Honestly. Why does this shit, about how cheaters justify their selfishness, even get “researched” and click bait articles get written?
If it feels good, just do it.
I’m so sick of infidelity being normalised.
Like, sure. It happens. Next.
Why can’t you just move on?
The reality is, for every betrayed I have ever met, it has made them very, very sad.
And that happens whether the relationship seemed amazing or if it was just hanging on by a thread.
Even those who, unlike me, were not madly in love, cheating is devastating to them.
But hey. Those who have never been cheated on love to blame us betrayeds. We deserved this agony.
I’ve been shunned and blamed.
For what?
Being an excellent, loving, loyal, hard-working partner.
But no. I can’t have been. I”ve been accused of being shit in bed. Not sexy enough. Not rich enough. Not clever enough. Etc
Not enough.
So I got what I deserved.
A broken heart.
As this commenter writes about, Chump Lady’s dissection of the chumps-deserve-to-be-cheated-on narrative…
While the excruciating pain of Roger’s infidelties cannot be topped, being blamed for his choices to betray my loyalty and unwavering faith in him was also agonising.
I’m at the barman’s. My eldest, her partner, and her good friend and flatmate have just left. They came over yesterday, and we hung out, jetskiied, beach, cocktails, and BBQ. It was lovely.
I slept in this morning. Glorious!
But had THE MOST BIZARRE dream.
BG went to play golf before 7am, so I was luxuriating and dreaming.
One of those hyper-real dreams.
When he asked me to marry him! Faaaaark!
I’m not the marrying kind!
And I panicked. Not because I don’t love him, but because I realised – in my dream – that I might say yes.
To make him happy!
Noooooo!
On waking, I realised it was some of my real-life shit getting in the way. I refused to marry Rog. And he cheated several times and left me, replacing me with someone more docile. And I know I have turned into a people pleaser (albeit, not necessarily a very good one!) during my time as the “lesser” powered partner in my relationship. I don’t feel “lesser” powered in this one. But, I still had this very hard-wired urge to go against my own values(?) And say yes.
Thankfully, that scenario is highly unlikely. BG has never proposed to anyone in his life, so….
But man, it gave me a bit of a fright.
I know many don’t understand this. But this is who I am.
And it made me contemplate the comment I received on this post recently, from Amber. About red flags, and warning me to run from BG, when we had words about differing sexual needs and desires.
I don’t disagree with her. But there was some more context to the incident than I probably conveyed. I know he was tired and felt really cornered by my conversation when he lashed out verbally.
The thing is. He loves me. He doesn’t do the things Roger did. He doesn’t lust after me. He doesn’t love bomb me. He isn’t the kind of best mate Roger was to me. He doesn’t think he has to settle for me (like he did with the mother of his stepchildren. He felt responsible and kind of pity, for them, and therefore stayed involved “too long.”)
This post infidelity, post discard life, is weird. I’m already getting quite bad anxiety about heading back to work in two days. I don’t ever stop overthinking, even when trying to disconnect and relax.
I think I’ll head to see my sweet friend, visiting from Sydney with her boys. She has no transport but is staying down the coast a little bit with one of her sisters.
Just remembered a conversation on Christmas Day that made me smirk a little inside.
The kids were discussing lying. Familial, generational liars. Their grandfather. Their famously preposterous Aunty L, Roger’s sister.
Their father.
Funny how they see it, and process it. They were discussing whether they lie, and if so, in what ways.
I’ve said it before, but I was brought up not to ever lie. Even small fibs were frowned upon. One of the sayings I recall being used a lot by Mum was neither a thief nor a liar be.
Lying was punished far more severely than any other indiscretion in my childhood. So, hearing the girls dissect how truth is conveyed – or represented – was quite fascinating to me.
But mostly, their recognition of the damage lying creates. Generational damage. Interesting.
Have recently been talking to a couple of women, whose long, seemingly happy marriages, ended when their husbands cheated.
And then their ex-husbands died.
Their second time around, disenfranchised grief. Both say they are feeling it again, but that this grief hits differently. The cheating/leaving grief was never “final,” and this time is very confusing.
I can imagine. I have thought about this. A lot. I know I would struggle if Rog died. Whilst I know “closure” is a load of bollocks, there has been no “closure.” I always imagined we’d talk. Be close. Know each other. And take some comfort in that.
But I’m still completely heartbroken, wrenched from my love and life, through the actions and choices of others.
I lost my soulmate. My confidante. I don’t have another person in my life that I have no filter with.
Despite all the crap, he was my person. And I miss having a person.
