There are many, terrifying commonalities when you discuss or read about rape with others who have suffered. This recent Independent article got me on many levels.
Power.
And my rapist holds a position of power. In an industry I am still involved in.
So, reading some of the testimonies of the women in the Harvey Weinstein horror, resonated. My experience was paralleled with that of Paz De la Huerta’s.
In her words, from the following documentary,
What we learn from Untouchable: The Rise and Fall of Harvey Weinstein
The feature-length BBC2 documentary.
Paz de la Huerta
‘The way in which he overpowered me left me no way out’ (BBC)
“I was intimidated by him and his power.”
“He said, ‘Can we have a drink upstairs at yours?’ And I was too afraid to say no. We went up to my place and things got very uncomfortable very fast. He pulled my dress up I was just terrified, I didn’t kick or scream. When you read about rape you read ‘The girl screams no and kicks and screams’ but that’s not exactly right. The way in which he overpowered me left me no way out.
“It’s almost like I was hovering over my body and this thing was happening to me. I didn’t go to the police because I was terrified he would destroy me and he would say it was consensual, and that I was a whore and I was lying.”
I can’t tell you how many times I have run over the details of that night.
Did I drink too much?
Did I make him think I wanted to be sexual with him?
Did I do the wrong thing not pressing charges after I was swabbed and stitched back together again?
The answers are irrelevant. Because rape is rape. There is no excuse for it. No one asks to be raped.
The reality is, I was a “good girl,” who was still a virgin at 20. I was waiting for my “one true love!”
Or something like that.
Yep.
That worked out well on a whole heap of fronts, right?
Hmm.
The nightmares were bad last night. I’m up a hill, in the bush, trying to sweat the pain out.
After morning bingeing on Workin Moms.
Kate, in pre-natal class, on labour, “one of these guys is gonna cheat, it’s just math, my money’s on this guy…”
Yup.
Wish it was that easy to pick which one. I thought I had picked one of the good guys.
“A man’s hero instinct is a subconscious drive to gravitate toward people who make him feel like a hero. But it’s amplified in his romantic relationships.” 🦸♂️
I recognised this very early on in Roger’s affair with Leanne.
And realise that he probably subconsciously “rescued” me as a young woman. And after he cheated, and I started getting stronger, putting my needs first at times, that didn’t work for him anymore. Like our old friend said to me a couple of months ago, “Paula, he said to me some years ago, he fucked up, fucked you over, hurt you so massively, and he didn’t know how to fix you. He ran to a woman he hadn’t hurt yet, to try to feel better about himself” (Hint, we fix ourselves first, then we “fix” us together.)
He felt like the anti-hero in my life. He knew my intimate hurts, what would be the worst things to happen, my deepest fears…my past traumas. Thirty years of love and loyalty. He just walked away.
Discarded me. I am nothing to him.
And, for me, to borrow from the film, The Keeper, “I sacrificed everything to be with you.”
And he chose this anyway. Chose to make me feel like life is not worth living some days an nights. Like my friend J said, who lost her son, “there are plenty of times I just want to crawl into that hole in the ground too.”
Oh yeah. Plenty of times. I try to keep fighting..keep recalling what I thought when our mate Nigel took his life aftr his wife left. Surely it has to get better eventually?
I questioned Norm about him taking Leanne to our lake house without me, (the very first time they had sex again in over twenty years at that point, in our daughter’s bed as it turns out…)
He said he took her in a cup of tea in the morning. I pushed him. “That must have been weird, seeing your cheating ex girlfriend in our daughter’s bed? What happened next?”
“Nothing.”
“Really? Nothing. I doubt that.”
“Well, I leaned in to kiss her, to see what she’d do.”
“And what DID she do?”
“She was cold.”
That was the story I (stupidly, because I am that dumb, trusting girl) believed from January 2008 until June 2009.
Stupid Girl. You pretend you’re high You pretend you’re bored You pretend you’re anything Just to be adored And what you need Is what you get Don’t believe in fear Don’t believe in faith Don’t believe in anything That you can’t break You stupid girl You stupid girl All you had you wasted All you had you wasted What drives you on (What drives you on) Can drive you mad (Can drive you mad) A million lies to sell yourself Is all you ever had Don’t believe in love Don’t believe in hate Don’t believe in anything That you can’t waste You stupid girl You stupid girl Can’t believe you fake it Can’t believe you fake it Don’t believe in fear Don’t believe in pain Don’t believe in anyone That you can’t tame You stupid girl You stupid girl All you had you wasted All you had you wasted You stupid girl You stupid girl Can’t believe you fake it Can’t believe you fake it You stupid girl You stupid girl Can’t believe you fake it Can’t believe you fake it You stupid girl.
