Writing About The Things That Concern Me

I have been told that what I write here on this venue is too raw... that I might not want to be so open with my emotions online and, to be honest, that has crossed my mind. I do try to keep the names of the people around me to myself and even though I have used Sir Arsewipe's real name here a few times, I've never used his last name in conjunction with it. I know it's not much but I have such a hard time referring to him in any way at all that I finally settled on Sir Arsewipe as the best solution to a problem that concerns me.

In retrospect I realize that almost from the first day I felt that being open about what happened to me was as much for me as it was for anyone else. I have always maintained that this blog was my very own record of life and when I first started writing here four years ago... never in my wildest imagination did I think that something so cataclysmic would happen to me. I wrote because I wanted to keep a record of my farm and my business... which didn't happen because shortly after I decided to start a business I decided that the Master's Spinner program was an essential stepping off point in order to find success in my business. At the time I thought I knew a fair bit about spinning.... wrong! It is only in hind sight that I realize just how little I actually knew.  As a matter of a fact I still feel like I could study for another 6 years and still have lots to learn.

The blog quickly became a jumble of farm life, my spinning and weaving projects, and family life though I did try to keep the family stuff to a minimum. I wanted to let people know about living in the north country on a farm and spinning and weaving as a artistic outlet but I also knew that I couldn't talk about anything here without my family coming into it.... they are an integral part of me. It was also a way for family members living far away to know what was happening in our family. I also wanted to have a little humour here as well. But somehow this blog became more. It became an entity onto itself and I found more and more parts of the inner me were being exposed through the poetry I write on Feathermist, but also through the writing that occurred here too. Soon I had a following... not a big one but a consistent one. There were people who dropped in sporadically and then there were people who went to bed or drank their morning coffee with me here on this monitor screen. They became silent friends and some not so silent... (I like comments... really : ) and you can be as unsilent as you like....)! People worried about when I went a long time and didn't write anything... people were concerned when I burnt my level 3 binders. If anything big happened in my life I had people who knew and wanted to know. It felt like a whole circle of friends had come into my life.

When I discovered that Sir Arsewipe had been cheating on me at the beginning of June, I knew that people would be wondering what I happened if I didn't write anymore... I wrote a blog post about big changes in our lives.... but I knew this wouldn't satisfy for long. I was right... Sir Arsewipe procrastinated about informing his family about our separation and eventual divorce and all the while I knew people would be wondering about what was happening with us. Daily I would ask him if he had informed his family and daily he would reply in the negative. I did not want to write anything on the blog here until they had been told since I did not want them finding out that way. Eventually he told his family and I by that time was getting emails asking for more information... most people expected such good things to come from the changes of which I had spoken.... little did they know what was coming.

When I finally knew that he had told his family... I started in with a post.... I wasn't sure what to say... Should I be cryptic or should I be open...or should I say anything at all. I started writing and somehow it all seemed right to be open and honest. I haven't looked back...

Each day I write here I try not to dwell entirely on our divorce... I try to talk about those few good things that are happening too... but I'll be honest, a divorce is a consuming thing and so every word that passes through your mind, lips, and fingers is somehow controlled by the big "D". It has been not quite two months and I expect that it will be a long time yet before I am over this... I hope though that as the weeks pass and as my move to Newfoundland gets closer I will begin to talk about other things.... I have been trying of late to be more rounded.... but it is hard.

Meanwhile I cannot help but think that if a person is going to talk so openly about things that affect them then the writing will be raw and hopefully powerful. Anything else would be disingenuous. So daily I write and I am hoping that at some point I will peter out... and I will find a new world to write about... and my heart will be less affected. But that day is not today.

This morning, my lovely alpacas left me for the last time. I am glad they have a good home to go to.... I am sad that I will not see them again. For the last six years I have watched them and taken care of them and been proud to own them and learn their ways.  So it was with great regret that I watched them as they rolled out the driveway in a stock trailer headed for parts unknown. I know they will have a good home because the lady who has taken them has a lovely farm with cattle and turkeys and chickens and now alpacas. We have her references and I know she will see that they are cared for. When I saw them rolling out the driveway my face crumpled and once again I headed for my now familiar pillow to grieve one more loss on the steadily growing pile. Sir Arsewipe, who was there to help us load them up, never showed a sign of regret... not one.  I have never seen such a hard person... he is concrete. it took me a while but I am ok now.

I am glad to be able to have a place where I can come and pour out my heart. I thank you all for coming and visiting and I thank you all for your helpful and thoughtful comments. I will remember to be careful not to say anything that might severely hurt anyone... and I will remember to watch closely for the person who is worried about me attracting a stalker....  but I will not stop being me and writing is a vital part of that.

The Future

I am looking down the tube of my future and what I am seeing is worry, worry, worry. I look around and see that my level 3 homework has been put on the shelf and is sitting there neglected... I see that I will have most of the fall taken up trying to get my family settled in a new town and a new home... I am so close to being finished my Master Spinning program but I am not there and it frustrates me no end that I get no time to work on it. Every day I am planning and packing and sorting and waiting and planning but I am getting nothing done on my homework... I can't even seem to wrap my head around it. I have my 25 shades of logwood done but I can't seem to get myself motivated to put it in my books and I really need to do that since I am afraid that it will all go missing in the move. But day by day nothing gets any closer to being finished.

I am also worried that I will not be able to make my spinning and weaving my main source of income... that is my goal... but somehow I am worried that it will not be enough.

My goal when I decided to move to Nfld was to find a house in which I could live and not owe one blessed penny on it. No mortgage would mean that my living expenses would be just the day to day expenses, with insurance once a year and property taxes once a year. I also am aiming at owning my vehicle outright. But vehicles are one big flippin' expense anyway and if I am not making payments on a car then I will be saving money for a new one when the one I own wears out. That's pretty much assured. Mine and the daughters basic needs will be met in the food I can provide us with, heat and light, and the clothing which we will need. I do realize that Sir Arsewipe will have to pay child support and some spousal support but when the girls turn 18 (which is not in the too distant future all obligation ends). There are laws that say that he has to pay me for longer than that because we have been married for 20 years but for all intents and purposes he can renege at any time and unless I am willing to haul him into court at my own expense that means that I cannot fool around and play at anything... I have to find something that pays me and pays me well and I have to do it by the time the girls enter university.... that's three years away.

After all that I have been through with him I can see that trusting him to do the right thing after the girls are of age is not an option. The first few days after this all blew up in my face I really felt that I could trust that he wouldn't see me hurting... but then I started to notice little nuances in his behavior that set off alarm bells. He talks about how he won't see me hurting... but I am thinking that he is only concerned in so much as he doesn't want to see the girls hurting... me, he doesn't give a s**t about. The other day when we had our early morning confrontation, that was driven home in a way that I knew was coming. When I told him that he was nothing more to me than a paycheck he said that he didn't owe me anything... that I could have had a career at anytime during our marriage if I had put my mind to it... and that I had been the one to choose to be a stay at home mom. (That's not true... we both decided that the girls needed one parent at home with them even as teenagers because that is when they can go so wrong.) It didn't really surprise me because I had seen little inklings of it in the last few weeks and my friends all warned me not to count on his money to support me. I didn't, ... so I have been making my own plans.

