only have each other left shortly, no grandparents, etc. Awful. It triggered me, of course, it is terribly, terribly sad, and I know what it is like to lose a mother young. I just said to my friend (also a cancer survivor, and a betrayed spouse, a warrior woman) why am I like this? I was never this pathetic. I thought if someone left me for another woman, I would just get up and go, fuck you, you cunt. I worked for thirty damn years for you, you had it easy with me, and you fucking gave me cancer, and kept putting your filthy dick in other women, and stealing my love away from me, and giving yourself emotionally to them. You stole my youth, my love, my body, my happiness, my health. She just asked me why I am being so hard on myself, that I am allowed to be angry, to grieve after all the damn hard work I did to heal from HIS SHIT, and he whipped it all away from me just as I got there:
That is all so true. And I really appreciate it when people say, hey, it’s okay, you’re in a fuckload of very legitimate pain. But, I still feel like I should be doing a lot better.
Of course, I am seriously functional. I get shit done. And I keep planning adventures, and projects to fulfil me. But, the pain has not reduced one iota.
Not one.
How long will that go on for, I wonder? If I keep being mindful, practicing self care, filling my “cup” with love and beauty. How damn long?
And then, you do dumb shit, like Google “how long” (is a piece of string?!) According to this, ten years, OMFG! I’ve already been through the hell of nearly nine years of affair recovery, FFS.
Anyway, it is what it is. The sun is shining, and I am in charge of my own destiny, I don’t have to answer to many, and I don’t have to talk about everything as an “us” or a “we” like Trinket and Roger do. How sad.
How sad that he could not sit and be himself. Sit with the pain and reality of what he did to explode what had been a really amazingly good relationship. He doesn’t feel any of the pain. He just replaced me. Happy, happy, joy, joy in the arms of another. A woman who thinks he has had it hard, with me, because I MUST have been an awful person, right? Because people don’t cheat on nice people, right? (UM, hang on, SHE was constantly cheated on, WTAF?) Zip, thirty years of love, you’re gone. NEXT!!!
Another friend was lovely, and reassured me otherwise, #irreplaceable, okay? (Yeah, right …)
I have the BEST SUPPORT CREW. Thank you my lovelies xxx.
This has been a long running theme cycling constantly in my head.
Why?
Why would you do to a loyal, kind, loving mother/partner/all-round-awesome-woman (lol) what broke your own heart into a cajillion shards???
Are you just a cunt?
One of my Aussie friends thinks so!
I know she is broken, to do this to me. To allow herself to be used as his mummy, to do the shitty things he refuses to grow up and learn to do for himself.
But there had to be a certain level of cuntiness. I have tried really hard to forgive her. Thinking she was just stupid. But how stupid do you have to be to ignore mine and my children’s existence and my early advice that he is a serial cheat and exceptionally accomplished liar and charm merchant? To ignore that we were still living together, working together and sleeping together? That I was invested. I don’t think there is enough stupid to go ’round for that. Which leaves that she is pretty cunty. And thinks she is special.
Well, must be. He no doubt tells her she is. More special than I ever was. My worth is zero. Thirty years of love and sacrifice. Zip. Fuck you, your usefulness to me is now all used up. I have a shiny new toy, a sycophant to impress and she doesn’t question whether I am truthful and trustworthy like you did. Now off you fuck, used up mother of my children.
To have lived with the agony of the man you haved loved entirely, forever, being with other women is a pain you can’t even imagine – you think you can, but you really can’t – until you live it.
I managed some sleep last night, yay! But the dreams were swirly and not so restful. I had some information pop up at work yesterday, inadvertently about them, that blew my already shitty day into next level suicide prevention management.
But. Today is Friday, and I have plans for a road trip, cool sounds, good food, wine and company for a long weekend.
Ick. I am having one of those scary days, feeling like I am sliding again, trying to catch myself with my mindfulness practices, enacting the safety plan, and practicing the items on my checklist. I have planned some exercise for after work to try to unstick the ouchy bits of my body (ALL of it!) followed by a quiet, relaxing night where I go to an early movie, listen to soft music, and do some meditation to try to re-balance myself tonight.
