What I took with me from my marriage

When my therapist suggested a possible reschedule to a Saturday morning, there wasn't even a hesitation before I said "no".  I spent a few minutes afterwards reflecting on why I am so protective of my Saturday mornings and realized it goes back to the last few years of my marriage that I have chosen to carry forward into my single life.  

It started with Sunday mornings before church but then quickly expanded to Saturday mornings on weekends when we weren't headed out for a day trip.  It's my quiet time.  I sip coffee, eat breakfast, post my daily photo to Instagram, write, surf the internet/social media, or whatever quiet thing I feel would feed my soul that day.  While we were married, I had a subscription to the Washington Post and so would often lose myself in the comments sections as I debated topics with other commenters.  Threads has replaced that forum now when I want to interact with others.    

It was a time a day, that I refused to do dishes or other chores which was sometimes a point of contention with my ex-husband.  He often wanted to get up and get things done.  And to be fair, I wasn't stopping him.  I just wasn't going to do my part at that time of day.  I wanted this chunk of time for quiet.

It is "me" time.

I've now expanded a form of this to even my work days.  The alarm goes off at 6am to make sure I don't oversleep but I'm usually climbing out of bed much earlier, sometimes as early as 5am.  This morning I was showered, dressed, had made my lunch, and was sitting down to a plate of eggs and bacon when the 6am alarm went off.  I don't leave for work until 7:17 am. so it usually gives me a fair bit of quiet time.

I'm trying to remember what made me start this routine and why it became so important.  I can picture myself in the last apartment we shared together and exactly where I spent these mornings.  We moved into that apartment in early March of 2023.  My memory is fuzzier as to whether and how I would have taken this quiet time before that.  I don't think it was a part of my routine though going back as far as my time in the midwest.  Did I even drink coffee then?

I imagine it was a gradual addition to my weekends that at some point became sacred.  Maybe this was a small way I was starting to learn to pour back into myself.  Maybe on a subconscious level I was starting to recognize the drain on my energy even if I didn't yet fully understand what specifically was draining me.

So even now, on weekends, I don't rush the mornings.  I don't move on to my next task until my body and mind feel ready to.  Any plans I make for those mornings are only for things that will nourish my mind and body - like a trip to the gardens.  That's the only exception to my quiet, coffee and me moments.

He set us up to fail and then turned around to blamed me

As I let this morning’s post sit with me, what is repeating in my head is as follows:

He blamed me for my poor relationship with his Mom, a relationship he himself sabotaged through his own actions and unwillingness to stand up for me when she blamed me for his choices. 

Taking her to Hawaii and creating a great itinerary that met her needs and interests wasn’t enough to overcome that because there is nothing I could have done to overcome the sabotage he had done and the amount of blame that I was expected to carry.

He set us up to fail and then turned around to blamed me for it all.

He did the same thing to his Mom

One value to working with a good therapist is being able to check yourself on things that you have normalized.  Sometimes what becomes normal to us is everything but healthy and not something we should accept as "normal".

In last week's session, I was talking about the decision we made to move south.  I think it was initially his idea although it's hard to recall specifically because I was very on board with the idea from the beginning.  And logistically it took me finding a job first so the process itself was heavy on me.  It was about a 9-10 month process from my first applications to finally moving (February to November of that year).

From the start, I kept my parents in the loop.  I shared where I was applying and where I was getting interviews.  We talked about what it would be like being a long distance from them.  They were sad to see me move but they were also 100% supportive of whatever decision we would make.  I think I even remember at one point my ex-husband talked to my Dad in person one evening at their house to make sure he was okay with the move (I had forgotten about this until I was typing this paragraph).  So these were very open conversations.

The same can't be said with regard to his Mom.  His Dad had passed away.  Not fully trusting my memory, I just looked up both the obituary and my spreadsheet of job applications to understand the timing better.  I'm a bit shocked at what I found and don't know how to make sense of this.  My first applications were about a week before his Dad passed away.  I may need to come back to that revelation.  

I found an e-mail from a couple of days after I completed those first applications from my ex-husband to his brother that said, "Rebecca applied to a [position] job at [agency] (would be a promotion) in Mississippi [cities] and is going to apply to the same position in [city], CA next week. We hated this winter, the cold weather and snow. Plus with all the drama with dad, mom and dad's family, the only question is when do we get to go? :) Of course a job offer needs to come first. I should be able to transfer pretty easily w/[his job], but we haven't decided if it's really what we want to do or if we're totally committed to the idea yet, but we are seriously considering..."

His brother responded and among other things, gave the following advice to my ex-husband.  Not surprisingly, my ex-husband seemed to completely ignore this advice and didn’t even respond to it when he responded to other things in the same e-mail.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think moving away is the answer. If you have an issue with Mom you should tell her how you feel. She needs to figure things out on her own, and it’s okay to say no to her sometimes. It helps her learn how to do things on her own. 

Obviously, you guys have to do what’s best for you. Unfortunately, things are going to be pretty lonely for Mom moving forward if she decides to treat everyone this way. 

Back to the point of this blog post, it was what I shared next with my therapist that made us both pause.  We didn't even tell his Mom that we were planning to move south for quite a few months (although you can see from the paragraphs above, we looped in his brother quite early).  I don't remember the exact timing of telling her.  I think it was before we traveled to Alabama for an interview in mid-July but I doubt it was much before that.  

At the time, I just followed his lead with regard to his family.  The way she tried to intervene with our realtor when we purchased our home was still in the back of my mind, as well as the other ways she constantly tried to interfere.  I had the thought cross my mind that she might try to call my potential employers if she knew where I was applying.  And his Mom had gotten so demanding and mean.  In reviewing the e-mails between my ex-husband and his brother (from our joint e-mail account), I got confirmation that my memory is pretty solid on how bad she had gotten.  At one point, she even left me a voicemail message yelling "Where are you?" when my ex-husband didn't immediately take her call (about some curtains she wanted to buy).  So I think treating her like this had become “normal” to me.

Needless to say, she was pissed when she finally found out.  She had some horrible things to say about me and how I would never find a job.  He sat silent as she ranted about me and didn’t make any attempt to stand up for me (in that moment or in any future moment I was aware of).  I imagine she felt quite blind sighted to be finding out after we were well into the process and so close after her husband passed away.  Although, that doesn't mean I have any sympathy for her - she created this toxic dynamic with her son which ultimately caused me a lot of pain.  (Not that I blame her for my ex-husband’s behavior, he is an adult responsible for getting the help he needs to not treat others poorly.  But she had a hand in creating the dynamics that he has to face as an adult.)