What does a 47 year old woman who has never really had a job much less a career do to keep herself fed and cared for. I mean if you had a 47 year old woman sitting across from you applying for a job and you asked her what her experience was and she said very little... I raised my kids... I paid the bills... I made sure that everyone was cared for, I made up household budgets... I was a lay preacher for 10 years and I worked as a temp for Northern Lights College filling in for the Continuing Education Co-ordinator for two years. I have served on all sorts of boards in volunteer positions... I am a spinner and weaver and artist and I know a lot about the construction business and have great ideas for renovating homes, I can figure out my way around the internet and a computer... but I have no real training,  you would probably laugh me out of your office.

I fear that my Father... already has me branded as a failure since he informed me yesterday that I had better make sure that whatever house I buy is solid and will not need loads of work every year since I will not be able to afford it... and I thought to myself... well that says it all, when my own father thinks that I won't succeed. I mean whose to say that I won't make my way through the world with a career that pays equally good as Sir Arsewipe's and whose to say that I won't be able to fix my house constantly.... but you know, this world we live in is not fair... or just... it simply is. And the way it is, is a school of hard knocks for most women.

The whole mess I find myself in makes me cringe.... and scares the bloody hell out of me. Some nights I lie awake, and wonder what in the hell I am going to do... because the reality is I have no usable skills in the workforce...

Am I doomed to failure before I begin....

The one thing I know is: have a good look at me and teach your daughters about me because you can say to them, "see sweetheart, there's goes a lady in whose footsteps you should never follow."

So, where do I go from that?

*By the way... the painting at the top is called, Best Find A New Way. I couldn't find the name of the artist.

I've Got Bigger Fish To Fry

The Alpacas are going... hopefully on Saturday. I had an interested party come and have a look at them and decide right off that she wanted them and so she is coming to pick them up on Saturday or Sunday depending on when she can get help with them.. so that's one thing taken care of. I'll be so glad when they are gone since hay is now an issue. We are down to our last half bale and I really didn't want the headache of having to haul in hay for those ruddy animals. Daughter #1 has decided to sell her horse too. I look out around the paddocks and think back to only a short while ago when I thought this was all so ordinary. Who knew then that I would be selling off our stock and making such monumental changes in our lives. It feels in some ways like the world has come and gone... like it has been eons since this all started to happen and in other ways it feels like I've blinked my eyes and there is something else in front of them when they reopened. I keep asking myself how I could have been so blind to have not seen this coming... I guess I was too busy living in my own little world of spinning, weaving and my little world of wedded bliss. (snork)

Michael still comes and goes at will, though he has not arrived yet today. He has moved the trailer to a friend's property and does as he pleases. I assume that includes all that goes with having another woman... I try not to think about it and since I don't have a vehicle... well I'm not going back and forth and I don't have availability to find out. That's probably a good thing since I still have wonderful visions of chit a la flambe.  He has managed to finish the paneling around the pantry and is now working on the stairwell. It's amazing what one can accomplish when one has the incentive. I guess his incentive is me gone and him in the pants of his chit.

Anyway, I guess that's enough of the bitterness for one day... it will only turn me grey and wrinkly anyway. Who wants to be an old dried up prune...

The weather has definitely changed to more fall-like temps. This morning the crows that nested at the end of our property in a very large pine tree returned for their last visit before moving on. As you know for the last few years I have watched the comings and goings of a particular pair of crows. Each year they return to our land early in the spring around the end of March. They spend the next few weeks courting each other by picking up sticks and straw and bits of wool from the ground and displaying their wherewithal for making a really nice nest. Then they disappear for a few weeks as they are busy house keeping and laying and caring for their eggs. Then I start to see them again once the eggs hatch and they start to find food to feed their newly hatched babies. For the next while you see them sporadically as they raise their babies and get them ready for their inaugural flight. Sometime around the early part of June there will come a day when if you are up early enough you will get to watch the proceedings as their babies take flight for the first time. I have watched this each year for the last six years and it has never failed to entertain. This year they had one youngling that took a full extra day to learn to fly after all the others had successfully taken to the wing. That meant that I was able to see what happens in that case.

Each year, usually the parent crows will fly to a high tree close to the nest and then they will begin to call to their young encouraging them to take a leap of faith. Slowly each youngling will dive off the edge of the nest and try their wings for the first time. They will fly to the tree of one of their parents and then join their parents calling to the others remaining in the nest. Each one will take their turn and once all younglings have flown to a nearby tree the parents will once again move off to another tree and begin the process of calling to their young again. Things generally go smoother once they have all taken their first flight, and soon they are swooping from one tree to the next. The whole process takes about two or three hours. Then the whole family moves off and disappears for a few months. At that time there will come a day when the some of the family members will once again return to where they were born and spend a morning flying about and looking at the old digs. Then they leave and you don't see them any more until the next year.

This year the process was slightly different... this year we had a reluctant youngling. All the younglings took their inaugural flight except for one, who made it abundantly clear that he was just not ready to take such a leap of faith. And so he was left in the nest while all the others were flying from tree to tree until they were so far away that you could hear them calling in the distance... finally they disappeared altogether and let me tell you that did not please the one that was left behind. He called and called frantically and I felt so sorry for the wee bugger that I almost wanted to climb a tree nearby and act as his parents would have done. I was tempted to at least makes some cawing noises to encourage him... but I didn't I decided instead to wait and see what would happen. Along about mid day I noticed that the mother (or father) returned to the nest to see how her youngling was doing. There was a great ruckus in the branches when she returned and then all went quiet. I never heard another sound till the next morning and then finally the mother (or father) started the process again... She/he flew to a nearby tree and  began the process of calling.... it took a long time but finally the reluctant youngling took his leap of faith and sailed through the air to the tree next to his mother and then you could hear them calling back and forth fit to burst. They sounded like they were laughing and yelling and shouting for joy. I watched as slowly that mother/father coaxed and cajoled the youngling to fly about and once he was strong enough they flew away not to be seen by me evermore.

This morning I was sitting at this computer quite early and I heard a great ruckus outside the house and when I looked I noticed a pair of crows swooping and swirling around the house here moving from tree to tree and looking all about them... I'm sure it was the mother and father who came back for their last visit. They are gone now... they stayed around for about a half an hour and then moved on as they do each year. I will not see them again.

Next year there will be another family living in this house. They are a sweet family and they have two young daughters and they remind me of us when we first moved here. I hope they will be kind to the family of crows... I'm sure they will be.

