You Can't Scare Me

Halloween!  Time for all things spooky, scary, frightening and morbid!
Well...it's gonna take more than a rotting zombie, a blood sucking vampire or puke spewing possessed little girl with her head on backwards to phase me!
I'm hard core.  I'm a betrayed wife.

You can't scare me with mere decapitations or amputations executed by a lunatic in a battered hockey mask wielding a rusted machete.  I scoff at flying limbs.
Bring on the most antagonistic poltergeist!  Apparitions combined with lightening, fog, rattling chains and eerie organ music will never give me pause.
I survived infidelity.  I think I can handle lizard like aliens leaping out of intestinal tracts.

BEWARE!!!  I'm gonna share a REAL scary picture with you.  It was taken 10/31/10.
This poor woman had been transformed by mental torture so severe, only 2 short weeks after her heart had been ripped from her chest, she was totally brainwashed into believing Richard, the Liar, her husband that pledged to love her and only her forever.  Wicked Richard, the Liar, told her there were no more secrets, no more shocking revelations to cause her additional agony.  The Liar spun his tale of confession.  The story was that he had shared everything about his affair with a scrawny evil witch named Jaymie and he was beyond remorseful.
In her delusional state, she had come to nearly worship the man that cut out her heart.  Note how in her fool's paradise of denial she clings to the dastardly and deceptive victimizer, smiling all the while!
Shocking!  Alarming! The most outrageous scene in 30 years of marriage!

                                              OH,  THE  HUMANITY!

Are you scared yet??  Are you shaking uncontrollably??  You should be HORRIFIED!!

Not to worry, she cast off the bondage of delusional thought when she found the hidden letters that revealed Richard was truly in love with the evil witch.  She grew stronger through her discovery and waged a great war against Richard the Liar.  Although she was admittedly, stark raving mad for over a year, she persevered and is now firmly on the path to happy ever after.

Now you know why I'll never be scared by anything Freddy Krueger can dish out.
Happy Halloween, my frightful fiends!!
I hope you are gifted with far more Treats than Tricks!

Tick, Tick, Tick...BOOM!

January brought little to the table of recovery.  In fact, January was nothing but more of the same.  How much more crazy could I get?  My moods could be compared to a revolving door.  Don't like the one you see now?  Just wait a second.  Another will be along at any moment, however you may like the new arrival even less.

I was nothing more than a ticking time bomb. It was almost 3 months after DDay and I was seething inside, but working my ass off to put on a show for the world, excluding Richard.  The show was as much for me as for appearances.  Dear Lord, I needed a break!  Being crazy is completely debilitating!
It was like a little mental vacation when Toughie Pants took the wheel.

Only Richard was witness to my authentic agony, anger and agitation.  He was well aware that I was like highly unstable ammunition, one accidental jolt would cause me to detonate.  I was definitely NOT gonna be the poster patient for Lexapro anytime soon.

In the evenings, we would sit outside trying to decide when Richard would leave and how in the hell we were gonna pay for his new digs.  We still slept in the same bed and more often than not, would wake in the middle of the night and have sex, steamy, lustful sex.  I'd say make love, but it didn't feel like that.  Think about that level of crazy...checking Craig's List for low rent apartments after dinner, then later that same night, hours of hysterical bonding personified.

Are you sick of reading about how sick in the head I was?  I get that.  I was sick of myself.  I had to find an outlet to release some pressure.  Can you guess where I tossed that grenade?
Right at Jaymie.
Transference much?? Lucky, lucky Richard!
To aim at Richard alone was intolerable.  He would never have survived a direct singular attack from me.  I was acutely aware that I needed to distribute the carnage outside my home.  It was like an air assault.  You know when you open the hatch and drop the bomb, people are gonna get hurt, but you don't have to see first hand.

I relaunched my battle for the emails.  There were so many I hadn't seen.  It was like Jaymie was occupying territory that was rightfully mine and I set my sights on getting it all back.
My offensive began innocently, well...that's a little too kind....at first it was "controlled".
She had sent me the first check for $100 just after Christmas.  I decided to offer her a deal.
Surrender the emails and keep the rest of the money.  The rest of the money, $400, meant nothing to me. (remember just a couple of weeks ago, I HAD to get that money back!  Oh, the winds of war..)
The emails were invaluable.  I sent this:
Jaymie:

I called my store and they told me your first check had arrived.  Thank you.