Reality? He lay in our bed, and thought, at 1am or so, I’m going to go in and fuck Leanne.
So he did that.
I discovered in June 2008, despite being “far too busy” to come on a family fishing trip, with friends, that he had driven the five hour round trip to his ex girlfriend’s (Leanne) house, to help her by breaking up concrete.
What a fucking hero he is. Poor widdle single mum needed her big stwong man to come, take his shirt off and swing a sledge hammer in her back yard.
Because she doesn’t have a brother, father, the means to pay someone to do that shit, and hey, you were TOO BUSY, huh, Roger?!!!
I recall sliding down the laundry wall in tears, begging him to tell me the truth, he went up there to fuck her, right???
“Oh, no, my monkey bear. Fuck no! Oh Snooks, she’s awful. I would never do that. To you. To me. To us. I am not even attracted to her. I love you. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you I went there. That was wrong of me. Nothing happened. I promise.”
Yeah, right. This was another time Rog was the hero of Leanne’s story.
He went up to do that, and was rewarded with a beer and a fuck.
Of course.
But I didn’t know that for another year. Again, dumbass here believed his words.
So, what do you think Trinket’s story is? Huh? Why step on me to get what she “deserved?”
You guessed it. A serial cheating husband who made poor Twinky do tewibly degrading sexual things to compete with all the whores her husband kept cheating with.
Lift your game, bitch!
(How damn awful, I do actually have huge empathy for her, but why did she not leave his cheating arse? Weak. Another weak woman. I do understand. So sad.)
The ultimate pick me dance.
So, she needed rescuing by our hero Rog. Who could treat her with kid gloves, woo her, seduce her. Make her laugh. Make her swoon. Make sweet, soft, urgent lurve to her, licking, kissing, sucking, tasting. Cum everywhere.
Never mind the loyal long term partner over here, who politely tried to explain his treachery…
Help her with her chores, her wayward, but oh so misguided kids…
What a damn life saver he is. Lucky Trinket huh?
I’m off to climb a small mountain guys. Happy weekending 💙
To those who judged me, when I was floundering about in shock and agony in the first weeks of I’ve Met Someone Else, AKA as Oh My God, He’s Cheated Again, And This Time He’s Leaving Me, this
You know who you are.
But, special mention must be made to the maggot (ex)cheater wife of Roger’s best mate. Who comfortingly told me after his 18 month long affair with our mutual “friend” Leanne, that affair sex is ALWAYS better than relationship sex, and that I must be crap in bed.
Then, less than a month into this latest hell, drunkenly screamed at me over and over in public, that I was insane. When I just showed up with a fake plastic smile on my face one night. She invited me there, and I had not even opened my mouth yet!
Her husband -Roger’s best mate – felt the need to apologise to me, it was just awful. I left graciously immediately.
Is there anything more damaging to your self esteem than an abusive and/or cheating partner?
As I have mentioned here many times, I constructed my identity as a strong, independent woman. Someone who survived a brutal rape, and stayed soft enough to love and trust a man with everything I had.
Which ended up being a total load of bollocks.
I fell apart when I discovered his year and a half long affair on our properties, with our ‘friend.’
I spent the best part of eight years rebuilding myself.
So we could rebuild, re-imagine us.
It was the hardest, most painful thing I have ever done. De- and then re-constructing who I am. A job, a business, a family, oodles of counselling, a psychiatrist, meds, two degrees, you’ve no idea how DAMN hard I worked to rebuild myself, try to believe, trust and forgive him, all while he stayed in contact with, and fucked her again two years in, did not do the things I begged him to, in going no contact, changing his number, to come to couples and seek individual counselling. To promise to be open and honest always, if he wanted out, speak up. Tell me the truth about your feelings.
Nope. He said he was sorry and had fucked up.
He. Said.
Then opened online dating accounts with at least three apps, and was actively seeking other women for TWO YEARS before Trinket showed up.
Before I was informed.
Before I’ve Met Someone Else.
I have discovered through this journey, that my idea about myself as a strong, independent woman, was a giant fucking lie. My identity was constructed from the age of twenty, as Roger’s partner, S, G and D’s Mum. A hard working farmer. In other words, everyone’s support person. Never the leading actor in my own life.
