Tag Archives: lies

Divorce and the Mental Fog

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A side-effect of long-term emotional turmoil.

I should start off by saying a few things.

Even though my husband cheated on me, lied to me, asked for a divorce on my birthday, locked me out of my home and hangar, and, with his mommy/girlfriend has subjected me to all kinds of harassment since I discovered his infidelity in August, I still love him.

How could I not still love him? We were together for 29 years. That’s more than half of our lives. You can’t suddenly stop loving someone you’ve invested your whole emotional being into.

At least I can’t.

He apparently can.

And that’s one of the things that I’m having so much trouble with. I can’t understand how a man who spent half of his life with me, a man who built four separate homes with me over the years, a man who cried in my arms when his father died, a man who traveled and laughed and learned and experienced so much with me — I can’t imagine how that man can simply flick a switch and begin hating me as he so obviously does. How else could a man subject his life partner to the things he’s put me through since May, when he first began looking for my replacement on an online dating site?

How?

The First Two Months

It’s been nearly eleven months since he asked for a divorce at the end of June, ruining my birthday forever with a phone call when I honestly half-expected a surprise visit. After all, he had been coming to see me at my summer job site on my birthday — even when it seriously inconvenienced me — almost every one of the previous four years. We’d been talking only a few weeks before about him coming to spend the summer with me. We’d been talking about which car he’d bring when he drove up with our dog. And where he’d work. I’d even begun making room in my closets and dresser for his things. And had bought new pillows to replace the wimpy ones I had.

At first, I didn’t believe he really wanted a divorce. I figured that something had happened, something had pushed him to say something to shock me — as I tried so many times to shock him out of the malaise that had overwhelmed him for nearly a year, turning him into a moody stranger. I knew even that day that the divorce wasn’t entirely his idea. I knew that he wasn’t willing to face life on his own, that he wouldn’t cut ties with me after a 29-year relationship unless there was a Plan B.

I asked him whether there was another woman and he said no. It was a lie, but I believed him. I’d never lie to him; I couldn’t imagine him lying to me.

I asked him to come see me, to talk to me in person. I offered to pay his airfare. He arranged a trip two weeks later. Obviously, there was no urgency on his part. That should have tipped me off, too.

When we met, he lied to me again. To my face. Multiple times. He watched me cry. He held me while I cried. He cried, too. Yet he seemed resolute. He wanted a divorce. Even when I showed him a wonderful piece of property where I thought we could make a summer home together, he didn’t seem interested in a future with me.

I asked to settle when I got home in September or October. I never told him not to file — as his lawyer suggested in court just a few weeks ago. I never dreamed he would go after the fruits of my labor — the things I had worked my entire life to accumulate and achieve: my investments, my business assets and savings, my personal assets. I thought he understood the meaning of the word “fair.” I thought he was ethical. I thought he had moral standards.

In other words, I thought he was the man I’d fallen in love with, a good man who knew the difference between right and wrong.

Understand that I still didn’t know he was lying to me. I didn’t know that the good man I’d fallen in love with was dead, shoved over a cliff by a desperate old woman who’d stolen his heart with promises and lies and old lingerie photos, eager to capture a new man so she wouldn’t have to grow old alone.

Throughout the first two months, I still had some measure of hope that our relationship could be mended. He didn’t want to be alone. We’d been though so much together. Surely this could be fixed up when I got home.

This idea was reinforced by a good friend of mine where I was living in Washington. He kept telling me that marriages are hard work, that I could make things work when I got home.

I didn’t know at the time that my husband had called him in July and had told him that he still loved me. My friend misunderstood the message and gave me all kinds of false hope.

The fact that my husband still hadn’t filed for divorce simply reinforced that hope. Not filing convinced me that he wasn’t serious — at least not yet. There was still hope that we’d resolve our problems.

At least that’s what I thought at the time.

