Tag Archives: cheating

Fartbuster Lost It

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RingPut I told y’all how Monday was kind of weird because of that wedding ring memory, right? Well, it got even weirder when I came home from work. G met me at the door of our bedroom with the words, “I’ve got some bad news. Not big bad news…” He held up his left hand. “I lost my ring.”

I shit you not. My body went cold because that’s not the first time a fellow who’s wearing my ring confesses that he’s “lost it.”

Guess who? C’mon, guess.

FARTBUSTER.

About a month before I found out that Fartbuster had been having an affair, he met me at the door as I walked in from the garage. He was picking at the skin of his palms, all sweaty looking and panicky. “Don’t freak out–I lost my ring at lunch today.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say so I stayed quiet. Funny how the only thing I could hold in my mind at that moment was the door mat from that fall. Funny how that betrayal came right back to mind.

“I think what happened was I took it off to wash my hands in the bathroom and I stuck it in my pocket but it must not have gone all the way down in there and it fell out. But I didn’t hear it maybe because the water was running. When I was getting in my car after lunch I realized that it wasn’t there. I looked EVERYWHERE–in that bathroom, under the table, I asked them to look in the kitchen. I was an hour late getting back to work because I didn’t want to stop looking for it. I left my number with the restaurant manager. We even looked in the parking lot.”

I still couldn’t say anything because all the blood in my body had gone to my head to pound between my ears.

“I’m sorry. I’ll go back and look tomorrow.”

I shrugged.

“Are you mad?”

“I’m sad. That was a beautiful ring.” Handmade and special ordered from an artisan in California. A wide band made of alternating braided gold. Even with Tony the Jeweler giving me the family discount, that ring had cost me $1500.

ring I was sad. Maybe I had been sad since the summer before, when we took that miserable trip to England. Or since that August, when he came home with the lipstick on his collar. The door mat had made me more angry than sad, but sad at the heart of it. I had been sad back in October, when I planted those daffodils in the backyard and wondered if we would still be married when they bloomed. Had I been sad since January, when he had lost his job? It had been a sad year.

That ring was never found. A couple of weeks later, we went down to Tony’s and ordered a new one. I thought it would be a fresh start for us.

A few days later, Fartbuster told me that he wanted to move out and “get his head together.” I STILL didn’t know about the affair. But I was pretty sure it wasn’t the time to lay out another thousand dollars on a wedding ring. I was too embarrassed to call Tony myself and cancel the order. Big Gay took care of that for me.

So a few weeks later, when Fartbuster came clean about the affair and I threw my own heavy gold wedding ring at his head, his finger was already bare. I remember saying, “Oh! Now I know what happened to your ring!” and he said, “No! I wasn’t lying about that. About that.”

Yeah, G didn’t know WHAT can of worms he was opening up when he told me “I lost my ring.” I kept quiet, working through all these thoughts. That was the same day I had been visited by the memory of Richard’s wedding ring–now here I was reliving a deja vu ring scene from ANOTHER marriage!

Luckily, while I was tracing my way through all that mental drama, G found his ring in the sofa cushions. Sometimes, if I keep my mouth shut, things work out on their own!

I Should Have Slugged Him: My Husband Confesses to an Affair

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This story contains scenes that some readers may find disturbing. It contains strong language, mild violence, and mockery of a Braves legend. Baseball fans and cuckolds are strongly cautioned. Intended for immature audiences only.

Here’s the story of the April night in the year 2000 when I found out why Fartbuster had moved out of our house. We had been separated for three weeks. I was parking my car in the middle of the garage and already cooking for one. He and I talked every day and cried just about every day. I just couldn’t get it through my head WHY he had moved in with his friend downtown when he was telling me every day how much he wanted to be back together.

So one night he came over for dinner and drama. We were sitting on the couch with our dogs–pretty normal night. He started crying first, which usually meant that I would end up crying most.

“I’m not good enough for you. You deserve better.” He sobbed. I patted his knee and assured him that that was not the case. He was a WONDERFUL person. Ominously, he peeped at me out of the wet corner of his eye and said, “You don’t know everything.”

I didn’t say a word. My heart stopped then raced to catch itself. “What don’t I know?”

“I had an affair.”

Well. What’s a wife supposed to say to that?

This wife, being a bit of a codependent class clown type, made a joke. A bad joke. The dissolution of our marriage happened just a few months after the public meltdown of Chipper Jones’ first marriage–when he confessed to fathering a child with a Hooters waitress. I don’t follow baseball, but Chipper had been married to a girl I knew from college. I had felt so awful for her when he was busted–the situation was terrible enough, but imagine having the world discussing your cheating husband on drive time radio shows and Entertainment Tonight? So to lighten the mood in our living room that night–oh, when will I ever learn???–I said:

“At least you didn’t get a Hooters waitress pregnant, right?”