I had a chat with BG last night. We need to have a proper, cards on table talk when he returns. I know this. So far it’s been light, fun, a distance ‘dating’ thing, as I figure out what I want.
As he figures out what he wants.
My belief is, he found me attractive and fun to start with, and jumped in, thinking, yes! This is fun. This is nice. What a top chick. I will introduce her to my old friends, my family, take her fun places, do fun stuff. I started to believe he was investing in me, and I slowly unfurled, started leaning in.
But the reality has hit. And he is realising that maybe he doesn’t want a partner at all. Maybe he just wanted the fun part? The honeymoon period. I don’t know. Whenever I want a man, they never want me… so fucking unlovable.
*yeah, yeah, it’s not me, it’s them, yada, yada, yada. What is the common denominator? I have never left anyone. Have always been left. Hmmm.
I could be wrong. The talk needs to be had.
The utter agony of being rejected by the man I truly love, by being vilified by him as somehow defective, because of the damage HE INFLICTED, and I worked so damn hard to fix, while he waited, and did nothing, that is fucking next level…
I do want to try this with BG. I feel something real for him. I don’t trust my feelings, because you know, my feelings fucked up before! But if I don’t take a risk and put my cards on the table, he won’t ever know. And the possibility will just fade away to nothing. I don’t know if he’s interested enough to make it work. He is still deciding whether to come to my place for a few days on his return on Sunday night. Gee, the power of his attraction to me, right? Lol.
He did mention it has become a little bit awkward with D moving in with me. And he has big decisions to make about work. I think that might be driving some of it.
Yes. D. Moving in…
It has. But he also said, family first, always. And we both know it’s not impossible.
Of course. And we are all grownups. D wants to meet BG. I guess he is worried about being left here with her when I go to work, but hey, not my circus, and she has uni. And if he is not wanting to go forward with me, what is the point in introducing them? I know these kids of mine are not children, but I have kept them out of this until now.
So, where was this post going?
It was about the damage done by overriding my instincts that Roger had not changed. Had not done the work required to stop lying. He’s so entirely charming, so soft, incredibly loving, nice, believable – he completely and utterly soothes you into believing, even pitying him. Poor sausage who made a tewwible mistake, boohoo. Come here and cuddle/fuck me baby…I’m sooooo sowwy I made a hurt. 😥
And where the fuck did that get me?
It set me up to rebreak my poor heart when he cheated AGAIN with Trinket, lulling me into believing he wanted only me, then (literally and figuratively) slamming me down when he finally found the trade in.
This has been, and continues to be, the battle of my life. To ground myself. To not further hurt myself. To stay true to my values. The dichotomy of staying soft, kind, vulnerable within the armour I have had to deploy to protect myself from the world. So very, very many tears. I never thought I was a cryer.
I was wrong. The car and work bathroom are witness to that!
I have wept rivers over what he did to me. The grief still feels very overwhelming more than it doesn’t.
It’s a deeeeeep ache that never leaves me. I know I need a massage. Everything is super tight, super sore embodied pain right now. So physically achy.
Was talking with a close friend today. She asked how I’m getting on. She has seen me doing better lately, and commented on it. I admitted to hitting a big trauma wall the past two days especially, but that I am better at managing them, but they are so very real and painful.
She asked me a few questions.
Like, “why do you think he hates you?” Then adding, “he’s a selfish, callous, weak man, Paula, and he told a lot of lies to a lot of people. Would you rather be you, or Trinket?”
I just said there is absolutely no way he ever showed anything but what I saw as deep, true, passionate love for me until I found out about Leanne. He was cornered, and ran like a rat.
We had such a glorious relationship. We had these wonderful babies, shared so much laughter and fun. Slogged through some awful stuff too. We felt so connected. I felt so safe. I believed in us, never wavered in that, never thought to cheat, or leave, even through the really shitty parts of hard work, no money, long, dirty hours on farm. The stuff of any young couple building a future together, pre-Leanne. I was devastated when he sold the family farm and we lost his family over it. But hell, I was so loyal to him, had his back there even though I didn’t fully agree with the way he went about it, lying by omission to his own sisters. I rowed his boat until I bled.
The Canadian poet Rupi Kaur once said, “people go but how they left always stays.”