Emotional Turmoil

Still, my mind was in turmoil. I was trapped in Washington for my summer work, unable to do anything about fixing the problem at home. I missed a deadline on the book I was working on because I was so caught up in my marital problems. And although I’d asked my husband not to contact me about the divorce or settlement for a while, he emailed, asking if I’d given it any thought. I replied that I thought we were going to wait.

That made the situation worse. I couldn’t understand what his hurry was. He’d told me there wasn’t anyone else. Why was he so eager to settle?

It didn’t make sense. He hadn’t filed for divorce yet. How could he possible expect me to settle? What the hell was going on?

The mental turmoil got even worse when he stopped returning my email messages and phone calls and texts. He was actively ignoring me.

It was in mid-August that I discovered that he’d hired a lawyer. I called him to ask him about it. I had to ring the phone at least five times before he picked up. He was rude and angry. He denied hiring a lawyer.

And that’s when I started crying. That’s when I realized that he was lying to me and had been lying all along. If he’d lied about that, what else was he lying about?

A little more fishing later that evening and I found out about the woman he’d been seeing since at least June — before he asked for a divorce.

Yes, he was too cowardly to leave me without having a Plan B. A 64-year-old desperate and vindictive bitch he met online was his Plan B. He was throwing away a 29-year relationship and financial security for a woman 8 years older than him who had some sort of decorating business advertised on the Web and was deeply underwater in a home that had two mortgages on it. A woman who was likely attracted to him because he owned three homes, a plane, and a Mercedes — and his wife owned a helicopter.

My mental turmoil went into full-swing when I made these discoveries — although I didn’t know her age and realize that their relationship was a baby/mommy thing until much later. It suddenly became clear that he hadn’t filed for divorce because he knew I made 90% of my income over the summer and was depositing money in my business bank accounts quite steadily. The more I deposited, the more they’d be able to get their hands on. Every time he forwarded me a check, his mommy/girlfriend probably thought cha-ching! I went into a panic. I was 1,200 miles away and I needed to file for divorce before I put any more of my hard-earned money at risk.

I clearly remember sitting at an outdoor cafe in Wenatchee early on a Monday morning, making phone calls to lawyers in Phoenix. My hands were shaking as I dialed one number after another. I finally got someone interested in talking to me. I hired him and got the wheels turning.

Four days later, at 7:30 AM, the process server turned up at my husband’s mommy/girlfriend’s house to serve him with papers. She slammed the door in his face, claiming my husband didn’t live there.

But he was there. I know he was. Yet another lie.

The emotional roller coaster I was on was still climbing the first really big hill.

A Different Person

It was around this time that my friends began noticing a very dramatic change in me. During the first two months — before I knew about the lies and the girlfriend, back when I thought there was still hope — I was sad but mellow about my divorce. I didn’t talk much about it because there really wasn’t much to talk about. I didn’t get very emotional. I just went on with my life, struggling in private to stay focused on the book I needed to finish, but otherwise keeping my marital woes to myself. I stayed on my diet, hoping the new, slim me would help energize the physical part of our relationship, the part that had grown cold in our final months together.

But when I discovered his lies and infidelity and their obvious plans to take as much from me as they could, I became unbearably weepy. I couldn’t understand how he could do this to us. (And I still can’t.) I needed to talk things out and there were very few people who would listen. I became a different person — not the strong, upbeat person they knew but a weak, tearful basket case who cried randomly throughout the day. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t go a few hours without breaking down into tears. Many of my local friends simply couldn’t deal with it. This made matters worse for me because I needed a shoulder to cry on and the shoulders I thought were available didn’t want to get wet with my tears.

It was the utter betrayal that was killing me inside. Knowing that the man I loved could lie to me, steal from me, and be so completely heartless after 29 years of life together.

It was around then that I started blogging vaguely about my situation. I’m glad I did. I managed to record most of my thoughts and feelings about what I was going through as I was going through it. The sadness, the anger, the confusion. Without those blog posts, I wouldn’t have a clear memory of how I felt.