How does this even happen?
The mindfulness includes recognising my mood slide, and that I did not get more than an hour’s sleep last night, that is not helpful, of course. I know this. I am trying to sit with the pain, and make a plan to move away from it affecting me the way it is.
Of course, you cannot possibly expect to be feeling okay just this far out from what happened. But my God, it hurts so damn much today. I can barely move with the pain.
I know that it is relatively early days. But am also very mindful of not boring the supportive people who have been incredible so far. You need to be able to lean on yourself as well. And don’t worry, I have. A lot. But, you do start to think, man, surely there has to be some forward motion, some feeling like you are doing better. And I am still in such a lot of agony. I do know there is a big difference if you decide to leave a relationship, as compared to being the one who is left. I also know that being left for another person causes much greater distress than if you mutually decide the relationship is over. That is why I would never do that to a person I (once) loved.
There are all kinds of internet resources that discuss how divorce is something that takes a very long time to recover from, and the factors that affect this include how in love you are, how long you have been together, children, involvement of an affair partner, etc. I have ticked a lot of the shit boxes. I know I am sitting with a lot of pain due to him waltzing off into new love, and my love had been dented but painstakingly rebuilt, and I was still madly in love with a man whose needs I put before my own. Ugh. I find it hard to fathom how a sensible person such as myself is not skipping away with glee at being free of his needs now.
It is the most frustrating thing, to be this deep in it all still. When you spiral downwards despite your efforts to count your blessings, and work hard every day to do the hard things and be as happy as you possibly can be, to both allow yourself to grieve, but not to wallow, to gain strength to keep going through the agony.
Woke up shivering and drenched in sweat at 2.30am. No more sleep for you, Paula.
It happens.
Night terrors. Last night my historical rapist was Roger. And Trinket watched, laughing her tiny tits off.
That is a first.
Roger and Leanne gang banged me in early dreams. They had razor blades and tore strips off me as I hung from meat hooks through my shoulder blades. But it was mostly Leanne.
This time it was Rog. And he did the exact thing my real rapist did.
I think the horror of the memory of the real rape, and his real violence on the bathroom floor on me in January, kicked all my fears into gear. I couldn’t get warm, and I couldn’t stop shaking. My body is aching now from the muscle tension of the hours of intense shaking.
The thing is, he used to say to me post DDay, “you never deserved this. You were and are the best partner anyone could have.”
Yep, so now, he did it again, and if he had any clue the agony and suffering he has caused, to this “best partner” – ugh.
And I have an awful suspicion a cold may be coming on. Which scares the Bejesus out of me. Zero immune system. Have shoved every natural remedy known to humankind down my throat.
Bring on the workday! Time to reset and put on my problem solving shoes again! Have a lovely one 🤗
Over the years post DDay, it really was a bit of a roller coaster. The first five years were hard, but I felt positive we would make it. My first therapist said, “two to five years of hell, not knowing if you want to stay or go. Watch his actions.” I did. And Roger going back to Leanne again after two years, ugh, it really set me back. When I got to the five year mark, I still didn’t fully know about the extent of the other cheating. It was around this time that I discovered the twenty-seven year old lie about the prostitute he “never fucked. Just got a hand job.” First version of that story was that he went to a brothel with friends, but did not do a thing. This progressed to, oh, right, I did go into a room with a hooker, but nothing happened. Later again, oh, she touched me, but I couldn’t get hard, I was not turned on by her. Again, even later, “oh, I got a hand job.” Etc. No, he eventually, after a huge amount of me interrogating him, admitted he fucked her. Twenty-seven years later. Same story about his tennis partner, and several other “friends” I had always wondered about. He never admitted to these, I always had to do a lot of detective work, to find out the truth. I still don’t know about some, I do know that. Some he says he did nothing with (like the female “friend” who was in our ensuite shower when I came home one day a bit earlier than expected….and the woman he brought home in the wee small hours of the morning, who he stayed up “talking to” when I had a newborn, whom he had “just been driving around with”…)
When we got five years into this mess, I felt like a gigantic failure. Ding, ding, ding! Time’s up. You are now supposed to be healed.
