Timeline of Fuckery

I’ve been divorced from Ex for 7 years now, and I never thought I would post what a JNSo he was/is until….. About a week and half ago, the other woman (OW) messaged me through FB. I accepted the message because I was curious – why on earth would she be messaging me now or at all? She wanted to apologize for contributing to the pain I was going through during the separation and the months leading up to me moving out of the marital home. Now I want to say I’m not one of those ladies who become enraged at the OW – she didn’t make vows of fidelity to me, shithead Ex did that. I reserved and still reserve any anger at him, and not her; as it turns out she was an unwitting accomplice in the demise of my crap marriage.

Let us go back in time shall we? A little background to get us up to the separation is in order. A year before the divorce talk I caught Shithead Ex cheating on me with one of his ex-gf’s. She lives in Illinois and often came back to our state to ‘visit her mom’ but stayed with us at least 1-2 nights during her trips back. (As an aside she was engaged at the time, and after getting pregnant by the fiancé married him). I caught him the way it generally happens; an unlocked phone left at home, a suspicious text message, opening the message to see a huge ass in a thong… you know, the usual. I was understandably livid – how could he do this to me, blah blah blah. He blamed it one me – if I had been doing what I was supposed to (i.e. sucking his nasty dick) he wouldn’t have felt the need to sext/cheat. Based on the messages I was like what else happened that weekend I had to work and she stayed over? He said “just” a blow job. (How stupid I was. I wanted to leave, but throwing away 7 years felt foolish. I know better now). He convinced me that it was a one time mistake, it would never happen again – the same shit cheaters everywhere say to not implode their lives. I didn’t want him to continue talking to her, but of course he went ahead and did what he wanted. This time he put a pass code on his phone though. He also ramped up the ‘it’s your fault’ ‘you’re broken – there is something wrong with you’ ‘you need therapy’. Also during this time he told me that he never agreed to stop talking to his ex, he would never say that. He likes to gaslight and remake history to fit his internal narrative.

The previous was early summer of 2009, in August of this year we went bungee jumping with friends. According to what he told the OW, this is also the time he asked for the divorce. Supposedly he was “graciously” allowing me to stay in my own home while I looked for other housing options for the remainder of the separation. He started talking to her after (allegedly) asking for the divorce. She didn’t actually find out he was still married until he drove to Ocean City to meet her in June 2010, and accidentally let slip he was taking her to a place he had previously gone to with his STBExWife. Smooth no?

Now we jump to July 2010 – he had started going out all weekend and not coming back until late Sunday or Monday night. He would tell me that he is going out with friends and be back later Saturday night. He wouldn’t come home and wouldn’t text to let me or answer my calls. I was pissed, just because our marriage was shit, I still deserved a text or something letting me know he wasn’t coming home. This behavior really got me to realize that he had NO respect for me, nor did he actually care about my feelings. On top of that he backed out of a family vacation that had been in the works since the summer of 2009 – the day before we were going to leave. If you didn’t guess – while I was on vacation he became exclusive with the OW 🙂

As an aside, my DH always lets me know if he is going to be later coming home, is going to be making any stops on his way home from work, etc. Why? Because he respects me and my feelings and my need to know that he is safe.

This is getting increasingly longer, so I’m going to break this up into 2 posts. Part 2 will be coming shortly!

Happily ever After?

So I read this article a little while ago, and it popped up again on an acquaintance of mines’ blog. He was writing about what he could have done differently based on the study in the article, about changing how he is in future relationships; i.e paying more attention to his partner’s ‘bids’ (in the article a bid is attention seeking behavior from one partner to the other) and not act with contempt towards a future partner.

Masters of Love

I get it, really I do. Just re-reading the article now, and his breakdown on how it relates to his failed marriage makes me reflect on my failed marriage, and my current marriage.

A great example of this was just this evening, while my husband and I were half listening to a movie on TV while I was browsing Amazon, and he was on his iPad. He was reading through some funny stuff and was showing me the best ones. Yes, I was doing my own thing but he thought it was hilarious and wanted to share. (And yes, they were pretty funny). Or watching Top Gear with him because he loves that show and racing. He likes to show me the crashes on replay. 🙂

Or when he brings a rose in from our rose bush for me and I see it when I come home in the morning.

And when I show him silly cat stuff, or wax poetic about WoW and the new Warcraft movie, and how Horde is sooooo much better than Alliance.

He totally humors me – because he knows it’s important to me.

The reason why I notice all these things, is because it’s amazing how noticeable it becomes in hindsight when it isn’t there (like the first time around). The reason why I list the most recent examples is because I sincerely hope that I will never stop noticing all these little things that show how important I am to my husband. I try to do the same for him in little ways as well.

I know it doesn’t need explicit acknowledgement, but I do notice.

I also realize now that withholding attention and affection is actually emotional abuse. Like I said, it’s easier to see it in retrospect when you’re looking back at an unhealthy relationship and able to see how what not to do, or traits you know to avoid in a future partner. One person that is always giving and the other person never gives in return, it’s a power imbalance. It caused me major anxiety, contributed to my depression and the sharp nose dive of my self esteem. It’s taken me years to realize that I did not cause that behavior. I had to learn that I can only choose how to respond to the obvious contempt and lack of respect my ex-husband had for me, and understand I did not make him act that way. I am responsible for my behavior and my reactions – I am not responsible for the choices he made. I didn’t make him cheat, he chose that without any help from me. How he chooses to rationalize has nothing to do with me, even though he chose to blame me for his actions. I’m still unclear how I coerced him into cheating but as I said, I’m not actually responsible for his choices.

You are responsible for yourself and that’s it. Don’t let anyone else lay blame on you for their bad decisions or poor choices. I sure as shit don’t have time for it, and neither do you.