Meanwhile I am consumed with finding a house in Nfld. I have two houses that seem like they might be ok. One in particular is an older home in need of some TLC... it is full of nooks and cranies and is exactly the kind of house I like. It is a sweet little cottage that was owned by a fellow who lived there until the day he died. You can see that the house was not just the house of an old bachelor, there had to have been a Mrs. too at some point since there are frilly things and niceties that men don't think of. But from the looks of it, it is in dire need of some upgrading and that is just up my ally. The only thing worrying me is the crawl space which my guy wasn't able to get in to see and he thought there might be some moisture but wasn't sure since he was looking through the windows. There is also a possible problem with wiring... older wiring requiring some overhauling.  All things that might be able to be dealt with if not too problematic. The wiring would probably have to be redone no matter where I went unless I am buying a newer home. But somehow that does not appeal to me since that negates the whole concept of living on the coast in an older style salt box type of traditional Newfoundland home. I mean that has always been something that I wanted to do... maybe because I have such great memories of my grandparents home... actually this house looks somewhat similar to their home. As a matter of a fact, it was probably built about the same time as their house. Still the work that would need to be done to get it up to the standard that I would want might be prohibitive.

There is another house that needs less work and has a gorgeous piece of property but has not got the layout inside that says "interesting". It also does not have enough bedrooms for all of us to have a bedroom each... that means that the daughters would have to share... an unhealthy prospect for sure. Either that or I would have to give up my bedroom and sleep in a closet under the steps like Harry Potter!!!! : ).... I can't see how to make it work for us... so I will have to wait and see what happens. Today I have a contractor meeting the real estate agent to look at all the things that I have questions about on house number one. He will look at the basement and the attic and the kitchen and the wiring and he will give me a call later and let me know what he finds. That will be the deal breaker. If he comes back and says it is a crap hole then I will have to get serious about looking at sleeping like Harry Potter or coming up with an alternative idea. If he says house number one is doable then I have to get an idea of how much it will take to upgrade the house. Then based on that I will make an offer... and go from there. I may have to fly down toward the end of August to finalize the deal and get the ball rolling on the improvements... then fly back and get the daughters and mom and dad. We have decided that traveling via train is the best way to go... We will take the train from Edmonton and travel across to Nova Scotia to my sister's house where we will stay long enough for me to buy a vehicle and then we will drive to Nfld... and on to a new life.

So the alpacas can go... the horse can go... the crows can go... and Sir Arsewipe can go to la chit a la flambe. I've got bigger fish to fry.

Oh!!... Here comes Sir Arsewipe now.... 

All In The Past...

I have had three great romances in my life. The first was with a young fellow who I have only recently reconnected with after many years. I was 14 years old when I first met him and really was far younger than that in my emotional journey.  I look back on that great romance as many do on their first romance. I look back on it with kindness and generosity. I look back on it as my walk into adulthood.

MG on the right with his great friend KG and me looking through the window at them in the background.

 They say that you never forget your first great love and for me that is true... actually I have never forgotten any of my great loves and hopefully never will. It is funny how in hind sight I can safely say that each great romance in my life has walked me forward by leaps and bounds in terms of personal growth. For me the time of MG was a time of such innocence.... such sweet innocence. He was quite a bit older than I but he never took advantage of my innocence. I know this will shock you, but I was, at 14 years of age, going out with him who was.... well, you see, he was 18.... a virtual adult, while I was just a child. I grin as I say that because for years Sir Arsewipe was horrified that my mother and father would let a mere slip of a girl go out with a young man who was so much older. I also remember at one time that Sir Arsewipe was jealous of my first great love. He felt that he would have liked to have known me before... before I became the jaded and worldly adult of later years. (snork)

I think back on that now as pure nonsense and I see it for the selfishness that it really was. As our daughters got older and came closer and closer to dating age he would say to them, "well, if you bring home boys I am going to make them dig holes in the back yard so that they can wear themselves out before they go out with my girls. And you can forget going out with someone who is three or four years older than you, like your mother did... it's not going to happen... I know what teenage boys want." (Apparently its the same thing that men who are suffering a mid-life crisis want.)

My relationship with MG lasted for 11 months and was exactly what a first romance should be. He wasn't my first kiss but he was the first kiss that was meaningful. He was sweet and kind and never twisted me up inside and when we finally broke up, it was because he was honest enough to tell me that he had found someone else. I was devastated... for all of a week or two. In those days and for a 14 year old that was a terribly long time. I dated him for almost a year... a year that was so much more than my first great romance. It was the year during which I was going through all the changes that had to do with my back. I was going through surgery and steel rods and spinal fusions and all that went with the loss of my childhood. I look at it now as one of the most poignant times of my life... I look back on it now and see that while I was going through the horror of being stretched and and opened up and hammered and chipped... I had this one sweet thing that blossomed in a pit of stone. And when I came out of that pit I left that blossom behind and learned to turn the pit into a whole valley of blossoms.

There's a funny thing about that year though... He and I shared a long distance relationship for most of that year, he in one town and me in another... but he would show up unexpectedly and stay with us because the work he did for his dad took him to my home town regularly. It was an odd thing though because when I was going out with him I had no idea how life's twists and turns would bring us together later on. After our relationship ended, my father was transferred to his community and I ended up living two doors away from where he grew up. By that time he had met and married his wife and they were well on their way to having a family of their own... we became friends. Later I met my second great romance and he knew MG as well and I was able to continue our friendship. It was only after I went away from home and moved to St. John's where I went to University that I lost contact with MG.

As I have said it is only recently that I have reconnected with him and it is almost as if it was meant to be... I was on Facebook looking for another friend... a girlfriend from my school years... when I came across MG and the business that he runs now. I contacted him and we have had several funny, odd, and wonderful chats. He has been reading here a little... (Hi there if you read this.) I'm sure you are wondering why I think it was meant to be that I reconnect with him... well it is because at the time I was spending a good portion of each day going through all of our/my personal stuff and boxing and separating my stuff from Sir Arsewipe's and I came across a box of MG... there was a photo album that dates back to the weekend I met him, and a stack of photos from the time we were dating, and a diary in which I chronicled our great romance.... and I'm sure he will be shocked to know that there was a stack of love letters tied with a blue satin ribbon that he wrote to me as we went through our relationship. They smell of old paper and time... but they are filled with the thoughts and doings of a young man who is just starting down the road of adulthood. And they are full of hopes and dreams.. I am glad to have shared that year with him.

Let me tell you that reading the sentimentalities of a fourteen year old are so... funny... and I guess a little poignant. How innocent I was... we were. How good the world was to have everything before me.... us. And I will tell you this... having gone through all of those albums and letters has taught me something... that life goes on and things happen for a reason... and I will carry that with me into this new future that I am facing...

