If it is true that part of the definition of doing your best is that your best is going to change from moment to moment, and will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick, then under any circumstance all we can do is simply our best, and accept that self-judgement, self-abuse and regret are null.
I guess Mike did his best. And I did mine. He, struggling with PTSD, didn't have the courage and clarity of mind to be honest. And me struggling with 'him', struggling to reach him through it, through the fog of his anger, guilt, shame, and paranoia. We never really had a chance. That's all anybody can ask, really. And all we can ask of ourselves. Is that we do our best. And we did. It just wasn't enough.
Tuesday, June 03, 2014
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Old Habits...
For 26 of the 29 years that we were married (we still are, though are separated with divorce pending), my husband was in the military. An infantryman in the Canadian Armed Forces, to be exact. This often meant he was absent from home, for both long and short periods of time.
During these years, I developed habits for while he was away. Little rituals that I guess is just human nature to rely on. Or maybe I'm just weird. Either is possible. And in his civilian job after he retired, was also often away for work, and so the habits continued.
I always sat in his chair at the kitchen table, so I wouldn't have to look across the table and see his empty chair, and the kids wouldn't either.
I slept on his side of the bed. Same reasoning...so I wouldn't be looking at his empty side of the bed. It was also comforting to sleep where he slept, and sit where he had sat.
When the girls were little, we would always sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" before bed. Except I changed the last lines to "Twinkle, twinkle little star, shine on my Daddy tonight".
I always started some kind of diet or exercise program. It gave me something to focus on, and provided structure.
At night, after the girls were tucked into bed, I would sit with a cup of tea and write to him about our day. There was usually nothing too significant, but just the minutia of what our daily lives were while he was gone. Cute things the girls said or did, etc.
And when I crawled into bed, and turned out the light, I would whisper to myself "Goodnight Michael, I miss you".
So now, that he has moved out, I find myself doing all these same rituals still. The girls and I have yet to sit at the table for a meal. That is just still too painful. We always used to go around to each person at the table and ask what the best part of our day was. I suppose we could certainly use that now, but there's just no way. We usually eat in front of the television together. They are adults so I don't feel guilty, but still, it would be nice to eat at the table again. Maybe one day.
Alone in my room at the end of the day is still the hardest time, next to waking up alone in my room in the morning. And I find myself still whispering "Goodnight Michael, I miss you". I know the man I am missing does not exist anymore, if he ever did except in my head, and yet I can't help it. I am awash in pain and loneliness.
It doesn't help to know I am better off without him. It doesn't help to know that he doesn't love me anymore and there would be no hope even if I forgave him and took him back. It doesn't help to know that I miss a fictional person long gone from my life, though I only just found out.
I guess I need to make some new rituals. I still can't see my future from here. I have no vision for what my life will or should be. There will be no homecoming to end the rituals. He is gone forever to me. I need to start over. I wish I could figure out how to do that, exactly. People say to me that it gets better, that there is a rainbow at the end. I believe them. I have faith that this is true. I just can't see it from here.
During these years, I developed habits for while he was away. Little rituals that I guess is just human nature to rely on. Or maybe I'm just weird. Either is possible. And in his civilian job after he retired, was also often away for work, and so the habits continued.
I always sat in his chair at the kitchen table, so I wouldn't have to look across the table and see his empty chair, and the kids wouldn't either.
I slept on his side of the bed. Same reasoning...so I wouldn't be looking at his empty side of the bed. It was also comforting to sleep where he slept, and sit where he had sat.
When the girls were little, we would always sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" before bed. Except I changed the last lines to "Twinkle, twinkle little star, shine on my Daddy tonight".
I always started some kind of diet or exercise program. It gave me something to focus on, and provided structure.
At night, after the girls were tucked into bed, I would sit with a cup of tea and write to him about our day. There was usually nothing too significant, but just the minutia of what our daily lives were while he was gone. Cute things the girls said or did, etc.
And when I crawled into bed, and turned out the light, I would whisper to myself "Goodnight Michael, I miss you".
So now, that he has moved out, I find myself doing all these same rituals still. The girls and I have yet to sit at the table for a meal. That is just still too painful. We always used to go around to each person at the table and ask what the best part of our day was. I suppose we could certainly use that now, but there's just no way. We usually eat in front of the television together. They are adults so I don't feel guilty, but still, it would be nice to eat at the table again. Maybe one day.
Alone in my room at the end of the day is still the hardest time, next to waking up alone in my room in the morning. And I find myself still whispering "Goodnight Michael, I miss you". I know the man I am missing does not exist anymore, if he ever did except in my head, and yet I can't help it. I am awash in pain and loneliness.