I accept that.
But death? I just don’t know.
I do know that I am still waaaay too affected by him. I do know that him moving so far away was amazing for my mental health and healing. I do know that contact drives me off the rails of this healing journey.
I do know that being in the same room as him has pierced my healing aura. Disrupted the force!
I do know that I have, stashed away in storage, a mountain of love letters and cards from him. Love bombing words. From the very beginning of us, in the mid-80s. Raving about how wonderful, sexy, beautiful I am. Lol. Yeah, right. I imagine he saw a frumpy, old woman in me the other night.
I also know that I either couldn’t look at him, or I looked right through him. I don’t even know which it was. It was like an out of body experience. Except the experience has left more scars on and in my body.
I hoped he saw steel. Strength.
Because, I am different. Different from the soft, loving girl he knew.
I am a new woman. Forged from that trauma. The trauma he kept inflicting.
But maybe he just saw my brokenness.
It matters not. I’m trying to just get normal transmission to resume
Can’t really explain why, there are multiple reasons.
Today was really chill and nice, though. We went antiquing.
Yep. Like an old, married couple.
Was really nice. We found some cool places, and some cool stuff. Didn’t buy anything, but feel inspired.
Discovered the cutest wee, modernised, but chic, shopping precinct in the “big” (not big at all) town near BG’s coastal settlement.
But the weirdest thing happened.
BG got chatty. He’s busy making plans. The latest is, he’ll hand in his resignation late June, to finish up around November. I’m just going with it. No expectations. See what actually happens.
He wants to help me both financially, and knowledge-wise, in my new venture.
And hey, this is gonna take a while, the lease is signed, but the building is under construction. You’re probably sick of me going on about it already.
The surprising part was, Mr Don’t Get Too Invested, said this. “You don’t know it, but this is the first time I’ve gone this far down this path. To actually pursue a future with a partner. To plan a ‘forever’ – whatever that means at our age. I never got anywhere near this with Chrissy. I know you think she was this great love. That you’re following that. But we were never anything even close to this. I really, really love you.”
And, driving around today, he told me he had given up on a partner. He’d been online for a year after he healed from Chrissy, and had just got to the point where he just accepted that he didn’t want to try the partner thing anymore. Happily single it was to be.
I explained that I was done. I had zero desire to be partnered again. So, it was weird to meet him, and that I came back after deciding I didn’t want to date anyone, be with anyone, after two very chaste lunch outings with him.
And here we are. Both not keen to have a partner. In a relationship together. What a pair of total dickheads we are.
And how flattered am I, that he says he’s the most invested he’s ever been? I’m still watching out for red flags here. Is he truthful? Roger told me this stuff ALL the time…
One of the saddest parts about it all, about what the man I loved so much chose for me, is the permanence of my inability to trust anyone now.
His lies, his deception, his repeating the damaging behaviour, whilst promising he’d never hurt me again, promising me forever, utterly destroyed my ability to trust.
Including trusting myself. My own judgement. I’m a fool, so don’t listen to me, okay?
DLH’s words that resonated especially strongly for me:
“Your one lie drags all your truth under suspicion.”
Intentional deception always changes how we feel about an individual we had once trusted and loved. Why? Because it strikes at the heart of that person’s character.
Think about it … Why would we trust someone who puts their own needs first, and pretends that they are different from the way they really are? And when ‘the rubber meets the road’ they are not dependable (at least that’s what we’ve learned from our experience with them).
I agree. And when he doubled down, telling me he’d wait forever, begged me not to leave him, all while busy chatting to literally dozens of women, tens of thousands of text messages found on his phone after the final DDay, auditioning them to replace me in my own story…that showed me how he “loves.” How much value to place on his seductive words. It kills me that I so desperately wanted to believe him.
His weekend ended with staff discontent. Someone got antsy that the chef barked at them during a very busy service period.
And made a formal complaint.
Of course, it has to be taken seriously, but man, it’s freaking constant. Breaking up schoolyard scraps gets old.
It’s been a very long, hard summer. BG considered resigning. I feel like something I said made him feel like he couldn’t. Ugh.
Today, I asked how he was doing. He always replies with a positive outlook.
I reiterated that he shouldn’t stay and be miserable, that I support him to look after himself. Resign if it’s too much. I have his back.
This was his reply.
“No it’s what I need to do for us at the moment. And if I can do something for us then that matters to me. Gives us/me some security in what you are doing. We will revisit at end of March. xxx.”