But maybe that should have been a warning to me, that when my ex-husband faces something challenging even with the people he loves, he runs instead of facing it.  He could have learned to say "no" to his Mom.  He could have learned to set boundaries with her.  He even had the example of his brother to see how that worked (although his brother often took it to another extreme and got mean in enforcing his boundaries).  But he didn't.  His solution was to move across the country.  In hindsight, that probably was quite destructive of any chance of me having any sort of reasonable relationship with her.  I’m pretty sure she blamed me for it all.

And it's interesting to me, that even after the move, he didn't cut her off or even really learn how to say "no" any better.  He was just physically less available.  She still called, often obsessively.  He still took most of her calls.  He still visited her regularly and invited her to stay with us.  He still didn’t learn to really set any boundaries with her.  He just distanced himself whenever he could and found it easier to gain that distance from afar.

There's even a parallel there to my marriage and divorce.  He had hoped we would still be friends after the divorce.  We have essentially gone no contact, not because that is what he wanted but because I made it clear I wasn't interested in a friendship.  He may have been running from the marriage but he wasn’t actually trying to run away from me.

The State of Dating

 My Threads feed is filled with Threads about the Tea App.  It was an app designed to allow women to anonymously warn other women about abusive and unfaithful men they had dated.  Whisper networks for women have always existed.  They just used to be more local in your community.  Now that dating has gone online, the dating pool is much larger and thus the community whisper network needs to be larger.

The latest news is that the app developer didn't secure the data it collected (women's selfies and driver's license) and didn't delete the data upon verification as they promised to do.  And so someone found the data and has now started creating maps with faces and address of the woman who have signed up for this app.  And it has even gone further where men are now rating women based on their selfie.  

This has brought a lot of publicity to an app, few had heard of before this month and the amount of Threads from angry men upon learning about this app is overwhelming.  Any suggestion in the comments for men to just treat women better doesn't go over well.

To be fair, AWDTSG (Are We Dating The Same Guy?) Facebook groups have been around for probably decades.  Interestingly, they aren't getting the same attention right now.

I get how algorithms work.  I also get how the loudest is not always representative.  But even assuming there are good guys out there, how do you wade through men like this first to get to the good ones?

I've worked with victims of domestic abuse and so many of their stories start with what seemed like a perfectly good/innocent man.  These women I worked with were smart women from all walks of life.  And they weren't immune from the manipulations of poorly behaving men.

And that doesn't even include the group of men who may not be abusive but are solely focused on sex, emotionally unavailable, unhealed, unable and unwilling to communicate, etc.  The horror stories I hear from women who have dipped their toes into dating are endless and most of the single women around me have given up.

Even when I heal enough to be able to trust again, how would I safely date?  What would I have to put myself through to find a good partner who is compatible?  What toll would that take on my mental health?  How much energy would that drain?  Would it even be worth it?  Why can't men collectively just be better men?  Why should women have to risk their lives and mental health to find a partner?

Pouring into myself

Yesterday, I stayed in my pjs all day.  I started a bird puzzle that I'm really enjoying.  I took a nap mid-day.  I listened to my playlist.  I surfed the internet.  I wrote.  And then I went to bed early and slept quite well.  It was exactly what I needed.

And then this morning, I showered, dressed, enjoyed a leisurely morning before I headed to church.  I sat next to a wonderful woman in a completely packed contemporary service that I rarely attend and sang the lyrics from my favorite choir song to a new tune as I took in the energy in the room.  The sermon on the topic of the prodigal parent (different perspective of the parable on the prodigal son) was moving and reminded me of the love I have received from my parents.  So when I got home I called them and told them about it.  

And then I walked in the southern sun through my favorite park to the grocery store to get some real food back in my fridge and bought myself flowers (a vibrant pink rose, pink carnation, and a variety of white flowers to go with it).

I think this is what it looks like to truly pour into me and it feels really good.

The start of my healing journey

A memory came up today on Facebook that reminded me of the strength I have found in myself going all the way back to the beginning of my healing journey.  I have come so far because I have consistently tapped into that strength and trusted myself when it came to knowing what I needed at any given moment.  I have balanced the practical with the emotional, the grief with the way forward.

So one year ago, just one and a half weeks after my ex-husband called it quits, I focused on pouring into me by getting in the car and driving to the beach.  I had already moved my stuff to the second bedroom and made that space my own (that was the practical first step) and then it was time to sit with my grief in the most healing place I knew.

There was a flock of Black Skimmers that were gracefully soaring over the water.  I captured a Willet in flight for the first time not realizing how incredibly beautiful their wings are when extended.  Dolphins jumped and played off in the distance.  I sat in the sand where the waves could rush over me.  I remember I first walked the beach with my camera and then I went back to my car to put it away so I could spend some time on the beach without that distraction.

This was the first trip I took where my ex-husband wasn't on the other side of a text message exchange and that felt really empty.  But I pivoted and reached out to my sister instead and she was more than willing to be the one on the other side of a text exchange.

And then I ate a real meal at a Mexican restaurant.  This was a time where I had zero appetite and getting myself to eat something each day was quite an accomplishment.  I still remember the waitress.  She seemed to be in tune with the fact that I needed both a little extra quiet and a little extra kindness.  We didn't talk any substance at all but I felt cared for in a way I didn't expect.  I think we often underestimate the effect of day-to-day interactions with strangers.  This was one of those interactions.

What was Real?

The hardest part of my healing journey has been making sense of what was real and what was not.  It's not the fact that the relationship ended that continues to bother me a year later.  I can accept that part more easily especially with some hindsight showing how it wasn't a good relationship.

But he didn't just end the relationship.  That would have required communication (and some accountability) he wasn't willing or capable of.  Instead he threw a grenade at the entirety of our relationship.  

So I sit here piecing together my memories.  There are a few concrete things I can verify which I greatly appreciate.  Those verified things often match my own memory (despite their contradiction with the stories my ex told last year) which builds back some confidence in my own memory.  There are other things that clearly I got wrong demonstrated by my ex's behavior in the end and some self-reflection of red flags I ignored.  And then there is a lot in the fuzzy middle.

I'm trying to filter some of it through what I learned recently about memory and perception.  If I can reflect on my own world view and also try to put myself into his world view, maybe I can understand how our world views affected our perceptions and find some estimation of reality within.

I want something real to hold onto from these last two decades so I'm not tempted to just block the entire time frame from my mind.  These were significant years of my life that shaped me and taught me lessons.

And I want to understand how that gap between our perceptions got so large so I don't find myself in relationships again that ignore that gap.  I imagine there will always be that gap in any relationship (romantic or platonic).  But when that gap is ignored instead of embraced with curiosity, misunderstandings will be frequent, resentment will build, and connections will fade.

Gaslight

I'm still stuck on this concept of how memory is created and the various ways it is changed both at the time it is initially stored and each time it is recalled.  Last summer as everything was falling apart and my ex-husband and I were having many conversations, often ones that would just go in circles, I remember feeling like he was re-writing our history.  His accounts of some events were so skewed from my memory of those same accounts.  (And later I discovered were quite skewed from the way I described them in my journal at the time.)  

