The "Firsts"

What do I mean by, the "Firsts?" Well, the first holiday or occasion after the separation/divorce. For example, Halloween, Christmas, birthdays, etc. I have not handled these very well at all. I always end up crying and feeling really sorry for myself and I absolutely HATE IT!! I know that this is all part of the process and I should just allow myself to feel these things but I am so sick of having really good days/weeks and then BAM...depressed. It just plain sucks.

The first, first that I can remember feeling the way I do right now is Super Bowl Sunday. Yes, I had a Thanksgiving, Christmas and many other things but those times were so busy that I did not have time to sit and think about it. Usually, on Super Bowl Sunday we always had family and friends over to watch the game. It was great to have a house full of people. This year, it was just me and the boys. I cried alot. But, I got through it and on Monday I was fine.

Today is the day before Mother's Day and I can't stop thinking, this will be the first time since Nate was born that I will not get a card or flowers from them. I will not get the joy of doing nothing while someone else does all the housework and cooking. It is all me. Just like any other day. I hate feeling this way. I should be grateful that I have all the wonderful things I have in my life and I am. I can't stand that my kids have to see me cry on a day like this. They don't understand why and I don't know how to explain it. I just really hope that one day I will wake up and all these feelings will be gone.

I am trying to focus on the BBQ with wonderful friends on Sunday and Monday for Nate's award and Mother's Day Tea. It will be a wonderful and love filled day. Also, I only have two more "firsts" to battle. My what would have been my 9th wedding anniversary this month and Ian's birthday in June. After that, mid-July will mark one year since he walked out. Maybe after that I will be able to finally be 100% happy?!?!?!?!

Bright Sunshine Day..

How do I explain how the last week has been for me? My life has been a complete nightmare for the past 9 months. I have cried more than I have ever in my entire 37 years. I have never been so angry and hurt. I have met all of my demons and never thought I would conquer any of them until this week.

I found out that he had lied to me once again and didn't do what he said he was going to do. Big surprise there! I had to see a look of despair on my 6yr old son's face because he knew something that he didn't want to tell me because he thought it would make me upset. All because my jerk of an ex could not be man enough to talk to me. He is still being a selfish ass. I confronted him on it via email and of course didn't like what I read. As I am reading his email I thought there goes my really great mood but to my surprise, my great mood did not go away. I did not cry. I did not get angry. WOW!! I told a friend of mine the story and she says to me, "Vanessa, I think you just hit a milestone, you are over him!" She was right. I felt like the weight of the last 9 months had been lifted away and the dark cloud above my head was gone and the sun was shining. I WAS HAPPY!

I know that moving out of the house we bought together and getting a place for just me and the boys had alot to do with me being able to come to this place I am at and also doing all the things that were always done for me. I feel a sense of power and accomplishment. I know I have some more milestones to cross but BRING IT ON!! :)
I am not scared anymore.

The Divorce

Going through a divorce is not a fun process and I don't think I would wish it upon my worst enemy. One very important thing I learned was true colors come shining through. There was one question I kept asking myself and others and that was, "Who is he?" He is not the person I married. He is not the kind, caring and understanding man I loved. He turned out to be a cruel, heartless and mean person.

I think the actual court date was the worst of any. I really felt like I was in a lifetime movie and I was numb. His lawyer was a complete jerk and tried to get some outrageous things. I, on the other hand had a great lawyer and I thank my lucky stars everyday I had him. His lawyer tried to make it seem like I was the one that wanted this divorce just because I filed first. He tried to make it look like I was trying to keep the boys from their dad. He tried to make it look like he was struggling financially. My lawyer shot every single thing right down and the judge saw right through it.

I was doing really well and had not broken down UNTIL... it was told that he was living with his "girlfriend", aka, HOMEWRECKER and she was not paying rent! REALLY??? Here you sit trying to say oh I can't afford to pay her any money to take care of our kids but my whore is living with me for FREE!!! What a jackass. At that moment I knew he had been lying to me and the boys knew who she was. I was so upset.