I want to offer you a way to not pay back the rest of the money.

If you still have the emails you exchanged with Richard, I would take those over the money.

I want all of them.  You omitted many of the emails when you sent them to me the first time.

If you can send me all the emails AND the Victoria's Secret items AND the CDs, I will not ask for any more of the money. 

It must be difficult for you to come up with $500, so maybe this would be easier for you.  The emails will help me fully understand the relationship you shared with Richard.  He needs to understand it, too.  

In case you care, we are trying very hard to work past this.  I don't think we're doing a very good job of it.

But, we soldier on.  We hope for clarity and resolution.

I hope you take time and truly consider this offer.

Shawn

Funny. (funny weird, not funny haha)  I wrote this post before reading this old email.  Note I said "soldier" on.   Battle, bombs, soldiers...I thought I was just now figuring out the dynamics of my life after Dday.  Apparently, I knew I was waging war back then, too.
Acquiring the emails became my mission, my ultimate goal.
I was containing the ticking time bomb with mental deflection.
So much better than mental detonation!
Tick...Tick....Tick....

Should Auld Aquaintence be Forgot?

The end of 2010, the worst year of my life, was rapidly coming to a close.
The worst year?  Yea.  No doubt about it.  Thanks to my carnal craving husband.
Even though most of the year was filled with fun, whale watching in January, a great ski trip in February, my 50th birthday celebration with my dearest friends in Vegas in June, a trip with our kids to New York and a long over due family reunion in West Virginia in July...even with all of that being beyond wonderful, so many special memories that will last a lifetime... DDay on September 12th negated the lot.

Isn't that what happens?  You feel blessed with a lifetime of happy.  Lucky to have found the perfect mate to share the best years of your life, humming through your days in harmony...Then...WHAMMO!  A vicious reality check!  Your perfect spouse is really a nefarious liar!  I know I can't speak for all betrayed spouses.  Some had less than happy marriages before DDay, but even still..none of us thought we'd end up on the shitty end of the infidelity stick.  (EEWWWW.  I seem to have a severe case of potty mouth this morning!  Sorry.)

I said "perfect" mate.  I know no one's perfect, but damn...my life felt pretty effin' perfect until my head on collision with adultery.  2010 had been chock-full of fabulous!  Such a damn shame all the great got blown out of the water by my husband's choice to cheat.  How could I cherish the memories of my birthday in Vegas, when I now know he was texting her from every casino?  Why would I want to remember the New York City vacation with my kids?  That's when I noticed Richard had learned to use his camera phone.  I praised him for his technical advances!  The pictures were for Jaymie.  He wanted to include her in our sightseeing adventures.

Not where this post was supposed to go, but if my blog is part of your regular reading diet you understand I tend to loose focus.  I had intended to blog about the last days of 2010.  Let's see if I can get to it...

After I asked Richard for divorce, things calmed down at home.  Now that a decision had been made, we just had to devise a plan to get our new lives up and running.  There were many elements to consider, but finances and family were at the top of the to-do list.
Telling the family, especially our kids, was the scariest part of the proposition and would have to wait until we knew when Richard was leaving and where he would go.  That's a conversation you only wanna have once,  (well, preferably never, but wadda ya gonna do?) so it's best to get your details straight before the talk takes place.
Step One:  We needed to budget for two households.  We reviewed all our incoming and outgoing cash.  It was quickly apparent that some belt tightening would be required.  After we determined how much we could afford to spend on rent for Richard's solitary confinement, we started searching for places in our price range.  It was looking more and more like he would take up residence at the YMCA.

Weird that we did all this as a team.  We actually spent more time in casual conversation that weekend than anytime since DDay.  We even exchanged a few emails the following week that tended toward the light hearted.  A specific date for Richard to depart to accommodations unknown was never verbalized.  He didn't say a word because he didn't want to go.  If I wasn't gonna complain about him dragging his wayward feet, he certainly wasn't gonna mention it.  I didn't set a time frame because **Newsflash** I didn't want him to go either.
I say, "Get out!"
I mean, "Please don't leave me!"  UGH!
It was about me wanting him to think that I wanted him to leave...I think.