How much of those discrepancies are just normal remembering events differently vs. filtering them through a skewed world view vs. intentionally re-writing them to turn the blame and responsibility back on me?

As I was talking about this with my therapist today, she asked if I had ever seen the movie "Gaslight".  Until that moment, I had forgotten about this moment.  On July 6 (I looked it up in my Amazon orders) last summer, my now ex-husband and I watched Gaslight together.  That was 9 days before he finally called it quits, although I'm sure his mind had already been made up before this all started in late May.

By this point, he was probably 6-8 weeks into watching YouTube videos about relationships.  I'm sure it was one of those videos where the term gaslighting came up.  He tried to tell me I was gaslighting him, although I don't recall him giving any examples, which is what I think prompted him to want to watch the movie.

As I sit here today I realize how much his re-writing of history and using distorted memories to justify why I was to blame made me doubt myself and my own memories.  Isn't that the very definition of gaslighting?  Even turning on the movie to watch with me was a way to gaslight me into thinking I was the problem.

Sometimes, I try to put myself back in my mind last summer.  From a perspective of some hindsight, I wonder how I made it through that summer.  I remember feeling so off-kilter, like I was living in some alternate universe where nothing made any sense.  I knew he was unfairly blaming me and distorting events from our past but I didn't know what to do about it.

And I remember a strong sense of wanting to hold him accountable in any way I could - and the one way I could do that would be to make him be the one to leave if that is what he truly wanted.  It was he who was destroying our marriage, he who had decided not to grow up, he who had decided not to invest in it, he who had put on a front and lied to me for two decades.  I wasn't going to be the one to fix that by making the decision to leave or being the one to file the divorce paperwork.  And I think that was the right approach.  If I had walked away from the marriage without having time to process, I think I would have had regrets and had an even harder time healing.

Success

I did it.  I took an interview course, meant for attorneys, with people who have far more interviewing experience than I do.  It's relevant to my job, even if it wasn't marketed for me.  As a paralegal who has also been doing the job of our investigator for the last 2.5 years, I participate in most of our witness interviews and occasionally lead them myself.  And it's relevant to the investigator role I hope someday to move into.  

But I was apprehensive coming here.  I wondered whether I would hold my own, whether I would fit in.  I didn't need to worry though.  I did hold my own.  The instructor was impressed with my contributions in class.  And the feedback on the interview I led was mostly positive.  And based on feedback we each received, I would put myself in the middle of the pack with my interview team.  Nobody questioned whether I belonged.

But the training did bring up some reminders and reflections of my marriage.  I was supposed to attend a similar course when COVID hit.  I remember my ex-husband making comments that made me think he was a bit jealous.  I didn't know what to make of it at the time but it makes a bit more sense now with some hindsight.

Since the early years of our relationship, I remember him talking about wanting to be in law enforcement.  I think this was a dream that goes back to at least college, maybe further.  His first government job (which was on the civil side of law enforcement) was a first step towards that dream although at the time, I thought it was the dream itself.  Over time, I realized he saw it as a stepping stone to get into criminal work.  I remember some conversations as he got close to his mid-30s and I think that is when I realized how serious he was about it.   He applied to a couple different agencies and even interviewed with one but he never secured a criminal position before he hit the age deadline.

Meanwhile, he watched me go from a high school teacher, into the legal field, and then ultimately into a more prestigious federal law enforcement agency.  Last year, I was even interviewing for an investigator position.  Ironically, I'm only in the position I'm in because I thought a government position would give me more flexibility if he got one of his dream jobs which likely would have required us to move frequently.

As he separated, it came up that he resented me, maybe even blamed me for not getting the job he interviewed for in his mid-30s.  He claimed I wasn't supportive enough.  And then in one of our last interactions, he tried to get a promise out of me that I would tell him if/when I got an investigator job.  For someone who hadn't shown this much interest in my successes while we were married, this felt odd at the time.

And then I think back to his complaints about not getting promotions he wanted and his overall unhappiness in many of the positions he held with his current agency.  And I think about the comments he made while we were separating that seemed so focused on comparing himself to me as if we were competing.  And I remember the jealous comments he made when I signed up for a course led by a retired FBI agent.

Putting all that together, I can't help but wonder if he was intimidated by me, if he saw my success as a reminder of what he perceived as his own lack of success (emphasis on perceived as he was successful in his own right).  

Memory

Day two of my training in South Carolina has finished and I'm back in my room spending some time reflecting.  The three-day course I am taking is called "Interpersonal Communication and Intelligence Interviewing".  

The training will culminate with the practical as it relates to my job, an interview that I will have to take a turn leading.  But the content of the course really is just about life - communication, how we think and behave, how we react to situations, perceptions, reality, etc.  It has really been quite fascinating.

One of this afternoon's sessions started with the concept of memory.  The instructor started the discussion with the comment that we never actually experience reality-our perception is created.  He then went on to talk about all the filtering that happens when we store a memory.  We aren't storing a complete memory - just bits and pieces of it.  And those bits and pieces of it are encoded through our other experiences and changed to fit our beliefs and values.

When we go to recall a memory into our working memory, we are pulling out those bits and pieces and then filling in the gaps to create what we think happened.  Furthermore, each time we access that memory, it is re-encoded in the current context which changes it each time.  If we access a bad memory when we are in a good mood, we may make it less miserable.  If we access it when we are in a troubling space, we may make it more miserable.  I imagine our understanding of the memory also changes as our context and perspectives change.

The instructor then went on to talk about how easy it is to create a false memory.  He gave an example from his own life related to 9/11 and how he doubts the truth of a particular memory because the timeline doesn't fit.

He then transitioned into how easy it is for us to change the memory of someone we are interviewing through the questions we ask and the statements we make.

This whole discussion made me stop in my tracks.  Reflecting on my personal life, I have found discrepancies between my memory of certain events and the way I described the event in journal entries from the time.  My problem is that although I have always loved to write, I have never been a diligent or consistent journal writer and so I don't have written accounts of so much.

To add to that, as my ex-husband and I were separating, my recollection of so many things seemed so far off from the stories he was telling me.  And that disconnect then made me start to question his accounting of other events where my memory was very fuzzy.

But then today's discussion added a whole additional layer to that-the filtering that happens immediately when we are deciding to store an event, the concept that we don't ever fully experience reality.  Can I even fully trust my journal entries from the time?

But if I have been doing this filtering, recreating, etc., that also means my ex was doing the same.  So how much of what I believed from his accounting is actually reality?

How do I process what happened in my marriage and separation if I don't even have a good grasp on what exactly happened?

