Hate to Admit

I hate to admit this but I have been thinking – not obsessing – about the whores. I have no idea why I am other than this is just where I am, taking this bullshit one step at a fucking time. What comes, comes. Then I face it.

I am so bothered that they don’t know the work he has done to have a chance to stay with me. I want so fucking much for them to know, that once I found out I was married to the “man” they fucked, that I didn’t put up with his bullshit. I want them to know that he has had to do a shitload of work to stay in this home. He’s had to deal with his own hurt, his own shame and face it. He’s had to take barrage after barrage of questions over the last couple of years from me – a lot of them the same questions. Days, weeks and months at a time. Over and over. He’s taken two polygraphs. He’s told his story countless times to strangers, he’s attended meetings and counseling sessions. He opened himself to the process.

I want to tell those vaginas that I wouldn’t keep the man they knew, that if he was the same man that they knew, they could have him. I wouldn’t have his sorry ass, even if my kids would have to live without him in the home and see him 8 days a month. I want these loser women to know that I’ve survived, that their unimportant relationships with The Player meant nothing to him and didn’t ruin me.

I want them to know they aren’t important to me, either. They don’t consume my thoughts anymore because they aren’t worth it to me. I want them to know I know details about them; what they said, what they tried on my husband that he couldn’t or wouldn’t do with them. He told me about their faults, their insecurities. He told me how he manipulated them into staying interested in him. I’ve read their texts, seen a picture of naked fake tits and their kids and The Player has shared intimate details about them and their lives with me. I’ve read their emails to The Player and he told me details about their encounters. He told me why he believed each one of them was desperate for his attention and how easy it was for them to agree to fuck him.

He’s gone into great detail about how he felt about each of them and it’s not pretty. He’s not talked to any of them post disclosure except for an awkward hello at a conference because it was in front of a group of people and those people knew they were friends and it would have been hard to ignore her. I wish they knew that once he saw how they used each other he felt shame about them, about what he did. He felt disgusted. He felt evertyhing about them was mistake that he didn’t understand at the time until he looked at his real problems, until he looked at himself. When he felt better by making them giggle or getting their attention and flirting back, his feeling better was so fleeting. He thought it would, it never did.

I know they aren’t worth my time, I know this. Yet, I want them to know I’m not a pushover, and that the person they knew was the lying Player, the gross one who went after gross desperate women. Them.

I want them to know that he has done the work that is required to be in my company. I want them to know that The Player considers himself lucky. Priviledged to be near me and to be able to show his love to me. He feels like he can truly be himself and he is grateful for the chance I have allowed him. He’s amazed at the amount of grace and compassion I’ve given him. He told me yesterday he was surprised each morning he wakes up and I am still next to him.

I want them to know these things, but why? I guess so they don’t think they pulled something over on me in the end. That I know it all. I wish I could send them a note and tell them these things, but you know, I don’t want them to know I gave them the 20 minutes in time out of my life it took to write this.

 

Faking Healing and Healing.

Since I am through the PTSD trauma of that horrible d-day and weeks and months following in which The Player fucked up multiple times and hurt me, and lucky me, has now been seared into my beautiful brain from over 2 1/2 years ago, I’m trying to figure out how to navigate my next steps.

I’ve done my part. I allowed The Player time in our home to get his fucked up self some help that has helped. During the last year and greatly the last eight months The Player has been highly motivated to fix himself. First for me and us, which didn’t work, then finally for himself, which was and is the only way this will work with us. I did give him a lot of grace and compassion and in doing so and it has been difficult for me to hang in there. I’m sort of surprised I did, if I’m honest, because he did not make hanging on easy.

I got my own therapy and help in multiple ways. I’ve written here and privately. I’ve tried alternative therapies including hypnosis. I’ve built a community of partners who have been betrayed so we can support each other and that has helped me feel normal in my craziness. I have let go of a lot of pain and resentment, not for him or us, but for myself. I started paying more attention to me and less to him. I’ve made a conscious decision to stay with him and let go of a lot of some bullshit in order to move on to create a calm and peaceful home for my kids and myself.

Truth be told, my kids were the only thing keeping me here for a many number of these months. They are a great reason to do so and I feel a lot of pride that in the face of great personal pain, I put them first. I do love him, but I have struggled wondering if I love the idea of who he was and what we had? Or do I love him as a person, even if I didn’t know all of the parts of him for 20 years?

The Player has done a lot of work on himself and he’s doing well. I even like the person he is becoming and if I was just meeting him,  on the outside he’d look like a great catch. Because he has continued to work on himself (and let’s fucking face it, it didn’t hurt he passed a polygraph just a couple of months ago) I want to move forward for my kids and our family unit. For me too? Not quite yet. I’m hoping to get there someday and in order to get there, I am faking it.

Until I make it, I suppose. Since I am generally a happy person, I am acting like a happy spouse. A happily married spouse. I am helpful, supportive. I am charming, even. I do all of the things I did before (his acting out of 20 years was realized) and in the 2 1/2 years since d-day but I am doing those things more calmly and seemingly joyfully. I welcome home The Player with a hug and a kiss. I have let go with enough of the resentments I have towards him that I’m able to  do things for him without hatred or wishing him pain. I am surprised by how my positive behavior changes are helping me with my attitude and caring towards The Player and the marriage. Is that fake, too?

I doubt it’s THE answer to our healing woes, but maybe it’s a step in the right direction. I had the realization, as per usual, that I am the reason our family is together. If this works, I am the reason it will. It’s taking a great amount of discipline and caring of my children to make this marriage work. I am a badass to do this, I don’t mind telling you.

I think it might take me a while to let go of the resentment towards him that he put me in this position in the first place.

 

Every. Single. Day.

I am not sure why it never occurred to me but for my life and situation I realize I have to wake up each day with a new resolve to work things out with The Player.

Each morning I wake up and before I am completely coherent, I swim along where the water takes me and I realize it’s a day of therapy, or The Player will see one of the whores, or I think, “I should write about that to work it through in my head.” Then I come to and realize things are okay. I’m not in trauma and I won’t ever be in trauma like I was during that horrible, dark time. I realize I will be okay, but never the same.

The fact is, each day when I come to and realize that my life isn’t the life I thought I had or rather the one that The Player led me to believe I had, I feel a sadness wash over me. The sadness doesn’t stop me anymore from fully waking up or beginning my day. The sadness doesn’t even stop me from doing everything I need to do or from living well. The sadness doesn’t propel me to weep in the shower quietly. The sadness doesn’t permeate everything I do that day, not anymore anyway.

I can only tell you the sadness is a part of me now, like an extra layer of skin that feels, unfortunately, like normal. It’s like I don’t feel completely like me yet, but I’ve learned to accept the new layer. Every morning I forget for a second the new skin is a part of me and I question its presence. Then I stretch it, remember that it’s a familiar feeling and not foreign. The sadness feels familiar. The sadness no longer lives just in my heart or my head. It is now bearable because it’s spread thin throughout all of me.

I wake up each morning with the resolve to live in the new skin and live well in spite of the what brought me here or even the sadness. It’s like a blanket of acceptance washes over me each day and I make the choice to stay.