We rang in the New Year as a family having no idea if we would continue to be a family in 2011.
I remember hearing Auld Lang Syne at midnight.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,  
and never brought to mind?  (If her name is Jaymie...You bet your ass!)

I wished to God I could forget the last 3 months of my life.
Happy Freakin' New Year.

Infidelity Inquisition

I guess I had a bit of a flair for the dramatic that night, sipping wine while the huge California sun dipped beyond the horizon.  I managed to keep a straight face and gaze deeply into Richard's eyes, knowing full well I was gonna rock his world right after sunset and the potential Green Flash. (I have yet to witness a Green Flash, but good friends that I trust don't want to make me play the foolish tourist, assure me it exists.)

"I want a divorce."  Cool & calm as a judge issuing a death sentence.  How can I convey to you the look on Richard's face?  I doubt he could have looked any more shocked if I had whipped out a set of thumb screws and proceeded to attach them to his finger tips squishing them like grapes. There was a moment that felt like time had been frozen.  He almost looked through me, not at me.  Then, he began to nod.

"Wow.  You sure had me fooled.  I thought this night was supposed to help you heal."
I convinced Richard to take me on the Tour de Trauma by telling him that I needed to face these potential triggers in order to put them behind me.
What a frickin' crock.  No way I was ready to "Let it go" or "Get over it".  I could tell you that my intentions had been honorable when I spun my story for Richard.  With minimal effort, I might even fool myself into believing that I dreamed of reclaiming my life that night by fast forwarding through the time and places he was with Jaymie.
But if I wanna be able to look myself in the mirror later, I gotta say....the whole night was about torturing him, stretching him on the revenge ringer rack.  The tour was also about getting answers to the questions...what did he do with Jaymie?  Where did he take her?  What did they talk about?  Getting the answers, while subjecting Richard to mental torture was not a singular event.  Much of our lives evolved around the infidelity inquisition.

Funny word..inquisition.  It's good to be inquisitive, but an inquisition has nothing but negative connotations.  When I asked to see the places Richard spent time with Jaymie, I did so under the guise of being inquisitive.  I must now admit, once I strapped Richard in for a question and answer session, I became a member of the Catholic church hierarchy and he, a heretic.  When my morbid curiosity was in high gear, I would dare say, Richard would have preferred to be tied to the rack and stretched until his shoulders were separated from his arms.  Unfortunately for Richard, he had already admitted his guilt.  There were no good answers that would grant him freedom from the agony of an inquisition.

Like me, I'll bet you hoped and wished that getting one more answer to the million questions would surely place you on the fast track to recovery and reconciliation.  A few of you might be cut from the same vindictive cloth that covers my soul, but most of the betrayed spouses I have come to know, sincerely believe answers beget healing.  
Some disclosures will help you heal, but others may haunt you forever.
I know I repeat myself, but this is one crucial little factoid....we can not be expected to understand or even begin to comprehend what will lessen our pain after DDay.  But...when you ask questions...remember the tarnished golden rule:  Once you know it, you can't UN-know it.

Most of us will act out in some way as the distressing information becomes more available to us.  I was vengeful and uber-angry.  Others may remain despondent and deeply wounded for months.  
Hear ye...hear ye!  I declare any reaction to DDay to be A-OK.  Absolutely, positively hunky-dory under the circumstances.  I was as crazy and confused as James Carville at a pro-life rally, but I have made peace with my extraordinarily bad behavior, much I have yet to admit to you.  I just don't think any jury would convict me.  If there was ever a reason for an insanity plea to hold up, infidelity is surely it.

I knew my true intentions that night.  My plan was all about hurting him like he hurt me.  
Repetitious factoid number two: We can never hurt them the way they hurt us!  Lashing out, drawing blood feels good for a minute, maybe even an hour if you land a really vicious punch, but it will never compare to the blood letting caused on DDay.  Any wrong you do to him will always remain so much less than he deserves....so why waste the effort?