In the end, the judge was very fair and I ended up getting almost everything I asked for. I tried to tell him that if he divorced me he would be poor and I was right. In order to understand that statement let me tell you a little something about this man I married. HE WAS A TIGHTASS!! Any time he would spend money his ass would squeak!! So, the sweetest revenge for me is when his pocketbook takes a hit. I know this must make me sound like a gold digger but I am really not. It is just that he was so callous towards me and the one way I know he is hurting is by seeing his precious money slip away!

Will it ever get easier?

Every time I start to feel like I am moving on, I have a really bad day or week where I am angry, hurt, sad and frustrated. I sit and wonder, when will this get easier? When will I not be angry anymore? When will I stop wondering, what happened? I just want to be happy again. I want to feel like myself again. I want to wake up in the morning and not have to think about my marriage ending and question myself. I want to go through one entire day without thinking about him. I want to have one day where I don't get angry at my kids for no reason at all. When will he not have this power over me anymore?

Everyday I try to be positive. I always try and tell myself that my life is not really all that bad. It could be worse. Some days are easier than others. I have days when I feel so overwhelmed all I want to do is crawl into my bed, go to sleep and not wake up for a few days. I hate this standstill my life is in right now. I am so ready to take many steps forward but everything is just up in the air.

I know in my heart this is the path I was intended to follow and that it will get easier and I will be a better person but WHEN???

Taking a little power back..

I made it very clear to him when he left that if he wanted this to end in divorce that he would have to file because this was not what I wanted. Then, the thought of sitting around waiting for the papers became unbearable. I did not want to live through that moment of getting something that officially says your marriage is over.

The moment I decided that I would be the one to file the papers was after a conversation I had with him. As I have said before most of the conversations I had with him were me screaming at him and this one was no different. I had found out that he had taken the homewrecker to a family dinner at his mom's house. I don't know why I got so upset. I guess it was because my place had been taken, already. His mom had only contacted me by email and that was only to give me advice on where to go for counseling. Ummm...don't ya think your cheating ass son needs the counseling?? I called him and just laid into him. I was so angry and of course he was being so callous about it. At some point he said to me, she is a part of my life now and she will be a part of the boys' life. I went from anger to protective mode in 3 seconds flat. I thought, over my dead body. After I got off the phone I found a lawyer and set up an appointment. There was absolutely no way in hell I was going to let him bring that person into the boys life. I filed for divorce.

Feelings

It is amazing how many emotions you go through when the only life you have ever known is ripped right out from under you with no warning. I could not understand how he could just stop loving me. I still loved him. There were days when I would miss him so much and I just wanted to call him and beg him to come back. Then there were days where I absolutely hated him. I couldn't stand to look at him. For the first several months any conversation we had always turned into me yelling at him and him not showing any emotion what so ever. He treated me like a piece of garbage he tossed on the side of the road. I could not understand how he could treat the woman who did nothing but love him and gave birth to his two sons like this. How could he walk away from his kids? This is exactly what his dad did to him and his brothers and he had an estranged relationship with his dad for most of his life. Although he is still a part of their lives the key word is "part." I asked him at one point if he thought about me or the boys when he was having his affair and he said with no hesitation, "no." That says alot. It says that he was being very selfish. He was only thinking of himself and not about the people who love him the most. It was really hard for me not to keep thinking to myself, what is wrong with me? Why was I not good enough for him? What does she have that I don't? I was beating myself up.

After a while I had to start thinking about my kids. I had to realize that this is not only about me and how I feel. They already had one parent give up on them, I could not give up. I had alot of people telling me that I should be hurtful and mean to him but, really, who does that benefit? I did not want my kids to see me being mean to their dad. What kind of message did that send? I had to show them that I could be strong and that I was there for them. This is not to say that I didn't have days or moments of complete breakdown. They saw me cry alot and I got angry alot but I never let them go to bed without telling them I love them with a hug and kiss. The two things that got me out of bed every morning were, Nathan and Ian.

Time to go

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 my husband walked away from our life. The one thing I feared the most was telling the boys that daddy was not going to live with us anymore. I knew it would be easier for Ian since he was only 2 yrs old but Nathan, that was going to be hard. Nathan loved his dad more than anything. I knew this was going to crush him.

