Open Letter to My Ex

 

You thought you were so smart        

            and I was so dumb.

You thought you weren't capable of doing something so diabolical

            and I was always afraid I would.

You thought this would crush me -destroy my life

            and at first, I did too.

You thought I couldn't handle my own finances

            and convinced me you were right.

You thought I wouldn't be able to run my store without you

            and I wasn't sure I could either.

But of all of the lessons I have learned over the past ten years, the biggest one is 

                YOU WERE WRONG!

Turns out I was smart enough to figure out that you are a pathological liar, serial cheater, gas lighter and a sociopathic covert narcissist. Before my discovery, I had no idea what those things were, but I quickly discovered that there is a name for and description for who you are. I am a quick learner after all. 

Turns out, you were totally capable of all kinds of diabolical activity, and no one was more surprised than me. 

Turns out, even though you did crush me, you didn't have the power to destroy my life. God took the ashes of my life that you carelessly left behind and made them a thing of beauty and a testimony to his goodness and redemption. 

Turns out I have done pretty darn well with my finances and am in much better shape than I was with you at the helm of our financial ship. And, I am grateful to say that you no longer have anything I need or want. 

Turns out, I made some pretty damn good decisions on running the store and sold it for much more than you ever would have dreamed I could. You would have done nothing but hold me back and convince me that I didn't know what I was doing. 

You were so wrong about me. And more than that, you were wrong about the God I serve. He taught me that I never needed you after all. And you are the one who lost the opportunity to take this wild ride with me. You had the opportunity to be loved, honored and cared for till the day one of us left this earth, but instead you chose your pride, arrogance and ignorance. Instead of seeking a vulnerable, intimate relationship and exploring ways that we could sharpen each other, you sought out strangers on websites and empty sex. 

When you first left, I felt so guilty that I didn't miss you. I thought something was broken in me...that I was cold and uncaring. Turns out, I was wrong. I am very caring and loving. You just didn't give me anything to miss. You were so emotionally absent and selfish with your love and words that I hardly felt the empty space. It was always empty aside from your physical body. 

I didn't really lose anything after all. Turns out, I'm the one who won. I have 10 years of growth, grace, forgiveness, insight, friendships, love and redemption.

I have a man who loves, cherishes and respects me. He is the recipient of the best of me because he chooses to recognize it and delights in it. 

He is the man you pretended to be. He is the real deal. He doesn't need to hide behind his silence. He is not afraid to have hard conversations. He is flawed and instead of hiding it, he faces his weaknesses and deals with it. He gives me space, grace and forgiveness to do the same. He is kind, compassionate, caring, humble and sooosoooo generous! He has healed wounds in me that he didn't inflict.

I finally know how it feels to be loved...for the first time in my life. 

And for the first time...I am grateful that you screwed up so badly that you left me no other choice but to leave. Otherwise, I would have stayed and tried to fix a problem that wasn't mine to fix.

I am thankful that I discovered who you really were because you were keeping me from becoming who I really am. 

I have gained so much since I lost you...and I am finally free to be the person God created me to be...not the person you made me believe that I was.

I know the truth...and the TRUTH set me free!!!!

Sincerely,

Your ex-wife

Post Divorce Anger

It has been 33 months since I found out my former husband was living a double life. In that 33 months, I have lost a brother-in-law, sold a house, moved 3 times, bought a house, walked through watching my dad slowly die and losing him, moving my business and adjusting to literally EVERYTHING in my life changing. Nothing is the same as it was 33 months ago. I have been so busy surviving the past 33 months that I think I did what I've always done in my life...stuff my feelings and resolving to get sorting it all out 'one day'. Well, I think that day has come. Life has slowed to a 'normal' pace and the fallout from the nuclear explosion that happened in January of 2016, has begun to settle into my heart and mind. I went to see my very wise counselor today, and as I talked of the hurt over missing my 'sweet little family', I realized that beneath the hurt is some very real anger that has never been voiced or dealt with. I will say that I have stuffed it because in this world I'm finding that it's not okay to be angry. I was chided by my ex any time I got angry and told that anger is not a fruit of the spirit. I believed that if I could just somehow get 'holy' enough, I would grow beyond the stage of life where anger exists. BULLSHIT!!! I am angry...and I have a right to be. He was told that he needed to tell his children 4 things: 1) This was going on for a very long time 2) The behavior was escalating 3) He wouldn't have stopped if he hadn't been caught 4) It was with men He could not...would not do it. So now, 33 months later, they only know that 'it wasn't with women'. His parents think "he got into a little trouble while he was in New York...just send her some flowers...take her to Paris". That's the extent to which they know the story. So now, my kids have totally bought into the lie that poor dad couldn't live his true self because of his Southern Baptist upbringing and the culture that wouldn't accept him. He was in so much pain, this was the only way he could deal with it. What that means is that lying to me, cheating on me, hiring male prostitutes, seeking out men on Craigslist, hooking up with strange men...THAT was his only option!!!