Although I didn’t realize it, I had entered a mental fog.

The Mental Fog

Last month I was chatting with a friend about how I was feeling. After months of shocking developments and harassment that had trapped me on an emotional roller coaster, I had become somewhat dulled to the situation I was in. Yes, I was still in pain and I still cried a lot more often than what I think is healthy. But I had become able to talk about specific things that had happened without getting all worked up.

For example, yes, I’d found the locks in my Wickenburg house changed when I got home in September. Even though he was living with his mommy/girlfriend in Scottsdale and had a condo in Phoenix, he had tried to lock me out of my only home. It took me many, many months to even think about the cruelty of that one deed without crying. But now I could think and even tell people about it without shedding a tear. It was as if my mind had build a mental scab around that particular wound.

My friend told me that when she got divorced years ago, she’d entered a “mental fog.” Although she couldn’t really describe it, I immediately knew what she meant. And I knew that in certain times of my life — times when I wasn’t focused on something important to me like flying or driving or writing or having a good conversation with a friend — I was in a mental fog.

I thought about it one day and jotted down the symptoms I’ve experienced:

  • Feeling numb after months of riding an emotional roller coaster. There have been many ups and downs over the past eleven months. They’ve filled me with devastating sadness or euphoric joy — and all kinds of emotions in between. After a while, however, a sort of numbness sets in. Sometimes I’m not even sure what I’m feeling.
  • Acting on autopilot. In other words, I was doing things without thinking about them. Things like preparing meals, cleaning the house, and traveling to visit friends and family members.
  • Not fully aware of my surroundings. I don’t go here very often, but when I’m in a serious emotional state of mind — especially when I haven’t slept much — the fog completely surrounds me and I tune out the details of where I am. This often happens when I’m working with my lawyer and I get a flash from the past that reminds me of how good things used to be. It certainly happened in court on May 7 when I broke down in tears from the pain of seeing him sitting on the other side of the court, my enemy after 29 years of a loving relationship.

The mental fog is what makes it difficult to remember so many of the things I did or thought during this difficult time. I think it’s a defense mechanism that the mind automatically puts in place to defend itself. I think of it as surrounding myself in a cocoon of soft pillows before being bounced off of hard walls. The mental fog deadens the pain.

No Flying in the Fog

I should mention here that there is no mental fog at all when I can focus on something that has nothing to do with my situation. I’m talking about reading and writing, having conversations with friends, performing difficult tasks that require my concentration.

Wahweap Hoodoos
Flying over the Wahweap Hoodoos on a solo cross-country flight from Seattle, WA to Page, AZ in September 2010.

Of all the things I do to keep my mind off my divorce woes, flying is the best. When I fly, I focus on every detail of the flight, using my senses to accumulate information about the situation and using my mind to evaluate input and make decisions.

Looking at the aircraft during preflight, monitoring the instruments, seeing where I’m flying.

Listening to the sound of the engine on startup and warmup and in flight, hearing the odd sound of a strong wind in the mast and cowling while idling on the ground, hearing the blades slap at 80 knots.

Smelling engine exhaust when warming up on the ramp with the door open and a slight tailwind, smelling the heat on the rare instances when I use it.

Touching various components I can’t see on preflight, feeling for unseen leaks, feeling the controls in my hand and the way the helicopter responds to my inputs, feeling the force of the wind when picking up into a hover, feeling the shudder of the aircraft when going through a wind shear, feeling the motion of the aircraft when riding turbulence.

If there was something to taste, I’d taste it, too.

The experience of being at the controls of my helicopter is a joyful release from whatever else is going on. When I’m flying, there is no betrayal by a man I love, no ruined relationship, no desperate old woman sleeping beside my husband while itching to get into the home I made with the man I love. There’s only the amazing machine and sky around me, the ever-changing terrain below, and a feeling a freedom that can’t be beat.