He froze.

I froze.

Holy shit.

I lifted my hand off his knee. He hopped up off the couch and got a safe distance away before he turned to face me. “Not exactly…but pretty close.”

Every sound in the world was replaced by the buzzing inside my head, a metallic hum that seemed to begin deep in my bones and rattle through my body. “Ah,” I whispered. “She doesn’t work at Hooters.”

“Yeah.” He stared at me to make sure I had put two and two together. Or one and one and gotten three.

He started babbling about how he had cheated but knew it was wrong and he had ended it but then she had turned up saying she was pregnant and that was why he had moved out–to clear things up with her. He planned to come back to me as if nothing had ever happened. As if. His fancy German therapist had pointed out the problem with this logic and had suggested that Fartbuster come clean to me if he ever hoped to patch our marriage back together. I had to know the truth.

And now I did.

Like you might expect, I stomped and screamed and shrieked while he stood there with a hangdog expression in the middle of the living room. The dogs hightailed it for the bedroom. I tore off my heavy gold wedding band and beaned at his head, but I telegraphed my pitch and he had time to dodge it. He scooped the ring from the floor after it bounced off the fireplace and held it between his hands. He was still crying.

I dropped into a chair as my fury dissolved into anguish. It was my turn to cry.

He approached me hesitantly. It’s hard to know if you can comfort someone when you’re the one who dealt the blow.

“Don’t you dare lay a finger on me,” I snarled. Then I hung my head and sobbed. He knelt on the floor before me, so still and just a foot away, my wedding ring still in his hand.

We sat frozen there for a long time, like some mockery of a marriage proposal–him on bended knee with a ring and me weeping.

He reached out slowly and touched my hair. I let him.

I whimpered, “This hurts so bad. …. I want you to hurt like this. ….I want to hit you.”

He stretched his arms open wide and smiled. “Do it! Hit me! I’d feel better if you did.”

We both laughed as he continued to encourage me to punch him. “C’mon…this is your chance…”

“No. I’m not going to.” Laughing with him like that, like old times, minutes after he confessed to pulling a Chipper? My fury flamed back. “I don’t want you to feel better. I don’t want you to think that makes up for any of this.” I snatched the ring out of his hand. “And I’m keeping this. I can always melt it down and make a pair of earrings.”

Well. That was the beginning of a long journey–a year it took us to finally go our separate ways. I think back sometimes to that moment, that choice I made to withhold my fist and not beat the shit out of him. I didn’t want his atonement to be that easy. A punch in the face was nothing compared to the punch in the gut that he had dealt me with his confession. I took the high road that night, but there were many many times in that year when I wished I had walloped him. Swung for the fence. Smashed a tater. Blasted a homer. Belted him. Slugged him. Knocked a four-bagger. Hammer time.

But if I had, I would have chipped away at the awful burden that he had to carry. If I had hit him, he would have walked to first.

P.S. – The ex-Mrs. Jones, Karin Luis, has flown far far above where she ever could have gotten with that turkey. She’s a therapist, author, and speaker who focuses on women’s resiliency and spiritual development. She is co-auther of the book The Fatherless Daughter Project. Check her out on Facebook as “Dr. Karin” or on her website.

The Secret of the Five S’s

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Here’s a GREAT piece of advice my mom shared with me when I was divorced from Fartbuster and starting to date again. It’s known as “The Five S’s.” That is blatant misuse of an apostrophe to try to make a plural, so let’s spell out the name of the letter “Ess” then make it a plural…Esses. But after that glass of wine (and the one before it) that comes out more like Essesssessess.

With the Five Essesses, it’s all or nothing. Whether I was scouting around for a Friday night date or a life partner, I had to make sure he fit ALL FIVE of these criteria:

SINGLE: Well, duh. Though Fartbuster didn’t let marriage stop him from dating. When we were separated, I got “approached” by a married man. I said, “Good grief. I’ve already got ONE cheating husband in my life–why would I want someone else’s too?”

STRAIGHT: If you’re straight, that is. If you’re gay, they should be gay, too. I’ve spent some time dating members of The Other Team and it’s fun while it lasts–especially when there was dancing involved–but it’s not going to pan out over the long term.

SANE: This one takes a little looking around under the hood. Do they have long term friendships? Can they be alone? Can they be in company? Is their past littered with broken relationships? Is everyone “out to get them?” Any arrest records…and why? How do they treat things that are smaller and sweeter than themselves?

SOBER: I don’t care if you’re a drinker, a tee-totaler, in recovery or allergic to gin–as long as you are in charge of it.

