The Epiphany

About a month ago, I had an epiphany of spiritual growth. It was while I was reading a book, one of many, that was recommended to me by my psychologist. Over the past 4 months, I have read no less than 6 books offering me wisdom on personal and spiritual growth. I feel as though I have taken the accelerated, crash course version of the soul work that I needed to do eventually in this life. That was inevitable, but was prompted by my life unexpectedly burning to the ground. The short version, is that I have been able to reach out in friendship to Mike, and though we are still divorcing and going about living our separate, but parallel lives, we are doing so in joint friendship, being brutally honest with each other about our feelings both then and now. 

I love him, unconditionally.  That is what my heart wants, and what I felt when I learned to just let go.  That doesn't mean I'm not angry and hurt, but I'm able to move past it to a more productive and healing place. I do not want to spend years of my life in bitter regret, and let it poison my future.

Mike has been brave enough to read this blog, to understand how I saw/see things from my perspective. To understand how the consequences of his choices affect others, not just himself. He continues on his own journey of healing, and still sees his PTSD counsellor regularly.

We don't know what the future holds for either of us, but we know that we have almost 30 years of history together, and that wasn't for nothing.

Our friendship has boundaries that we have both agreed on. Complete honesty, no matter how painful, is one of them.  Another was that he can not have both me and Sandy Sinner in his life at the same time.  If he wants a relationship with her, then I would wish them both God's grace, but would not play an active roll in his life.  If he wants my friendship, not just arms-length best wishes, then she has to go. Completely.

I'm happy and relieved to say that he chose my friendship, and yes, I was a little surprised.  So what did he give it all way for? Sigh. It was just meant to be, I guess. I don't let my pride get in my way, I don't feel a need to 'punish' him. It doesn't matter if he 'deserves' to have my friendship or not.  It isn't about him.  It's about me. Besides, living with, and accepting responsibility for, his own choices is going to be hard enough. As it is for us all.

Anyway, we know that this friendship will change and evolve, go through ups and downs just like our marriage did. It may end just like the marriage. But for now, we enter into it willingly, with eyes open.  It is a comfort to me to still have his friendship.  We were good friends, comrads in arms. I'm not sure what happened.

So, I still can't see the future from here, but I have come to learn that it doesn't matter if I do.  The future will come, and I will not only deal with what it brings, I will enjoy it and live my life fully, making good decisions to the best of my ability, and only allowing positive energy in my life.

I hope I find that kind of love again. Be cherished and treasured by someone. But if I don't, it's okay. There are many facets to my life, and many more adventures.  I will embrace them all as they come, with as much grace as God grants me.

The Official Wedding - Part I

I think I have mentioned before that Mike & I were actually married to each other twice.  We had a civil ceremony by a Justice of the Peace, and then a bigger church wedding a few months later. Today is the 28th Anniversary of that church wedding, which to the guests attending was our one and only ceremony, and to the two of us, the priest, and our witnesses, was a renewal of our vows taken earlier on March 1st. Why the priest chose to help us with that charade, I don't know. But he was a good man, and indulged us in our secret.

A lot of good that did!  Saying your vows before God twice still meant absolutely nothing to Mike. No more than if he was pinky-swearing with a friend in kindergarten. Mike was always so regulation oriented, it’s odd to me that he never thought of our marriage as a commitment with rules and responsibilities just like the army. Maybe if I had worn khaki to the ceremonies, and had his Warrant Officer preside instead of a Justice of the Peace and an Anglican priest. We did have the reception in the Junior Ranks, I believe it was called "The Snake Room". Yes, it was just as classy as it sounds, but it was free :).

So as I write this, it is the evening of June 20th, 2014, and I am sitting alone in a hotel room in Waterton National Park, Alberta. We came here twice before as a couple. Both times organized by me to get away and either celebrate our anniversary, or just to spend time alone together.  I have accidentally booked a room in the same hotel as when we were here last. I was trying to do exactly not that, but realized as soon as I pulled up that it was indeed where we stayed last.  At least it's not the same room!

Incidentally, our first trip to Waterton was to celebrate our 21st Anniversary. We stayed at an absolutely charming hotel called the Kilmorey Lodge. It burned down 2 years later and has never been rebuilt.  Omen?