He came home from work and his plan was to pack up some clothes and leave. OH NO!! There was no way I was going to let the boys watch their dad pack up and walk out. I told him..this is what you want so YOU will tell Nathan. My plan was to wait until he told Nate and then I was talking the boys to dinner while he packed a bag and left.

I was shaking and holding back tears. He told Nathan he was not going to be living with us anymore. I will never forget the look on Nate's face. Pure sadness, his chin quivered and I just started crying. All he kept saying to Nate was this was not your fault, you will always be my buddy and I love you. I can remember Nate looking at me and would not look away. He would not look at his dad. Finally after about 10 mins of him telling Nate the same thing over and over, I said, let's go to McDonald's. I couldn't take it anymore..it was time to go. I grabbed Ian and Nate and we headed for the door. I didn't say one word to him. In the car I told Nate, we are going to be ok. We are a team now, we will be ok. He just shook his head and hugged me. My baby boy's heart was broken.

I swore that when I had kids I would do everything to make sure they would always have a mom and dad that stayed married. I didn't want my kids to have to deal with divorce the way I had to. I didn't want them to have to deal with step-parents the way I had to. I didn't want them to have to deal with feeling second best to Daddy's new life or Mommy's new life. I failed my kids. I didn't keep my promise. I didn't do everything I could to stay married. I can't count how many times I asked him if our marriage was strong enough to be parents and to stay married forever. He always said yes. He lied.

What am I doing??

For the next few weeks I tried really hard to move forward. There was one problem, he was treating me like I was the one that did something wrong. I was the one doing all the apologizing, all of the talking, all of the hugging, all of the kissing. He was not putting in any effort to making this better. He was not apologizing to me for what he had done. I was making alot of changes and he was pushing me away. I did not understand why this was happening. I started having anxiety attacks and I was crying all the time. My kids did not understand why I was sad all the time. I was having a hard time coping with this. I was scared, confused, hurt, lonely and so many other things. I was just hoping that going to counseling would help but then he throws yet another bomb at me. We had to fill out some paperwork for the therapist and there was a question that asked, why are you seeking help? He wrote, Because I don't love my wife anymore and I want to be with someone else. When I actually saw those words on paper my heart completely broke in two. I just cried and cried. At the time I didn't really think about why he gave me his paperwork. He could have just kept it and taken it to the office himself. Now, I know why he did that, because he was a COWARD!! He still is one to this day. Why could he not just be man enough to tell me he was unhappy and didn't want to be with me? I think I at least deserved that.

For that entire night after reading the papers, I could not stop crying. He never once asked me what was wrong or if I was ok. He just ignored me. So, of course I started a conversation with him. It was basically me starting off begging him to love me and to stay in our marriage. The more we talked there was one thing that kept going through my mind and it was a line form a song by the band Daughtry. I had been listening to their new CD and this song, What I meant to say seemed to be written just for me. The line that kept going through my head was, All this sucking up to you is getting old. As I was sitting there listening to the man I have loved for 15 years tell me that he did not love me anymore I finally said, ya know what? NO!! I deserve better than this. I did not do anything wrong and I am trying to get this asshole to stay. What am I doing? I finally said told him it was time for him to go. I could not live in the same house with someone who could not even look at me. I did ask him to still go to counseling and he agreed but he would not agree to not seeing his whore after he moved out. I do believe I went a little crazy because I started literally beating him up. I was punching him in the arms, stomach, face, everywhere. I don't know what came over me...finally, ANGER!!

I just told him he needed to move out the next day after work. My marriage was over.

Didn't expect this...

It was the week of the 4th of July and his birthday when all this started and after our "fight" I convinced him that we needed to start making changes and get our marriage back on track. I tried to go on like nothing had happened. We went to his mom's house for his birthday celebration and acted like nothing was wrong. I was really ready to make things better. I was ready to put all my effort into making him happy and making our marriage stronger. When we got home that night and after we put the kids to bed he said he needed some time alone. He left and went to a hotel. I had no idea what was about to happen when he got home the next day.