But, I wasn’t. What a double loser I was. Couldn’t keep a man from cheating on me, and then, could not even heal from his cheating in the prescribed time frame.
I now know, that is because he never came clean, he never participated in the healing, by reading, finding counsellors (even attending a counsellor I found with me was the biggest drag in the world for him) or finding out more, and he pushed the healing back, by returning to Leanne, after telling me for two years, that he hated her, was angry at her for participating in an affair with him. So angry he needed to go and stick his dick back in her. There! That’ll learn ya, skank. Take that. Ha!
I lost my previously pretty impressive libido around this time. And, OMG, was that something else. I had not been “enough” for him sexually, and now, what I did have was fading away. Oh fuck! I was distraught. The loss of that was a crushing blow for a couple of years. I sought MORE therapy, trying to work out what I was lacking, why did he want other women? Sex therapy. I was devastated, and felt like the lowest of the low. After two years of that, I just thought, shit, I am NEVER going to heal, we need to separate. I told Roger this, and he begged me to try again. It was so hard, I didn’t want to, because I was wiped out by this whole recovery process. But, I knew I loved him, truly, madly, deeply, and I stayed, trying to find a way. I told him I loved him – because I always have – and put all the angst, all the pain, all the doubts, when I wanted us to separate, etc, down here, on this blog. Any of the stuff about how hard I was finding it went here. All my doubts, and I tried to sound stronger, here especially, than I really felt. I told him I did not know, but that I was trying to find myself, find a way to believe him again. That we needed to be honest. I think I was “too honest” and he kept lying. Because it was not that long afterwards, that he must have started the online dating. We had a discussion about it, and he promised me he would never give up on me until we mutually decided to end it, if that were to happen. I also promised to give it my all, to finish my degrees, and we would see how we ended up then. We agreed that no matter how much either of us doubted, that we would not involve anyone else until we physically separated, if that was what might ever happen. I was very clear about that. That it was too painful to involve another person. And not very healthy. The research was so cathartic. I started to hope again, and I told him again, to please just wait, or let me know if you can’t, please, there was hope, but that I could not promise anything.
I wish I hadn’t said the last few words. But, I am honest. I did not know. But I did communicate that there was a real shift back to how I was in the first five years, I really started to believe in our love story again, and that we could weave his cheating into it. We agreed again to keep going, not to give up, but that if we had enough, if we wanted out, to be honest, to tell the other person. Or at least, that is what I agreed, and he just said the words, knowing he was already looking elsewhere.
Anyway, it is what it is. When I found out about Trinket, I was in a lot of shock, as he had promised honesty, and said he was committed to us. I did drive down to meet her, and I think I was trying to be cooler than I felt, stronger than I felt. I was incredibly nervous, and lost my way while I was trying to talk to her. But, I did state very clearly that we had not decided to split up, in fact, I thought we were trying to stay together. He was definitely not single when he was looking for an out with another woman, he was still sleeping in my bed (our sex life had improved so much, I was starting to feel sexy and sensual again, my numbness was leaving, woohoo!) and I thought we were a couple who were recovering from his betrayals of me. I told her that he had told me how she was in bed, how her body looked, what her sexual responses were like to the things he did to her, about her surgical scar, that he was unkind about her tummy that had carried three children, her Caesarean scars, and that he wasn’t that sure he was even physically all that attracted to her. He shared things about her, and his opinion of her, that were pretty unkind. I was utterly appalled. I did not tell her that he said she was boring and small town, that she probably would not be intellectually stimulating enough for him, that she did not share his love of the arts, etc, that he thought she had a wrinkly face and neck, old, dry skin, slightly frizzy hair and lacked any dress sense or flair. That she was menopausal, and had vaginal dryness and sweaty hot flushes in bed at night. But, he did tell me those things too. I wasn’t going to be that unkind to her face, she seemed like such a lovely woman, and I just thought she had got caught up in his net of lies. I honestly thought, “this is a former betrayed wife, she will totally get it, and move to protect herself from another one of these guys…” She seemed quite shocked at the things I did tell her he told me. I still don’t know why he told me these things. Was he trying to let me down easy? No, I think he was trying to make me dance harder, prettier, try harder, Paula. Lift your game, you can beat this older woman, go on, I dare you. He was ensuring he had me as the back up plan, should Trinket prove to be all of the things he accused her of. What a piece of shit.