SOLVENT: I’m not saying wealthy. Just solvent. Bills are paid. Living within your means. Not going to ruin my credit score by association.

It took me a while to find Richard (all 5, no question) and then another while to find G (all 5, plus the Secret S: Sexy Accent). Along the way I met some other Esses: Skint, Stalker, Snoopy, Stressy, Skoal, Stupid, Stingy, Swagger, Slob.

So in hindsight….Fartbuster? Single. Straight. Sober. A little weak on solvent and a lot weak on sane. And there was the sixth S: skank.

Gaslighting or “Am I Losing My MIND???

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Have you ever heard the psychological term “gaslighting?” I only discovered it a couple of years ago but it sure…well, it made a light go off in my brain!

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse where the abuser manipulates situations repeatedly to trick the victim into distrusting his or her own memory and perceptions. Gaslighting is an insidious form of abuse. It makes victims question the very instincts that they have counted on their whole lives, making them unsure of anything. (Read more about gaslighting at HealthyPlace.com)

The term originates from a 1938 play (later a 1944 movie starring Ingrid Bergman) about a husband who is trying to drive his wife insane by making her think that she can’t trust her own senses. When she sees the gaslights go dim, he convinces her that she’s just imagining it. When she hears footsteps, he mocks her. His manipulations make her distrust her own perception of reality.

Here’s the clearest example I can recall of gaslighting from Fartbuster (and for safety’s sake, don’t try this at home–putting a Fartbuster too close to an actual gas light may cause explosions.):

One night he and I were embroiled in an argument. Now remember, at the time, he had a pregnant girlfriend waiting in the wings. I knew nothing about her and didn’t even know he was cheating. He kept telling me he was unhappy at work, tired of being out of shape, uncomfortable with his family, not where he ought to be professionally for as smart as he was yadda yadda yadda… As we were talking, he sat on the couch in the sunroom and cradled our little dachsie, Zoe. His hands were so gentle with her and it broke my heart. I pointed to the dog and sobbed, “That’s all I’ve ever wanted from you–some gentleness, some caring.” He snarled back at me, “You know the difference between you and Zoe? She TRUSTS ME. You don’t.”

He was right. I didn’t trust him. I had this strange sense of insecurity but clearly it was all in my mind. WHY COULDN’T I TRUST HIM???

Well, duh. Because he was a lying sonofabitch. Imagine what kind of crazy nuts it takes to look at your wife and blame her for not trusting you when you have a pregnant girlfriend on the line!

So I’ve been thinking about gaslighting today because I got so many messages from readers who identified with yesterday’s post about getting yourself back after you’ve been in a crazy relationship. I hear you. I hear you. The following list contains some of the questions that author and psychoanalyst Dr. Robin Stern uses to identify gaslighting situations:

You are constantly second-guessing yourself.
You ask yourself, “Am I too sensitive?” a dozen times a day.
You often feel confused and even crazy at work.
You’re always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend,, boss.
You can’t understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren’t happier.
You frequently make excuses for your partner’s behavior to friends and family.
You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don’t have to explain or make excuses.
You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself.
You start lying to avoid the put downs and reality twists.
You have trouble making simple decisions.
You have the sense that you used to be a very different person – more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed.
You feel hopeless and joyless.
You feel as though you can’t do anything right.
You wonder if you are a “good enough” girlfriend/ wife/employee/ friend; daughter.
You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don’t have to explain or make excuses.

Hell, I mentioned 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14 AND 15 just in yesterday’s post! It’s #11 that gets me…I tried so hard to become someone else. I can’t believe I fell for that shit. Yeah, yeah, I got out, but MAN, what I wouldn’t give for the chance to go back to that conversation in the sunroom and LIGHT HIM UP.

I Look Like Myself!

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via Creative Commons free license

It’s Fartbuster week here on Baddest Mother Ever, folks! Today’s story is about the weekend after I found out my husband had a pregnant girlfriend. I fled to the coast to get a hug from my friend, Brantley. We’ve been friends since 1985. He took me to the SCAD Sidewalk Chalk festival for diversion and to meet his new love, Luis. That was 11 years ago and they’re still together. I’m on marriage #3, but those two crazy kids still are not allowed to get married because they might threaten the sanctity of marriage…but anywho, back to my husband and his pregnant girlfriend, AHEM.

People knew that Fartbuster and I were separated, but Brantley was the first person who heard the real reason, face to face. Telling him the truth was me taking the first step back into my own life. As we were wandering around the festival–each artist is given a square of sidewalk, a few sticks of chalk and a couple of hours to make magic–I spotted a drawing done by a child. I wish I still had a photo of it, but that has been lost in the shuffle. The sidewalk square was filled with red chalk background. In the foreground, two dark gray mirror image profiles faced each other, smiling. The words said, “I LOOK LIKE MYSELF!”