To MG I thank you... I'm glad you were a part of my growing up. And I thank you for your kindness now too... : )

Gone

So Michael finally pulled out this evening at about 9 p.m. He has been gone for several evenings in a row and today he was gone most of the day. I find that I am better off when he is not here since I feel like I can breath easier and am not being judged. Things are quieter and simpler.

Today I got very little done on the packing/sorting front. That is because I had housing in Nfld. on my mind. The fellow who I hired to look for a house for me sent a holy host of pictures last night for three different houses. One I decided right away would not be tolerable. The second one was nice but there was a lot of wasted space and not enough rooms to accommodate all of us. I sat and really looked hard at that one because it has the most awesome piece of property and no neighbours anywhere near by. But I could not see my way to making it work for us. The third house is just a wee little house that needs lots of TLC  but it is on a little piece of property that goes right to the water and has a beautiful view. I think I could make it work if I was able to make a few alterations. There is an attic that would have to be made into a bedroom, there is a lot of electrical upgrading that would have to be done, and some alterations to the kitchen and the flooring.... but I think I could make it work for us. I tossed and turned half the night worrying about the logistics of making the whole thing work. We can't be out of this house too soon but then we have a closing date and if everything goes as planned then that would mean that we have to be out of this house on the 20th. I can't really leave here till after that day. Which means that the movers would have to come and pick up our furniture here on the 19th but I would have to have a house in Nfld so that I could give them an address. So the whole thing has to be very carefully planned. When I get on the train going east I want to not have to look back on this place and have as much finalized as I possibly can. That means that there are decisions that have to be made.

As usual I didn't sleep well last night because this kept rolling through my head, which has meant that I have had a dreadful day being so, so tired. All I wanted to do was sleep. The days started with a confrontation between me and Sir Arsewipe. That was part of my sleepless night... there were a few things that I needed to get off my chest and I had been struggling with how best to do it, and when I was going to do it. I finally took the whole thing on today... I guess I finally figured that I might as well play my hand and get everything out on the table... but there will be more about that later. Just not now. I also had to go to the clinic and get some stitches out from a small surgery that I had done two weeks ago. So that took a little time since I didn't have a vehicle to drive and I needed to get Pops to come and pick me up. All in all it has been a very unsettling day. But here it is... 10:48 and I find that everything is quiet and peaceful. It is fully dark and the full moon is up in the sky slightly hidden behind what looks like might be a light fog. It is not a hot night which is a first for a few weeks. The temperatures actually seem to be a little on the temperate side. So I am hoping that there will be nothing to keep me awake this night.

When Sir Arsewipe took the tent trailer out of the yard tonight it seemed strangely anti-climatic.  I was expecting that there would be more tears and upset.... however I was wrong. It was rather odd actually. He came charging into the house and grabbed his tooth brush and toothpaste and gave the girls a hug and never gave me a glance.... then he walked out the door with his dog leaving Narmin and Jiggs in the house and disappeared down the driveway in the truck with the trailer in tow... I sort of wasn't paying much attention at the time and wasn't sure he had actually left. It was so late when he left, I had resigned myself to him being here for another night. I had thought he had come in just to say good night to the girls. So I was surprised to see the trailer gone when I went to the door a short time later to let Narmin and Jiggs outside. I think we are beginning to both move on and he now is harbouring some very bitter feelings toward me. But that was part of our confrontation this morning and as I said I will talk about that some other time when I am more set in my own mind on which way to do it with the least amount of collateral damage. So this post is mostly to let everyone know that I am alright... the girls are alright and Sir Arsewipe seems to be fine too. Put your minds at ease over the next little while I will be working hard at getting us ready for this monumental move and there may be times when I don't get the chance to write here every day as I have been doing lately... but I will try to update every few days at least as I get more and more done.

In the meantime... big changes are coming and I will be blogging about all of that.

Some More Of My Story

The first meeting I ever had with the Fairways Divorce Mediator was a blitz. I got dressed a week after the whole thing blew up in my face and got in the truck with Michael and the girls and drove to FSJ absolutely quaking in disbelief. I couldn't believe that I was actually entertaining the idea of a divorce.  We were met at the door by a chatty lady who took us to her offices and had us fill out a questionnaire. I sat opposite my husband of twenty years and tried to wrap my head around what was happening. It was starting to get around our community that Michael and I were getting a divorce and I felt like I could hardly walk around and look anyone in the eye. I felt so ashamed. I was once again a failure at something. I remember the mediator talking about the victim relationship and realized that she was talking about me as though I had perpetuated this in some way or form. It rolled over me as just one more mini shock wave. Me... victim....me ... at fault? What was she talking about.

What I have come to realize is like most psychological evaluations bestowing the title of victim is not always correct and in some cases is just outright wrong... so wrong. Victims are people who allow themselves to be in that position.  I hadn't allowed myself to be where I was. I had gotten there through no fault of my own. Yes, they say that the part of victim is also a denial that you had any part in the problem. But how can I have allowed myself to be where I was when I didn't even know it was happening. All I had done was give him freedom to have interests that were different from mine... isn't that a part of a normal and healthy relationship. You can't hold everyone so closely that they come to resent you... in the end that is equally bad. As mine and Michael's relationship deteriorated over the winter I would ask him if there was something wrong and he would always say no...  I would ask him occasionally if he still loved me after all these years but asking him is something I had always done and he had always said yes.  So it was as I sat in the Fairways Divorce Solutions office that I wondered why she kept telling me about readings which were meant to help with the victim mentality... it just added insult to injury... I wasn't a victim... I was me! I was trying to cope with something beyond my control in the only way I knew.

I have come to resent the whole idea of the victim mentality... I have come to think of myself as anything other than a victim... the only thing I was a victim of was Michael's deception and dishonesty.... but you cannot make a person tell you the truth... when you ask and they answer, you can only take what they say at face value as truth. Did he love me... no, but he told me he did and his actions, though not as forthcoming as was probably normal were still acceptable.  He still held me and gave me back rubs and kissed me in the mornings as he went out the door. He still acted like he cared about me so how was I to know. We even still held hands after we had turned out the light at night. His actions were still the actions of a lover and a friend. Sometimes his snappiness was disconcerting but I put it down to too much stress at work... after all, the teachers were on strike all year, there was a new principal at the school, and he is the Union rep for the school. As for his friendship with Samantha... I hate being the jealous wife and occasionally I have worn that hat when I have noticed friendships developing that made me uncomfortable... I was determined not to do that and let him have friends just as he did me. I mean she worked with him so they had to associate.

To this day I maintain that I do not have a victim mentality.

