Life After Love: Five Months Later

Okay, so many of you are likely wondering how we're doing, five months into this new life. I've had a great deal on my plate, and still do, and there have been countless times I've wanted to blog to vent my frustrations especially. But I have decided I'd like to keep this as positive as possible, because that is what I need right now. Particularly right now.

Things are crazy busy at work, as is to be imagined. The move has really only shortened my drive by 10 minutes, so I am on the road for nearly 2 hours/day. Time with the boys becomes a priority in the evenings, so I am behind... but I don't really care. I care about getting myself and my boys through this.

Although I have no clue what the other side will look like, or whether or not I'll know I'm there. This is my life, my reality, I'm living now. Maybe it will always be this way. Who knows? I hate to think I'm going to feel this lonely all my life, feel this great void. I hate to think that maybe, just maybe, my husband didn't love me all along, and that I had a false conception of love as a result. Possible.

There are definitely highs and lows, and as of Saturday things have hit another low... so it's difficult to stay positive. Perhaps I shouldn't have chosen this moment to blog an update, especially as I feel the invasive eyes of my student teacher looking over my shoulder from the table behind me. So... I'll blog later, when I have time!! Haha, that's a joke!!

Just wanted to let you know I'm still alive...

Adding Insult to Injury

Every day this shit gets worse. When is it going to end? I can't do this much longer. I am strong, but I can't handle much more. Greg continues to add insult to injury, with a stone cold heart. This is all too much.

Today the boys and I were invited to Greg's cousin's son's baptism, and under the impression Greg wasn't going to be there, we mustered the strength to go. I am friends with Greg's cousin Janice, and I wanted to be there for her. And my boys love their cousins and their family. They miss them. But then, as I'm going out to get the stroller for Caleb after the baptism, Greg shows up. Wearing a shirt his girlfriend, whom he left me for, bought him. Of all the fucking shirts in his closet, are you kidding me? I know I'm upset because my heart is still very broken, and sure, his entire family will see it as overreacting that we left - and he'll play it that way. But are you fucking for real Greg?

He wants us to be friends but he refuses to end the relationship (which JUST ended not even a week ago - apparently ended, who even knows if it did, or if it will end for good THIS time) with Amanda. He is so insensitive to my emotions about all of this. He is stone cold, heartless. And I have nothing more to say. Once I can be severed completely from him, maybe then I can heal. What an ass.

Trying to Pick up the Pieces

I can't sleep. I desperately need to but I can't. My mind is racing. My heart is crying. I am trying so hard to pick up the pieces and put my life back together. But this is the hardest thing I've ever had to go through. And just when I think it's getting a little better, a little easier, I am hit with yet another blow.

Not only is Greg still dating his 23 year old girlfriend whom he left me for (so there's all that self esteem shit to deal with there), he had the audacity to bring her along on his time with the boys yesterday. Ya. I don't even know what to say. It's entirely inappropriate, for one, to do that to our kids. The boys are so young and so confused with all of this. And he didn't even tell me, Isaiah did. It's pretty pathetic when you find out the truth from a three year old.

And it's pathetic on her part too, as a mom herself. She is free to choose to have people waltz in and out of her daughter's life, but when this begins to affect my kids I am going to put up a fight. They are not in the least bit ready for that. They haven't recovered from their life turning upside down. I definitely wonder what kind of a person she is if she can't see that. But she isn't the issue, really, Greg is.

He just doesn't get it. Not in the least. And he continues to make these choices. This is a path he chose. I asked him to fight for us, time and time again, he chose her. I have to live with that choice, and hopefully it does work out to be good for me in the end, but it is a choice that has some serious negative impacts right now. It is completely ridiculous that she was there with my kids. He has all the time in the world to spend with her, that he doesn't value what time he has with the boys is shocking. (Although I'm not entirely sure why, considering, for example, he only ever wants his kids at the end of a weekend so it doesn't interrupt his free time. He is living a life I honestly didn't think he wanted... I thought I married a family man...)