I wish I could fly more often.

Other Emotions

Beyond the mental fog, I am feeling emotions I can clearly identify.

One of them is a weariness that periodically drags me down. Specifically:

  • I’m tired of having to explain myself to people who should understand. This is mostly the “get over it” crowd who have been through a similar situation and have worked through their own emotions, yet don’t have the patience to watch me work through mine. I’m also tired of having to explain why I’m fighting in court — that the simple fact is if I gave him what he’s been demanding since September, I would be financially ruined and unable to face myself in the mirror. Yes, I know the only ones who win are the lawyers. I thought my husband knew that, too. But apparently his mommy/girlfriend, who has been controlling his side of the divorce since November, doesn’t understand this. I sometimes wonder if it’s his money or hers that she’s pissing away on legal fees.
  • I’m tired of dealing with lies and misrepresentations. This is coming from their side of the divorce. After eleven months, they’re still lying and misrepresenting the events of the case. This came to a head recently with what I call “The Garage Fiasco,” where they lied and attempted to bully their way into the garage of our home to get their hands on some papers. (Blog post to come.) When will the lies end? How has dishonesty become a way of life for this man? Is that what she taught him?

But there are also positive emotions, most of which I’ve been experiencing recently:

  • Relief that the end is in sight. They managed to delay the court date until April by claiming that they needed more information to evaluate my business but then they failed to do any sort of information-gathering. This proves to me that it was all a ploy to delay things. I think he believed he could wear me down and I’d give in. (I’m not sure where he got that idea; he should know me better. Perhaps his mommy/girlfriend convinced him that I’d give up and go away. What the hell does she know about me?) But with half the trial done and the last court date less than 2 weeks away, I can clearly see an end to this ordeal. And that makes me feel good.
  • Hope that the justice system can be fair. I can’t say much more about this — at least not now. But case law gives me hope that the judge can do what’s right and fair for this situation.

  • My New View
    Having a view like this out the window of my home is something I can really look forward to.

    Positive feelings about my future. Remember that piece of land I mentioned earlier in this blog post? Well, it’s still there and it’s still waiting for me. It’s a 10-acre parcel high on a hillside, overlooking the Columbia River and Wenatchee Valley. It’s private and quiet but only a 15-minute drive into a great little city with everything a person could want or need. Seattle is 30 minutes away by airline or 2-1/2 hours by car. I’ve already drawn up plans for a hangar home that will house my helicopter, RV, and vehicles — for the first time since 1997, every one of my possessions will be under one roof. I’m looking forward to being able to fly from my home, have a garden, and keep bees for honey and wax. Maybe even have chickens and horses again. Best of all: I don’t have to deal with sour looks when I do something my “life partner” doesn’t like but lacks the communication skills to verbally object to. In other words: life without someone holding me back because he’s too fearful to move forward or really enjoy life.

  • Hope that what comes around, goes around. Yes, I’m talking about karma. I don’t believe in karma, but everyone tells me that it exists and is real. They all assure me that the lying, cheating bastard the man I love became will get his in the end. Frankly, I’m hoping that it comes in the form of his mommy/girlfriend having a stroke and him having to change her diapers every day. That’ll serve him right. I can say with certainly that just living with an evil, vindictive woman who lies and does cruel things to others to get what she wants should be enough punishment for any man. (It’s still so difficult to believe he’d wind up with someone like that, but beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. Their mutual desperation is likely what brought them together.)

The mental fog is lifting and what I see ahead of me is so much better than what I left behind.

A Story about (Dis)Honesty in Business

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I can’t deal with people like this. Can you?

Drying Cherries
Here’s a photo of me in action over a cherry orchard in 2010.

As many people know, I now make most of my income in the summer doing agricultural work in Washington state with my helicopter.

Each year, my client base has minor changes, adding and removing acreage. It’s gotten to the point, however, that I usually need a second helicopter to help me during a one-month “crunch” period that runs roughly from the third week in June to the third week in July.