My story continued:

Two days after this all happened I was having trouble keeping food down and I was not sleeping for anymore than an hour or two. I was trying to talk to Mike and hoping he could explain how I had lost his love without me noticing. I was worried about the girls because it was starting to hit home for them too. I was already talking about moving back to Nfld. I knew that this town wasn't big enough for me and the "other woman".  I knew that if I saw her I would likely punch the living daylights out of her or worse. I still loved Michael and didn't blame him (which I look back on now as being so stupid). I felt that Samantha had torn her own marriage up and then turned around and played on Michael's heart strings evoking feelings of sympathy and eventually turning him to her. I didn't believe he really loved her, he couldn't... he had promised me that he would love me for all eternity. I knew deep down that the person I fell in love with was still there. He was that kind and generous person in whom I had always depended and trusted. If I was a victim at all it was in that... I allowed myself to put him so high on a pedestal that no one could ever live up to it.  Still he had proven to me over the years how he had always lived up to it....

How little I knew.

The move to Nfld was becoming more and more realistic. I had been online with Daughter #2 who had been with me as soon as she knew her father had cheated on me... she wanted out of this community and being with her Dad did nothing to make her feel like she could trust anyone.  She didn't like what her Dad had done to us, she didn't trust him, and she had lost her respect for him. She had always felt uncomfortable with his relationship with Samantha and had had suspicions for a much longer time than any of us. Meanwhile Daughter #1 was reacting in her own way. Panic for sure was on the top of the list. She wanted to run away, she wanted to go to Oma's and Opa's and stay there, she wanted to change her name, change her hair, get a tattoo, at least change anything. But she didn't know if she wanted to leave Hudson's Hope, she wasn't sure if she wanted to stay with me or stay with her dad. We backed off her completely and let her have space. Lots and lots of space. But lots and lots of love and hugs and worry too. We told her she could choose to live where ever she wanted.... but I was worried, I'll be honest. I was worried at her stability, I was worried that she would want to stay with her dad and how would I ever leave her behind.

I worried and this added to the weight loss and the throwing up. One evening we were surfing the internet looking at Nfld real estate... we were talking about one house in New-Wes-Valley and he was in the background looking at the houses that we were looking at for possible candidates.  I turned and looked at him and saw sadness there on his face. And I said to him, "You know you should be coming with us. You are so important to this family and you should be coming on this new great adventure." He visibly crumpled. So I said that maybe with help we could work things out if he wanted and we could all go together as our family should. He stared at me very hard and he all he said was, "I have to think"... and he walked out the door.  He was only gone for five minutes when he came through the door visibly agitated. He said you and I need to talk. I said ok barely able to hold my breath... was he contemplating a reconciliation?!

We went outside to the truck and sat there for the next hour discussing why he had turned away from me. It was quite a humbling experience. He laid out why he had fallen out of love with me, telling me that I had become a recluse and that I was not considerate of his needs. He began to talk of all of his resentments and I began to realize that this had been building for a very long time and that he had not been honest or truthful for a very long time... some of his resentments went back eight or nine years. This is the part that I am ashamed of... because I apologized for  all the wrongs I had done him... but I continued to push for a reconciliation saying that I was willing to seek counseling to better myself if he was willing to seek counseling with me. I said that we could fall in love all over again and make a better marriage than the one that we had been living.... I practically begged.  He said he needed to think and that scared me because I had no idea how long he needed to think so I asked him how long he would leave us hanging and he said not long.

That night he went to the trailer and I went to my room... he to think and me to reflect on everything that he had said to me.... all the hurts that he had bestowed on me.  I took a hard look at myself that night and decided that in some things he was probably right but in some things he definitely was not. I could see how he had thought of me as a recluse (though I am not) but I understood that in the last few years my Master Spinning program had drawn me away from the people with whom we had always associated. I also saw that more and more I hated going to town on the winter roads and that I had allowed him to go alone many times to get groceries and do other things as needed when maybe I should have gone with him. I had allowed him to take the brunt of caring for our animals instead of sharing in the task. I had pushed him to do household renovations when he hated it, instead I should have hired someone or not done them at all. But mostly I recognized that he is a man who is satisfied with the same old same old and I am always seeking the new and different and that reflected in my household management. I was buying and selling furniture so that we could have new things, I was constantly moving the furniture around. I was building new decks when he wanted to spend money on vacations. I fully own up to those bad decisions but I was willing to make an effort to do better if it meant saving our marriage and our family. I ate it all hook line and sinker. But then he was at fault too. He never talked to me... and told me how he felt... he said he tried but I would always turn it back on him. He said that I liked to have my own way... that was harsh. He said I was not a caring wife and demanded all of his time... I don't know how you can be both at the same time.  So many harsh things were said... some true and some not so much.

The next morning he came into the house and headed straight for the bathroom. I was in the kitchen and heard him come in and I wondered what he was thinking. I sat in the sunroom awaiting him to come out. The girls came downstairs and when he finally came out of the bathroom he asked me to come upstairs so we could talk.

I sat on my bed awaiting the outcome of all our lives. He started by saying that he had promised himself that he wouldn't come into the house until he had made a decision. That he had been thinking all night long. That he had talked to Samantha and that she felt he should give our family a chance, (my heart sunk at that... because I thought he should make his own independent decision). Next he said that he had changed his mind five times between the trailer and the house, (my heart sunk a little further). Then he turned and looked me full in the face because up till then he had been looking at the floor. He said, " you need to know that if I stay with you I will be staying with you out of obligation. I realize we have two children that need both a mother and a father and I don't feel right about leaving you at this point in your life with two aging parents with terrible health issues when you have so much wrong with your back. Everything will have to change and I don't know if I can get a job in Nfld. I would be giving up a good  career here to go to the unknown and whose to say that in a year or two we don't go through this all over again. I can't stay here if I stay with you because I don't know if I can trust myself around Samantha." He went on and on and on and on.... I sat there and listened determined not to interrupt... but I knew the moment he said that he would be staying with me out of obligation that the door was not only shut but the doorway to reconciliation was gone. I sat there listening to that man try to tell me that it was not workable.... but he didn't have the balls to make the cut complete. He kept saying all the things that a woman dreads to hear. I listened for 20 minutes to him try to let me down easily. I listened to his inner struggle and I knew that when I spoke that I was going to shut us down permanently. But I wanted at that point to see if he had the balls to say what needed to be said. Finally I had enough because he started to hash out all the things that he saw wrong with me and I was not willing any longer to enable him to put me down. I have my faults there are no two ways about that, but I am not willing to have him beat me up emotionally with his diatribe over and over again.

I stood up and said to him, "I think we both know where this is headed. I think I am not willing to live with someone who is with me out of obligation. Who had to ask his girlfriend if he should stay with his wife. I think knowing what you have just said to me that this divorce is our only option."

It took a lot for me to say that. I know it was the right thing to do... but still it killed me to say it. At that point I began to get my strength back. It was a turning point for me. Even though I was still an emotional basket case, I began to eat better and I stopped throwing up.

That was the day that he moved on. That was the day he turned to concrete. That was the day that he called the people at the Fairways Divorce Solutions office and made an appointment for us. That was the day that I needed to stand on my own two feet because my husband had changed and I had changed and we were no longer compatible. That was the day I knew deep in my soul that I was on my own. From here on in I would be making decisions for me and the girls and that he was not a part of those decisions. That was the final nail in the coffin.