He got home about noon and when he walked in the door I could tell this was not going to be good. We went in to the bedroom and I asked him what was going to happen. He said, I don't want to be married to you anymore. I said, how can you give up on us when this is the first major bump we have had in our marriage? He never could answer me. I had asked him the night of our fight if he had been unfaithful and he looked me in the eyes and said no. He lied. I cannot remember exactly how it finally came out but he looked at me and said, I am sorry but there is someone else. My body went numb. I just stood there staring at him, not able to move. I could feel my heart crack. I asked him, did you sleep with her? He said yes. I slapped him right across the face. Called him an SOB. How could he do this to me? What the hell did I do to deserve this? He never said he was unhappy. WHAT???
I asked him if he loved her. He said yes, I think I do. I slapped him again. I fell to my knees and just wept. Why does this always happen to me? Am I really that bad of a person? I have never had so many things go through my head at one time. How am I going to support my kids without him? I don't have a college degree, I have not worked in 5 years. How in the hell am I going to do this??

I always thought and said that if this ever happened I would tell him to get out and that would be it. That did not happen. I don't know why and I probably never will but when I looked at him I did not feel hatred. When I looked at him I felt sadness and guilt. I felt like this is my fault because I was not a good enough wife. I didn't do anything right. I didn't make him feel loved and wanted. He turned to some girl that said all the right things, all the things I should have been doing. I found myself just wanting to hold him and tell him I was sorry for pushing him to that line and for making him cross it. I told him that I could move past this. We need to work this out for our kids. He agreed. He promised not to talk to the home wrecker again. I don't know if he kept that promise. We also decided that we would go to counseling. For the next two weeks I tried everything to make things better. I was leaving him little notes, cleaning the house better, paying more attention to him, the works. In return, I was getting treated like I had the plague. He would barely touch me, he couldn't even look at me. I was the one putting in all the effort, apologizing everyday and I wasn't even the one who cheated. I cried myself to sleep every night. He was lying next to me and I felt more alone than I would have if he was 3,000 miles away.

My story begins..

I was married for 8 years and together for 15 years to a man I loved with all of my heart. I had been with him for my entire adult life and I honestly thought we would be together forever. He treated me decently, he made me laugh, we had two wonderful children and we had a good marriage. I was a stay at home mom and I was truly grateful that I was able to stay home with our kids. I was able to find a love for football and other sports as well. He was never really the romantic type but there were times that he did nice and sweet things for me. He was a good provider, a loving father and I know at one time he did love me and I know he loves his kids. I would look at him sometimes and think to myself, I don't know how I could live without him. I felt safe and loved.

Starting in mid 2008 things began to change. I could sense that we were drifting apart and we were not as close as we once were. I knew something was wrong but I choose to ignore it. I was enjoying the things I was doing and didn't want to deal with it. I guess I was scared of what he would say. Looking back, I wish I would have said something because things could have turned out differently than they did. I came home from a trip at the end of June 2009 and I knew something was wrong instantly. This is when my world comes crashing down.

It started with a fight about money. We never fought but when we did it was always about money. He was very tight when it came to that. I shouldn't complain about that because we did have a comfortable life and it was because he was careful. But, it was never easy for me not making my own money and having to get an "allowance" every month. I just never really adapted to that very well. It was not like I was going out and spending boat loads of money on myself but it was to much for him. We had our usual back and forth words but then he said he was fed up. I didn't know what that meant and then he said he was done and couldn't do this anymore. That was it, my heart sank. I knew by the look on his face that he was done with our marriage. I could not breathe. I didn't know what to think, what to say. I just sat there looking at him, crying. All I could think was, this cannot be happening. All of a sudden I was at his feet practically begging him to not say those things. Telling him we can fix this. Saying we can't do this to our kids. I was so confused. This came out of left field. He never said anything about being unhappy. In fact, we never talked about how we felt for a long while. I remember him shaking his head every time I would say we can fix this. We talked for hours but it was going nowhere. Finally, we just went to bed...not together.

Why I started this Blog...

I decided that I needed to start this blog because 7 months ago my life changed forever. I wanted a place that I could put my feelings and help myself move on. It will contain my story and in between there will be many different things. Just depends on how I am feeling. I will take time to thank the many people that have helped me become a stronger and better person.

So, grab the tissues and read on.....