I watched my ex-husband avoid any accountability by not doing any self-reflection to consider his role in our dynamics and by what I suspect was a re-writing of our narrative.  I realize that is an extreme end of the spectrum but am I a fool to think I am remembering my behaviors with enough accuracy to really understand my role?

Heavy, yet isolated rainstorms

Have you ever been through rainstorms so heavy and yet so isolated at the same time that the sun shines through the wall of rain?  To feel the warmth radiating through the panoramic roof above yet not be able to be able to see the car on the road in front of you was an unnerving yet awe inspiring moment. 

That’s kind of how this last year has felt for me.  The reminders of the path forward are never far away even though I can’t always see the path in front of me. There have been a lot of moments where I have had to trust my instincts when I take those first steps forward. 

I sit as I wait for my car to charge. I’m sitting longer than normal because my destination (about 16 miles away) doesn’t have charging and I want to have a good start to the trip home. So I have time to reflect on my drive today and the week ahead of me. 

It was my instinct that pushed me to sign up for this course. I’m apprehensive about the course and my classmates.  And although I’ve been to this center twice before in the last six years, I’ve never figured out a good place to park while I check in so I’m apprehensive about the logistics of my arrival.  

So every step today has felt like a step onto a path I cannot see. And it follows a couple of weeks of grief filled storms where I feel like I’ve lost my path and the momentum I’ve built up over recent months.  

I guess the heavy, isolated rainstorms are quite fitting.  I guess we shall see where this week takes me.

Miscommunications

I think back over the last couple of years of my marriage.  By that time I had come to realize my now ex-husband was making assumptions that was very much coloring the way he viewed me, our relationship, and maybe even himself.  I would get glimpses of it with off-hand or vague comments he would make or times we seemed to talk past each other.  It made me start to wonder what assumptions I was making and how accurate my own assumptions were.

So I started to verbalize them more intentionally and ask for clarification.  And usually I was met with silence which often felt like confirmation of any negative assumptions I had spoken out loud.  I remember following up at times with further clarification, "Does your silence mean that what I said is true?" only to be met with more silence.  I'm trying to think of a good example but what sticks with me most was his repeated silence, not the specific things I was asking for clarification on.

The other thing that really stands out about our communication in those last years was how often he would try to tell me what I was feeling.  And most of the time he was so far off in his assumptions about what I was feeling.  And when I tried to correct him, he didn't want to listen.  He seemed to think he knew my feelings better than I knew them myself.  I spent too much energy trying to explain myself in recent years.  

It didn't actually matter the words or tone I used or the clarification questions I asked.  He didn't want to listen.  He didn't want to understand.  He had created this perception of me and our marriage in his head based on who knows what and wasn't willing to question how accurate it was.

Last summer when he clearly already had one foot out the door but hadn't yet ended it, I think I finally realized that I couldn't carry the relationship alone.  He asked if I wanted to try couple's counseling.  I told him that I was only willing to try counseling again, if he was going to go into reflecting on his part in the dynamic.  I told him I had spent years trying to fix my part and I was tired of the focus being only on me and getting no results because I couldn't solve it alone.  He (I think intentionally) misinterpreted that accusing me of being unwilling to reflect and fix my part.  In reality, I don't think he was willing to self-reflect and face his own shame or guilt.

When I think back over interactions like this I realize I should have seen this coming.  I've known the relationship was unbalanced going back years.  Maybe I thought that he wouldn't be stupid enough to run away from a relationship that was in my opinion, clearly in his favor.  

But I wonder if given just a little more time, if I would have walked away myself.  I had been continuously growing, setting more boundaries, tolerating less, etc.  Would I have reached a breaking point?  Would I have gotten tired of being constantly misinterpreted?  Would eventually these frustrating interactions have outweighed all the good times?

Raw emotions

I feel like the emotions are as raw as they were a year ago but with a layer of a year's worth of reflection and processing.  There are things I see today that I didn't see then that make it so much more painful.  And seeing him date again brings back all the memories of how I got attached in the first place but with hindsight of all the red flags I shouldn't have ignored.

In moments like this, no matter how much I remind myself of the chain reaction of decisions that made me who I am today, I wish he had just left me the fuck alone in the first place.

Maybe I'm finally releasing all the excuses that filled my head for why he hurt me.  Using words he told me as we were separating, he's "a grown ass adult", he's responsible for his behaviors.  He knew he was hurting me.  He knew he was being dishonest with me.  And yet he did it anyway.

Depression

In high school and early college, I survived depression.  I slept all the time, even through most of my physics classes (my teacher didn't mind since I still got my work done).  When I wasn't sleeping, I would spend hours swinging on the swings in our backyard lost in my thoughts.

I lost interest in what I enjoyed.  I even quit color guard and being the color guard captain during my senior year, although that decision may have been a bit more complicated than just my overarching depression.  I quit driving because the antidepressants I was on scared me.  I was so skinny so I suspect I was not eating well either.

But I was still very functional.  My grades never dropped even a little.  I still taught Sunday School with my parents and participated in church.  I even gave a speech at my graduation.  And eventually I went away to college, made friends, and got good grades.  So it took some convincing to get my parents to understand I needed treatment.  Therapy and then a couple of relationships where I felt seen helped turn things around.  First it was the girl I dated the summer between freshman and sophomore year of college.  That was probably the first real turning point.  

Then I studied abroad the second half of sophomore year which really challenged me.  And then I met my now ex-husband shortly after returning from abroad.  The initial stages of that relationship were a whirlwind romance where he seemed all in.  I wonder if what I experienced then is what people call love bombing now.  In hindsight, I realize this was the dopamine talking during the infatuation stage.  It was only surface level even if it felt really deep.

Dealing with depression was a really scary time for me, so much so that ever since, I have kept tabs on certain aspects of my mental health in hopes of catching things early if I ever start heading down that path again.

I really hope that these past couple of weeks are just a temporary low point but they are scaring me a bit. I'm not eating like I should.  My mind is foggy and I'm not remembering things.  My sleep is very off - wanting to sleep way too much some days and sleeping fitfully other nights.  And the tears flow so freely so often which just confuses me with all the progress I've made over the past year - you would think I wouldn't be back at what feels like the beginning again.

And I just want to hide myself in my apartment while at the same time being completely stir crazy in the quiet of my home amidst the noise of my mind.  Every time I feel stuck, I put my shoes on and push myself to go outside which means I'm walking over to the local park 2, 3, sometimes even 4 times a day.

Plus, all these activities, social events, and groups I have been trying out over the last year just seem so overwhelming right now.  I was going to come up with a plan for the next things I would try this fall but am completely frozen.  Even this work training I'm traveling for this week has me filled with so much apprehension.

I'm doing all the right things.  I'm calling my mom regularly to have someone to talk to.  I'm pushing myself out into the spaces I know are so good for my healing.  I'm writing.  I've even made use of my apartment pool to swim laps the last two mornings.  I've got an appointment with my therapist later this week.  I know I will be okay.  But that doesn't negate how what I'm experiencing now is reminding me too much of what I went through years ago.