It doesn't help to know I am better off without him. It doesn't help to know that he doesn't love me anymore and there would be no hope even if I forgave him and took him back. It doesn't help to know that I miss a fictional person long gone from my life, though I only just found out.
I guess I need to make some new rituals. I still can't see my future from here. I have no vision for what my life will or should be. There will be no homecoming to end the rituals. He is gone forever to me. I need to start over. I wish I could figure out how to do that, exactly. People say to me that it gets better, that there is a rainbow at the end. I believe them. I have faith that this is true. I just can't see it from here.
Saturday, March 01, 2014
The World's Oldest Excuse
If prostitution is the world's oldest profession, then adultery is surely the world's oldest sin, with relationships the world's oldest collateral damage.
The excuses may be unique to each situation, but I'm sure they are all variations on the same theme. Off the top of my head, I'm guessing they go like this:
We bonded over ______________________
She understands me/my needs
She pays attention to me
She isn't too tired/busy to have sex
It all boils down to ...she feeds my ego what it needs, whenever it needs it. She puts up with all my bullshit without ever challenging me on it. They don't have boring, everyday life to deal with. The kids, the house, the bills, the job....all of the inconvenient things that are not fun.
It's interesting to me that men only seem to leave a relationship once they have another one to go to. Like some kind of simbyot that cannot survive the outside world unless attached, leech-like, to its host. Whereas women, leave relationships for their own good, or their children's well being, wether they have a place to land or not. Or they are forced to stay in a bad relationship for socio-economic reasons, struggling to survive and make things work. Sometimes they accidentally do. Or so it seems, anyway.
This is so prevalent, it almost seems like it is meant to be. That human nature can take no other course. We are programmed into our predestined rolls, and no amount of evolution can change that very basic human condition of ego.
Our Last Anniversary
Well, today is our 28th wedding anniversary. We were married on Mar. 1st, 1986, by a justice of the peace in his home. Ironically, his home was across the street from where I had attended junior high school. I thought that was serendipity.
We had been living together for about 8 months, I think, before that. I was 18, and Mike was just shy of 22. We had decided to marry by a JP, because his family really wasn't happy about our plans to marry, and so we weren't sure if we wanted to have a big wedding. In the end we had both, but that is for another post. Very few people know about this first marriage ceremony. Only the people that needed to know, which did not include our families at the time. It was a special secret that Mike & I shared, and I treasured the memory. There is no point in keeping it anymore.
I wore a white dress, with baby's breath in my hair, and Mike wore his military dress uniform. I still have the baby's breath pressed in a photo album. We had two friends as witnesses: Mike's closest friend at the time, John, and his wife Cynthia. After the ceremony, the two of us went out for dinner to The Smuggler's Inn, where we had prime rib and champagne. Our witnesses weren't able to join us for dinner, as John had to deploy on course the next day. So it was just the two of us. Sounds a little lonely, but it was sweet.
We spent the night in the honeymoon suite at the Delta BowValley hotel, Room 2517. I still have the receipt in the same photo album. It cost us $96, which would have been a fortune for us at that time.
This will be our last anniversary. I expect our divorce to be final before the next one comes around. Rather than celebrating the culmination of our marriage, I am reflecting on its end, and looking back on all we shared with a heavy heart. I'm learning to view it at a distance, though, and not drown in the pain.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
The Worst of It
What you did to me was cruel. And not just to me, but to our girls as well. For 8 months, when your behaviour was increasingly distant. When I could feel that you resented being here, didn't want to be with us. Every time you came home from your business trips, you were impossible to live with. Angry and self-absorbed. Unwilling to help around the house or do anything with the family unless pressed. When I asked you repeatedly about it, how it felt like you didn't want to be here anymore, you denied it. You said that wasn't the case at all. I thought It was just your ongoing struggle with PTSD.
So for 8 months I worried about you. Patiently supporting you through what I thought was a rough spot in our lives. I thought it was just you. That you were broken, but eventually would be okay. The walks you would take in the pouring rain, and the walks down by the river. When you would make comments to me that "You'll do just fine without me". I worried that you were suicidal. But that wasn't it, was it. It was because in your mind, you had already left us. You were having an affair and planning to leave. You just didn't have the courage to say it.
You claim you wanted to give us "one last Christmas". What bullshit. Why on earth would you think that would be something we wanted? That when you told us, we wouldn't look back and realize that it had all been a lie? Like the other 8 months have been? What kind of Christmas memory would that be? It was because it was convenient for you, for whatever reason. It had nothing to do with being considerate of us. If that was true, you would have been honest from the start.