I can’t remember any of the winning artistry from that weekend. I can’t remember Luis’ third place drawing. But I remember that little kid’s square because it rang true with me. I look like myself. I am me. I am here. I am OK. I spoke the truth to my friend and life went on. This next few months might be painful, but I was going to make it out the other side.

The second person I told was my friend, Mike, another kindred spirit from that magical summer of 1985. After we talked and sang some Trisha Yearwood songs, I said, “I feel like a new woman!” He chuckled and said, “Nooooo, honey, you seem like your old self again. I’ve missed you.” He was right. I had spent 10 uncomfortable years auditioning for the role of wife. Trying to measure up to whatever it was Fartbuster judged lacking in me. Once I stepped aside from that, I found space for myself again. I looked like myself.

The Sidewalk Chalk Festival is this weekend in Savannah. I’m taking my little girl to meet Luis because I think they are kindred spirits. My daughter, who never could have been born if I hadn’t lived that broken-hearted life a decade ago. She’s here now and she looks like me, and she looks like her father, and she looks like herself.

This story of the sidewalk chalk came back to me tonight when my friend, Katie, shared a poem by Derek Walcott:

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Thank you to Katie, to Brantley, to Mike, to Luis, to Derek Walcott, to the little girl who drew on the sidewalk. Even a little to Fartbuster for finally hurting me enough to get me to let go. I am so glad to be this person, in this place, on this day. I am grateful to be able to say, “I look like myself.”

The Small of the Back

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Invisible couple (william) / CC BY-SA 2.0

What does an affair look like? How do you put a face on that person who has walked into your marriage? I think I am lucky that I didn’t know the actual person. It would be harder to let go if I had a more solid image of what I was letting go. I stumbled on this photo while I was trying to find a photo of a man’s hand on the small of a woman’s back (oddly enough, when you search for that you get a lot of tramp stamps, handgun holsters and anime). Why was I looking for that? Well, let me tell you a story…

I was living on my own, separated from Fartbuster. I knew about the affair. I had been told it was over. I was trying my best to believe that. We were going to a marriage counselor. We were talking about putting it all back together. One Sunday afternoon, I needed something out of the ordinary–I can’t even remember what–so I drove towards Atlanta to hit one of the big box stores. I was parked in a strip mall when I looked up and recognized an Indian restaurant that Fartbuster and I had once tried.

As I was looking at the outside of the restaurant, a couple walked up to the entrance. No, it wasn’t them. Just some couple. But the man was the same build as Fartbuster so he caught my eye more than another stranger would have. He held the door open for the woman, and as she walked through, he rested his hand gently on the small of her back. Such a simple gesture. An everyday kindness.

That was the moment when I truly understood that my husband had had a RELATIONSHIP with someone else, not simply sex. They made dates. He held doors open for her. Maybe they had a favorite restaurant. Nicknames for each other. Inside jokes. There was a relationship there and it was invisible to me but that didn’t make it not real. That’s the heart of betrayal. Sometimes sex really is a crime of passion. But opening a door for someone and guiding her through with your hand on the small of her back? That’s care taking. That’s gentleness. That looks like love.

I sat there in my car for a long time after that couple walked inside. Trying to stay married to him felt like I was swimming against an undertow. Working so hard, spending every drop of effort that I can muster…but pulled under by something I couldn’t even see.

That moment of clarity there in a strip mall parking lot was a gift. I started swimming my way out of the undertow. And I just keep swimming.

Everybody Hurts in a Landslide!

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My journey through divorce was not all bravado. I spent a lot of time curled up in a ball and I started buying those tissues with lotion in them so that I could go to work the next day and not look like Rudolph. I’m going to tell some sad stories that had funny endings now, so go over to your CD player and put REM’s “Everybody Hurts” on repeat. Pour yourself a glass of wine. Now you’re ready.

Hey, Michael! Pass me the mic…c’mon! I’m ready! Michael!!! Dude, pass me the mic.

When your day is long and the night
The night is yours alone
When you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life, well hang on
Don’t let yourself go
Everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes

That was my “Step One” for when I really wanted to get The Sad cranked up to eleven. I’d close the blinds and sing “Everybody Hurts” into my hairbrush for an hour.

Sometimes everything is wrong
Now it’s time to sing along
When your day is night alone (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go (hold on)
When you think you’ve had too much of this life, well hang on

Stop laughing as if you’ve never…oh shut UP. I was only 31. I was a grown woman, so I’d already fed the dogs and done the laundry and paid the bills BEFORE I got the hairbrush out. It’s not as embarrassing to do this when you paid for the hairbrush, the CD, the stereo, the house and the blinds.