And that so many still root for him is beyond comprehension. I am sick of the "poor Greg" shit. I have never, not once, denied his access to the kids. Despite what kind of a person he is. I have never treated him poorly in all of this. I wish people would look at who he is being and not be so quick to judge me. I was not perfect in my marriage, but neither was he. People are forgetting just how miserable he made me. It's not all about him. And no matter what, he didn't have to end the marriage that way. He could have been decent and ended it first before moving on with her. I loved him unconditionally. I was committed and devoted to him.

And now I need to get over him. That he still chooses her means we can't be friends. It means he really doesn't, and possibly never did, feel the way I felt about him. Feel about him. (Yah, that I could still love him after all this is baffling to me, but it's there. I have yet to find a way to just turn it off.) That he doesn't value anything I do. That he doesn't respect our children. I have to unlove him. I have to let go of that kind of person.

What sucks is that all increasingly crushing to my self esteem. I am the only one hurting in this. It is so unfair. And I am starting to wonder if I'll ever be okay, if I'll get through this.

But I took a big step right now... a step I may need help taking. He is not a friend. How can he be if he is putting her first? Before the kids. He is not a person I need in my life right now if these are the choices he is making. So I'm going to try my hardest to keep him out of my life. I deleted him from my Facebook because it does me no good to know what is going on with him, with them. I am going to focus solely on myself and my boys, getting us through this. And whoever is there with me in the end are my real friends.

A Blessing in Disguise?

Okay readers, we're almost three months in to this separation. And I wish I could say it's gotten easier. Well, it hasn't. Not in the least. It's still raw, it's still overwhelming, it's still sad and hurtful. And I can't seem to get over the pain. Or the fact that I can still, somewhere in my heart, love someone who has treated me like shit for so long. Who was disconnected, emotionally and... totally... from our marriage for quite some time. For someone who has no moral fibre, no values. And I'm a sucker, douped again by my own mistake to trust him in some capacity. But he's a liar, and always will be someone I can't call a friend. My friends are amazing people. They are good, genuine, loving people, sound in their morals. That is not Greg. So maybe this is a blessing in disguise?

I've always believed everything happens for a reason, and so something good is going to come out of this. At some point. But it's tough. It's hard to believe that. I hate how painful this is, still, today. I hate how much I miss a marriage that was pretty damn shitty, to be honest. How can I want that? How can I not want better for myself? I do, but you know, it's hard to let go of someone you love (which is also interesting to note how easily Greg has let go... so it makes me question how he felt all along), a relationship so familiar. It's hard to see that this is going to work out for the best, in the end. The end is so far from the present.

So how do I get through this? How do I stay strong when so much is challenging who I am, right to the core? I have to ignore what everyone thinks. Many people are mistakenly misguided by others' thoughts and opinions and have formed ill opinions as a result. The people who know me for me will be there for me in the end. As for the rest, it's their loss. I'm not even half the things he's making me out to be... I can't change what people think of me, who I was in my marriage or who I am today. I have to just be me. Keep my head up and get through this. Love my kids and take the best possible care of them. Control what I can and leave the rest up to...

...well, here's where I wish I could say God. It'd be nice to know I could trust someone. But for those of you who know me, you know I'm not exactly sold on the higher power. We are masters of our own fate, creators of our destiny. But still, it'd be nice to know someone was helping to look out for me, putting me through this test for something in the future... right?

I'm rambling, I know. I'm just pretty lost in all this. It's a lot to take in and deal with. Which is why I'm so dumbfounded that Greg can be the way he is. It makes me feel as though he never loved me in the first place. It's hard to get past the cheating, too. I know I unfortuately have to deal with him because of our kids, and I'd like it to be civil. I really would. But how can I possibly be civil with someone like him? How can he possibly expect me to want to be a friend of his when he treated me far worse than any of my friends, combined, have treated me. I didn't deserve any of this, but the unfairness of it all is something I also can't control. It just sucks.

So I'm just trying to vent, and I no longer care how public this shit gets. It is what it is. People who know can then be there for me, to pick me up and get me back on the path, moving forward. Onward I go.