I have slowly been revisiting our old haunts.  Partly to reminisce, and partly to reclaim them for my own. So for this anniversary weekend, I took myself to the mountains, to reflect and relax, and to read the latest and long awaited volume in the series of Outlander novels by Diana Gabaldon.  I'm also going to enjoy a massage, and in general just do whatever moves me.

I have also brought with me the mother's diaries that both of my girls have given me on separate occasions, to fill out with my history and story of my life and who I am. They are so sweet to care! Imagine, my kids wanting to know who I am and everything about me! I must have done something right along the way. Now, they are both well aware of my tendency to procrastinate, and have been very patient. Erin gave me her book back in Christmas of 2007 (oh my word time flies, sorry Erin!), and Megan gave me hers a few months ago, so I technically still have another 7 years for hers ;).

I have been periodically working on the one from Erin, and actually intended to finish it and give it back to her this last Christmas.  Well, and then all hell broke loose, and finishing it was just too painful. So, this weekend, I want to at least work on both of them, if not finish them. They'll be so surprised! So will I!

But anyway, back to the wedding.

Mike's parents weren't keen on us getting married at all; thought we were too young (they may have been on to something), and they definitely weren't crazy about the idea of a reception. They wanted a quiet wedding and then dinner out somewhere with just the family.  We were already secretly married, so we could easily have confessed and taken everyone to dinner to celebrate (Would they be in celebratory moods? Not likely.) But well, it's every little girls' dream to wear a beautiful wedding gown and walk down the aisle, and I was (am) the only girl in my family, and I didn't want to deprive my parents of their only daughter's wedding, white dress, church & all. So church wedding and reception it was. Mike's parents were relieved to know that I would agree to be married in the Anglican Church, and not force everyone into a Mormon church, where they may have all spontaneously combusted and/or died from alcohol withdrawal.

Let the circus begin! Mike's Dad (Roy) strongly hinted that my soon-to-be mother-in-law, (Kathy), was very good at organizing things, and was an excellent seamstress. He was absolutely correct about both of those things. She also didn't like me very much. So, the young bride-to-be, anxious to please everyone, especially if they had the suffix of 'in-law' behind their family title, dutifully asked her to please make my wedding dress and bridesmaids dresses, and to help me organize the wedding. This was one of many times in my life I would come to regret not knowing my own power. Or maybe I knew my power but gave it away on purpose in the name of diplomacy? How self-sacrificing of me.

Segue - Why did I lose/give away/forget my power? I had, from a young age, always accepted that I was stronger than those around me thought I was. Fought through my entire childhood, and left home at 17.  I was strong and brave all my life. What the hell happened when I got engaged? Hmm, I will have to explore that more. That will be another post.

Roy and Kathy kindly offered to also pay for the invitations. Kathy took me to the printer she had selected, and gave me a choice of several she had pre-chosen according to their budget. I chose the one that most closely went with the wedding colours we had chosen, which were aquamarine and pink. Glaulgh (that's a gagging noise) why such horrible colours? My only explanation is that it was the 80's. That explanation covers a lot, actually. So the invitation was kind of a teal-ish blue with a rose on it, which was close enough. I already just wanted this wedding over with.

As it would turn out, the text in the invitation had a spelling error, and the entire order had to be reprinted, at the cost of the printer. My father-in-law insisted. The grievous spelling mistake? Beleive instead of Believe.

Well, ha ha, I thought I could get the whole history of my wedding into one blog post. Oh my, how quickly I have forgotten that long, fascinating (for how many things can actually go wrong in one wedding), and educational process!  Let's just say that I should qualify for a career in high-stakes mediation at the U.N.

This is going to take much more than one post. So, as it is now after 1:00 A.M., and I am anxious to start my new book and get a good nights sleep before my massage tomorrow, I will leave it here for now. Will the flower girl get lost in the hotel? Will the wedding cars be hijacked by the groomsmen?  Will the in-laws be left behind at the photography site? Who knows what could be revealed next?!

Stay tuned for more of the exciting adventures of Tammy strives to plan her wedding with/in-spite-of her in-laws, fiancé, mother and grandmother.  Same bat time, same bat place. I'll even add photos!

Happy 28th Double-Fake Anniversary to Me!

And fuck my husband and the mistress he rode in on.

Even Our Best Wasn't Enough

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.

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.

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.

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.