Self-worth, fear of abandonment

I know my value.  I really like myself.  I have generally been confident in who I was.  But is that enough if I don't believe others will see my value?  Is my self-worth tied to both how I perceive my self and how well I believe others will perceive me?  As I wrestle with this question, things in my life are making more sense - it explains the depth of my pain and why I stayed.

I'm struggling to put all of what I'm feeling to words.  I'm struggling to fully understand what this new realization about me truly means.  So I keep getting up from writing this post to water my basil or move to another chair or make myself some breakfast.

I think I fear abandonment.  Before last night, I never would have admitted it even to myself.  I'm not sure I even realized it on a conscious level.  I've done such an amazing job all my life learning how to rely on myself such that I didn't think I needed to worry about abandonment that I pushed this fear deep down.

I don't feel like I've ever truly been chosen.  No one has ever prioritized me.  And even when I was able to develop relationships, they didn't last because the other person didn't accept who I fundamentally was or wasn't willing to put the same effort in that I was putting in.  

I think about my second best friend who dumped me when I came out to her as queer (which was actually the second strike against me - she had already told me I was going to hell because I was Lutheran).  I think about my first best friend who dumped me without warning when her parents got a divorce.  I think about so many other friendships that faded because I was the only one putting in any effort.  That is even happening now with my current friendships.

And I think back to all the bullying I faced as a child.  I was the odd kid out.  The one with barely any friends.  The girl who danced to the beat of her own drum.  I still feel that way.  I love my uniqueness and am confident in who I am but I'm not confident there is anywhere my uniqueness would fit in.

So when I met my now ex-husband, we had a whirlwind dating period and for the first time in my life I thought I had met someone who saw me, liked me, and was going to choose me.  That first year or so together truly was amazing.  And I think that period where we were likely driven by infatuation lasted as long as it did because we were long-distance for nine of those months.  And it was long enough for me to get attached and build in my head how I saw our future.  And so before that first year was up, I proposed to him.

It wasn't until we had moved in together, that I started to see the cracks, his unwillingness to prioritize me, his siding with his mom against me, his avoidance of any hard conversations.  But by then, I had put all my eggs in this basket.  I had built him up to be the one who would actually stick by my side, the one who would be different from the rest.  I had already committed to him and I am not someone who takes commitments lightly.  I'm loyal even when it isn't best for me.  So I ignored those cracks.

The early years of our marriage were really rough.  I don't even have a good memory of the details of that time period and have to rely on what few journal entries I wrote.  Between the chaos of being a new teacher stressing about tenure and the chaos of a difficult start to my marriage, I was in survival mode.  In hindsight, I wonder if I would have handled either of those situations differently if they weren't affecting me simultaneously.  Would I still be a teacher today if I could have focused just on that?  Would I have become a better wife (or walked out of the relationship much earlier) if I could have focused just on that?

And then when he had an emotional affair, I was so desperate not to lose him that I focused all my energy on contorting myself to what he wanted me to be and no energy on whether or not he was taking accountability for what he did and his efforts (or lack thereof) to try to repair the relationship.  My biggest fear at that time was that he would leave me.  I feared abandonment.

I don't know what my primary attachment style is but in reflecting on the relationship in this light, I suspect I was leaning fairly avoidant in the beginning when I was ignoring signs and in survival mode and then I was likely leaning anxious by the time we were dealing with his emotional affair, and by the end I was feeling more secure as I had begun to set boundaries.  It was probably those boundaries and me moving towards secure that pushed him to end it.

So when he ended our marriage so abruptly, without warning, and just as the political climate (and my job security) went to hell, the fear of abandonment came true.  And the depth of my pain of being abandoned once again and this time by someone I had invested two decades in was/is still overwhelming.

Great relationships are built, not found which requires effort by both people

I read recently that great relationships are built, not found.  I think there is a lot of truth to that but it starts with finding a partner who also understands that and leans into that. One person can’t build it on their own. 

I think that is where I went wrong. I think I always knew on some level that he didn’t love me the way I loved him but I believed my love and the effort I put in would be enough.  That journal entry from before we married where I acknowledged I would never be his first priority and I didn’t feel I could talk to him about it was an early sign. 

And then there another sign as we went through counseling together years into our marriage and the focus was so much on me and how I needed to change my tone and the words I used to not trigger him.  We were in counseling because of his emotional affair yet for some reason it was all on me to fix it.  Years later he even admitted he didn’t think he was the problem.  

In hindsight, I realize he wasn’t consistently communicating his needs and he wasn’t consistently willing to listen to my needs. He would often get defensive or turn it back on me if I tried to express a need.  And so over the years, I turned to myself for my own needs and asked less and less of him.  You can’t build something great together if you can’t communicate openly about what you need and want.

It was a bit an ah-ha moment when we were separating and he talked about love as a feeling and didn’t agree it was a choice or a verb requiring action.  He had bought into the Hollywood romance concept where all it takes to live happily ever after is falling in love, a narrative that completely lacks the part where two people intentionally build their relationship.

This view of his probably shouldn’t have surprised me. He always has been a “life happens to me” kind of person vs someone who makes something out of what they are given in life.  Although, I’m not sure until this past year, I realized how distinct those two viewpoints are and how much they affect your world view and maybe even overall happiness.

I don’t know if I’ll ever try again with someone new but if I ever do, I’m going to try to be more careful early on to pick someone invested in building and communicating.  And in the meantime, I can apply this to the rest of my life.  I can be intentional in the relationships I build with friends, family, and even myself.  I can recognize my limits when I’m trying to build with someone who isn’t doing their part to build with me. And I can be intentional in the life I create. 

Dentist

I will probably never forget the way a year ago, we went to the dentist together, he allowed me to book 6 month return appointments for both of us together (like one of us always did), and then that evening told me he was done and wanted a divorce.  

I didn't deserve that.  No one deserves such a lack of consideration and integrity wrapped in avoidance.  Maybe this is an important reminder that this wasn't really about me.  Anyone who ends a relationship the way he did, is struggling with his own issues.  I was just the unfortunate collateral damage to his own battles.

So as I get ready to leave for my dentist appointment, this reminder is bringing out the anger in me.  I've decided to walk to the appointment in hopes of releasing some of that anger.  And when I schedule the next one, I'm going to book it for 7-8 months out instead of the normal 6 to get me off this cycle of annual reminders.

And then maybe I'll pick up some cake at the grocery store on the walk home.

Comfort vs. Safety

I'm really struggling with this idea of comfort vs. safety.  My body says I wasn't safe.  The chronic pain, the drain of my energy - in hindsight, I believe these were all signs that this man wasn't safe for me.  Even the constant need for reassurance and validation were signs he did not hold my heart the same as I held his.