Breaking my Silence

Okay, well it seems enough time has passed for me to begin expressing what I have been going through in my own words, instead of simply posting lyrics that I can relate to quite closely. I have a lot to say, and if you know or suspect my situation, you'll understand just how much I must have to say. So it won't all be said in this post, by no means, and much will be left unsaid anyway, for many reasons. For one, I am pressed for time... I am now officially a single mother of three, three very rambuncious boys who keep me very busy and are all very dependent on an adult to care for their needs. As well, I don't believe that everything needs to be said. I am a very private person who has had to make much of what I am going through public, on sites like Facebook mostly simply because of Greg's choice to change his status to single. I followed suit and allowed the opportunity to be an open door for me, to let people who are going to be there for me do so by being honest in my status updates so they know how to support me. I've still maintained a degree of privacy, trust me, there's so much I've at times wanted to say.

So what have I to say today? Well, as you've likely already guessed, my marriage has recently dissolved. I take issue with that, as though I am gaining perspective regarding the person I was married to, I was not the one to initiate the chain of events that led to the marriage's end. And I hold firm in my belief to try at all costs, which did not happen because of things Greg did and choices he made, not me. That is not to say I don't own the problems that were mine in the marriage. If I could go back and make different choices I would. I would redirect the focus and concentrate more on the positives between us. We sent one another on a downward spiral... But I cannot look at my life through the rear-view mirror, save to learn from my mistakes and others' mistakes. I must put one foot in front of the other and move forward.

Yet I must step off the road I am on for a moment to make one comment. I do not take marriage lightly. I do not buy into the philosophy taken by Greg that marriage is something you lease, and that should you wish you trade in for a newer model. That is a crock, if you ask me. I financed, I was commited for life. I meant what I said in my marriage vows, that I was in it for better or for worse. I knew from the beginning my investment might depreciate over time, and I also knew that it would take a lot of work to keep it in mint condition. And, just like a car, when things break or begin to go awry, I believe they need to get into the shop to be fixed. Well, I was never given that chance. Instead of attempting to salvage our marriage, by going to counselling for example, Greg simply took the "easy" way out. He sabotaged the marriage, knowing full well the likely consequences of his actions, and now we're at where we're at.

And it's no "easy" road, that's for sure, for either of us. Our situation has been complicated by another chain of events that many people are unfortunately stuck on, and don't fully understand. That, however, I'll leave well enough alone for now, despite the pain it has caused me (and continues to...). I will only attest to how difficult it has made things for the both of us, and how complicated an already complicated situation became.

But you know, despite how painful, sad and disappointing this has been for me, there have come a handful of very wonderful things. For one, I'm doing it on my own. Were you to ask me before I definitely did say I was already quite like a single parent, but I really am now, in all aspects. And I'm doing it. In fact, I'm doing it well. There are still very difficult moments, made even harder in having to deal with this added stress and the emotional toll this all has taken. For me, that is... it would seem I'm the only one who has shed tears over the end of the marriage, but that's something to reflect on at another time... or not, who knows? At least I know I loved with my whole heart... Anyhow, I've taken the boys on vacation by myself, I've taken them on day trips, I function day in and day out as a single mom. And I am doing a great job. I am first and forevermore a mom. I would have, even two months ago, told you that role was equally as important to me as was my "title" of wife. But with that stripped away, I am focused solely on parenting my boys through this.

Another amazing thing that has come out of this is the tremendous amount of support and love. So many people have said such kind, supportive things. And some of those people, many in fact, are people I would never have suspected to say anything. People who were simply acquaintances, people I knew more through Greg's side of the family, people from stages in my life that have come and gone, and unfortunately so had much of our contact, but also people who have been amazing friends all along. And of course my loving family. I am very grateful to still have so many wonderful people in my life who are strong enough to stand up and say what they think, to support me regardless of ties, to understand there are two sides to every story, to emphasize with what I must be going through.

So, I'm just trying to get through each day. Not one day passes, however, that I do not get caught up thinking about what we had, what could have been. It's sad and very disappointing to not be living the life you thought you were going to. And although I tend to agree in many ways that this will work out for the better in the end, it's still not what I wanted, this is not the road I chose to be on. I miss my husband terribly. He was my best friend. He was my partner. But he is not someone I even know anymore. And he very obviously doesn't know me. Doesn't respect me or value the things I hold most important in life. Yet I still cry... I probably will be very upset about all of this for a long time. I loved him.