Step Two–I’d put on Stevie Nicks singing “Landslide” and pull myself back up again. I may or may not have used a scarf as a prop during this portion of my set.

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I’m getting older too

One night, I pulled into my driveway and hit the button to raise the garage door. When it opened and I realized that I had still been parking on one side of the garage even though he had been gone for a month, I lost it. I parked in the middle of the garage then closed the door with the button so there was no chance of the neighbors seeing me crying on the way into the house. I got inside the foyer and collapsed onto the floor. My little dachsies, Zoe and Moxie, came running over to welcome me home. They danced around me, sniffing here and there. I cried. And cried. And cried. I howled. They started licking me. Zoe started on my head and Moxie took an elbow. Their little tongues darted out to groom me. They didn’t understand what was going on, but the knew I was hurting so they tended to me. How can you continue to feel sorry for yourself when two little wiener dogs are daintily fixing your hair? I got up.

So, take my love, take it down
Oh climb a mountain and turn around
If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide will bring you down, down

That house had a sunken living room, one step down and two ridiculous McMansion columns in the foyer. That little step between the foyer and the living room was a great place to cry. Good acoustics, grand scale set dressing, etc. One night, I plopped myself down there for a good cry. I was so used up that I flopped right over and rested my face on my knees…too pathetic to even hold my head up. I cried until I didn’t want to cry anymore then I raised myself back up. There, on the legs of my white sweatpants, was a perfect Tammy Faye Bakker face made of my cried off makeup! It was so funny looking that I couldn’t help but laugh. I looked around for someone to show it to, but I was alone. So I went back to crying for a while. Then I got up.

And If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well maybe the landslide will bring it down
Oh oh, the landslide will bring it down

Next time I get sad, I am buying myself a tambourine.

Dipping down into The Sad was a necessary part of grieving. It’s the pressure release valve that kept me from exploding. And even if it seems contrived, sometimes it’s necessary to do the things that crack the facade and let the sad come through. I’m just glad I never had a crocheted top, feather hat, long-stemmed rose or a tambourine lying around. Or the internet. Things could have gotten out of hand.

Hey, if any of you know Mr. Stipe, pass this along so I can tell him “thank you” for writing that song–it saved a 31 year old broken hearted kid. Or if you know Ms. Nicks, tell her I want my scarf back.

If He’ll Cheat With You…

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Back Story: In September of 1999, I found lipstick on his collar but he said “it was only dinner” and he started going to therapy. Things got better between us. Then Fartbuster told me in April of 2000 that he wanted to move out for a while and “get his head straight.” Three weeks later, he comes clean (on the advice of his therapist) that he had had an affair in the fall. He said they had run around for a few months, but he ended it in December because he wanted our marriage to work out. Then there was one teensy leetle slip up in February and now she says she’s pregnant. Oh, well THANKS FOR TELLING ME. He was thinking that he could move out, take care of that little situation, then move right back in and we could go on with our lives and I would never be the wiser. His therapist had said something along the lines of “Bitch, PLEASE. You need to tell the truth.” (Actually, his therapist was an older man and had a German accent, so it probably didn’t sound like that, but I can’t say for sure–patient confidentiality and all, y’know.)

(That part was hard to write because I’m having one of those flashbacks to “I can’t tell people that someone cheated on me! I’ll look gullible and worthless.”)

(But hey, guess what? I’m still writing and it’s OK!)

(Yep, still here…heart rate returning to normal…)

Yadda yadda yadda. There is a year’s worth of stories about the ebb and flow and peaks and valleys of trying to decide whether to stay married or not. There’s the Waffle House Waitress story, the Small of the Back story, the Thanksgiving Phone Call, the Funniest Voicemail Ever…all to come, in due time, Gentle Readers. But today’s story is about my one and only interaction with this other woman who stepped into my marriage.

I never met her. I don’t know her name, address, phone number. At first, I wanted to. I wanted to scream and rave and all that clichéd stuff from telenovellas, but I was under the care of some pretty wise counselors who said, “What’s that going to fix?” Then I decided that I wanted all her info in a closed envelope so that IF I ever decided to contact her, I could. Fartbuster said she didn’t know any details about me, so it would be best if I didn’t know anything about her. Easier to rebuild. I let it go. (Heart rate rising. Sentences getting shorter. Breathe.) My drive to know about her was all about control–this infidelity had made me question everything in my life; my world was out of control and by god I was ready to take some BACK. But I would have been grabbing at the wind. In the end, I only knew one thing about her–she was from another country and I knew which one.

Flash forward about 18 months. I am happily divorced, have moved to another city, have been dating Richard for a while. Haven’t spoken to Fartbuster in almost a year. Everything is hunky dory.