There is no way if he really loved me like he SAID he did, that he could let me suffer like this now. Let me feel so permanently heartbroken, unloved, unlovable, not good enough. By lying and cheating and convincing me he was all in, that I was the one for him, he fucked me over. I mean, who gives their partner a beautiful love letter and gifts that included a scented candle with “Love Always” inscribed boldly on it for her birthday 25th July, then tells her he’s Met Someone Else on 10th August??? Someone who was ensuring kibble supply, either from his current partner, or the one he is currently grooming online to replace her, that’s who. I fucking believed his bullshit. Created such deep trauma that I have to manage going forward.
Every single day.
Trauma doesn’t occur only from car accidents or war zones. Some people truly become traumatized from the toxic relationships they’ve had.
When you breathe in too many toxins from tragic events, your lungs are affected forever. Your brain is no exception to a toxic connection, even years after a breakup.
I know this is trauma cycling. Deep, rooted, permanent grief. And I have more tools now to deal with it. But the pain has not reduced in the slightest. No way the man I knew and loved for three decades exists. He loves another now. Someone better…you guys know what I mean.
I don’t know what love is anymore. I used to believe in it.
I think romantic love is bullshit. You can’t “love” someone for thirty years, then, pouff! Turn on them and treat them like this. Just turn off the love. Redirect it to a stranger. It isn’t love, and can’t ever have been to be able to put that ‘beloved’ person (yeah right) through this kind of permanent pain.
She said, “you appear to be doing so well, Paula. You’ve worked hard, got a ton of counselling, see him for how he treated you. I’m so sorry it still hurts so damn much, that is so unfair.” And she agreed. He probably doesn’t really know how to love loyally and exclusively. So, it seems so simple. Be glad he got hooked on another one, and she took him on. Took him away from me.
Not in really obvious ways, like Mindy Kaling describes here. More just I feel her strength, her trying to tell me not to give up. That I did everything I could, and I’m better than the way that liar treated me, I deserved the truth. I deserved to be loved.
It’s been over 18 years since she suddenly died at just 55 years of age.
These are the times my mind desperately seeks answers that I know will never come.
Of Roger.
Why could you not see how much I love you? The level of my pain was due to the depth of my love for you.
Do you love her more than you ever loved me? (My mind always answers, yeah, of course, he finds you unlovable. Why else would he leave me, choose her over my desperate/pathetic/degrading attempts to show him how much I loved him…)
What do you think I did that meant it was okay to destroy me, put me through this agony? Did you think I wasn’t worthy or good enough to love? Why did you say, and pretend that I was the love of your life? Why did you cry and beg me not to leave you, write me squillions of love notes, if you were just going to dump and run when you found a replacement model, when I had no idea that was what you were doing as I battled hard to heal?
I believed you. Did you not believe my love? Did you not see how I put everything into you? That I told you many times over the decades that I chose you, you were my forever, the children we got are who they are, I love them to pieces. But the difference between parental love and romantic love is that.
Choice.
And children, by their very design, by the work and love you put into them, grow up and move away. Partners are supposed to be for life.
After you cheated for eighteen months, in my safe spaces of home, with someone I also trusted to be good to me, as I was good to her, I tried to find even more inside of me to give, to heal from your long, close-to-home betrayal of my loyalty? Was that fun for you? Watching me writhe, contorted with the pain of what you chose for me. Then walked away without a glance back, so you didn’t have to see me battle the cancer, then takotsubo cardiomyopathy you imparted.
Throw the bombs, walk away. Don’t ever look back at the burning building, Rog. Tell Trinket I deserved it. That I was a terrible person, partner, mother. Let her smirk smugly that she ‘won.’
Finally.
She finally won a cheating man. After decades trying to win her last one. She understood how it feels to throw a cheater out, but still take them back.
Again and again.
But still not have a scrap of empathy for me, knowing cheaters tell these women what they want to hear. My wife doesn’t love me. You complete me.
Ugh.
It’s trauma cycling. I know. And I know true love, the way I still feel about him, never dies. I just have learned to accept he never loved me, and is a callous man who just doesn’t care about what he did to me.
That distance is my safety net.
That the ache will never go away.
And it hurts like a mofo. Makes my whole life a lie. Worthless.
And in these troughs, I recall my isolating behaviours, how in my utter agony, I withdrew. From social situations, from my friends. I hated being seen like this. I couldn’t contain my pain in those moments, from public view.
So I withdrew.
And he HATED it. Berated me, “you never want to go anywhere anymore…”
Music. To soothe. To keep from hurting myself.
Because, when I get up and go to work later today, no one will ever know how much I hurt on the daily.
