My oldest friend, my former BFF, sent me this today.
Yes, it’s a truly awful photo.
But, it means it is five years minus a week since my life imploded.
I took myself off to my daughter’s city for a few days, and on my return, I told Roger I was healed, that thesis, that research, that hard slog, was my healing from his long affair with his ex GF, my supposed friend, completed.
And he told me he was leaving me.
For some widow he’d met on Match. FFS!!!
I had no idea.
He’d told me how much he loved me – forever – how proud he was, this day, five years ago.
All bullshit.
He’d been hooking up with other women, via the online dating apps for at least two years. The entire period of my Masters research. Including during our romantic trip to Argentina. A couple who’d never been able to afford travel, we’d started. It was awesome.
But all bullshit.
This makes me really emotional.
I had terrible dreams, and little sleep last night. All of Trinket in Roger’s long, lean arms. Him telling her how much he loves her, how he’ll never hurt her, how she’s the only woman for him, soothing her. I woke and vomited 🤢
Yep. Five years later, he can still make me spew.
I hope that bitch realises he has done all that soothing, given all those kisses before. That he convinced me he’d changed. This is his pattern. I’m sure he told Leanne all the same soothing, gentle bullshit.
I was really feeling quite despondent last night. I thought BG was being negative, handing me a shopping list of things to check/things that were wrong regarding the new building lease.
We managed a really good talk this morning. He did back off last night, seeing my face fall. I know I have to do due diligence yet. Was just excited at this good possibility. He’d had a late afternoon flurry of demands from staff, just the usual problems, but in a barrage. All at once.
I could see him pacing around the club when I arrived, looking most agitated. And he was stressed about a function we had to attend as sponsors…so I went over to be with him, all high with fear and excitement, expecting to be lavished with praise, support and love. Getting instead, don’t pay for that, check this term, what about….??? was a big letdown.
I went to bed before him. He stayed up watching sport, when I needed a cuddle. But was not going to be needy girl.
He snored and fought some huge verbal battles during the night, and I shifted to the couch. He woke up all concerned. I had pretty much convinced myself that I needed to end things with him. He sat naked with me, asking if I was okay.
I said, “I’m really worried about us.”
“Why? What have I done? I’m sorry.”
I struggled to get the words out. But gently explained that I felt pretty concerned that he was riding roughshod all over my accomplishments, and I’d been here before, and it felt unhealthy. He said, “I know. I’m sorry. I messed up. I realised it, and tried to back pedal but it was too late. Please don’t paint me with the same brush as him. I do care. I am proud of you. I was in a bad headspace, and didn’t realise you came to celebrate. I’m a dick and I apologise.”
I replied that I know he isn’t Roger, but my guard is up waaaay high about this stuff. Some green flags seemed to be turning red!
And he admitted for the first time to a small amount of disappointment/resentment that I am opening this business alone. We had talked about joint ventures…I asked him about his feelings before I signed up. He was positive and encouraging. And he owns his lack of commitment to doing anything new. His fear of failure is a big driving force with him. I worked that out a few years ago. I felt if I waited for him, we’d still be waiting.
Anyway, long, good, real conversation. Which inevitably turned to sex. He always worries he’s going to lose me over this. I just homestly told him, if everything else is good, I can manage. But it does mean when we are struggling, the thoughts about my higher drive always ramp up.
Ultimately, he talked again about how unhealthy his relationship with sex is. It was a thing you did, working in hospitality, after a few drinks, and a stupid gane of pursuit. It isn’t a deeply intimate thing for him. He shows intimacy in other physical ways. I know this. I know that I’m “too good/nice” to fuck good and hard, or even seduce slowly, devouring each other. He’s never equated sex with love. It’s been Wham! Bam! Thank you Ma’am. Loads of one night stands and drunken hook-ups. No need to learn skills, understand where all the buttons on the console are, just a lot of point and shoot! Lol.
I’m the opposite. Probably demi-sexual. I need love to feel deeply sensual and wantonly sexy. And the closer I feel to you, the hornier I get.
It’s a giant challenge!
But. This was an exceptional talk. We discussed mental health, sex, hopes, dreams, expectations, what does supportive look like/feel like. I told him how hard I am finding it to talk candidly with him. Not because of him, but because I am struggling to identify and name my feelings sometimes. And top of my list is always that I don’t ever want to hurt him.
He did have one frustrated moment where he said about my past, “sometimes I feel from all of this unsaid stuff, the way you go quiet and withdraw, that you are never going to get over him.”
That took my breath away (what little I have, with this pneumonia!) My first instinct was to defend myself. Shout, no! That’s not true!
Instead. I shut my mouth. After a few minutes, I said, “there’s some truth there. I don’t think you do ever “get over” this stuff. But I know he’s not who I loved, and I also know I love you. It has left deep, painful scars. Sometimes the trauma is briefly visible, I’m sorry, I try to tuck it away quickly, out of view.” And I liked his reply.