Artist’s representation of what I might have looked like on that phone call. Except my hair is shorter. And I’m not a man. Or blond.

I’m sitting at work one afternoon when my phone rings. I go through the mechanical, “Hi, this is…” The other voice says, “Is this the person who was married to Fartbuster McCheater?” (not his actual name) Thinking it’s a telemarketer or collections agent, I answered, “I WAS married to him but I am no longer.”

She took a deep breath and said, “You don’t know me, but…” and THAT’S WHEN I hear the accent. An accent from that country where she was born! KABLOOEY. I shut my office door and said, “I think I DO know who you are! Is this the woman who had an affair with my ex-husband???”

“Yes, and I’m calling to apologize. I can’t believe I did that to another woman.” I was speechless. And if you know me, you know that is RARE.

Now picture Scooby Doo going “Huh-RUNH?” That was me.

She was still talking. I said, “Look, I don’t really have anything to say to you, but I do respect your wish to apologize. That’s more than he ever did. But that’s about all I can think of to say to you.” I remember shrugging and shaking my head in disbelief.

She wasn’t done talking! She said, “Oh, I had a feeling you were nice! He always told me that everything about the divorce was your fault and you were such a bitch but I can tell just by the way you’re treating me that you’re a nice person! I really don’t deserve your kindness but it’s been bothering me for so long and I wanted to tell you…”

Ummm…hmmm…I flummoxed, discombobulated and gobsmacked. So I got honest. I snorted. “I really don’t need validation from you…but thanks. Of COURSE he told you that I was the bitch! The one thing you knew for sure about him was that he was a liar.”

Then it hit me. Why was she calling me NOW after all this was settled and done? I asked, “Hey, let me guess…he cheated on you, right?”

She squawked, “SO MANY TIMES! I’d catch him and he’d apologize and he’d do it again. I can’t tell you how many times he’s lied to me. ”

And that’s when I boiled it down for her.

“If he’ll cheat WITH you, he’ll cheat ON you.”

She got a little quiet but stayed on the line. I had been ambushed into this conversation but I had reached a point where I felt like wrapping it up. “Look. Getting rid of him was the best thing that every happened to me and it will probably be the same for you. That’s all I have to say. Goodbye.”

Are you clutching your pearls yet, Gentle Reader? Can you IMAGINE what was going through my brain as I stared at that phone. Fartbuster had promised me that this woman knew NOTHING about me. He and I had different last names. She knew my name, my phone number, where I worked…I was LIVID. I suddenly found myself out of control again and I wanted it BACK. So I called my friend in Telecomm and asked if he could trace a call. Nope. Dammit. There is no *69 on a switchboard. Why is life not like the movies??? i-dont-know-who-you-are-but-i-will-find-you-and-i-will-kill-you

That night, I told Richard. He was like, “That was decent of her. What do you want to do for dinner?” Men just don’t GET IT.

I called my girl friend and she was like, “NO WAY!!!! Girl. GIRL! No way. WHAT?” That was more like it. I told her how furious I was that Fartbuster had revealed details about me to this other person. I hadn’t spoken to him in months, but I was ready to call him up and let him have it.

I didn’t. The opposite of love isn’t anger. It’s apathy. Here’s what I realized: if I had called him in a fit of rage, he would have turned it into just another example of me being the bad guy. But if I didn’t say a word, didn’t react, I kept the position of power–apathy. I knew in my deepest heart that the two of them would argue one day or he would start yammering about me and she would say, out of the blue, “You know what? I CALLED your ex-wife and I talked to her and she was NICE to me.” Imagine the stupefaction on his face when he realized THAT had happened and I hadn’t even bothered to call to yell at him.

Oh? The other woman? The one who got cheated on “so many times?” She married him. For a while, at least.

Telling the Truth

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I must confess that this weekend has left me in a state of Facebook-induced depression. While I’ve been sleeping off a migraine brought on by Kraft macaroni and cheese (yesterday) or cleaning up fruit punch and cracker kid barf (today), the rest of you have been out there finishing the color run, going to prom, enjoying the beach, walking about in London, putting in gardens, firing up the grill or getting your hair did. Except for Craig–I saw him at the Kroger, but we didn’t even get a chance to talk because we both had already paid for frozen stuff. Ding dang it.

It’s not uncommon–this habit of comparing ourselves to others–but I think social media connections make it even easier to compare my outtake reel to everyone else’s highlight film. We all put on a mask to go out into the wider world. Now that I have Facebook, the wider world is right there in the den, along with the whining kids and the toy strewn carpet and the yoga pants that are the only comfortable pants I own. I couldn’t show this on Facebook…it’s too….true.

Photo courtesy Creative Commons. By Katie Tegtmeyer, 2006.

