Past, Meet Present

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Well, that was weird.

The letter was on the top of the stack in the mailbox. It was a thick envelope, formal looking. Through the window, I read my old name. My old married name. And under it, the name of my ex-husband. Both printed above my current address where I live with new name and my now husband.

Past, meet present.

My stomach dropped as I hurried into the house. I have been conditioned that any serious-looking mail with my ex-husband’s name on it is a sign of impending peril. Usually to my wallet.

I sat down on the living room floor and hurriedly opened the envelope while my pup tried to get my attention and my husband kissed the top of my head.

I had to read the cover letter a few times to understand what it was about.

Basically, there is a chance that I may receive some money from a lawsuit against my former mortgage holder because of how they dealt with foreclosures. I ended up with a foreclosure in my name because of the following:

  1. My ex embezzled marital funds for years, leaving me in the negative.
  2. He abandoned me and I was unable to pay for the house on my salary (especially with the parting gift of debt).
  3. He refused (through the lawyers; I never spoke with him again) to sell the house.
  4. In court, he stated he wanted the house. The judge agreed.
  5. He refused to refinance the mortgage in his name only (as ordered by the courts).
  6. He didn’t pay the mortgage.

Cue foreclosure.

I read the document over and over again, looking for a way that sending in a request for my portion of the funds could backfire. I couldn’t find one.

Technically, both holders of the former mortgage were supposed to sign, except in the case of death.

He might be dead for all I know. Or in prison. Or France. Or living in the next neighborhood over.

I put a note by his name – “Divorced due to abandonment in 2010. I have no knowledge about his current status.” I held back from adding, “And please don’t let me know if you find him.”

I may get nothing. I may have to split the check with my ex husband. Or, I may get back just a little bit of what was stolen from me.

Not bad for a trip to the mailbox.

But weird.

Goodbye past. I’m sticking with the present.

The Pitch-Black Room

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Heartbreak is a pitch-black room.

At first, you’re disoriented. Confused. How did the familiar world become replaced by this sarcophagus of grief?

There are no windows. No doors. Only darkness.

And you’re all alone. You can hear life as usual just outside your walls, but you are separated from the activity.

The air feels funny. It’s too dense, making every breath a struggle. It presses down on you as you try to move. It feels as though it’s squeezing your very life away.

And yet somehow, your lungs keep following orders. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.

In that pitch-black room, there is no day or night.

No hot or cold.

No anything, really.

You scream, both in an attempt to release your pain and in an attempt to feel it. The sound echoes off the walls, filling the void until the vibrations cease.

 

You find that you’re going through the motions. More an act of habit than an act of living.

You dutifully lay down in the bed only to realize later that you’ve been staring at the ceiling for hours, sleep remaining elusive.

You prepare a meal only to sit down and realize that you’re not hungry.

You drink. Not because you’re thirsty, but because some primal part of brain tells you that you must.

 

You despise the room, with its absence of light and its reverberations of pain. But you also begin to grow comfortable with the room. You know its every corner. And you become accustomed to its confines. It’s life distilled into its most bitter essence. Terrible, but familiar. You begin to forget that there is anything other than this pitch-black room.

The first glimpse of light catches you off-guard. It feels good and wrong all at once. It’s welcome, yet it doesn’t belong. You even feel guilty for smiling at the glow. As though you’re somehow betraying the solemness that the room demands.

You decide to investigate further, drawn to the possibility that there is more than darkness. But as you approach, the light flickers out.

Over the next days…weeks…months… who knows? time has no meaning here…the light reappears of its own volition. Sometimes it fades as soon as it appears. And sometimes the light remains for some time.

You become hopeful. And then defeated, mad at yourself for letting optimism in. After all, this is now your room.

But still the light persists, growing just a little brighter every day.

Until one day, you are able to see the room more clearly. There’s a window after all. And you can see outside. You want to be outside. You desperately search for a way out. But find nothing.

 

Pacing in frustration, you begin to tell yourself that you’re stuck. That this darkness is all that you’ll know. You repeat it so much that it becomes gospel. So much so that you’re unable to accept the appearance of door in the once-smooth wall.

And then once you see it, you find that you’re both excited about a way out and frightened about the possibility of escape. Because what if you take that step out only to have your heart broken again?

You finally summon your courage, take that tentative step. Your first ventures out are short. You return to the room when you remember your sadness and often, you find your way back there through no reason at all.