As I prepared to start my search for another helicopter with pilot, I was very pleased to get the following message via the contact form on Flying M Air‘s website:

Hello,
I was just wondering if you might know of a farmer who wants a helicopter for the upcoming season that you are unable to take care of? I have several helicopters available and have been doing frost abatement and cherry drying for over 5 years now.

An experienced guy with several helicopters? It sounded too good to be true. I replied:

I am looking for an experienced pilot with a helicopter for one month in the Wenatchee area. It would start around the end of June and run until the end of July. If you’re interested please give me a call.

He called. We spoke. He told me he had five helicopters: a JetRanger, a LongRanger, an R44, a Hiller, and an Enstrom. I told him I was interested in the R44 but only if the pilot had at least 500 hours in helicopters and 50 hours or more in the R44. He said all his pilots had over 1,000 hours.

At this point, a little nagging voice should have been whispering in my ear: This can’t be real. If this guy is experienced and has five helicopters, why doesn’t he already have contracts, especially for the R44, which would be anyone’s first choice of aircraft?

But if that little voice was talking, it may have been whispering. And since my brain is so caught up in divorce bullshit these days, I didn’t hear it.

Instead, I enthusiastically made him an offer for the R44, which he enthusiastically accepted. I told him I’d send a contract so he understood the terms and that I’d be able to give him more accurate dates in about a month. When we hung up, I remember thinking: Well, that’s one less thing to worry about. I even told a friend I’d already found a pilot to help me.

A week went by. I did some traveling. I didn’t get a chance to send the sample contract. There really wasn’t a rush; the work was still more than three months away.

I got another email message from the operator:

It was nice talking with you last week and thank you for the opportunity to work on cherries together in WA. Since our conversation I have had a chance to look a little closer at he numbers for an R44 and it looks like the lowest daily rate I can work with is $XXX per day but the $XXX per hour is the hourly rate needed so you were right on the mark with it. If you can’t do that as a daily rate I understand but I do have an Enstrom that I can get you for $XXX per day and only $XXX per hour.

I don’t want to give exact numbers here; I like to keep contract terms between me and the people I work with/for. He was telling me he needed $50 more per day for the R44 but only $25 more per day for an Enstrom, which I didn’t want. He could save me $25/hour of flight time on the Enstrom. So if I wanted the R44, it would cost me $1,500 more. Since my clients weren’t paying me that much, I’d lose money every day.

Classic bait and switch.

To say I was pissed is an understatement. I don’t like to be played. I know what it costs to own and operate an R44 and I know my offer was right in line with the going rate. So I replied honestly and politely:

Thanks for letting me know your requirements. I’m not sure I’ll be able to collect enough money from my clients to fill your needs. I’ll keep looking for someone else to handle the contracts for me. I don’t think the Enstrom will do the job. I’ll be in touch either way.

A few days went by. I got to talking to a friend of mine who also does cherry drying. He told me he’d been contacted by an operator who wanted to hire him and his Hiller to dry cherries in my area this summer. He told me that he was having a problem with the contract terms this guy was offering. Although the money was okay, this guy wouldn’t pay until after the grower had paid him. So my friend would be providing services with no guarantee of being paid if the guy who hired him didn’t collect.

You know what’s coming, right?

The guy who called my friend to hire him to fly was the same guy who had contacted me looking for work. He was acting as a broker — a middleman. He needed me to pay him more so he could pay the going rate to the guys who would fly for him and pocket money on the side. He wasn’t providing the services with his helicopters or his pilots.

A day or two later, I started writing a nasty email to him, but wisely deleted it.

Another week went by. Yesterday, I got this email from him:

I was just wondering if you have been able to find another 44 yet? If not can you do $XXX per day?

He was still looking for work for that R44, but now he’d dropped the daily rate to just $25/day more than I was offering. In all honesty, I could have made that work. But by then, I knew that I couldn’t trust him. And I didn’t want to work with someone I couldn’t trust.