But that man was such a source of comfort!  I remember the way my eyes immediately found him the moment he stepped in a room.  I remember the comfortable silence.  I remember the moments I felt seen.  I remember the laughter we shared together.  I remember the pride I felt in being his wife.  I remember the calm that washed over me at the sound of his voice.  I remember the sense of home I felt whenever I was with him no matter where we were.  

He was my comfort. How could he not be my safety as well?  But did he ever truly have my interests in mind?  

A year since the separation

This week marks a year since the night he told me he was done. I’ve come a long ways in that year, farther than I ever could have imagined. I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’ve reclaimed my energy. I’ve found my spark again. I’ve leaned into the joy and embraced life. And I’ve started building a beautiful community that had been sadly lacking while I was married.

But to have been blindsided and still have so many questions that I'm trying to accept will never be answered makes some days still so hard.

I invested so much in a man who didn't even think I was worth a few conversations, who didn't care enough about me to give us a chance to build the relationship he wanted and needed, who was so blinded by his own insecurities that he refused to see my value.

And as I watch him start dating again, my heart and mind fight over whether I hope he truly finds happiness or whether I hope he learns a lesson when karma comes back to bite him in the butt.  And that internal struggle is the most confusing and strange thing to feel going through me.  But maybe that's because love and anger go hand in hand here.  If I hadn't truly loved (a feeling that doesn't just go away), I wouldn't feel so deeply about the betrayal.

The Great Egret

I went back yesterday evening to the park with my camera.  Part of me wanted to prove I hadn't seen a ghost (see yesterday's post).  As I walked the main path that travels the length of the park, I laughed to myself about the possibility that it wouldn't be there.  When I arrived, the Great Egret was in the shallow pond where the water had gotten so low from lack of rain.  It stood in the shadows, digging for food in what little water was left.  Spots of sunlight, now in the midst of golden hour, trickled through the trees occasionally dancing off the water or its white feathers.

A couple of older gentleman, seeing me with my camera, asked if I was with the paper.  I told them no, "I just like birds."  They were a bit chatty wanting to know about my camera and the Egret, and the Green Herons that were also eating nearby.  But finally, they quieted down so I could focus my energy on this elegant bird and what it meant to me.

This Great Egret was a reminder of the good in my marriage, not the parts in hindsight I now question or doubt, but the parts I know were truly good.  This was a reminder of the comfort I felt with my ex-husband, the way his laughter made me feel, the good conversations we had, the times I felt seen, and the comfort of his embrace.  There wasn't a disconnect in this moment like there has been with so many other reminders.

So I sat in silence with this Great Egret.  And then I picked up my camera and captured its light in various angles.  When I was happy with the photos I had taken, I sat longer with the bird, feeling a sense of peace wash over me before I finally made my way back home.  And then I slept eight hours straight without even my normal nightly bathroom break.

The Ghost of Him

I'm starting to think my life cycles with the birds whether it be the Mourning Dove that cooed in warning in the courtyard or the Carolina Wren that was my daily companion in those early months in my own apartment or the Great Egret at the local park in recent days.

Late last week on my walk home, I paused at a beautiful Great Egret and its reflection in one of the ponds of the park that is part of my daily commute.  I shivered despite the July southern heat and humidity.  It felt like I was looking at a ghost.

Great Egrets are not common visitors to this park.  I've only seen one here once before that I can recall.  That was about a year ago during those first two weeks after my ex told me he was done, the two weeks he spent in his home state with his mom.  

We didn't communicate a lot those two weeks and only on practical matters.  The kiss emojis and check ins on how our days were going from the week before were gone.  (How could he have been sending me kiss emojis only five days before he called it quits?). But it all was so fresh those first two weeks while he was with his mom that constantly I picked up my phone to text him something I wanted to share with him only to close out the iMessage app before typing a word.  

There was one exception to that though - the arrival of a Great Egret at this park.  Before I could stop myself, I had uploaded a video of the Egret (and two Night Herons and a duck) and typed a short message.  I paused only long enough to add "Don't feel like you have to respond, just wanted to share" before I hit send.  This was the last birding sighting I shared with him.

He didn't respond until the next day when he said "I appreciate this video, it made me smile."  And then the topic turned to finances and attorneys.

I have walked past this Great Egret at least three times now since I first saw it late last week.  Every time, I feel his presence.  Every time, it's as if I'm encountering his ghost or maybe more accurately the ghost of the life we used to share.

I hope the Carolina Wren returns soon.  I miss her.

Life as I know it now

I stood up after sending a text to a friend to see three CSX engines pulling a train past my apartment.  I now know, there very likely will be more mid-train engines. I never would have experienced this if I had not divorced.  This view, the noise that comes with it, the smaller space, it isn't something my ex would have even considered.  So even as I miss the marriage I thought I had, I'm experiencing joy in a way I couldn't have without a divorce.  And even in the midst of pain, for that I'm thankful.

Self-worth

On a conscious level, I have always been someone who feels like she knows who she is, knows what she brings to the table, and feels good about herself.  Even as a child who was bullied and didn't have a lot of friends, I confidently danced to the tune of my own drum.

So when the divorce happened, I didn't consciously question my worth in the ways I see so many people do as they go through divorce.  Even as I sorted through the distorted reality he was presenting and the blame he was hurling at me, my focus wasn't on what was wrong with me - it was on what I could have done better and trying to understand the entire dynamic.

But as I laid awake this morning, I realized my behaviors don't fully match a woman with that strong a sense of self-worth.  My body and health has taught me that my conscious thoughts and subconscious reality don't always agree and maybe this is another example.

This early morning rumination I think stemmed from something that wasn't sitting well with me in yesterday's post about deserving or not deserving love combined with recent struggles with friendships.

When it comes to friendships, I really struggle.  There is a huge fear/anxiety I have to overcome each time I decide to issue an invitation.  I hesitate to even send short text messages on every day things concerned I might be bothering someone.  And I think I'm hanging onto a friendship too long that has made clear I am an incredibly low priority yet demands so much of my energy when we do finally get together.  

In yesterday's post, I asked the question "Why does he deserve that kind of love and I don’t?"  I think everyone deserves love so this wasn't a question about whether or not he deserves it.  Do I really believe I don't deserve it?  I initially thought it was more a feeling of being cheated out of something I believe I deserve but that's not how this question came out in that post's ramblings.

And if I truly believed I deserve love, why would I have fought so hard for a man that I knew wasn’t as invested in me as I was in him?  If I'm honest with myself, I have always known he didn't love me as much as I loved him.  I wrote about him not prioritizing me before we even got married.  During our marriage, we had many conversations where I reassured him over and over that I had no doubts about us - conversations that I suspected stemmed from his own doubts about us.  And when we went through pretty unbalanced couple's counseling, I settled for "good enough" over real work towards resolution.