The visits slowly become less frequent. Their duration shortens. You find yourself becoming more a part of the outside world and less a resident of the room.

The room is always there. Its walls are solid, bricks of heartache mortared with tears. You know that you can stop by and visit. And sometimes you seem to find yourself there when the calendar reaches certain days or a memory is triggered.

But you also know that you can step out of the room again. And you can close the door behind you.

The pitch-black room holds the memories, and it no longer holds you.

 

 

 

 

 

Five Surprising Upsides to Being Cheated On

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Nobody needs to tell you about the pain of being cheated on. You’re living that every moment.

Instead, I want you to know about the silver linings that can be found amidst the ruins of the betrayal.

 

I Was Married to a Con Man

Posted on by stilllearning2b
con

I thought he loved me. It turned out that he was more con man than confidant. 

If my husband had been Pinocchio, his nose would have been a giant redwood. While we were married, I thought he was a real boy. Once he disappeared, I learned otherwise.

My husband and I used to watch “Lost” and shake our heads in disbelief at Sawyer’s deceptions. We laughed at “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” when the con artists were conned themselves. We were shocked at the audacity of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in “Catch Me if You Can“, and we were disturbed when we discovered the movie was based on a true story. While I thought he shared my disdain for the trickery and fraud in these tales, it seems as though he had been taking notes. Overnight, I went from an ordinary life to one that felt more like a movie.

 

My husband was a brilliant and talented man whose skills included creating and maintaining a separate existence. He had two cameras. Two bicycles. Two wallets. Two wives. Two distinct lives. When the financial mess he created in his life with me became too great to keep hidden, he broke up with me via text and vanished. That was when I learned that my husband was anything but a real boy — he was a con man.

 

My life was a virtual reality — my home a movie set consisting of false fronts.

 

He was an expert lie crafter; he always knew the exact proportion of truth to weave into the falsehoods to make a story believable. He always had an answer; he never hesitated. His office must have been like a busy air traffic control tower as he directed emails, texts, and phone calls to support his various tales. The extent of his deceptions was made clear when I sat with an auto insurance card in my hand — my name had been digitally removed — while I pulled up the file from the insurance company and verified that both names were present on the actual document. He thought he could erase me as easily as he could my name using Photoshop.

 

While my husband was in jail after being arrested for felony bigamy, I talked with his other wife, who was as stunned by the situation as I was. No woman should ever have to have a conversation about “our husband,” even if it is a cordial and informative discussion. I learned that when he was pulled in for questioning, his lies became increasingly absurd as he struggled to maintain his façade. My favorite? He claimed that he and I had divorced years earlier and I had since married a chiropractor named Mark Mercer. Mark, if you’re out there, I’m sorry that I have no recollection of our marriage and that I have never recognized our fictitious anniversaries.

 

One of the saddest aspects of the situation is that he was conning himself just as much as he was fooling those around him.

 

In trying to pull the wool over others’ eyes, he inadvertently knitted himself a mask with no eyeholes. He told so many lies for so long, he began to believe his own fabrications (he even admitted as much in a text to my mother). It became impossible for him to tell where the lies ended and the authenticity began. In trying to keep everyone else in the dark, he lost himself. The real boy was replaced with a hollow man.

 

I came out of the marriage confused, unsure of what was real and what was fabrication. I was embarrassed. How could I have been such a fool? My anger was explosive as I came to the realization that I had been literally sleeping with the enemy. The crime was intensified by the fact that it was carried out by the man who had sworn to love and protect me. Yet, eventually, I began to feel compassion for him, as I saw through the lies to the pain that must have born them.

 

I have come to the realization that the life I knew was real to me, and that has to be enough. I will never know what prompted his moral malignancies nor will I ever find certainty in truth.

I was conned, but that is not the end of my story. I am now exploring the world un-shaded by his lies.

How to Get Over Being Cheated On

Posted on by stilllearning2b
get over being cheated on

“How do I get over being cheated on?”

This phrase makes its way into my messages several times a week.

And no matter how many times I read it, my stomach still clenches at those words.

Because I can remember the desperation that I had for that answer. It was part fear – “Can I EVER move past this?” and part plea for help – “HOW in the world can I get through this gutting pain?”

Required Readings: The Aftermath of Infidelity

Here’s what I wish I could go back and tell myself in those first, awful months after the discovery of betrayal: