What does cheating do to you.

So what does cheating do to you? I can't really say from the cheaters point of view, but from the view of being cheated on....well I can say in all honesty....it can really mess you up. Which makes me a full on mess. I stopped counting after eleven different women.  Three of which I considered to be my friends. When I look back at that time I don't consider myself stupid or ignorant, I knew what I was thinking, and right or wrong I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe that he was still on the same page that I was. That he wanted forever. I wanted to believe that he had just slipped. He was a man and they make mistakes and I wanted to continue to believe in him and believe in Forever. But by the time number eleven was discovered and his tears of remorse were shed, I was numb. I couldn't believe in something that he himself wasn't believing in. When my marriage ended I didn't mourn the loss of the marriage, I was mourning the loss of my dream. The dream of forever after. The dream that this man was going to be there till death do us part. In a way it was death do us part....the man I had met, loved, married, created babies with, raised babies with, had died, and what I was left with was this man that I didn't know. This hippocrite that said one thing and did another. The jerk that would get so angry that he would leave welts, and bruises all over my body.  I had lost my real husband and now I needed to divorce this other creature. And so I did.
Now its time for the healing. Funny how we all heal in different ways. Funny how sometimes we rely on our faith and beliefs when healing and other times we go the total opposite. I did the latter. I needed to prove that: 1) I was still attractive to other men. and 2) I could allow another man to touch me sexually. The attractive part wasn't to hard. Men my age seem to be attracted to anything that has to breasts that hang above the beltline. But I discovered that I wanted to be attractive to myself. Sounds kind of strange right? But what do you see when you look into the mirror. Do you see a women that has wrinkles or rolls of fat? Or do you see those wrinkles as laugh lines and those rolls of fat as an enhansement of maturity and shape? If I didn't like what I saw in the mirror I could take all the mirrors out of the house or I could change what I saw and how I saw it. You see when someone cheats on you....someone that you put your whole world into. Someone that you have trusted you start to doubt yourself. Your first thoughts after the blinding emotional pain subsides is what is wrong with me. Why did he go to her/him. What did I do to push him away. Maybe I didn't loose the weight of the baby fast enough. Or we don't communicate anymore. The emotional wounds that come don't heal quickly. They bleed and seep which leads to infection. We hold in that pain because we are embarrassed to go to our friends or family and tell them that he cheated on me. So you feel alone. You are hurt and lost and alone and we go to a bad place.
In my case I was lucky enough, at the end, to have a friend that said, "you need help" and pushed and pushed until I got help. Only then did I realize what I had been telling myself. I was worth it. It wasn't my fault that he cheated. There was nothing wrong with me. Once I convinced myself, I started looking in the mirror and found things to really love. I love my hair and my eyes. I love my smile and strange enough I love my body. The stretch marks don't bother me. The scars from my abuse tell me that I survived, not that I was abused. I am not a victim I am a survivor. So I wasn't wanting to be attractive to men...I wanted to be attractive to me and that comes from the inside out....very cliche, but very true.
Number two came soon after number one. I met a man. A very good man. he didn't beat or verbal abuse. He was funny and he made me laugh and when he kisses me for the first time in my life I felt the butterflies that everyone talks about and well I will leave the rest....maybe for another time.
I am not totally healed. I have a long way to go. I have huge trust issues and sometimes wonder if I will ever be right...other days I feel almost normal. But then again normal is just a setting on a dryer.

Three kinds of dating.