If I truly had as strong a sense of self-worth as I tell myself I do, I don't think I would have stayed.  For all the pretending he did and the actions he took that made me believe we had a good marriage, there were enough times the mask slipped.  I could sense the imbalance even in the good times.

So how do I change a subconscious belief that doesn't match my conscious thoughts?

May the skies open up and wash away my feelings

I’m antsy in my own apartment this evening so I thought I would walk to the grocery store but the clouds and radar showed rain. So instead I walked to the park.  I now sit on my “therapy bench” waiting for the raindrops to start falling.

Sometimes I wish, just for a moment, that I could push my emotions down deep inside and pretend they didn’t exist like my ex-husband does. That’s surely what he is doing now with the timing of jumping into the dating world just after I boarded the ship we had booked for our 20th anniversary.

But instead I sit here in the pain of betrayal, the pain of the clash between reality and fantasy (a fantasy script he helped write), and the grief of the love I once thought I had and now believe will likely never experience. 

It isn’t fair that he got to feel what it is like to be loved deeply by someone and I didn’t. Why does he deserve that kind of love and I don’t?  I know life isn’t fair but that doesn’t make it less painful. 

So let the rain pour on me.  May it wash away my tears.  May it take away the pain and put a smile on my face. 

(And to my ex-husband, the joke’s on you, if you truly think I’m not emotional enough-someone without many emotions wouldn’t keep coming back to this same therapy bench for a year and counting, to process the shit you put her through.  I’m not more or less emotional than you, I just know how to manage my emotions so they don’t negatively affect others or the future I am building.)

He sleeps with someone new
as she sails the ship he booked,
the one where they were married.

She lets her tears fall
while he holds his in
hoping they never bubble up.

He complains to the rain
as she dances in it,
her tears turning to laughter.

She revels in her new found energy
as he wonders why
his life has become harder.

He buries his wounds even deeper
while she works hard to heal hers,
marveling in the transformation.

The pain still remains,
an opportunity to grow
or a hurdle to the future.

Not how I wanted to start my day

As I was walking through the courtyard of my apartment complex with my scooter on my way to work this morning a little after 7am, I walked past my ex-husband with another woman on his patio. I briefly met her eyes and then continued on my way.

When I got to work, I knocked on a colleague’s door who had been through a very similar divorce five years ago.  Once in her office, the tears began to fall. I don’t want him.  I don’t even like him anymore.  I actually feel sorry for her as she doesn’t know yet what he is and is not capable of - he’s great at the infatuation stage.

But it was a reminder of the marriage I thought I had, the hopes I put into that marriage, the stability I thought that marriage brought me, and the incredible disconnect with reality. And that is really painful.

And it feels really fast to be having a woman overnight less than 2.5 weeks from when he stopped following me so closely on Instagram.

Stability, limerence, marriage

I crave stability, maybe more than anything else.  I don't necessarily need to be in control of all that happens in my life but I feel the need to be prepared to react to life in ways that maintain that stability even through change and uncertainty.

My parents (and most of my extended family) were examples of how marriage can play a huge role in creating that stability.  

They also (likely unknowingly) modeled how marriage can be a replacement for the hard work of maintaining adult friendships as an introvert.  We've had some interesting conversations around the importance of friendships since my divorce.

So when my now ex-husband found me working in a grocery store in college at a time when I wasn't even thinking about dating and my most recent relationship had been with a woman, maybe what I saw in him was that chance at stability and a connection when friendships were getting harder.

And then as our relationship progressed, I saw in him a nice man, who seemed honest, and who had his shit together.  He knew his career path.  He was hard-working and excelling in his studies so there was no doubt he wouldn't finish and go on to get the CPA he talked about.  He was smart with his money even as a college student.  Our values seemed in complete alignment.  And at least in the beginning, I liked who he presented himself to be.  

While in the marriage, he provided that stability and friendship.  He never lied to me about finances.  We planned openly together about how to prepare for a future.  He took actions to back up his words when it came to providing that stability.

My therapist last night brought up the idea of limerence.  As I understand it, limerence is when you put someone or something up on a pedestal, focusing only on the good, creating this fantasy version of them/it.

I don't know if I necessarily put him up on a pedestal, although the version of him I knew was a fantasy.  I am someone who always looks for the good in people and situations.  And I know I did that with him.  He also was feeding me bad intel by pretending to be something he was not.  But even with that positive view of him, I still saw him as a man with flaws.

But I do think I put our marriage up on a pedestal, focusing on the parts that were really good (like all the planning we were doing to create stability) and ignoring the parts that maybe weren't so good (like the fact that I was filtering how I interacted with him to avoid triggering him and I was holding back on my emotions because I didn't feel there was space for them in the marriage).  And I think I did this because I value stability more than being loved.

The problem I didn't foresee was that there can't be stability in a marriage where your spouse isn't investing in the relationship.  An unbalanced relationship like that can't last.

So as I now see my ex-husband through pretty clear eyes and recognize how much better off I am without him, I think I'm still holding onto the marriage I put on a pedestal which is clashing sharply with reminders of the reality of that marriage.

Emotions

I was watching a moving YouTube video this morning of one of my city's youth choirs on America's Got Talent and the beauty of it brought tears to my eyes.  It's weird how the most unrelated things can bring up past events that I may not have paid much attention to at the time they happened.

Last summer, my ex told me he was a highly sensitive person.  He had learned about it from YouTube.  He then went on to compare himself to me and how I'm not a very emotional person as if that is a flaw in me.  

I was taken aback in the moment because I’m far from an unemotional person and I didn't understand why he was comparing himself to me in this way but there were so many other things he was saying and so many ways he was contradicting himself that I didn't give it much more thought.  I wasn’t able to process it all. 

I don’t know whether or not he truly is a highly sensitive person or if he was just using that to excuse his lack of ability to regulate his own emotions or both I suppose.  And I suppose the comparison to me was to make himself feel better, at my expense unfortunately.

Over the years together, I suspect I did show less and less emotions with him. There wasn’t really space in our marriage for my emotions. Mine seemed to trigger his or he would get defensive and turn it around to focus on what he was feeling.  So I adapted to avoid triggering him. What he claimed was lacking in me was something he wasn’t willing to make space for  

So maybe this and other things that came up while we were separating weren’t really about me at all. Maybe it was about his own feelings of inadequacy and the world of comparisons he was stuck in.

That doesn’t make it any less of a crappy way to treat me and it definitely doesn’t excuse it.

This has been a really rough week and all my attempts at finding joy are failing. But I’ve been here before and so I know it doesn’t last.  All I can do is keep moving through it, pausing only long enough to do the processing that is most helpful. The sun rises every day as a reminder that the light is not far away even in the darkest moments.