In counseling a few weeks ago, we talked about looking at and grieving what all I have lost.  I need to be able to identify what all I am letting go of and putting six feet under the ground. I'm starting to compile the list and while I'm sure I will add to it as the days pass by, it is at least a start.

The dream of having a 50th wedding anniversary
Having a three diamond anniversary ring symbolizing love in the past, present and future
Being grandparents together.
Traveling together in our retirement years or even now.
Being able to vacation with someone
Holidays spent in Tennessee.
My inlaws
The hope of having someone to care for you, by your side, if you are sick or disabled.
Sharing 30 years worth of memories.
Having a partner who has known me and watched me grow and change.
Someone who already 'gets' my family.
Someone who will walk through grief with me when they are gone.
The ability to look at home movies and pictures without feeling pain.
Having someone to share all of the ups and downs of life.
I've lost the joy of the holidays.  There will always be lonely times now when the kids are with him.
The presence of someone next to me in bed at night.
A witness to my life...and the joy of witnessing someone else's
The hope of praying together.
The hope of growing closer in our older years.
Being together when the kids announce we will be grandparents
A double headstone

 It's a rare, beautiful seventy degree day in February. I have the doors and windows open and Alexa is playing music from 1974 (because I asked her to!) and I am remembering...Remembering what it was like to be a 12 year old in a small town in Ohio with two older siblings and a baby brother. I had a bestfriend, Kim, with whom I shared sleepovers, and pool days and bike rides and picnics under the big oak tree by the creek in my 6 acre yard. 

We went to a very small church, New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, where there were only one or two kids my age, except for when I could convince a friend to spend the night on Saturday night and go to church with me on Sunday (I actually won a new Bible for bringing the most visitors when they had a campaign to bring people in.)  They kept up with attendance and offerings and what hymn numbers we were going to sing that day on boards at the front of the church. (From what I remember, attendance was mostly in the 30's.) There was a baptistry at the center of the front of the church, where I was baptized standing on the last step that led to the water, because I was six years old and too short to stand in the pool without it being over my head. It had a painting of a tree lined river behind it where I frequently got lost in my imagination during the sermons.

Bathrooms and Sunday School rooms for the kids were down a dark and steep winding staircase where my mother broke a stiletto heel on her good shoes one Sunday.  It led to the basement where we would sit in little wooden chairs and look at illustrations of Bible stories, sometimes have potlucks and Christmas parties where the kids always got gifts. The girls got plastic tea sets or nail polish kits...and I have no memory of what the boys got. 

There were a bunch of old men who would gather at the altar during prayer before the sermon and they would all pray out loud at the same time while one man cried and wailed and wiped his face with a white cotton hankie.  (I guess women weren't allowed.) This started out in normal voice tones and would rise to a feverish pitch before it wound back down. It went on for what seemed to be forever before the men went back to their seats. Every Sunday, I wondered what they were wailing and crying about and would try to listen, but one man's voice would drown out the other and it just sounded like a chaotic bunch of noise. 

The preacher, Brother Raymond, who screamed...a lot, would get worked up every Sunday during the sermon so much that he had to wipe the little white balls of spit from the corner of his mouth...also with a white cotton hankie. One Sunday, I was playing with my mother's beaded necklace during the sermon and it broke. The sound of hundreds of little beads dropping on the hardwood floor seemed to last an eternity but at least it broke up the monotony of the screaming preacher.