And then, I found the other women, and that this was not a new thing. There were other online dating profiles, on other apps, not just Match. I found he was still communicating with one woman in particular, she found me, and shared their history, how long it had been going on for, and that he was still in touch with her. The last communication with him that she screenshotted and shared with me was in December last year, five months into his new relationship with Trinket. He had finally come clean, and told her he was seeing someone – and the reason he did was because I told her, and she asked him. He still did not mention me, or our kids to this woman, who he had been in contact with for around a year by that stage. He never told her he had a partner and kids. Or a new partner and her kids, lol. This was around the time he was asking me to invest in property with him. I asked him what Trinket would think about that, and he answered, “she doesn’t need to know.”
Yeah, I’m out, Rog. I don’t want to be part of your secrets. But, of course, I was. Because we continued to sleep together, and have incredibly hot, hysterical bonding sex right up until he moved to his new home. I asked him what Trinket would think of that. He said he didn’t tell her the extent of what we were doing. I was now the affair partner. Of the man I had loved for thirty years, bore his children, washed his dirty underwear, etc. How degrading. The day he drove off for the last time (leaving one of his working dogs in the kennel – that I have now taken with me) he came to me, held me tight, and kissed me hard, with a LOT of passion, on the lips. He told me he would always love me.
I was a mess.
So, that was my process. I healed, but not until after wanting to leave for a bit, and a lot of pain, and damn hard work on myself. And he just removed the goalposts, without letting me know.
No wonder I am still a bit of a mess. And my bloodwork is not improving at all. My head knows, but my heart is still not cooperating. I still ache with the loss of him. So much. It hurts so, so much. And I can’t imagine another man ever touching me sexually. Even being ambush kissed by Jack the other day was horrifying. I was pretty much pulling away, the poor guy.
Betrayed Bitch wrote a post recently about the healing process, and how some of us become quite stuck. I have a couple of theories about this.
Firstly, those of us who truly believed they had wonderful relationships, still in love, still feeling like treasured and equal partners after decades together, parenting, working, loving, are completely blown away by this kind of betrayal. It hits without warning, and your entire belief system is blasted to smithereens. You second guess yourself. Was I the only one invested here? Was our love story even real? Why? What did I do wrong? (LOL – answer, nothing you do causes a partner to cheat – that is their character weakness, their lack of communication, their lack of trust in both themselves, and their loving partner.)
It is a real mindfuck. To put it mildly. How can someone who loves you do this? WTAF???
Secondly, if the cheater won’t put in the work required to discover what they need to about this character flaw, and be willing to make mindful, permanent change to the way they live and think, then your healing is stalled badly. They need to be fully transparent, and never tell any more lies, must discuss their feelings openly, etc.
You must heal yourself before you can heal any marriage. I knew that from the start. The very night Roger was exposed by his affair partner to me as a cheater, I said to him, “if we are going to try to heal from this, YOU have to be my healer. I will do whatever it takes to heal myself, but you, the person who has totally fucked me over here, have to be my comfort, my support, and let me go through this process. It won’t be easy. Are you prepared for what you have done?” He said over and over, for years, that he would never give up.
Lying liar who lies.
He NEVER once looked at a website, read a book, or found a counsellor to help me, to help us. That was ALL on me. A couple of the therapists even asked me if I really wanted to be with a guy who wasn’t digging hard to fight for me, for us. They saw it. The one we saw together, when I told him he left me, just said, oh, I am sorry, but can’t say I am surprised. Take care of you.
So, it must have been only me who loved him, he can’t have loved me the way I totally worshipped him. I put that to him many times. Do you really love me enough? He always replied that he loved me more than he could ever imagine loving anyone else, ever. That he was grateful for the second chance. That he cannot ever recreate or surpass what I did for him, how much fabulousness we were.