Life after divorce. What does it look like? When do you get a new life? When is it proper?
Well in my honest opinion, screw what is proper! You will know when you are ready. Don't let someone that has never been divorced tell you that "you just need to get back on that horse" No, you don't have to get onto any horse, or maybe you can get on more than one horse...if you know what I mean.
So this is what I have found. There are three kinds of dating. I will explain this in a moment but I must also post a disclaimer. I am not a Doctor, or a Psychologist. I have no real medical theories and I don't claim too. I also do not give out advise I state my opinions and my thoughts from experience. So  please don't take what I say as gospel. So that being said lets get down to the three kinds of dating.
1) If there are levels of dating this is the lowest. This is the kind of dating where you go out to meet a guy, or girl, just to get a piece of ass. Now ladies, you have needs. Needs that an adult toy will not fulfill. Sometimes you just want a warm body to knock boots with. Now I am not judging, hell I would be the last one to judge, but this is not going to be as satisfying as you might think unless you are paying for it.  You can not tell how good a guy is going to be by sizing up his Wranglers. Some take 8 seconds as a serious goal to focus on and get too, others could rub a hole in a steal pipe before they get to the top. So be careful who comes home with you if you are wanting a little g-spot action. That doesn't mean you can't get lucky and someone must be getting something because there are a lot of girls out there hoping bars and going home with a midnight cowboy. There are benefits, if you do get lucky, there are no strings and no attachments and you won't feel bad if he doesn't call you the next day. You just needed to get a bit of release so that you can think straight. I think this is why a lot of us sleep with our ex's after the divorce. We need the release, but end up in that emotional roller-coaster again.  But Toys are available and there is no shame in purchasing a vibrator. Just tell your mom its a shoulder massager.
2) You need a friend kind of date. You need someone of the opposite sex that will take you out to the movies, dinner, dancing, hiking, biking or anything that just gets you out of the house and into public interactions. Often times we are working our butts off, and we need to not forget that we need some fun. The fact is that we are not meant to be alone but we don't want to feel pressured. Gay guys are great for this. Especially gay guys just getting out of a relationship. Nothing say friendship when you guys can go on a hike, have a good cry and eat ice cream like a broken hearted straight girl and a broken hearted gay guy. I speak from experience...every girl needs a gay guy.
Now this guy friend does not have to be gay. He can be straight but he CANNOT be married. Your guy friend that is married is not a safe guy friend when you are not married. And the guy friends wife won't think so either. Church divorce groups are pretty good for things like this, but this can get a bit hairy especially if the guy is needing a stress breaker. So I suggest finding a gay friend...really! They make the best shopping companions too. For those that find offense to this, straight or gay...sorry I have two gay friends and they are the best "girl-guy friends I have ever had....and they will tell you they love to shop too.
3) The finding a new guy date. This is the most dangerous date. If you are not ready, these guys can be dangerous to your self-esteem and confidence. They wine and dine you and love you both inside and outside the bed and then when you think its time to pick out new china they are gone....not always, but this can and has happened. Be careful, very careful when this kind of guy happens. Make sure you are ready and not want to replace. What is your reasoning, do you want this guy or need this guy. Can you live without him. In my opinion a guy is suppose to compliment you as a partner. He is not going to change your mind about your dreams and goals. He is going to support your dreams and goals and his dreams and goals should be just as important to him and you should be supporting his life decisions. There is a place for each of you in each others life. If this isn't the idea, you might find someone that you want.....not someone that you need.
Soooo, now I have given my two-cents on dating. As I said before, this is not gospel, this is just one woman's random thoughts and experiences.

I would have rather had a funeral

A would never ever want to kill anyone. I would never ever want to hurt anyone. I honestly have not or ever want someone to die before their time. I would never want to hurt anyone on purpose or even on accident. So when I say that I believe that it would have been so much easier if I would have had to bury my ex-husband than divorce him I mean it emotionally. I would never honestly want him to die, but the pain that he has caused me and my kids would have never had to happen if the good Lord had just taken him.  We could have had a wonderful memorial. With flowers and a service.  Spoke words over him and said our good byes.  We would visit once a week and than once a month and even though it would have been hard...we would go on living our lives. Fond memories would be spoken and good things would be remembered. But in divorce only the ugly comes out. All the good things are forgotten. You forget that he was a good man once.  That you saw only the good in this man.  That he made your heart pitter patter at one time and that you had vowed to stand by him till you died. In divorce the dream is gone. Not just gone either....shattered, burned, tortured, pieced back together and cried over.  You finally after soul wretching and agony you are able to walk into a new beginning.  Divorce is never easy. It hurts so bad that you go numb just to protect yourself from going insane.  Everything you said through out the marriage is gone over. You wonder what you did and what you should have done.  In my case, and many others out there, there was abuse. He beat me and abused me, cheated on me with many many women, and all while preaching the christian gospel. He ignored our children but retained ownership.  He called me a whore and slapped me, while he was sleeping with the sunday school teacher. I look back and wish I had had the courage to leave him when the kids were younger, but I just couldn't let go of the forever after story. He was my prince charming and I wanted the happily-ever-after ending.
I didn't get it. I wasn't meant to have it in this horror story. I was the one person that made it out to tell the tale.  I was not like other woman that had to hide for years to protect themselves and their children. I was not one of the women that had to bury a child or have them all taken away because they were being abused. I got out...so did my children.Maybe later then we should, but we did get out, and I divorced him and so did some of my kids.  We are survivors.  But would our lives be different if I had left sooner or if he had died and we could have been able to remember only the good things. The torture of divorce has horrible. The torture and humiliation of having a man cheat on you is agony. The emotional and physical abuse was major and I have to walk through the after-effects daily. At this point I have to think that having a funeral and remembering him as a good man and father (even if he wasn't) would have been so much better than going through the hiding, mental abuse,  legal paperwork and agony of divorce. The loss of divorce is so much more than the loss at a funeral.