Unsettled

My first day back to work yesterday after being on vacation for 2.5 weeks was pretty horrible.  I had so many complex tasks that require a lot of thinking power with short deadlines piled on me.  And the worst was an annual report to justify our funding.  This will be the third year in a row that writing this report has made me feel deeply depressed about my job for reasons I won't get into in this blog.

On top of that my sleep is fitful and interrupted and my mind is so unsettled.  I don't know if it's because I didn't have time to feel while I was on vacation and so everything that was lurking under the surface as I cruised on the same ship where I was married has now poured out. 

Or maybe it's his recent unfollow on IG (after viewing my embarkation day story) and the fact that it seems he may be dating that is hitting me harder than I will admit.

Or as I realized in the shower today as I mentally went over my calendar, maybe it's because my body realizes next week it will be one year since we separated.

Or maybe the more I realize how many signs were there all along, I'm questioning myself - why I married him, why I stayed, why I invested so much in someone who was showing me they wouldn't invest in me, and why I had convinced myself we had a good relationship.

In reality, it's probably all of the above.  Maybe a hip hop cardio class tonight will do me some good in clearing my head a bit to get better sleep tonight.

It's too quiet.

It's way too quiet this morning, my first morning waking up at home since returning from my vacation last night.  Even my alone time on this trip was generally in public spaces where there were other passengers and crew around me.  That was even true that morning I was wandering the ship at 5:30 a.m. on a sea day.

So as I sit here, trying to wait just a little longer to let my cold brew coffee have at least 12 hours of brewing, I feel....  I'm not even sure how to find the right words to describe it.

I'm not lonely exactly.  I'm comfortable with just my presence and enjoy the time with just my thoughts.  Yet, I feel very alone in this world.

I have all these great people in my life both friends and family.  I make great memories with them.  I feel confident that if I ever needed them for anything they would step up.  But there isn't someone proactively looking out for me and maybe even in my marriage there never really was.

I was walking through airports yesterday and I noticed something about couples and families traveling together.  (I even noticed this a bit walking with my sister through Boston and Salem to start our trip.). Some couples are really good about making space for their partner and children.  They are aware of their surroundings and always looking for big enough gaps for them all and stepping aside to make room for one another.  My sister even included me (not just her kids) in her awareness as we walked.

And then there are couples where that doesn't happen.  And all the examples I saw were men (although there likely are women who do this too), completely oblivious to their partner and/or children as they navigated the crowds.  They often walked in the middle so there wasn't room on either side and cut around people without enough space for their group.  

My ex-husband had amazing spatial awareness.  He could load a car or truck to make use of every nook and cranny.  He could navigate a car into tight spaces without a scratch on the car.  He even slowed his pace for his Mom.  But when it came to me, I was on my own.  He walked in the middle, chose gaps that weren't big enough for me to follow, and sometimes even walked behind me when there was space to be side by side (which puzzled me even more).  He was always this way with me as far back as I can remember.

So maybe this feeling of being alone now isn't so much about how I'm now completely on my own but more that I can't use his presence to pretend that I'm not on my alone anymore.

It really infuriates me the way in the end he threw my independence back at me as an insult to him as a man when he was never willing to step up as a partner so I didn't have to be so independent.  He couldn't even make space for me as we walked through a crowd.

I just need to remind myself that I've always had my own back to help me recognize how competent I am at facing this world on my own.  And although I may not have someone consistently and proactively looking out for me, I have a community of people who will check up on me and step in when I need something.

Are we dating the same guy?

There are Facebook groups specifically for women to warn each other about abusive and dangerous men.  I learned about the local one through a woman at my divorce support group last fall and so joined out of curiosity.  I quickly got sick of all the posts and have some mixed feelings about the group so removed it from my feed but every once in a while I get curious and click on the group.

With my ex-husband recently unfollowing me on IG, I think I was curious if he had surfaced in that group and he did last week.  No one replied to the post because I doubt anyone but myself really has any experience with him, at least yet.  I suspect this means he joined a dating app and has matched with at least one person.  This could explain the recent unfollow.

For a moment I felt a pit in my stomach but it quickly passed as I asked myself why my gut was reacting.  I couldn't find a good reason.  I don't want him.  I can't even imagine a future with him anymore.  Besides the fact that there is no sign he has done any work on himself, too much damage has been done.

I won't exactly feel bad if he finds himself in for a rude awakening of what the dating world is like now and likely gets his heart broken a time or two.  And now in his 40s, the women he may date have no excuse for being as naive as I might have been in my early twenties (and maybe I didn't have an excuse then either) and anyone who has a healthy approach to relationships isn't going to miss or ignore the signs I did.

And I'm not surprised.  The way he talked about what he wanted as we were breaking up, it was clear he thought the grass was greener elsewhere and was anxious to check it out.  I don't think he truly knows how to be alone and so I expected him to do everything he could to find another woman.  So I say, "good luck to him in finding a woman that will only share his interests and have none of her own, never question him, validate and agree with his every complaint, be willing to plan his social life for him, and accept that his mom and cars will always be a higher priority."

Still a little bitterness

I looked at his Instagram account today.  It had been a while.  I noticed he was following a lot less people (he doesn’t follow many so it was noticeable).  It appears he finally unfollowed me and my entire family.  Looking at the analytics on both my IG accounts, both accounts lost a follower on June 22, the day after I boarded this ship. 

It’s funny - my feelings are so complex.  It was a bit unnerving how he still seemed to be following so closely, viewing a story or liking a post every month or two, a constant reminder. 

So there’s some relief.  And maybe it is a sign of him moving on, which would be good.  There’s still a fear in the back of my mind that he will resurface  

But the timing of this unfollow feels personal. I feel like he created this entire mess and then made the choice to just run away and leave me with the destruction. He encouraged us to book this cruise knowing what it meant and that I wouldn’t be able to back out and then dumped me. I know it is far more complex than this but it often feels like the consequences of his choices have disproportionately fallen on me. So this felt like a sucker punch in the stomach. 

But then I think back over the last two weeks as I sip one last glass of wine while I listen to the Celtic drummer, and I feel really fortunate. This trip was better because he wasn’t here. I spent more one-on-one time with my niece and nephew.  I socialized with my parents without worrying about whether he was entertained.  I ate what I wanted, did what I wanted, wandered where my feet took me, and slept when I wanted. And there was no one to worry about (except maybe my 14 year old niece running out into traffic-she takes after my sister!).  Maybe he wasn’t as good a travel partner as I thought….

So I’m still bitter over the way he treated me and the way he ended it. He created so much more pain than was necessary.  I deserved so much better. And I’m sad about all the years and energy I invested him.

But I’m so much better now. I created a reel of the bar hop I was convinced into participating in this week and marvel at the smiles and joy on my face. I love the woman I see in that video. Maybe it took the pain to find that woman.