I am just blown away by his buy in. To “us.” He’s the most vulnerable, the higher earner, preparing to make big changes to be with me fulltime. All he wants is for us to have a secure and happy future. How amazing is this??? He is always concerned about my happiness and that I feel supported and valued. That I can fulfil my potential, do what I want to make me happy.
I’m not expressing very well how different this is for me. Rog just made decisions that worked for him, expecting me to make the sacrifices, to follow him. When I went back to uni, after over 25 years with hum – the first thing for me I had done – he wasn’t thrilled.
At all.
And yet, my heart is a stubborn Ahole.
I’m incredibly grateful for my life, and this generous, loving man.
But.
Yeah dumb fkn heart.
Friends posted about a very, very happy 34 year marriage, not in a braggy way, rather in a giving each other a bit of stick way.
And I ache. I really, really never saw this. Norm and I really were that couple. The one our friends envied. We really were damn good together, despite what I now know. It was real. To me. Even if not for him.
And we don’t even talk. Can’t communicate. I never want to see him again. How the actual fuck does that even happen?
I sat at my desk at work, tears silently pouring down my cheeks. How? Why? It seems impossible that we once were so damn connected.
Anyway, that was my day. And I have dumped the shitty stuff here.
And am focusing on the fact that I have a genuine partner, who wants good things for me. To the point that I said gently, hope you are not martyring yourself here. Whatever we do needs to be mutually beneficial.
Came home late from work, and got my beesuit on, and checked on my new hives. Both are going great guns. Capped brood, lovely bees, not aggressive at all, but frantically busy. I think I’m getting better at this, much more chill while handling them. Not that I was ever “not chill,” just they seem more relaxed. And honey was dripping, with new supers on, they’re working hard. So good. My veggie garden is lush and fruitful. Bees 🐝. Yay!
Then out weeding and tidying my road frontage, the tears came from nowhere. Silently.
I think triggered by my brother’s. He was in a great mood when I arrived home, and we were chatting about his kids coming next week. With my building work a bit tidier, and my old flatmate moving out again next week (she’s been staying the past few weeks between gigs) there will be a bedroom each for them here. I said, “their bedrooms. Because this is our home. Not a holiday, their other home.” The tears came suddenly, out of nowhere. C was overwhelmed. That this is his home too. He hugged me hard. I just said it was a pleasure to have them all, this is their home too.
So, obviously later, the trigger was released. I’d been strong for him.
The tears slid down my cheeks, as my brain kept watching the movie of Roger romancing another woman, that whore, Trinket, while we still lived and slept together. The longing, the passionate lovemaking we engaged in. The whole damn horrific Pick Me dance all over again. FML.
That terrible, terrible seven months, when that cunt knew I loved him, had given him the best thirty years of my life, and he was smooth AF in seducing her, using ALL the moves he used with me over those thirty years, while my heart was breaking into a million pieces. There is no greater torture than watching the one who holds your heart falling in love with someone who isn’t you.
I’m still aching all over from the embodied pain that was released earlier tonight with those tears, and the vivid mind movies.
It will never end. I know that. I just get better at living in between the grief.
Yesterday was okay. I had my brother’s kids. We baked and iced sugar cookies and made pretty, layered jellies.
Christmas Eve is Leanne’s birthday. The year that fell in the middle of their affair, I remember how even more disengaged Roger was than he normally was about Christmas.
We were at the lake.
Our happy place.
Or his.
He used that place, the place we built, painted, loved, loved in, together, to fuck his other women.
And Christmas Day is here.
I’m gobsmacked.
My former BFF – yes, the woman who befriended Trinket on social media – Snapchatted about the Emma Thompson scene in Love, Actually, where she found her husband was having an affair, saying, “this is the worst. Crying.”
Um, yeah. It really is! She has no idea! I lived that shit for decades. Finding evidence of Roger’s betrayals. His other women. It ABSOLUTELY rips your heart out.
And yet, go on a tramp with one of your best friend’s partner’s whores, knowing how absolutely she fucked me over, and try to make friends with her.
Christ on a stick!!!
Because of him, I don’t see my kids every year for this special day. The year he was having the affair with Leanne, he just kept heading out for walks, or to fetch something. I know now that he was trying to find phone teception, to text/talk to Leanne.
I was triggered yesterday. I still get the emails from that little holiday lake community. The new owners’ kids are selling ice from our old address. Reading that made my heart stop, my blood running cold.
Triggers never leave.
He broke me.
And doesn’t give a fuck.
Another Christmas has begun.
It will be over soon.
Hope yours is joyful full of love, happiness, relaxation, and you find some peace 🎄🤶💋
Tearing at the Fabric 