Occasionally,  there would be someone to play the piano while we sang old hymns out of a book with shaped notes, but mostly it was acapella. My mother had a very strong alto voice and sang the harmony notes and frequently someone would ask Sister Opaline to "come sing a song for us". Many times she would sing a song with words that said "I'm looking for a stone that was hewn out of the mountain" and she would walk up and down the hardwood floored aisle as she sang and would eventually pick up a Bible off the old wooden table at the back of the church where the display holding gospel tracts hung on the wall. She would hold it up like a prize as she sang "I found the stone that was hewn out of the mountain". Everyone loved it and if they weren't Baptist, they might have even clapped! For some reason, this made me cringe inside and I wanted to crawl under the pew and die from embarrassment. 

The pews were hard wood with no cushions and had a cross carved out on the outside sides. When I was lucky enough to get to sit on the end of our family row, I would reach over the edge and trace the top part of the cross with my finger. (I can still feel the indention in my mind today). There was a slatted, wooden rack on the backs of the pews that held the hardback hymnals and a Bible. I'm certain these pews were designed by someone who believed that if you weren't tortured while you were sitting through the sermon, you weren't doing it right. There was absolutely no way to get comfortable , but in spite of that, I still managed to fall asleep every Sunday during the sermon. 

I wore patent leather shoes that always pinched my too wide feet, dresses that had puffed sleeves that pinched my too fat arms, and itchy crinoline, lacy slips. One Sunday, I had slipped my shoes half-way off my feet so that my heels were out but the toes were still in the wider mid part of the shoe. As I fell asleep, I jumped as you sometimes do when you nod off (anybody know why that happens?) and as I did, my legs catapulted my shoes, sending them sliding on the hardwood floors under the pews, all the way up to the altar where the preacher was doing his thing. 

I was mortified. 

We were there...every Sunday and every Sunday night. Dad never went with us, and Mom never missed. It was a great point of contention between the two of them with my dad accusing my mom of having a boyfriend there and wanting to know why we were late getting home. Sometimes we would go out to eat after Sunday morning church or go to Eden park for a picnic or to the flower conservatory. After, the evening service, we might stop at the United Dairy Farmers for milk and bread for the week and would sometimes be treated to an ice cream cone (my choice was always pineapple sherbet). We would frequently have hot dogs for dinner that were boiled in an aluminum loaf pan on the top of our electric coiled stove. 

We built a lake house on Lake Cumberland in Kentucky near where my dad was raised. According to my memory, he wanted to go almost every weekend in the summer, but mom fought it because we wouldn't be home to go to church on Sunday. Even on vacations, she would want to find a church to go to, but dad fought that too. Saturday night sleepovers were forbidden at a friend's house unless there was a plan for their family to go to church on Sunday morning.

God/Jesus was just an image portrayed in the handful of pictures in my red-letter, King James Bible, the paper characters on the flannelgraph and the watercolor images on posters and little cards we took home from Sunday School. Nothing at church peaked my imagination or created a desire to know more. All I knew was that the night I was baptized, my mom was proud and something about this God stuff was more important than your relationship with your husband, and anything else that you might want to do on Sundays. 

Christianity to me was all about two things...control and shame. The Bible was there to keep you between the guardrails and not go off the straight and narrow, only one way to heaven (and that was by being good and not doing bad) and number two, to tell you how ashamed you should be of yourself if you should veer off the path. They constantly warned of the dangers of backsliding and the punishment that was sure to come from the Mighty right hand of God if you did. 

Beautiful Things

 Beautiful things have always been important to me. I remember as a child watching old movies and being enamored with the elegant dresses that the ladies wore and, believe it or not, even as a child, I loved interiors. The intricate wall moldings, the carved furniture, elaborate window treatments with texture and color and trimmings...I absorbed it all in and dreamed of what it would be like to live in one of those grand homes as a little girl wearing pretty dresses with ringlets and bows in my hair and playing with beautiful dolls. 

One night, when I was about eight or nine years old, I had a dream about heaven...a very vivid dream that I still remember 50 years later. It was full of light and beautiful blue skies and gorgeous flowers everywhere. The sweet aroma filled the air and in my dream, I literally stood in awe and drank it in. I have said many times that that's when God set eternity in my heart. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." I think it's so interesting that this verse carries both the idea of beauty and the idea of eternity. 