I still didn't know how we had gotten here. How could we have changed so much and I not notice. How could I have had so much faith is something that was so fundamentally broken.

It ate at me... I would have panic attacks at strange times thinking about all that I faced.... the first thing was to get ready to go to Olds and face a week of testing. How was I going to get through it all. We started making plans... me and the girls and Opa.... Oma was unsure of things and was in a state of shock too. She was not fit for decision making. We looked at prices of moving companies. We started looking at houses. All the while I was telling my family members what was going on, he was hiding from telling his family. I don't know why but each day I would ask him he had told his mother and sister and brothers. He began to tell people here in town... he told the staff at the school, but for some reason he wouldn't tell his family. I still had days when I would shrivel up inside and cry for hours on end. But my friends and family gathered around me and bolstered me up. I had begun to think of him as not a part of my family. But I still hoped that for the children's sake I would be able to maintain some kind of friendship with him.  I thought it was a good possibility if we could get through the divorce without tearing each other apart.

We went to our first meeting at the Fairway Solutions office and I was like a deer in the headlights... there was such a sense of surreality that I'm not sure any of it made sense. I still couldn't figure out how this had all happened. Underneath in a small part of my heart I kept a little flame going because I wanted our marriage back like it was in the beginning when everything was shiny and new. Little did I know the half of it. He was already moving on... you could tell from his body language that he was thinking elsewhere and I couldn't talk to him about anything other than the Daughters.... He didn't want to talk to me at all. Essentially he had cut me out of his life. That was clear that day in the Fairways DS office.

I went to Olds and struggled through somehow. At one point in the middle of the night one night, I emailed him and begged for him to make me understand how this could have happened. He wrote me a long and rambling letter where he took a lot of responsibility for not being more honest with me a long time ago. But he continued to blame me for his falling out of love with me. I shot back a long answer that basically poured out what I saw was wrong with our lives as a married couple and I'm sure that didn't help but it was the truth from my perspective which I felt he really needed to see, besides, I knew there was no hope for our marriage... I wasn't saying it in an effort to "get him back" I was seeking understanding.

Then I returned from Olds and it felt like nothing had ever changed.  He was still living in the trailer on our property working on the renovations on our house as we were trying to sell it. He would come to the house for meals but he was sleeping in the trailer. His laundry was mixed up in ours and I was washing it just the same as I always had. He was getting me tea in the morning as he always had.  Then we had a viewer come and look at our house. That was the day after I got home from Olds. They came and viewed and then they made an offer. It was low so we countered but the plausibility of selling our home and never seeing my husband again hit home and when it did, I started to cry. I ran to my room and curled up in the fetal position and cried all over again. The girls came in and I threw them off like I was possessed and I stormed downstairs and I asked him if he saw all the harm that he was doing... I asked him how he could do this... all the time I saw him and couldn't figure out how an alien could have entered my husband's body and possessed his soul. That concrete face stared back at me and I finally asked him to explain... to tell me everything... because I knew, just knew that he was holding out. He said he had said everything... and then I told him that he needed to make me hate him.  I begged for him to make me hate him. And I am ashamed of this... I asked him to show me some of his emails to Samantha so that I could not only hate her but I could hate him too. Of course he said no. I asked him over and over how far he had taken his relationship with Samantha and he finally told me that they had kissed a number of times. I felt my heart breaking and breaking and breaking... kissing... was that all... how could you throw off your family for kissing... there had to be more.

In the end I told him he had to leave, that this farce that we were living... this friendship that we were trying to portray was confusing the situation badly and no one was able to move on. Everything that we were trying to do in the name of the kids was not healthy. He said he couldn't leave until the renovations were done. I felt so trapped like a caged animal. I needed to get out but I couldn't get out. I was well and truly stuck.

I knew I needed to find some space. That's the night I packed up Daughter #1's things and my things and Narmin. Daughter #2 chose to stay with her dad until mid week. I packed up food and bedding and everything that I thought I might need for a stay at a friend's empty house. Then I headed off to my friend's house in FSJ like a scared and chased animal. Little did I know that The Hounds Of Hell were on my heels. That was only a few days before the reckoning came... my reckoning... a reckoning like nothing I could have ever expected. I took that week in FSJ as a time for me. Within days I made a discovery about Michael that floored me to the bottom of my soul. There is no doubt that it was a good thing that I was there when I made my discovery. I spent the next days at that house and I nursed myself in every way I could. I needed it.

That's enough for now... I think I had better find some distance from this dreadful story. I will tell more at another time. Right now it is bedtime. Daughter #1 is home looking positively buff. She has been working very hard in the last while. I picked her and him up at the airport. He sat in the back seat as I drove home. I couldn't keep acting like we were the family we had always been... because we are not. We were only home a short time when I knew I had to set some boundaries because he has come home expecting it to be like it was before. He went to the tent trailer and changed his clothes and proceeded to act like mi casa et su casa. He comes and goes without knocking on the door. He acts as if he has every right to be here... but he doesn't... he needs to get the hell out of my house.  I sat down with him on the deck and explained that he needs to maintain a sense of decorum and that there had to be some rules. I also told him that he had till Monday to find a place to put the tent trailer. He was no longer a part of my family and since this house was my place to live that he wasn't welcome here. The stupid idiot said, "but it is my house and those girls are still my daughters."  So I painstakingly said that this was not where he lived... that he had moved out of the house on the 6th of June and that he was no longer welcome. Then a patiently explained to him that since he needed to finish the renovations then he could come in the morning at 10 a.m. at which time I would leave and I would return at 5 p.m. at which time he was to leave again. Then I painstakingly explained that I was not trying to take the girls away from him because with our time here in BC getting so short that he could take them as much as he wanted five nights a week and weekends too if he wanted... I was ok with that as long as that is what they wanted too. But he definitely doesn't get it because he is still coming and going all night long without knocking on a door... and he washed the dishes after supper tonight... Next thing he will be complaining about how lazy I am... he fed the animals... he watered plants... he acts like he belongs here... It's just too stupid for words... he doesn't understand.... "Get Lost... Get outta here... go away.... I kept my peace and didn't say anything because I know he is going to be leaving here on Monday and hopefully it won't be so bad then. Arggh...

Last night after bearing my soul here I didn't sleep very well... I think it was dragging the whole thing up again. So tonight I am tired and it is time for this bonzo to go to bed...I think that is all I can talk about at this point... there are other things that need to be said before I am completely done but that will come down the road when other things have come to pass.