Since I wrote that post called “The Door Mat,” about finding out that my first husband was cheating, I’ve been thinking a lot about telling the truth and how important it is. Good Lord, when that happened in real life, in real time, I didn’t tell ANYONE. Now with some distance, I can put it out there for anyone who wants to read it. It’s the truth and it’s my life and if you are going through something similar, I want you to know that you can tell me. Or someone else. It will be OK. I’ve had many private messages from women who say, “Yep, that’s the same thing that happened to me.” This is our chance to step into the light. There is no reason to be ashamed because someone mistreated YOU.

I felt like a pariah, a failure, an unworthy woman when Fartbuster cheated on me. How could I have confided in someone??? It was my fault, right? Good wives don’t have husbands who cheat. I remember standing in front of a class that I was teaching during this time–I had gone to the whiteboard to write something and as I turned my back to the class, my knees almost collapsed with the fear that someone “could tell” what I was hiding. I still remember the exact moment and the blue cardigan that I was wearing and the angle of my hand and the color of the marker I was using. It took everything I had to keep talking normally, to turn back around and go on with the class. That was the moment when the veil was thinnest–the veil between the image I was trying to maintain and the everyday life I was living. Have you ever had a secret like that?

When you write a blog post and tag it “infidelity,” you get some heartbreaking links in your “suggested topics” reader. I read one the other day from a woman who said, “I’m going to cut back on work so I can focus on getting him to value our marriage.” Oh, honey. Honey, honey, honey. There is no way to be married enough for two people. It’s time to tell the truth. I read another one from a woman who listed the names of her paramour’s minor children and spurned wife! That there is “boiling the rabbit” crazy. The first time I went to see a therapist, she asked why I was there and I said, “Well, my husband wants a divorce.” She said, “Oh, so you’re getting a divorce.” I said, “That’s still up in the air…” “No, you’re getting a divorce. If one person wants a divorce, you’re getting a divorce,” she said, while looking me right in the eye like it wasn’t the end of the world. Dang it if she wasn’t RIGHT.

Last weekend, on Easter, I had a gift of a moment that showed me the importance of telling the truth. I have a beloved person who has struggled with addiction for many many many years. It was the undiscussed topic for a long time and it stayed in control of her. Now? Now she’s telling the truth and it makes my heart believe that she’s going to make it. She said, “These days (holidays) are my hardest sobriety days. If I can make it to six o’clock, I’m good.” She spoke her truth, telling the truth about who she is today (and the implied truth about the shadow of herself that she was all those other days) and it was OK! I am so proud of her because she’s living in the real world. It ain’t always pretty and she can’t control every part of it, but she is driving the wagon instead of being dragged behind it.

A simpler example–writing down what you eat leads to losing weight because you finally face all those “well, it’s just one….box of cookies…oh.” The truth shall set you free because it puts you in charge. I have learned that I have a limited amount of energy. I can either spend it maintaining an illusion or I can spend it getting to a healthy place. Don’t get me wrong–I still maintain plenty of illusions, but I’m a work in progress.

I spent a year feeling embarrassed that my husband cheated on me. I spent a year feeling like a failure because I was getting a divorce. My good friend, Andrea, told me that one day in the future, I would quit checking the box on forms for “Divorced” and start marking the one for “Single.” She was right. I remember asking Fartbuster, on one of those horrifyingly awkward dinner dates where it was just the two of us (and that other shadow of a woman)–“How is she better than me? What can I change?” He said–and I will never forget it because it took me months to understand–“It has nothing to do with you.” WHAT??? It has EVERYTHING to do with me. It’s my life that’s being ripped open. My reality that has to shift to include this storyline. My fingers that scrub the lipstick out of your shirt. I finally understood what he meant (with the help of many thousands of dollars worth of therapy from trained professionals)–I wasn’t the cause of his cheating. I couldn’t have changed it and I couldn’t fix it.

In a very unguarded conversation, after we had spent some time together “putting things back together” but I found a book in his car titled :Should I Stay of Should I Go?,” he said, “I had made such a mess of my life and you kept saving the day. I just wanted to be the good guy for once. So I found someone more screwed up than me.” I think he even used the expression “white knight.” In a more guarded conversation that showed Fartbuster in his prime, he accused me of being “too supportive.” Y’know, keeping the mortgage paid and food on the table and stuff. Pffffft. What a conniving bitch I was to do that! There’s a really good reason we call them our EX-HUSBANDS.

This is rambling and disjointed and you know what….it’s the TRUTH! It’s OK! It’s me doing my best! So next time I’ll talk about the one and only phone conversation I had with The Other Woman. It’s a doozie. It’s all about owning what you own and not taking on what you don’t own. For today, I just wanted to talk about telling the truth. It’s a way to clean the wound. It all gets better once you start telling the truth. Because sometimes the truth is, “It’s not your fault.”