“Yes babe. I see those moments. When you withdraw. And I’m sorry you have that. I also know my own damage. I just bluff my way through that, and yours is more painful. It silences you. Like sharp pain makes you suck in your breath. I hate when I feel like I triggered it by doing something wrong.”
Oh fuck. He he gets it. Because he’s felt it. He told me he gets really anxious about this stuff, because Chrissy said she loved him all the time, and then she was gone. No discussion. No warning. No honesty. He’s scared I will lie to him, too.
I tell you, trying to do this in your 50s is fucking insane!
So much baggage.
But, I do like how open he is to me. He’ll answer anything. He tells me the warts and all stuff of his past. He’s kind, caring and loving about my crap. He wants to make this work, and he knows that takes effort, it doesn’t just happen.
And, bonus. Great sex after all of that! Initiated cautiously by him. But strongly encouraged by me! See? Connection makes it BETTER! 😜
I’ve done a pile of homework. Opening a new business bank account. Downloading manuals and checklists. Filling in what I can in spreadsheets. The sun is finally out. The dogs are on the furniture, in the sun.
Whaaaat? Get off the ottoman, big dog! I am curled up, about to have a nap. Tomorrow it is revised budgets and business plan. Making a bank appointment. Writing my resignation letter…
BG just phoned. A bit upset. He was planning on coming over. Instead, at my insistence, he rang Andy, one of his best mates. He’d called earlier in the week and BG was a bit busy. Glad he called him. Turns out, his business is in trouble. He’s downsizing, restructuring. It means they will have to sell their stunning home and land up the coast with the elevated, 180° views. When he called, he and his wife were over in the nearby town, looking at smaller houses. He was asking if I’d mind if he went to Andy’s. Lol. Mind? Bloody hell mate. Get your arse up to your friend’s place! Beer and mate therapy required!
More Nana napping for me. Time to chill, rest, try to recover.
I need to make good decisions going forward. I know my trauma caused so much indecision previously. This meant I stayed, in good faith, and got further abused.
I always thought I was strong, and fairly intelligent.
But I stayed. Thinking I could fix things. If only I tried even harder. Loved him as much as ever. I really did love him very, very deeply. That he would see my efforts and “reward” them with deep, faithful love.
Yeah, right. Dumbass.
I felt like the weakest, most stupid person.
But, trauma makes you this way. Rog never understood or accepted that I was deeply traumatised by his actions. By his lies. By his making my life’s work, love and commitment a farce.
I AM strong, and do have half a brain. Apparently. Validated for me by the academic achievement. It’s pretty sad that I needed that, and I’m very aware that there is “book smart,” and “street smart.” But I did need a way of saying to myself, you’re not as stupid as you seem. So, one man made a fool of you. But that was because you gave yourself to him. You trusted him implicitly.
I’m resigning Monday, and the lease will start 1 Sep.
When I am out of the country!
Operational last week of Sep.
Faaaaark! Shit finally just got real.
Shaking. A bit overwhelmed, and wishing I had my old life back, and could share this with Rog.
There is so much to do! Daunting.
.. and, on my way home just now, Florence and the Machine’s Dog Days Are Over – the inspiration for my username – came on the radio.
Happiness hit her like a train on a track Coming towards her stuck still no turning back She hid around corners and she hid under beds She killed it with kisses and from it she fled With every bubble she sank with her drink And washed it away down the kitchen sink The dog days are over The dog days are done The horses are coming So you better run Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers Leave all your love and your longing behind You can’t carry it with you if you want to survive The dog days are over The dog days are done Can you hear the horses? ‘Cause here they come And I never wanted anything from you Except everything you had and what was left after that too, oh Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back Struck from a great height by someone who should know better than that The dog days are over The dog days are done Can you hear the horses? ‘Cause here they come Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers Leave all your love and your longing behind You can’t carry it with you if you want to survive The dog days are over The dog days are done Can you hear the horses? ‘Cause here they come The dog days are over The dog days are done The horses are coming So you better run
I’ve been having dizzy spells the last two weeks. Especially when head down for a moment, or getting up from sitting.
Off to the doctor.
Apparently I have walking pneumonia!
Sent home with a grocery bag of meds. My BP crashes as I stand, my lungs sound like crackly cellophane and it looks like I’ve been struggling for oxygen for a while. No wonder I have felt so rough! So out of breath.
My lovely doctor asked me who I had at home to look after me.
Lol. Okay.
No one. And my heifers are calving, so no rest for the wicked!
I will take it easy though. Tomorrow is back to back meetings, and I think we are preparing for take off! They booked my manager and treatment advisor training! Eeeek. As a pop-up clinic, I’m going to be the treatment advisor! Until I’m big enough, into my permanent premuses…I will know more tomorrow, but think I will be handing in my resignation on Monday.