But, this was not his only rodeo. He had betrayed me before. I did not know that for many more years. I suspected it may be true, as he is the king of denial. I had to gather the evidence. He NEVER confessed. So, this was his modus operandi. Deny, deny, deny, until you just can’t deny anymore. That was his mode when I knew he had brought Trinket into my (messy at the time, ugh) home, to fuck her. He denied, denied, denied, and when he couldn’t deny any longer, knocked me unconscious in his fury at being caught out. Fark. That is next level shit.
So, my long, exceptionally painful journey to healing took two degrees, and a fuck ton of hard damn work to get to the place whereby I felt I could put it mostly behind us, and forge on, creating a stronger partnership than ever, it took a long time to learn to trust him again, but I got there. Ironically, during that hardest, last part of my healing journey, he was lying and cheating again already. FFS. The mindfuck he employed though is boggling. I have literally dozens and dozens of notes, cards, texts he sent me in the first part of his seduction of Trinket. They all talk about how I am amazing, the one for him, and that he hoped I could heal enough to be with him.
Riiiiiight.
I liken it to the story of the Little Red Hen. My mother loved this fable. It was her way of demonstrating what a work ethic is, and how important it is to carry on, and get the job done. I think Roger was like the other farmyard animals. I was the hen. He was not invested in the process. He did not want to have to do the work – work he made necessary by fucking a skank all over our homes, texting her thousands of times a month, and lying his arse off to me when I asked him if he was doing anything inappropriate with her – to heal us. He wanted me to plant the seed, water the seed, fertilize the seed, weed the plant, harvest the grain, grind the grain, make the dough, bake the bread. Then he was going to sit down and enjoy the fruits of my labours (kinda like he did the rest of the relationship, lol – I did all the cooking and cleaning as well as working full time.) Except, he found another loaf of bread already baked and ready for feasting on, in Trinket opening her legs. Fuck waiting for Paula’s loaf – this one will do. But, if this one tastes bad, I better keep Paula sweet, so I don’t go hungry…
And meanwhile, Trinket’s loaf must taste pretty damn fine. Hope she enjoys it as my pain levels have not yet subsided. #worthit.
Always have a back up plan, Roger my love, don’t ever go without.
The only thing I can do is sit with my agony, and trust that the work I did on myself, and continue to do, will stand me in good stead long term.
Love and light to you all going through this most painful of journeys xxx. Keep doing the work on you.
The contract stallion handler at work came in and had a heart-to-heart with me this morning. He told me his sister and her two young kids have just come to stay with him just over a week ago. Two days ago, she just found out why her husband (who the stallion handler says has always been a bit of a loser in his opinion) was thinking they might “need a break.” He has just moved in with another woman.
The sister is beside herself. She had no idea, and thought their marriage was the best it had ever been prior to him asking her to leave for a bit, for him to “sort some stuff out.” She is in that awful state of La-la land, where she thinks it is all some bizarre nightmare, and it will all work out, they will get back together. I advised him to get her to get a separation agreement drawn up now. The husband is racking up debt, dating the new woman, on their joint credit card. She needs that stuff dated and separated out, like yesterday. I related my story of Roger refusing to sign a separation agreement, yet skipping off to the region he now lives in twice a week, spending joint finances on fuel and dating another woman. You have to shut that shit down. Fast.
I also told him about the fact that he bought his current property without a signed agreement, and that legally, I could have gone him for half of it, because he did not sign the agreement I had drawn up for nearly five months. He asked me why I didn’t. I didn’t, because I am not a bitch. But I could have, if I wanted to play hardball, and punish him for all he did to me. It isn’t in my nature. But hell, you need to protect yourself. As he said, his sister thinks he is having a midlife crisis, and it will all blow over, he will come to his senses.
Me too. I honestly thought that. But, I also was prepared, and got my ducks in a row, as I know how stubborn Roger is. He had decided, and that was that. There was no room for open communication, a discussion, a joint decision. It was all his way. “This is what I am doing, and you will never be able to talk me out of it. I will go down with the ship.” He has always done this. The most stubborn of men.
Good, loyal, loving women, constantly being swapped out for the new.
Tearing at the Fabric 