As The Story Unfolded

I decided on June 6th... almost right away that the Fairway Divorce Solutions program of getting me through this divorce mess would probably be the best solution for my life. Michael agreed and he actually was the one who called and made the arrangements for our first meeting.  It is a particular mediation process for taking people through divorce as long as they are able to function together as much as humanly possible. The first meeting you have with them is a together meeting where they get to know you and your spouse, and they find out what brought you to the point of divorce in the first place. Then, individually, they take you through a step by step process that will mediate a divorce in the most expedient way possible saving your dignity, your assets, and your children from the traditional legal system which can drain you of everything you own while turning you against each other as effectively as possible, so that there is no hope in hell of ever co-parenting. There is a new franchise that just recently opened up in FSJ and I thank God for that because where a traditional divorce can take up to a year and a half or longer this process will get us through in less than six months as long as we can remain civil to each other. For us it is the way to go.

Having said that I have read a lot of their literature over the last few weeks.... some of it sucks.

According to the Fairways Divorce Solutions literature, I was acting the part of the victim through all of this which is, apparently, messed.... I have difficulty with that because I wasn't acting or reacting or anything... I could barely function... Shock is like that... I feel in the last weeks I have made huge inroads into establishing my independence especially if you consider where I was. But over the next while I will be revealing more and more of my story... just maybe not every day. I can't do that because it will eat me alive.

This is my story....

I have always maintained that I never saw this coming. I felt that my husband was rock solid and one of the good ones. I always thought that if ever there was someone I could trust implicitly it would be him. Wrong!

I have in the last 6 or 7 years felt that we both needed a little more space to chase our own individual dreams. The girls were getting older and needed us less so it was time for us to make room for our own interests after many years of devoting so much to our children. Mike's was the Rangers and the Junior Rangers and all things outdoorsy... mine was the spinning and weaving, and writing poetry or short stories or maintaining several blogs. We would always come together to explore our common interests and that was ok. We had a good and mature relationship, I thought. We had our own friends and then we had our family friends. This I thought was good too since it meant that we trusted each other and knew each other to be reliable. We always connected and tried to have a few nights a week when we would take time for each other and for our family life. We always made special occasions... well, special.

About three years ago I started to notice a marked decline in Mike's interest in my doings. Still he encouraged me to get out there and do my thing which was always with my girl friends with spinning, weaving, or knitting. And I encouraged his time in the Rangers and his canoeing and instruction courses. In actuality I now realize that he had already started to lose interest in me as a person.  He has never come to one of my gallery openings until I forced the issue this fall past. He has never supported my endeavors in the spinning world, that was obvious because he never asked and he has never really cared much about what I did in Olds, again because he never asked much. He has never read my blog unless I read a particular post to him to get his opinion of what I have written.

About a year ago he was going on a trip with the Rangers and he needed me to drop him off at the drop off point so I took him there and he jumped out of the truck and unloaded his gear from our truck and reloaded his gear into the other person's truck with whom he was getting a ride. After a few minutes of watching them unload and reload I got out of the truck to say good-bye and he was running across the road with the treasurer of the Rangers to get money out of the bank as he was one of the signatories. I waited and waited for him to come back so that I could kiss him good bye and wish him well on his trip... but he didn't return because after he came out of the bank he and his buddy went to the grocery store in another pick-up to get a few last minute items... basically in the rush to get on their trip he had forgotten about me and saying good bye in any meaningful way. That hurt... but I let it go and just put it down to comfort of a long term relationships and hurry in the moment.... but it did hurt.

As this year has progressed I kept wondering why it was getting harder and harder to talk to the man that I had always shared everything with. Then I started to notice that his best friend's ex-wife, who had taken over the chair person's position with the Junior Canadian Rangers, was becoming more and more a part of our lives... at least he was talking to me about her more and more. At first it was very subtle... he would offer to pick her up and take her to meetings... then he was talking with her after hours at the school. Then he was giving her rides to FSJ when he was on his way to meetings. Then he was talking about her at home far more than a regular normal girl/guy relationship... this gave me some worry but I "knew" he would never do anything to hurt me or the girls and besides she was a bland creature with very little class.... at least that was my opinion. Little did I know that they were falling in love because he had fallen out of love with me... I knew they had a close relationship but I never knew how close it had become. Just before Christmas they went on a camping trip with the JCRs. It was a winter survival trip and I guess that's when things really got hungry between them. Then he spent all of January and February "thinking about divorce and how to get out of his relationship with me".  Meanwhile I was in my little bubble of complete trust. In January they went to Comox together for the JCRs for PHASE training. They spent a week together and all the while I trusted, trusted, trusted... that he was my husband and he would never cheat... so much so that cheating never even entered my mind.

During the winter I started to notice that Mike would stay up very late at night...  sometimes only coming to bed around 2 a.m. Or I would wake at night and look across at him and he would be "reading" on his phone. I would ask him what he was reading and he would say some new book that he had downloaded. I thought it was strange that he would be reading so late at night but put it down to age and insomnia for him. I would put my hand in his and gently fall back to sleep.

Over the spring I started to notice him drawing further and further away from our family as he sought every outlet to be at the school working late. One day I walked into the sunroom and he was writing something on his iPhone... he had been using Facebook a lot and as I got closer to him he turned his phone away from me... I never thought anything about it because a couple of minutes later he made some inane remark about the email that he had just sent to CBC complaining about a news story he had just heard on the radio. It was only long after, that I remembered that turning away of the iPhone.

When spring arrived he started to go for bike rides each evening because "he wanted to get into shape". Ok so he was going through some mid-life crisis thing so I encouraged him to go bike riding... all the time my mind was occupied with getting my level 5 homework done and some days I was working 10 - 15 hours a day. Yes I would watch TV as I spun... you need something to occupy your mind. But he saw watching of TV as laziness, he saw my working on my "hobby" as a turn from him... a lack of concern for him and his needs, a lack of empathy for anything that he wanted. I would often find myself tired in the evenings and so many nights supper wasn't on the table when he walked in the door... I would be still spinning and so there would be mad scurryings to get supper... or he would offer to get it and since he is such a great cook I would let him. I always did the dishes with Daughter #1 afterwards before going to bed. He says he did 2 to my 1 of the housework... but he has never cleaned out a sink or cleaned out a toilet except to throw a container of CLR in once a year. He has never swept or vacuumed or cleaned a window. He has never had to make a bed though he has done it in the last year a few times not because he needed though because I always made the bed when I went upstairs to have my shower, after they had gone to school. He has never given a dog a hair cut. He has never gotten a breakfast unless I was sick. He has maybe gotten 5 suppers a week out of seven during my crunch time in spring when I am trying to finish work on my Master Spinning certificate... and then only a week here or there did that number reach that high. But I am a bad wife... because I have tried to finish my Master Spinning certificate and left him to do a few extra helping jobs as I have worked at it.