Which is good, because that environment is not great. The boss had our fabulous, really tough vet nurse in tears by 8.35am this morning. And when I tried to reason with her, I got chewed out, too. It’s not healthy.
Last night, one of my oldest friends, Bella, invited me to a function, to celebrate both of our recent birthdays.
Well, she invited me, to celebrate mine, but hers was a couple of weeks ago, so I was celebrating her, too.
It was an industry do. And that works, I’m currently in a parallel industry. We, as kiwi breeders, were being wooed back to Flemington, to the Melbourne Cup carnival. The 18 carat gold Cup, worth AUD275K is on tour.
Yes, we got to hold it and pose for photos. I hate photos, so here it is, without my ugly mug (see what I did there?) to ruin the shot!
Chit chat, champagne, and lots of discussion regarding her wonderful work trip to the UK ensued.
Then we two left the function room and ate at the Italian place the function had been held at.
It was a nice midweek diversion.
I asked Bella how her and her husband’s new venture is going. They recently had a nasty, tricky “divorce” from his brother’s family, and their joint business of many decades. I’m so pleased for them, especially her lovely husband, who, after so much hard work, gets to steer his own ship, finally.
Then Bella asked me abiut BG. “You guys good? He’s such a nice man. I’m so impressed with how he just fits in, and thinks the world of you.” I was understated in my reply. Saying we are good, just work in progress.
Then she enquired how my business is getting on. So I filled her in on the latest news.
Which is that I am viewing a probable temporary lease for premises near my under construction permanent base, and have also taken the bull by the horns and approached a local franchisee to chat regarding her experience running a pop-up prior to her new premises becoming available, on Friday. Things are moving fast. I am going to have to pull finger and get my budgets sorted. That part is quite daunting with smaller, less luxurious, temporary premises throwing my plans a bit. All a work in progress.
Bella leaned back in her chair. “Wow Paula. Just wow. I’n in awe of you. Look at you. Just growing and glowing. Not many women I know have been through what you have, and come out the other side so positive, so quietly driven to succeed and take a risk, but also, just so up for anything. Most at our age just sit licking their wounds. But you. You’ve never let this stop you, or make you bitter. Quite the opposite. I’m so proud of you! I know you’ve been through hell. But you are always up for a laugh, with a big smile on your face. You’ve been really brave.”
Bella knows. She knows how heartbroken I am. How I truly, deeply, madly loved Roger with everything I had.
She also knows he never loved me like – in her words – I deserved to be loved, in return. She probably has no idea that I am still utterly broken and ache so badly inside. I hope not. I try to present well in public!
This is a woman who is an ex fuck buddy of Roger’s.
Before me. And later, whilst we were separated briefly, before our children were born. She is still in touch with him. I avoid talking with her ever, about him. Or even alluding to him. I know she catches up with him and his whore when she is down their way. They are old friends.
I am one of those people who has had to learn to accept praise graciously. I used to cringe, downplay, twist myself to avoid that kind of spotlight. However, now I try hard to sit gently with it, attempting to accept praise, squishing my inner “you’re really not good enough, you know,” voice down.
I don’t need her praise.
But I am aware that it is given in good faith.
That when she hugged me (we’re really not big huggers – especially her, I’m learning to try to accept physical touch) that it was genuine, warm, and not just something you do. So many huggers are just being polite. That isn’t us.
I know I sound like a cold fish, by saying that. But I have a very strong startle reflex. It started after I was raped. I don’t love being touched, especially unexpectedly, by people I am not close wirh.
During the weekend, BG came into my room as I was in the bathroom. And I nearly hit the ceiling. He got a fright at my extreme startle response, laughing and apologising. And it zoomed my body’s memories back to the startle response I had to Roger surprising me with unexpected touch at any time after his affair with Leanne. I was so on edge. He thought it was funny.
It didn’t feel funny.
My flight response was turned up to max. I didn’t trust him not to hurt me.
Within all of that personal fuckedupness, I am incredibly tactile with the people I love. Physical touch, skin to skin contact, sensual kissing and sex in every excitng, mildly depraved form, that works for me.
And that is my current struggle. BG loves to touch and be touched. Skin to skin. Head and shoulder massages, etc.
But even our kisses don’t have any real fire or depth. Rog was such a good kisser. BG is quite chaste in his. And, he’s a receiver. Not a giver, sexually, and with touch/massage, etc. His Madonna/Whore thing hasn’t improved at all. He never makes a move on me.
And I’ve started to stop initiating. Therefore we are sitting in a sexual void.
I don’t know if this has a solution. I don’t know if I have the energy to try to convince him (anyone?) that I’m completely fuckable. That I am sexy “enough.” I felt that so much with Rog after I knew he is a cheater. That I am not sexy “enough.” It’s all bad karma for me. I’m the fat, ugly girl no one lusts after….