Nearly two years later, I've been taught a lot by generous souls that have come successfully out the other side of the black hole of adultery.  I'm trying to share some of these mighty epiphanies through this blog as I continue to absorb them myself.  Two big ones are above....here's another:  If your wayward spouse gives you as much as you need, regardless of your meteoric rise on the crazy meter, if he steps back and let's you run the freak show that has become your life...he might just deserve a another chance.  He might be worth forgiving.  Let him up off the rack.

Tour de Trauma

The end of 2010 was quickly approaching.  I dreamed of a fresh start in the new year, but I truly had no idea what that start would look like.  Sure, in our sessions with the lovely Dr. K my stance was abundantly clear...Richard needs to leave.  To find my way, to begin to process all the trauma, I must be on my own.

Imagine Richard's confusion...
Inhale & demand he start packing.  Profess nothing but disdain for him and his betrayal.
Exhale & wrap him up in me for hours of passionate love making while declaring I will love him always.  Yea...I was seriously mental.
My emotions were convoluted at best.  Richard only wanted to make me better, make my pain disappear.  I think he would have done anything I asked if I told him it would make me happy again.
He was all about atonement.

That gave me ANOTHER idea. (I was just over-flowing with ideas!  Most of them bad.) I told Richard I wanted to go on a tour of sorts.   I guided tour of "Places Richard Spent Time with Jaymie, the Bitch- Whore."  We'll just call it a date night.  Visit scenes of the crimes.  Soak up the ambiance of the places my husband romanced the skinny assed skank.  Doesn't that sound like LOADS of fun??
Maybe...if you're a masochist!  I guess I kind of was.

Because my man aimed to please, he agreed to my request.  Like I said, he may have been willing to gnaw off his arm to make me happy at this point.  I'll bet he would have preferred the taste of his own flesh to the night I had planned.

I knew about numerous locals they frequented during the affair.  They had walked, hand in hand, all around the hotel at Barona Casino after cocktails and coitus in their room.  They had enjoyed a shopping trip at Fashion Valley Mall.  Made purchases at Nordstrom and Victoria's Secret, apparently not concerned about strolling together in public.  Then, there was Jaymie's favorite rendezvous spot, doggie beach in Coronado.  She had a new puppy and as most little girls would, she wanted to spend lots of time spoiling her precious beast.

I chose to go to two other spots on the Tour de Trauma.
First:  Krakatoa Cafe in the Golden Hills section of San Diego.  Coffee, smoothies, sandwiches and Wifi.  What more does a young co-ed need?  Richard said he spent hours there with Jaymie, just holding hands and talking.  Don't you think the other 20-something patrons cringed a little seeing Jaymie cuddling up with my 60 year old husband??  It sure would creep me out!
We only spent a few minutes in there.  It was a dark little place, hidden in lots of shade trees.  Much too bohemian for my taste.  I walked around inside, paced the patio and headed back to our car.
Move on folks...nothing to see here.

Second: A vacation spot much more my speed, the Lowe's Coronado Resort.  This was where Richard had surprised Jaymie with an afternoon of jet-skiing, followed by lunch and a massage.  We walked to the dock where they had rented the jet ski.  We went inside the spa and took a fast peek at the pool.  Had a quick drink at the bar in the lobby. (by then, we both needed one real bad!) Then, back to the valet and into Richard's car.  Even his car was contaminated.  I knew Jaymie's sweating ass had been in that passenger seat many times.  I should have made him trade that car in or sterilize it at the very least before my butt had to touch the same leather as hers.
So much in my life had been corrupted.  Where would it end?

Maybe at the Hotel del Coronado.  Sitting on the beach watching the sunset.  That was our next stop.  I wanted to go there because, as far as I knew, he had never taken her there.
I couldn't tell you for certain what I had hoped to gain from this journey into infidelity memory lane.  I can only guess.  I think I was steeling my resolve.  I think I wanted Richard to have as much understanding as he possibly could about how my world was altered by his choices.  How he debased our marriage.
Probably, a lot of this was just to make him squirm with guilt.  Torture him for a few hours before I came in for the kill watching the beautiful, serene sunset over the Pacific, drinking a wonderful chardonnay.
Staring deeply into his eyes, with my hand on his knee...
"Richard, I want a divorce."
Take that, you cheating bastard.