Ghost of girlfriend past . . .

Just when you think you’ve mastered this thing called betrayal, along comes something that pushes you off the road, making you feel like D-Day was yesterday – feeling like you just got out of a fight and you got your ass kicked – again. You see, I have always checked voice mails first thing after walking in the door.  Prior to D-day I had an answering machine that you had to play for the whole world to hear (after all I had nothing to hide), after D-day and psycho’s phone calls to my home, I switched to an answering service that I log into and only I can hear.  I didn’t want my kids to ever hear voice mails from this crazy person’s family – I don’t ever want them to know the truth.  So, last night, I checked voice mails as I usually do, but this time someone hung up.  Curiosity always gets the better of me so I checked the caller id.  It was an area code I didn’t recognize.  So, I did the only thing I know to do- I did a reverse search to see who was calling.  Turns out it was a cell phone number from the state that Diane and her crazy family live in.  To say that I FREAKED would probably be an understatement.  I waited until the kids had left the room and then asked hubby if he knew anyone in this particular city and why would they be calling?  He became very defensive which in turn PISSED me off beyond belief.  To all cheating spouses – when a betrayed spouse asks you a question about a suspicious phone call and you get offended that they don’t trust you – TOO FUCKING BAD!!!  You lost that trust the minute you decided it was probably wrong but you didn’t care you were still going to communicate with an old girlfriend behind your spouse’s back!!!  After calming down he said that it hurts that I still don’t trust him and that it reminded him of Diane’s crazy sister’s phone calls from last year at about this time.  No shit – that thought hadn’t crossed my fucking mind!  No in fact I never think that her crazy ass family might start calling again or that her psycho husband might have issues with us or that he might one day go to trial and my husband might be called in to testify and that I can’t wait to have that conversation with my kids.  Do I live in fear?  You betcha I do!  But I am not going to let that fear control me.  As I probably not so nicely explained to my husband, I am done living in fear.  I have put up shields long enough.  I don’t know exactly how I’m going to let go of the fear but I will not be made to feel like I cannot bring up the white elephant in the room.  If we can’t get to the point where we can openly communicate about what happened without one or the other feeling anger or guilt, then we probably don’t have the marriage I thought we had.  I will not lose this battle.  Once again, you pick yourself and figure out how to get back on track.  Not easy – sucks really, but I will not accept defeat.   My 20th anniversary was one year ago tomorrow.  That day, that milestone, was ruined for me.  I will not let another anniversary go by ruined by the ghost of girlfriend past.

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Therapy – the good, the bad and the ugly

Therapy is a route many of us cheated upons choose.  For me, it was eye opening at first.  The therapist truly made my husband see that this woman that he felt so sorry for was quite the manipulator and was using him.  She put it much nicer than I would have in my “bitch got what she deserved” mentality, but it helped me that someone was able to make him see how truly messed up she was.  Coming from me it was just the jealous wife who didn’t understand her situation.  Truth is I understood her situation completely.  See, no one contacts someone after twenty years unless they want something from you.  Believe me, I had felt unfulfilled and unappreciated in my marriage for years and had often thought about what if – what if I had ended up with someone else that I had dated.  And naturally I wondered what had happened to them after all these years, and had even searched Facebook to see if I could find them.  Big difference here is that I would have never contacted them, because there’s a line you just don’t cross as long as you have a ring on your finger and that line was there for me.   The excuse she used was that she just wanted to apologize for the way she treated him when they dated over 20 years ago.  Uh-huh right.  That right there tells me that she manipulated him before and wanted to see if she could do it again.  And BINGO, she could.  Didn’t take a therapist to figure that out for me, but it did take one to make him understand it.  What it did take therapy for me to understand, was that this was a horrible, awful thing that happened that was not my fault.  Granted, I was at fault for letting my marriage get to the point that neither one of us was acting as if the needs of our spouse mattered, but it was NOT MY FAULT that my husband betrayed me.  That was all him and his issues, and though I can’t force someone to face their own demons, when you get defensive every time its brought up, that tells me you have some things you should probably own up to and work on.  If you don’t want to do that, it’s all on you.  That is not to say that we don’t continue to work on our marriage, but I still feel there were some underlying issues that made my husband think it was ok to screw me over and never let on that he wanted out of our marriage.  But let’s just say that I understand how things growing up and a culture play a huge role in who you are and that might now be something that can never be changed.  Instead of pushing the issue about how I felt he needed therapy, I concentrated on working on me and my self esteem issues and insecurities.  I finally let therapy go, both couple sessions as well as my own sessions as I didn’t see any clear plan on getting me out of therapy – sometimes you have to go through several counselors until you find one that isn’t all about the money and keeping you coming back indefinitely.  Therapy should in most cases be a relatively short-term event with clear steps to get you where you want to be.   I’ve taken ahold of my own therapy and reading blogs and books is helpful, but blogs and books about affairs sometimes hold you back. I prefer positive thoughts and thinking as I think that is most helpful to get me to stop dwelling on things I cannot change and start dwelling on what makes me happy and fulfilled.  It’s amazing how much easier it is to make someone happy when you yourself feel happy, when you feel like no matter what you have to say you will say it instead of keeping it inside.   Luckily happiness for me has included continuing to be married.  I’ve learned I cannot make any promises other than to say I’ll give it my best.  I know that if an issue like this ever comes up again, I will no longer be interested in working it out – that will be his issue and something he will have to figure out alone.  I know that whatever happens, I will be happy, because that is what I choose to be.   And that is some GOOD THERAPY!

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