As I got older, I got the impression from Christianity that beauty was vanity. We were reminded constantly how women should not adorn themselves with braided hair and gold and pearls and costly attire. Every Easter and Christmas my mother would make us a new dress. Even as early as six or eight, I wanted to design my dress...pick out the fabric and lace and the ribbons for my hair. As a teenager, I would pour over fashion magazines and save my babysitting money for new wardrobe pieces and jewelry.

My best friend Kim was the only girl out of four kids in her family. She had the most beautiful white, French provincial bedroom set with a canopy bed and pink ruffled bedding. I was so jealous! At around age ten, I got to pick out new bedroom furniture and bedding and by then, I wanted something modern and hip...it was the seventies after all. I planned exactly how I would arrange everything and begged for a hanging egg chair to complete the look...but it never came. With every move, I would dream of decorating my new room and making it the most beautiful room in the house...a room that would be the envy of my friends. 

At sixteen, I got my first car and a job at the most popular clothing store in town, Parisians. I spent almost every paycheck on clothes and shoes...and made great use of my employee discount. I majored in fashion merchandising so I could work around all of this beauty. I took classes in interior design and cooking and even learned how to make food look beautiful, create a gorgeous table setting and entertain with style and class. I spent most of teens and early twenties surrounded by the beauty of several clothing stores. 

As a newly married woman, I loved decorating our new home on a budget and throwing elaborate dinner parties for friends. People I knew soon started asking me to help them decorate their homes which turned into a career of 30 years for me. 

I absorbed the message from my childhood and youth that wanting beautiful things was 'worldly' and 'idolatry'. I carried the shame of my love for beauty for many years. I had self-contempt for my desire to surround myself with beautiful things and the need to create beauty. 

Until one day, while studying the Bible, I read about how God instructed the Israelites on how to adorn the tabernacle that they were to build for him. He described the fabric for the curtains, how many rings to hang them on, the design of the lampstand, the priests clothing...God was the original designer and he LOVED beauty and blessed it! It is everywhere around us in nature, in humans created in his image, in the animal kingdom, under the sea and the vast uniqueness of fish and sea creatures. He surrounds us with his creativity and beauty. 

And you know what I have discovered? He DELIGHTS in my love of beautiful things. He placed within me eyes to see, appreciate and CREATE beauty just like him! He blesses my love of beauty and calls it GOOD. I no longer feel shame when I purchase something strictly because it is beautiful. He is the original creator and he has placed that DNA in me...and I realize how much like him I am. 

My ONE Person

People talk about their "ONE " person. The one they would call when tragedy strikes. The one that they could depend on if they needed something. The one they trust their deepest secrets to. 

I thought I had that "one" person. 

 He was my "one" person...

    The one I shared my secrets with

    The one I depended on

    The one I trusted more than anyone

    The one I chose to have a family with

    The one I would give myself only to

    The one that had my back

But he wasn't "one" person

                He was two.

The one I thought he was

                And the other one who

                             Kept secrets from me

                            Was not dependable

                            Was not trustworthy

                            Chose to betray our family

                            Gave himself to many others

                            Threw me under the bus

                            

Thanks Be to our God

For the road that leads from darkness into light
For the hope that rescues us from endless night
For the grace that covers sin at the door where life begins
For salvation reaching in to guide us through, thanks be to our God

For the healing that no mortal can explain
For deliverance that breaks the sinner's chains
For the strength to carry on and forgiveness great and strong
And the promise of Your mercies ever new, thanks be to our God

Hallelujah, everlasting songs will rise
For all You've done, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Thanks be to our God

For the emptiness that cries out to be filled
For the promise that Your word is deeper still
For the longing and the need to have more of You in me
Because nothing satisfies the way You do, thanks be to our God

Hallelujah, everlasting songs will rise
For all You've done, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Thanks be to our God

For the mysterious beyond the veil of death
For the peace that opens with our closing breath
When our struggles pass away and we finally see Your face
And a greater glory rises into view, thanks be to our God

Hallelujah, everlasting songs will rise
For all You've done, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Thanks be to our God

Hallelujah, everlasting songs will rise
For all You've done, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Thanks be to our God, thanks be to our God

Songwriters: Sue C. Smith, Travis Cottrell, David E Moffitt. For non-commercial use only

https://youtu.be/05ao2W4h5UE?si=bDHXW7bx662t_acd

This song...it slays me every time I listen to it. For the past several years, I play it around Thanksgiving and it always ends up on repeat for hours at a time. 

