There is no Tao of Té Today

There is no Tao of Té Today

 

Life is never a straight line. It has many twists and turns. It has deviations and side roads. I suppose the best anyone could ever do would be to expect the unexpected. There isn’t a map. There aren’t directions and there is no Road Side Assistance. Each person has their own road to follow.

The last year has definitely been a difficult one for me in terms of physical, mental and emotional travails. There has been war and there has been peace. My father dying really impacted me in a way I never thought possible. But I learned to accept that I have no control over others and that only through my own actions, and reactions, could I learn valuable life lessons.

I trusted my husband to be with me every single step of the way. I felt that many times over the last three years that I was constantly failing him. I’d make an improvement and would never saw any positive feedback. I’d open up and talk with him about our relationship and never really received any true emotion in return.

He would get angry with me for the slightest things. I questioned him friendship with a woman from his past and his response was always to lash out at me. I was being judgmental. I was being jealous. There was nothing going on between them. They were just talking. He just needed someone to confide in and talk too since I had Kat.

One of his away trips from work was really a source of confrontation for us. I felt he was spending way, WAY too much time talking to this woman. He would barely talk to me yet would spend hours on the phone with her.

So I wanted to make peace. I travelled 10 hours to be with him over the weekend. When I arrived he was VERY distant. That night he would not even kiss me goodnight. No hug. No nothing. Just his turned back.

The next morning we talked before he went to work and he had a laundry list of the things I was doing wrong in our marriage. I was not being supportive. I did not bring in enough money. I was trolling for other men. I was this. I was that.

I was definitely devastated. Especially when he said, “I love you but I don’t know if I want to be married to you. I’ll have to think about it.”

Weeks went by and he never told me what he decided. In the meantime his “friend” sent some really vicious emails to me. Essentially saying things even I would not say, and that is saying quite a bit because I’m a very verbal person at times when crossed.

His response was to take up for her. I demanded he cease all forms of contact: email, calls, and to stick up for me. That is what a life partner, and one who supposedly loves you, does. They have your back no matter what.

He didn’t delete her from his Facebook…even when I begged and cried. His only response was to get angry with me and finally just delete his Facebook entirely. I was told to stop bringing it up and he was not going to discuss her ever again. I was not to discuss her and even if she emailed me again (which she did), he did NOT want to hear about it.

To say that it hurt was a great understatement. I was expected to just suck it up and ignore it. So for the sake of peace and to show him that I loved him…I did. Even at the cost of my soul and my very person. That inner turmoil really bled out of me in ways that I now understand. I lashed out quite a bit at others. I was torn inside and did not have enough perspective to know that there was something wrong. Peace was not mine. Meditation was lost to me.

Then I journeyed back to Arkansas. Dave threw an absolute fit citing money, time etc  etc. But I knew that this was probably the last time I would ever spend time with my dad, that I would never see him alive again.

I was right. And regardless of how much trouble it caused between Dave and I, I was glad I went back.

After Dad passed away, I gained an inner peace. I found inner balance. Things that once would send me into a chaos of anxiety no longer had their hold on me. I could walk away and gain perspective. I really truly felt loved and that I had a partner, once again, that loved me beyond anything. Things had truly changed between Dave and I the last 7 months.

Even the Sunday before last, I felt that we were truly in a rock steady marriage. He missed me while he was gone and I missed him.

The funny thing though is that I never felt TRULY loved. I never felt TRULY SAFE. Dave is not a person that expresses himself emotionally very often. He can type it occasionally but he can’t emote it. I had tried talking to him in the past about him showing me affection, making me feel desired and wanted and making me feel attractive. He would give me the: ya ya I’ll try speech. But it really would not manifest itself.

Dave didn’t seem to really SEE the person I had become. But I was still good inside because I knew who I was and ultimately that is the only thing that matters.

Until my world was shattered. I had gone through some old Facebook messages that were in my “Other” folder and discovered his friend, and the meth whore that had caused all the brouhaha back last May, had messaged me some old emails between her and Dave.

Reading them hurt. Reading him call her “my one true love” and signing “Love always” really tore me apart. I remained cool though. I called him and we talked and he said it was just a guilt thing over his past with her. Nothing more. I asked him, “Have you physically seen her since we have been married?” “Did you ever tell her again that you loved her?”

His answer, “No.”

Mmmm…something was rotten in Denmark and suddenly a lot of things were ticking in my mind.

So I picked him up from the airport and we didn’t really talk Wednesday night. I was tired. He was tired. But the next day he surprised me and actually initiated a conversation. I felt that we truly talked and bonded again. He told me he was very sorry and that he should have been telling ME those things all along. I was the one who had always been there for him and he did love me and was going to change.

Once again I asked him, “Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? Have you seen her since we have been in Oregon?”

“No” was his very firm answer. So I went on. He had a medical emergency Friday and I rushed to be by his side, frantic with worry that he was really ill. Luckily he recovered and we enjoyed a quiet Saturday together.

Until my mind started questioning some things he had said. He had given me his passwords freely earlier that week, which as startling because he had always refused before. He always gave the standard “If you trusted me then you wouldn’t need them. If you need to read my emails then there really isn’t any point in our relationship>” speeches.