A note

A couple of years ago I wrote a little note to some people that felt they knew my life so well that they could speak about it.  They wrote me a letter basically telling me I was going to hell. Seriously.  I was hurt at first, but than I decided I should be angry.  They didn't know anything about me. They didn't know about the abuse, they didn't know about the multiple affairs, they didn't know about the rape.   

They didn't know, and because they didn't know they should never ever judge a person until they do know.  We never know the walk a person is walking. We don't know if they were abused as a child or lived a life of wealth and privilege. We don't know if their parents were immigrants with different cultures and they had to walk the boundaries of this world and the old world. When you think about it, none of us have the right to give our opinion without it being asked of us.  So this is what I wrote. It was true then and its true now.

June 12, 2010.
This is for those who think my life sucks and feel the need to remind me of how bad I have it.
Yep, there are things in my life that really really suck.... things that make some people judge and pre-judge. Decisions that I have made that have caused people to feel the need to tell me how to live my life. To those  people I say...clean your own closet and leave mine to me. My decisions are just that - mine!! I might regret those decisions in the future but again those are, and will be, my regrets. I have made decisions that were totally accepted by you and the "righteous" and have regretted those more then any decisions I have ever made. But who can look back on their life and say that they don't regret something in their life. I take full responsibility for my actions and my reactions. If you choose to contact me again in the future make damn sure you ave no regrets or have never made a bad decision in your life. Advise I can accept - but telling me that I am going to hell because of the decisions that I am making and that I need to turn my life around before it is to late does absolutely nothing but piss me off. there is a reason that leaders need to have their "houses" in order before they can lead. So may I offer you a mop and broom?
Also if you choose to beat me over the head with the bible...please make sure you know your bible...because I do and nothing pisses me off more than someone brow beating another with the word of God. god is love and no matter my decisions - God does and will always love me. You might take in consideration how your message sounds to a God that wrote the very words that you are using as a weapon. You and people like you are why those that really believe in God don't go to church. You can make bad decisions and fail at a lot of thing and still have God in your life.
If I have learned anything in the last year I have learned one thing...who really matters...who really cares and when my back is to the wall who I can rely on. they are more what a believer should be than anyone I have ever got to church with. (That doesn't mean that I haven't gone to to church with them.)
I am not ignoring the things that suck, I am not hiding from the issues, I am dealing with them. Just because I am not doing it "your" way does not mean that i am not dealing with them. You are not, and will never be, privy to all dimensions of my life. So please go live your life and let others live theirs.
There are those that feel the need to speak words and rumors. If you believe that you will never be found out...be sure that you will. Your words can be up-lifting or damaging, there is no in-between. So before you open your mouth you might decide how you want to swing that sword.
By now, some of you are wondering "what the hell?" This is not directed to you but to a few that have felt the need to tell me that I have " lost my way." I might have lost my way..OR..I might have just found a different way. Thank God there are those that are willing to travel a different way or we would still be listening to "Godly men" read the bible in Latin and never knowing anything different. "Preach the gospel always, if necessary use words." ~ St. Francis of Assisi.
If you need an explanation of that statement - in layman's terms....live it don't preach it!!
To those that really give a damn there are things in my life that are truly amazing and wonderful and I choose to focus on those things and deal with the sucky things as they come along. This note that I am posting means that I have just had to deal with a few sucky things.

Now back to my amazing and wonderful life.