Mother's day came and he was away once again with the Rangers... which really hurt though he did get back in time to have lunch with me... I got up that morning feeling pretty low since I hadn't heard anything from him, not even a text to say happy mother's day... but the girls gave me a lovely pot of flowers that were so pretty that I just cried because I was so happy to have them remember me in such a lovely way.  He came home from his trip with the Rangers, and said he had to go to town quickly and he would be back in short order.  An hour and a half later he came through the door with a bag of chips and a movie and said happy mother's day. That hurt.... I was so all fired important to him that I got a bag of chips and a rented movie... but then we would be spending some time together so I said thank you politely.

In the week after I finished my level 5 homework, we had decided on many projects for the garden... potato beds, and new beds for carrots and beets.  He had purchased 30 strawberry plants from a fundraiser in town which just so happened to support his chit's daughter in a trip to Ghana for working with orphans the same fundraiser from which the girls had bought my beautiful hanging flower pot. We had had a couple of arguments over the feeding boxes that we had used for the the sheep. I wanted them to plant beans and peas and he wanted them for the strawberries.  He won because I was sick of fighting him on everything (I was starting to feel tired of always disagreeing) so I made a plan to use my old red barrels for the beans and peas. I had found it strange that he was so angry all the time... snapping at the girls, snapping at me, snapping at the dogs...

We spent the long weekend getting the plants in... he worked on the potatoes, strawberries, and beans and peas since that was the serious heavy work and I worked on the flowers. We had the radio playing as we worked exchanging chat and I thought that things were better than they had been for a while. That weekend the seniors in town were have a plant sale and I thought I might get some nice bedding plants so I asked him if he would like to come along and help me pick out bedding plants. We headed off in the truck and when we got there, we parked and started walking toward the building where the plant sale was being held. I was a few steps in front of him and I noticed Samantha (his chit) coming out of the sale. I had no idea at the time what was going on right under my nose. As I walked toward her I said hello with a smile on my face and I noticed that she looked at me sourly and then looked at Mike with a look of absolute longing that it almost took my breath away.

That was the day that I began to look for every opportunity to check his cell phone. That was the day I got suspicious. That was about two weeks before I figured it all out. That was only a short time before my world crashed.

The morning of June 6th I woke up at 7 a.m. after a bad night of insomnia and Mike was already in the shower getting ready for school. I called out to him and said that I wasn't feeling well and could I please be exempted from making breakfast. He called out that yes certainly if I wasn't feeling well he and the girls would manage without me. I rolled over and went back to sleep. Shortly after I woke to a quiet room and sounds of  Mike rummaging around in the kitchen, downstairs. The girls were in their room getting dressed and I noticed his phone charging by the side of the bed.  I barely breathed as I picked up the phone and turned it on. First I checked his text messages... but there was nothing there incriminating.... I don't even know for sure what I was looking for. I just wanted to know that his and Sam's friendship was just that... a friendship. I put the phone down and began to relax but my mind was working overtime. He has an app on his phone to receive text messages via Facebook... I didn't need a password or anything because it simply opens up to his messages when you stroke your finger across the phone. It was there that I found all the damning evidence I needed.

I had to do a double take... I checked his messages to her... and I had to do a double take again because what he was saying to her was always what he would say to me. "Sweetie this and I love you that. And good morning my love..."

I took the phone downstairs with tears in my eyes and panic in my heart.... and I confronted him in the kitchen, pointing to the deck outside where the girls wouldn't hear our conversation...... we stepped through the door and within minutes I knew my life as I knew it, was over. He fully admitted the whole thing... and he seemed relieved. What he didn't and still doesn't understand is that was the day... that was the moment when my heart shattered into a million tiny pieces. That was the moment that saw the end of my innocence, and the end of my belief in love. That was the end of my faith and trust and respect. With a resounding thunk the guillotine did its job.

Marriage dead.

And that was the day that I lost me. Lost: one female... 47 years old... never to be seen complete again.

The pieces of my heart are still all over the ground outside on the deck where I heard from his mouth his version of the truth.

Crazy glue only can do so much. When something shatters, even if you find all the miniscule parts that can hardly be seen, even if you were ever to put those pieces back together again, it would still be cracked... maybe incomplete. A Picasso painting, where nothing looks right.

When I leave here there will be apart of me that stays... those miniscule bits of my heart that will always stay where they fell that dreadful day.

I remember hot tears. I remember the last time he held me as I folded into myself when the reality of what he was saying hit home... "I love you, but I am not in love with you anymore." I remember my girls holding me.... I remember him calling the school and saying that he needed an emergency sick day.... I remember being hardly able to speak and being so choked with the terror of this loss. I remember hollowness... in my bones... in my chest... in my arms. I remember hours of this... I remember a long agonizing day of shock.

I told my mom and dad right away on the phone because I needed people around me who loved me and cared for me.... The Daughters and I went to their house for supper... I hardly choked anything down. I couldn't eat. The agitation was starting to set in.... on the way home we stopped at the Post Office to pick up the mail. I remember thinking this is such a mundane thing to be doing when the world is falling out from under me. Surrealism was my life in that moment. Daughter #2 came out of the post office with a pamphlet in her hand and said mom this might come in handy. She handed me the Fairways Divorce Solution pamphlet. I looked at it and my chest ached all over again. But I took it and then promptly forgot about it.

And then that day was over and another day came and it was more of the same.

I had been abandoned... But that was only the beginning my friends... that was only the beginning...

I don't know how I got through those days.... I don't know how I survived... my bed was empty... he moved out to the trailer. And each night I would get into my bed and curl up in a fetal position and cry until I had nothing left and then I would sleep for a few hours, an exhausted sleep that only kept me going and did nothing to refresh me.

I ate very little and lost twenty pounds in a week... I thru up everything that I forced down my throat... I gagged on food... And always there were the tears... I was so dehydrated that my skin looked ancient. I remember looking in the mirror at one point and thinking that I looked 80 years old.

But that was only the beginning folks that was only the tip of the iceberg... it got worse before it got better... if you can call this better... I guess it is... I am maintaining my weight... and I am moving on... but I feel like I have all the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Where my heart is there is a hardness... there is a solid and still hardness... I can't make it better, because I have tried. It will not go away... I am hopeful that in time it will, but for now it is there and I must learn to live with it. It is what keeps me going... I think of it as my own little Chernobyl. It is what keeps me going but it is also what will eat me alive if I cannot make it go away.

This is where I will end tonight... I am tired and I have to face Sir Arsewipe tomorrow as Daughter #1 and he will be returning after three weeks of me being here and him being there.  Much has come to pass while he has been away... much has made me understand... much.... but that is for another time my friends... that is for another time. This story will unfold only as I am able... but that time is not tonight...

I will need all the strength I can glean... tomorrow I have to drive home with him.... an hour and a half of more punishment. I will kick him out tomorrow.... it is not healthy for me to have his presence so profoundly near. I will kick him out... and for that I need to be at my best... so I am off to sleep and hopefully get more than the usual few hours... I live in hope... I live in hope.