We've been married for 28 years come this Saturday. And we lived together for a year before that. 29 years together. A lifetime come to a sudden and shuddering stop. I feel discarded.There was nothing more you needed from me, having found someone else, and so I wasn't useful to you anymore.
You could have done this with honour. Been respectful of me and our marriage. This process would be so different if you had. But you didn't. You trashed our marriage like it was nothing. Like I was nothing and had never meant anything. You have no idea how painful that is, and what hurts more, is I know you don't care.
So for 8 months I worried about you. Patiently supporting you through what I thought was a rough spot in our lives. I thought it was just you. That you were broken, but eventually would be okay. The walks you would take in the pouring rain, and the walks down by the river. When you would make comments to me that "You'll do just fine without me". I worried that you were suicidal. But that wasn't it, was it. It was because in your mind, you had already left us. You were having an affair and planning to leave. You just didn't have the courage to say it.
You claim you wanted to give us "one last Christmas". What bullshit. Why on earth would you think that would be something we wanted? That when you told us, we wouldn't look back and realize that it had all been a lie? Like the other 8 months have been? What kind of Christmas memory would that be? It was because it was convenient for you, for whatever reason. It had nothing to do with being considerate of us. If that was true, you would have been honest from the start.
We've been married for 28 years come this Saturday. And we lived together for a year before that. 29 years together. A lifetime come to a sudden and shuddering stop. I feel discarded.There was nothing more you needed from me, having found someone else, and so I wasn't useful to you anymore.
You could have done this with honour. Been respectful of me and our marriage. This process would be so different if you had. But you didn't. You trashed our marriage like it was nothing. Like I was nothing and had never meant anything. You have no idea how painful that is, and what hurts more, is I know you don't care.
Missing the Ghost
I have to keep reminding myself that the person that I miss so badly is gone. He is not the same person he used to be. And so when it hurts so much it feels like my heart is literally breaking into tiny pieces, I have to remind myself that he doesn't exist anymore.
He is like a phantom limb that keeps tricking me into thinking it is still there. It is worse than grieving a death. At least in death there is some comfort in imagining that you will be together again someday. For me, this person is gone forever. His personality change transcending death to have become a new entity that I don't know, and don't like very much.
That person, I could happily never see again. The old one...I miss desparately.
He is like a phantom limb that keeps tricking me into thinking it is still there. It is worse than grieving a death. At least in death there is some comfort in imagining that you will be together again someday. For me, this person is gone forever. His personality change transcending death to have become a new entity that I don't know, and don't like very much.
That person, I could happily never see again. The old one...I miss desparately.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
It Doesn't Help
I am bereft. I am lonely. I am spent. Confused, frustrated and
angry. Mostly just so very sad. The emotional manipulation, the
betrayal. It's unimaginable. So cowardly.
I feel like I am on a roller coaster that is also on a merry-go-round. There doesn't seem to be any way to get off or make it stop. Slowing it down is almost more painful than letting it run out of control.
I have good days, though they are few these days. I try to take advantage of them and get a lot done, because I don't know how long they will last. On those days, I don't understand the others. The days when I am paralyzed with grief and anxiety. When I weep all day. Slowly and silently leaking my pain through eyes of sorrow, heartbroken. Unable to stop. Not caring about the things I need to do to get on with my life. Not caring if I ever do. Not caring if I ever care again.
So many memories. So much pain.
So frustrating to miss him, and want him back. To just have things be the way they used to be. I know that I only miss a person who doesn't exist anymore. Maybe he never did. That is the scariest part. How long have I been wrong? What if I am again? How much am I wrong about right now that I don't even know yet?
I know to count my blessings. And I have many. I know it could be worse. I know I am not the only one. I know this will pass. Will become something else. I just can't see it from here. And it doesn't help.
I feel like I am on a roller coaster that is also on a merry-go-round. There doesn't seem to be any way to get off or make it stop. Slowing it down is almost more painful than letting it run out of control.
I have good days, though they are few these days. I try to take advantage of them and get a lot done, because I don't know how long they will last. On those days, I don't understand the others. The days when I am paralyzed with grief and anxiety. When I weep all day. Slowly and silently leaking my pain through eyes of sorrow, heartbroken. Unable to stop. Not caring about the things I need to do to get on with my life. Not caring if I ever do. Not caring if I ever care again.
So many memories. So much pain.
So frustrating to miss him, and want him back. To just have things be the way they used to be. I know that I only miss a person who doesn't exist anymore. Maybe he never did. That is the scariest part. How long have I been wrong? What if I am again? How much am I wrong about right now that I don't even know yet?
I know to count my blessings. And I have many. I know it could be worse. I know I am not the only one. I know this will pass. Will become something else. I just can't see it from here. And it doesn't help.
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