Thoughts on Marriage

I have lots of thoughts on marriage. Surprisingly some of them are pretty good. My marriage sucked! Wow, was that to blunt? It wasn't all bad, just most of it. I got four wonderful children. They are my pride and joy and I have come to believe that if I were to do it over I would have just used a sperm donor.  Ouch! That says a lot about the person I chose to be the father of my children. But that is a whole other subject.
My first thoughts on marriage right now as I sit here are;  "Don't do it!" It means nothing anymore. Its a piece of paper. We have very few examples of good marriages. My parents have been married for 43 years. My ex-in-laws for 44 years. They have happy marriages. They have learned to compromise and compliment each other. They have differences of oppinions and thats ok. I give them kudo's. I would have followed their example if I had chosen a partner that was more like them and less like Satan.
The example for people like my parents were people like their parents. When you married 50 years ago you were married until death. There was no such thing as divorce. If someone did divorce is was for some horrible reason such as abuse or the spouse commited some horrible crime.  Those that divorced were almost untouchable. It was just un-heard of.  Then divorce became more acceptable to the point we have Hollywood stars that count their wedded bliss in days...not years. Please that last longer than 15 years are celebrated as a rarity.  Divorce is not a stigma, but almost a right.
So if you want to avoid divorce then avoid marriage.
Woman no longer need to get married like in the days of old. Way back when....about 50 years ago, if a woman didn't get married she was supported by her father or brother or a sisters husband. She was an old-maid and something was seriously wrong with her...like maybe she was ugly.
Now, with plastic surgery and weight-loss no woman has to be ugly....just kidding. Woman, do not need a man to define them. They can have careers and lives free of men and the crap they bring into a womans life.

Now don't get me wrong. I am in no way a man hater. (And if anyone has a right to be a man hater I do) I love men. I love a good man. I love that they are tall and hansome and sweet and kind.Some are short and round with deep voices. Athletic or Geeky they can all be wonderful.  I love that they bring flowers and romance and make your heart pitter-patter. I love what a good man can do in the bedrooom...well we will stop there. But men seem to think as soon as they have a ring on your finger all the niceties are over. Then the farting starts and the dirty socks and stinky underware and the demands of laundry and dinner and countless other things that comes with having a man in your life. Very few stay sweet and sensitive. Very few remember to bring flowers home and will fix dinner if you are late. Very few remember to put the seat down after their done.

Now to those that remember that divorce is very prevelent in our society and that we women can do a whole lot on our own, I commend you for working to keep your woman and to keep her happy. Because a man that focus' on his woman, will have a woman that will focus on him. 
For those that think that once they have a ring on their finger and a bun in the oven they don't have to do anything to keep them...well let me remind you all that most women can get more off of welfare, and child-support with out having to fall into the toilet in the middle of the night because you left the seat up. They can have a job, raise kids, and still do a good job, despite what you might think.

Now all this being said. I do believe in the sanctity of marriage. I do believe in the fairy-tale. The Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty/Snow White dream. I believe that every man can be a prince charming and every woman can be the princess that she deserves to be. But both roles take work.
If a woman wants to have a prince charming in her life, well she needs to 1) act like a princess and 2) not settle for anything less than Prince Charming. I believe that if women would just stop settling, more men would rise up to the challenge.

My final thought on marriage.  Don't!  Unless you plan on making it forever.  Forever isn't until he pisses you off or when she gets old and fat. Forever is in sickness and in health.
If you don't plan on forsaking all others...which means sleeping with another woman or man than don't get married. Don't make the committment a huge joke. Because there are some of us that truly believe in forever. We believe in giving our whole hearts. All of our soul and if you don't believe in that...then might I suggest that you just live together.....