I opened his email and read. Do you know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you are so angry, hurt and shocked that you simply shake? I was shaking. I couldn’t breathe.

He had seen her since we had been married. They spent 12 hours together at one of her friend’s house and back at his hotel. That trip to Merced where he blamed me for everything…it happened on his way down.

So now I understood that it was guilt causing him to lash out. He NEEDED to make me the bad guy in order to justify his actions. He had not quit talking to her after she attacked me on Facebook. He had lied to me repeatedly.

So I woke him up. I walked in and said, “So you lied. You did see her. For 12 hours you sat there with her and you kept lying to me.”

He swears up and down that nothing happened. Then he got up and we talked again. I finally broke down and bawled like a baby and he tried to comfort me. He said he was sorry and that the reason he never told me, and lied to me, was because he did not think I would believe him when he said nothing happened.

Hey…isn’t your emotional affair enough? He had been having an emotional affair with her beginning two months after we married.

I hurt. I hurt so bad I could barely breathe. Then we went to bed. We had talked and talked and talked and I was simply numb. He swore up and down that he would do anything to prove how much he loved me and to prove how much I mattered. We discussed him not removing her from Facebook and he pulled the “It’s been so long ago I don’t remember if I ever talked to her again.”

So after he went to sleep I reactivated his Facebook. Another lie. He had contacted her and I finally read how they had laughed about me. How I made her want to puke because she was forced to pretend to be friendly to me. She did confirm that they had never touched or been physical. But that was simply because SHE did not want to start their relationship that way.

I also discovered that he had planned to divorce me as soon as the school year was over and he could kick me and “my kid” out.

I discovered that he was very mad, and she was too, over me coming to Merced to visit him. That he was just biding his time until it was over between us and he could move on in his life with her.

Now let me tell you a bit about this woman. I could give you her name and where she lives but I will not. I’m pretty sure that were Dave to read this blog…he would be upset because I aired his dirty laundry. But I don’t care. This is about my peace. He felt it was okay to tell his Mom and his mistress all of my personal secrets.

This woman had sabotaged Dave’s life 20 years ago. She was and is currently a meth addict who lives with her mother. She is constantly in trouble with the law. She has been with many, many men. She has trouble grasping the English language.

At one point in her attack on me she wrote, “Why don’t you fucking kill yourself but please make sure you carve my initials into your skin because I will be laughing the entire time.”

Wow…nice huh. I’m sure it is shocking for you to read but essentially it was one of the nicer things she said. I was called everything but a nice, white girl.

I spent the rest of Saturday night and Sunday morning in a daze. I couldn’t sleep. So I waited for Dave to wake up.

When I felt it was time, I walked in and told him I read his Facebook messages.

I cried a lot again. He didn’t cry but I could tell he was upset. Finally he was not upset AT me but upset over his actions and the pain he caused. I like to think that. I don’t know it for sure.

He never begged me to stay though and I needed him to tell me that. I needed to see him beg me the way I had begged him a year prior.

He told me that he was sorry and that he would prove to me just how much he loved me.

I was angry and am still upset today because of the emotional hell he put me through by constantly mind-fucking me. A year ago May he had me thinking I was a horrible wife that was self-centered and a gold digger when in reality it was all HIM! He was feeling guilty about his affair so he tried to justify it.

By the way…he never did tell me that he wanted to stay married to me back last year. He just forgot about it and moved on. He did start improving our communication. He did start being affectionate and loving. I never knew what brought on that change. I just appreciated it! He opened up to me and I thought it was because he finally saw how much I cared for him, loved him and all the great things I did for him on a daily basis.

I realize now it was because he had stopped contacting her once he saw how bag o’ cats crazy she was and how she was just as bad as his previous ex.

Maybe he saw that he had a woman in his life that was always there for him. That loved him and took care of him. That contributed any way she could to making his life easier. From housework, to job, to emotional support to even cutting his meat for him.

Maybe it was my unconditional love and acceptance for who he was? I don’t know.

If you’ve gotten this far in the blog…I thank you. It has helped writing it down. I took today off from a job that I completely love, more for my coworkers than the actual work itself, because I did not want my sadness to affect them. I like to be happy for them so I can see them laugh. They make me happy and glad to get up in the morning and go to work because I know that I am going to laugh.

So yesterday was “numb” day and today is “crying” day. I cry for myself and for being made to feel bad and accepting that. I cry because I did NOT deserve to be made to feel less than I was. I did not deserve to be the bearer of his guilt. I DESERVE peace, love and unconditional acceptance. I DESERVE a down on the knees groveling and admittance of being emotionally abused for months. To the point where I doubted my own sanity and didn’t want to go on in life.

I may never get that. But I will balance myself out. I will regain my inner peace and focus on today. I cannot change the past and I cannot worry about the future. I can control myself only. I can’t change Dave. He has to want to change himself but that takes introspection and being in touch with what motivates him in ever action and deed.

I don’t know what the future holds. Many would tell me to walk away. I do realize that all this took place almost a year ago. That we have changed tremendously since that time. Our relationship had gotten better and stronger. He has to understand that, even though for him it happened quite a while ago, it just happened to me 6 days ago. I have to grieve, be angry and then start to heal.