You just keep going somehow 💔
Late Night
Foals
Oh I hoped that you were somebody
Someone I could count
To pull me to my feet again
When I was in doubt
Oh now Mama do you hear me?
Calling out your name
Oh now Mama do you hear me?
Calling out your name
Calling out your name
I’m the last cowboy in this town
Empty veins and my plastic broken crown
They said I swam the sea that ran aground
They said I once was lost but now I’m truly found
And I know the place but not the way
I feel, I feel no shame
Oh now mama do you hear my fear?
It’s coming after me
Calling out your name
Calling out your name
Stay with me
Stay with me
And I threw your heart away
Boy I know just what I said
Let the phone cut in the way
Being still downtown I say
And I know you ran away,
Oh I know but I’m feeling ok
Now I found love, the feeling won’t go
Now I found love, the feeling won’t go
See you walk away
Feeling okay now
Happy now?
Stay with me
Stay with me
Stay with me
Stay with me
I mean. Peopling. Not always easy in the best of circumstances.
That said, I am so grateful I have had my work family. Providing support, reprieve and a damn income when I have needed it most!
I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve sobbed my heart out in the car ride to work, or the privacy of the bathroom. It has kept me from the cutting many, many times.
The girls at work asked me to recreate my kaffir lime and vanilla cheesecake, as I have plenty of fruit this year on that fragrant tree I raid regularly for its leaves to make Thai food especially.
I’d rarely had much fruit previously, so never thought of ways to use it.
They got this far through it before we even had morning tea.
And as I sat, working my way through the import paperwork, my mind started wandering, as it does these days. This time, to the whole, how the fuck did this happen when I just loved the hell out of that man? When I communicated my needs, did everything I could and then some, to meet his? I don’t know why he hates me this much.
But I also know he is somehow damaged. Not capable of being the person he pretended to be. He was all just a gigantic lie, and all that love I felt was never even true.
I can’t describe the grief and agony of this 💔
Or, worse, my greatest fear – probably the worst thing for anyone who loves their cheater – that he will be better for Trinket. Because he thinks she is better/more deserving than me. All I did, all I sacrificed, not good enough. The theme he started in my life by sticking his dick in Leanne. Over and over and over, and all the secrets and lies over the years.
That just about kills me, my heart is squeezing so tightly now as I type this…
I think there is huge truth to the idea that you never fully recover from infidelity. You partially improve. But it is always with you. Your grief is life baggage that you just learn to carry for periods, until you have to put it down again, have a cry in the work bathroom, cut yourself to bleed some of the pain out…
On that happy note, team, I’m off to work! I’ll be that middle aged chick you see driving, scream-singing with tears in her eyes, along to some music in the car.
The sun is out, let’s see if we can make it through a whole day in August without rain!
Maybe I’m just running to nothing. You can’t ever make it all unhappen. The happy couple are no doubt frolicking in the sun…while I continue to negotiate this forest path.
Come closer and see See into the trees Find the girl If you can Come closer and see See into the dark Just follow your eyes Just follow your eyes
I hear her voice Calling my name The sound is deep In the dark I hear her voice And start to run Into the trees Into the trees
Into the trees Suddenly I stop But I know it’s too late I’m lost in a forest All alone The girl was never there It’s always the same I’m running towards nothing Again and again and again and again
So, one of the younger women who has been inviting me to spend more time with her lately, was at the film premiere I went to last Friday.
She spotted me, and rushed over to say hi, full of chatter, and oversharing, we were seated together.
This woman is the one whose husband is a serial cheat, and she (quite literally) bent over backwards to accommodate some of his more adventurous ideas (mostly swinging, depraved and deviant sex stuff and poly type ideas, but only one way, when they benefited him – hey I promise I like a good, sexy, adventurous time, but some things are just degrading to women) until she had just had enough, and in her words, “it just wasn’t fun anymore, and I realised I no longer loved him.”
…and guess what?
She is now shagging a partnered man. SMH.
Fuck.
What the hell?
How do you do that (cough, Trinket) after you have been cheated on for years???
I have decided that these women who were knowingly with serial cheats for years and years, just have a really screwed up moral compass. Their self esteem so shattered they will fuck up another loyal woman, to finally “win” the pick me contest. They profess to hate the OW in their marriages, these maggoty affair partners, then turn around and become them…🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
I give up. It seems the more humans there are on the planet, the less humanity there is.
I will never understand hurting someone in this way. The level of selfishness, and belief that you are somehow more special than a loyal, dedicated partner of several decades?
Tearing at the Fabric 