Lashing out

I am a survivor.  There I said it. I still don't feel it, I still don't accept it, but I have said it. When I think of survivors I think of people that have gone through horrific things and came out of his battered and bruised and effected. Crippled - but running marathons, scarred - but becoming a lawyer, sexually abused - but standing strong in the face of her abuser.  Those are survivors. To call myself a survivor is to accept what was done to me. To accept that I was raped by the pastor that led the congregation I was a part of. Accept that the man that, I married, I trusted, had babies with, believed in, beat me and finally pushed me down a flight of stairs that broke my neck. That lied to the paramedics when they got to the house. That after neck surgery, breast reconstruction surgery, two years of physical therapy, I was stupid enough to stay with him. Even after all those things...I still don't consider myself a survivor or a victim. I don't feel strong I feel weak. I feel like I failed my children and every woman out there that was strong enough to walk away before it got really bad.
I can not answer why I didn't walk away sooner? I never want to answer that question, I always want to  answer that question with a question....why did he beat me? I know whathe told me.  He always said that I was the only one that could push his buttons.  I knew exactly what to say to really hit at his very soul. I had so much power over him that I provoked his abuse. So if I was that powerful, than why wasn't I powerful enough to stop him? Why am I the one that suffered through the bruises and twisted wrists? The surgeries and physical therapy? I still didn't say enough. I still believed that he would change. I lived in shame of the other women. The women that he met online. The women he spent nights and weeks with. Amazing the kind of abuse another human being will put another through. The physical usually heals, but the emotional leaves wounds so deep that they fester. You don't want to fester. You want to heal and go on, but its always in the back of your mind that you are broken. You always find yourself asking the question - what is wrong with me? Why did he abuse me? What is wrong with me that he had to find satisfaction in someone elses bed? If only I had been a better wife, better mother, better lover. If only I could be a better listener, better cook. He wouldn't need to cheat or become so angry.
I am a survivor. I survived his anger when he shoved me so that I fell down the stairs, breaking my neck. I survived his threats and his beatings. I survived his humilation when he told me that he had slept with my ex-sister-in-law, my best-friend, the neighbor, the sunday school teacher of the church he pastored. I still feel the humilation as I sat in the front row and listened as he confessed his sins in front of the whole congregation, giving up his commission. Asking for their forgiveness and forgiveness for the women he seduced.  But never once did he ask for my forgivness. Maybe that is why I couldn't forgive him. All I ever wanted to hear from him was that he was sorry.  But he was never sorry.  He was sorry for being caught. He was sorry that he lost his temper, but if I hadn't pushed him I wouldn't have gotten hurt. He was sorry, but not for what he had done to me. Only for what he had gotten caught at. He was a narrsasistic, selfish bastard, who never thought about what his action would do to his wife.
How he humilated his children. I see what their father's hippocrital behavior has done. He see's none of that. That is why I lash out. That is why I lash out now. Anger.

Why do I care?

Why do I care if my ex-husband has a girl-friend. I think the answer to that question is different for so many of us women that didn't want a divorce in the first place. What is wrong with me is always the first question that comes to mind when a marriage falls apart.

I thought that very question for almost two years. My dead beat, wife-battering, cheating husband had been floating in and out of my life for about two years and I asked myself over and over again why? What was so wrong with me that he would need to go out and find another woman to be with. I mean I washed his clothes, cooked his dinner, bore his children, pretty much raised them on my own, and even believed his lies when his rage took over and I took the beatings that it would never happen again and that he was SO sorry. I did what I was suppose to do...right?

A thousand things go through your mind when your husband steps out of your bed and into another women's bed. What is wrong with me? Am I too fat? To thin? Is the other women prettier. Does she do something I can't or won't do. Is she married? Does she have children? Why her and not me? You end up beating yourself up. I made the mistake of asking...why? No answer, which leads to a whole other thinking process. What is he not saying?

I beat myself up and cried and blamed myself for not being what he wanted. This line of thinking fueled my reasoning of his abuse. I mean if I was a better wife, mother, lover, friend he wouldn't be so angry and he wouldn't need to lash out. I deserved these things because I couldn't be what he needed.

Let me inform those that might be reading this and thinking the very same thing that I tortured myself with. YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO BE HIT!!! No woman deserves to be abused. No one deserves to be abused. If you are being abused YOU are the only one that can get you out of this situation. There are those that will help and you can be safe again. But they can't help you if you won't reach out. YOU have to make that first step.

That being said I walked away during a very quiet and settled time. He hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. He hadn't beaten me in months. He was still cheating, but that was of no mind to me since I had not been intimate with him for about two years. He was working his job and I was working mine and I was washing his clothes and cleaning his house and living my life. But maybe that is what made me finally stop and think. I was living my life? I was living A life, but I wasn't living MY life. If this was MY life is this the way I wanted to live it?

No, was my answer. No, I didn't want this life of physical and emotional abuse. I didn't want to be with a man that thought of me as his personal doormate.

It was one of those moments when I woke up one morning and said...I don't want to do this anymore...and I don't have to.

Now I didn't just walk up to the man and say I was leaving, I made a plan. I asked friends to help me move out and I found a safe place to move to that would make him think about harrassing me. Then I moved. I took the leap and left. I took everything that mattered to me. Which wasn't much. Told my children that I was leaving their father (they were all adults living pretty much on their own)They supported me. As much as you think that you are protecting them - they still know.

My why's didn't stop - but I was able to get a clear head. I was able to ask the question and look at myself realistically and get a right answer.

I was able to look myself in the eye and say - you are broken and hurt but you can be fixed. You are not worthless and you can have a good life.

So I go back to the question of; why do I care if he has a girlfriend? Because no woman should ever be made to feel she deserves his abuse. I want to warn her. What would I say to her? Run, walk away, get out, because he is never going to change. Would she listen to me? Probably not, but at least I know that I tried.