I first heard it while in choir years ago when we sang it for the Thanksgiving Eve service at church. It didn't really touch me during practice, but on Thanksgiving Eve, it was like an arrow to my heart. Those verses...the idea of thanking God for things like "emptiness that cries out to be filled" or "the longing and the need to have more of you in me". Each line carries with it not only the blessings of God, but also the pains of life 'under the sun'. 

It struck me today as I began what is now my tradition of sitting in this song and letting it wash over me, that healing doesn't come without first experiencing pain and sickness. We don't experience the road into light without first going down the road of darkness. We don't know the grace of God without acknowledging our sin. We don't really appreciate hope until we have experienced a period of endless night. 

So many of the blessings of life are really only felt and appreciated after having experienced the trials and pain of life. 

 

8 years

 Eight years ago today....

    In some ways it seems like a lifetime ago

        In other ways, I remember every moment of that evening.

The day before, I was preparing for a trip to Johnson City, Tn to attend my aunt's funeral.

    I had found a receipt in his suitcase by "accident" (divine providence) for a PO box that he had rented.

        I had no idea why and was so confused; terrified of what this meant.

An ice storm was bearing down on Charlotte.

    I had just driven home from Johnson City trying to outrun the storm.

        He had just flown in from NYC.

                 My son was living at home and my youngest was at college.

                 My oldest was coming over to stay because her husband was out of town, and she didn't want to be alone in the storm. 

                My oldest and my son decided to leave to go and buy a new puzzle to work on during the storm.

It was just he and I. 

    Alone

        With the cloud of his secret hanging overhead with the clouds carrying the ice storm.

I knew I had to take this window of time to ask the question as he sat at the kitchen table. 

ME:    "I'm hoping that you can give me a really good reason that won't turn my stomach as to why you have a PO box?"

HIM:          "A what?"

ME:     "A PO box."

HIM:          "Who says I have a PO box?"

ME:    "Do you have a PO box?"

HIM:            "Why would I have one?"

ME:    " You tell me."

            "Be honest. Just don't lie to me."

                    Twenty minutes of excruciating SILENCE followed.

      The room was spinning. My mouth was like cotton. My heart was beating out of my chest. My stomach was doing somersaults. My ears were ringing. My fingers were numb. My legs were shaking. 

He wouldn't speak. Wouldn't answer my questions. Wouldn't put my fears to rest. Wouldn't care for me. 

He was only interested in figuring out how to cover up the double life that he had been living that had just been discovered. He was trying to find a way to turn it on me.

He looked at me like I was the crazy one when I told him that he needed to fess up before the kids came back home any minute. 

He said he wasn't ready for this and I wasn't either.

He needed to have somewhere to have some medical records sent.

        I was foolish enough to believe he had a disease that he wanted to keep from me so I wouldn't               worry. 

Me:     "There has never been another person in the world that I trusted as much as you...

                    ever in my life."

                                    LOOOOONNNGGG SILENCE

Finally, I was told that "there was a massage with a male masseuse in NYC and there was contact." He thought he had a wart. He said it wasn't as much as I might have thought. 

That was the biggest lie of all. 

    It was a male masseuse.

        There were genital warts.

            There was contact...a lot of contact.

                    Many, many times with many, many partners.

And this all came out over a period of several months.

    And I will never know the whole truth.

        And I believe it is much worse than I can even imagine. 

So why eight years later do I still listen to the recording of the above conversation that God provided when he prompted me to hit voice record when I first sat down at the table?

    Because it reminds me that I am not the crazy one.

        It reminds me how devastating and traumatic it was.

            It reminds me why I am still not healed.

                It reminds me that I knew it all along.