The Door Mat

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I’ve been thinking about divorce for the last few days. Settle down, settle down–I’ve been thinking about the one I ALREADY had 10+ years ago. (Not the one I’m gonna have if someone doesn’t get to the bottom of that sink full of dirty dishes, but that’s a different story for another day.)

If March is the month that holds a lot of memories of my time with Richard, April is the month that reeks of Fartbuster. We had an April wedding. Five years after that, he moved out on April Fools Day. We signed the divorce papers on the day after what would have been our sixth wedding anniversary. Oh, and I found out all about his pregnant girlfriend in April, too. Another story for another day.

This is not Fartbuster. This is T.S. Eliot.

Isn’t it odd that one of my earliest fond memories of him, when we had only been dating a few months, was from a long drive–he read “The Wasteland” to me? For those of you who went to college in profitable fields, that’s the T.S. Eliot poem with the famous opening lines: “April is the cruelest month, breeding/Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/Memory and desire, stirring/Dull roots with spring rain.” After that trip, he gave me his collection of Eliot poems, even crossed through his name on the inside of the front cover and wrote mine below it.

I’ve got a lot of stories about that marriage (The Engagement Fart), some of which I’ve never written down before. Like the time I found myself living out the biggest cliche in the book–the night he came home from “working late” with actual lipstick on his collar. I went to give him a hug and couldn’t NOT see it right there in front of my face. My whole body went cold and tingly. I hesitated for a few seconds–TRYING to summon up the strength to explain it away for him before he had to–when my sane brain took over and blurted out, “Is that LIPSTICK?” He hemmed and hawed then said it must have happened when he gave a secretary who was quitting a goodbye hug. I could have accepted that; I could have swallowed the lie. Instead I said, “That’s hard to believe.” He froze for a good 20 seconds then admitted that “it was just dinner.” OH, OK!!! Psshew! I thought it was something objectionable! It’s funny now to recall that my first thought on registering that it was lipstick was that it was a frosty pink color and I couldn’t get past the TACKY. Jesus, if you’re going to cheat at least pick someone who doesn’t wear Bonnie Belle Lipsmackers.

That was a long night. We fought it out and hugged it out, I swore a lot and he swore he would change….blah, my hands are tired from just the typing of it. The next day, I called in sick to work so I could spend a few hours staring out the window and trying to remember how to breathe. I got it together. I did the laundry. I even washed his shirt for him. The whole time I had that Cowboy Junkies song, “Southern Rain,” going through my mind because there’s a line in it that goes, “Every night there’s lipstick on his collar and every morning I wash it away.”

When Fartbuster came home that evening, he came bearing gifts. As one does, naturally. Try to guess what he got me! A nice pair of “sorry I dated someone other than my wife” diamond earrings? Nope. Two tickets to a romantic second honeymoon? Nuh-uh. A bouquet of flowers from Kroger at the very least? Not so much.

A doormat. The man bought me a DOORMAT. We had two dachshunds so he bought me a novelty doormat that said “A spoiled rotten dachshund lives here!” Because if you’ve cheated on your wife, you need to high-tail it to Spencer’s Gifts in the mall to make it up to her.

Here’s my point in telling all this–people will show you who they are. They will show you what they think of you. When they do, BELIEVE THEM. Don’t give any credit to what they SAY, only to what they DO. I spent a year after this betrayal trying to swallow his bullshit about how much he loved me. There were many tearful scenes on his part, many professions of fidelity and adoration. He said, “I want to move back home because I’ve learned that home is wherever you are.” That was all in the SAY column. In the DO column? A doormat. An apartment in town. A girlfriend. Then another one.

If I had wadded up that doormat and shoved it down his throat, then punched him in the gut until he spit it back out, THEN stuck it in his zipper and lit it on fire, I think a jury of other women would have found me not guilty AND given me the Miss Congeniality prize.

I tell you what–I kept that doormat. I moved it from our house to my house, to another my house, to another our house, which became another my house then turned back into an our house. The dachshunds died years ago but that doormat is still in the garage. Every time I look at it, I remember “When people show you who they are, believe them.” Then I usually mumble, “Dumbass.” For the first few years after I figured it all out, I was thinking of myself when I added, “Dumbass,” Like it was my fault for not seeing through him sooner. “When people show you who they are, believe them, Dumbass.” But now that I’ve done the work to get more whole, I can see that his shortcomings were all about him and not anything I was supposed to fix. I was thinking about the woman who stayed silent while a cheating man gave her a doormat. Now I say it when I’m thinking about the man who thought that was good enough for me. Dumbass.

The doormat I bought for MY house.

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Love After Love

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