I haven’t even read any other tumblr posts, I am just freestylin’ this. Not sure if it’s going to exactly fit in or not, but…here I am! I’m going through a time of major crisis, upheaval and growth and my friend urged me to publish some things I’ve written - emails and such - because she says I’m expressing myself beautifully. I am going to heed her advice, and try to make something beautiful out of the shitpile I’ve stepped in. Not in this post - this will just be backstory, then I’ll try working it all through with something lovely. Maybe poems or short stories, we’ll just see!
My story begins over 12 years ago, when I met the man of my dreams. The first time I saw him, he simply took my breath away. He was laughing and warm, his eyes were kind and open. A few years later we got engaged and then married. For almost 9 years, each time I looked into those eyes I saw the same kindness, love and warmth. When I was about 32 week pregnant with our second child, a son, I felt something different from him. Upon confrontation two weeks later, he confessed that he’d begun an affair with a woman. A younger woman with no children, with all the free time in the world to go to bars and listen to music, a woman who bore no c-section scar, a woman whose breasts were not deflated from 2 pregnancies and nursing and everything that goes along with it. A woman who hadn’t stood beside him and supported his broken acting career, through 9 years of hits and lots of misses. A woman who didn’t work to financially support him so he wouldn’t have to give up that dream. She’s also a woman who knew he was married, who saw me out with him at 8 months pregnant. She knew, and just didn’t care.
Of course more importantly, HE didn’t care. He saw this woman and was attracted to her, and that’s that. Now my son is 3 months old, I’ve filed for divorce and he is basically living with this woman. Never mind his son, who he barely sees. Never mind his two year old daughter who has been gutted by this experience. Never mind - me, yes me. He says he was lying to himself all of these years about the kind of person he could be and what he was capable of in terms of remaining committed and monogamous. Funny, he never gave me any inkling that anything at all was wrong. How could I have known someone so intimately and for so long and then…nothing? His eyes are blank, empty, and so, so cold. His heart and soul are gone from our family, gone from everything important in the world.
I’m processing all of this very slowly. It’s intensely painful, but the alternate strength I feel is just as fucking intense. I’m ready to rebuild, I’m read to create a kick ass world for my children. The execution of that, though, is such a terrible push and pull. Now I live in a world where I have to share my children on the weekends, holidays, and see my ex too many times a week. I’m no snowflake here, I’m not unique in this situation, but it breaks. my. fucking. heart. If I could just never see him again, never run into him, it would be nice. But the reality is, he’s a decent dad and my kids deserve to have a great relationship with him. They deserve to think he’s the best thing that ever walked the face of the planet earth, and I’ll do my best to foster that. Really, though, he’s just a jerk who left his wife and kids, who did nothing more to him than to offer such abundant love and support. Speaking of kids, one is waking up.