Why should I have to try so hard? When he won’t even make an effort to make me feel desirable?
What if he changes, and stays faithful, is genuinely lovely, as lovely and loving as he appears, for the affair partner?
That must mean it was all my fault. I was so unlovable, he just HAD to keep cheating on me.
I have even had this suggested to me by former friends. “Oh, it’s okay, you are both happy now.” Translation, he found his twu wuv. You were but an inconvenience, swatted aside for the sparkly glitter, the burning amazingness of his soulmate(s). 🤢🤮
FML.
The reality is, it is extremely uncommon. Very rare. These people don’t change.
So why does it matter if they treat Schmoopie like a queen?
Because it feels personal. That they didn’t love you fully. Therefore you must be seriously lacking. It stabs my heart even typing that. I did everything I possibly could to love that man well. I put him first. Every time, until he was exposed as a cheater. He was who I invested in. I saw that as my primary, most important relationship. Yes, the kids are important. But they grow up, have their own lives. Your partner, your love, is forever.
Ha! Yeah, right.
This research shows it’s all smoke and mirrors anyway. Once a cheater, always a cheater, proven by peer reviewed research. Someone who cheats is far, far more likely than not, to cheat again. And a proven cheater is three times more likely than a previously faithful partner, to cheat. Remember, Roger cheated on me on more than one occasion, with more than one woman. Hookers, exes, online hookups, whomever he could get easy access to. This was not a one time, sorry cheater.
And someone who is betrayed, is twice as likely to choose another cheater.
Far too many of us don’t ever fix our picker. Roger specialised in seeking out single women. He knew their vulnerabilities. Easier prey. No husband to out perform or have any guilt about. Just a little mouse, to sweep off her feet. To pour that sweet, sweet love bomb gunpowder into.
I’ll never forget the time he told me that he felt no guilt about Leanne, because he wasn’t stealing someone else’s wife or girlfriend.
My jaw still hurts from hitting the ground so hard!
Anecdotally, I knew this, from childhood. I knew that if someone feels that boundary, that hard line, is so easily crossed, it no longer holds any meaning. Any power. If it ever did. It’s just a line to step over. Not any kind of force field, protecting the relationship. If you put your dick in someone else, the primary relationship is no longer (or never was) sacred. You and your stupid faithful body and mind are forever desecrated by that act. I’m not, nor have I ever been, anyone’s special most precious thing. Worth protecting at all costs. The fact he had zero interest in any of my medical procedures, for the HPV and cervical cancer it created, tells the full story of how valued I was to him. My value was as a free labour unit, a broodmare and nanny, and a convenient sexual outlet. That is all.
There’s a lot going on. So, of course, I’ve had two migraines and have two coldsores just popped out this morning.
It was my birthday yesterday, low key. The girls made me dinner and cocktails and BG bought me and planted a double grafted cherry tree.
I haven’t spoken to him about my concerns. He was at my place from Friday until this morning (Tuesday.) But the time was not right.
Then, Roger wished me happy birthday in the morning.
WTAF???
I was suspicious. Was this Trinket trying to bait me????
Ugh.
I don’t get it. He rarely remembered the twenty-nine birthdays we were together. Why now??? Why upset me?
I know, he doesn’t get it. He either doesn’t understand, but more likely doesn’t care that it hurts.
I’m supposed to be okay now, right?
I’m flat out trying to find premises for a pop up clinic, and get information about costings of double fitouts, etc…
And hilariously, without knowing it was my birthday, my boss gave me a pay rise. I would normally have expected one by now, but she knows I am on my way out, segueing into my own business…that was appreciated.
When BG heard, he congratulated me, but I could tell he was weighing his own situation up. I’m on an hourly rate that isn’t far behind him now. And I am operations manager, with a small team. He is general manager, employing 40 people. Hmmm. Time to renegotiate your contract, bro.
Cooked me dinner and made cocktails. I’m a lightweight after almost a month off drinking.
BG came. He’s been so helpful. We did loads of jobs. Planted trees, split firewood, carted woodchip from my tornadoed (like torpedoed?) trees. Including a trailer load for my Dad’s rose garden.
My heifers are due to calve on the 30th. I’m checking them closely. The two empties made incredible money. $1900 each! Just enough to pay for trees and the excess on my insurance to fix the fences…
I’m struggling. I am struggling with BG.
He’s the nicest man. And so helpful.
But. There are some big issues. Too many to list. Too personal to describe.
I know we need to have a serious talk. Timing is everything.
Ugh. Wish I could describe it.
And I so badly don’t want to hurt him.
Man.
Thanks Rog. I wouldn’t have to be here without your treachery. No way on earth could I have done to you what you have done to me.
Tearing at the Fabric 