Here’s where I’m different from most people. If you do something what bothers me, I will tell you about it. I want people to understand where I’m coming from. I’m not going to sneak around behind people’s backs and pretend everything is A-OK when it’s not. So I sent this message and BCCed it to my friend:

In all honesty, I’m not happy with the way you accepted my terms on the phone and then said you had to have more. I’m also not happy that you said that YOU owned the helicopters and I later found out that you tried to hire another pilot to cover cherry contracts for you. I’m thinking that you don’t have enough helicopters to cover your contracts or that you are trying to be a middleman. I’m also thinking that you’re not being entirely straight with me. I am not interested in working with someone I can’t trust. My clients are extremely important to me and I need to feel comfortable with the service I’m providing.

So I’m thinking that its best that we don’t work together this season. Sorry.

Too blunt? Probably. But that’s the way I am. I call it the way I see it.

It was obviously too blunt for him. He fired back:

Ok, so I never said it would actually work I said it may work on the phone. I never said I owned the helicopters, I have been doing this for over five years and have quite a few of my own contracts. I work with several other companies who are very happy with the service I provide. I never misrepresented what I do, just because you assume something doesn’t mean I said it or implied it. As far as being the middle man what are you doing?

Sorry, but I don’t agree with this. On the phone, he made it sound as if he had five helicopters. He even listed the models and told me all his pilots had 1,000 hours. And yes, he did say that the terms I offered would work — why else would I feel as if the job of finding another aircraft was done? I don’t have a recording of the conversation and I don’t have any notes. But I know what I heard and I know I was misled.

I replied:

I am not a middleman. These are my clients. I fly the contracts too. You misled me in our discussion and now you’re making excuses. I don’t deal with people I can’t trust.

And that’s when he showed his true colors:

ok, I should have listened to what people say about you but I thought I would give you a chance.

Yep. What kind of responsible business person makes a crack like that? Not only did he just slam the door on working with me in the future on cherries or frost (or anything else), but if any the other operators I routinely work with ask about him, I’ll tell them about this.

What should he have done? Well, he should have been a little bit apologetic, perhaps saying that he was sorry that he didn’t make the situation clear or sorry that I misunderstood him. He could have offered to start over with a more truthful account of his setup. But instead, he chose to take the line that I was at fault and that he should have known better to work with me after what he’d heard about me.

As if I give a shit what he and others say about me behind my back.

And him give me a chance? Jeez. How out of touch with reality is this guy? Aren’t I the one offering the work? The way I see it, I’d be giving him a chance.

Which, of course, I would now never do.

I got a call from my friend this morning. He had read the exchanges between me and the other guy. We chatted some more about this guy. Some details emerged. He had a helicopter last season and crashed it on a cherry contract. He apparently doesn’t currently have any helicopters at all. The deal he offered my friend for frost work required my friend to fly a certain number of hours for free or pay him for hours not flown. My friend would have lost money this season — especially since there was no frost flying to be done due to unseasonably warm weather all spring. He was glad he didn’t take the deal. And after our talk, he likely won’t be doing any deal with this guy in the future.

Sadly, this isn’t an isolated case. This business is highly competitive. People will say anything they need to in order to get a contract. They’ll promise the world. But when it comes time to deliver, they fall short.

Like the guy last season who said he’d work for me and seemed satisfied with the contract terms, but refused to sign a contract and refused to prove he had liability insurance. Needless to say, I didn’t work with him, either.

This isn’t a game. It’s business.

Oh, and if you feel like spending a month making good money with an R44 helicopter this summer, check this out. The only catch: you have to bring the helicopter.

On Right, Wrong, and High Horses

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Edited March 22, 2013, 6:45 PM: Well, I’ve got egg all over my face, thanks to someone posting a comment with my niece’s email address. Thinking the comment came from her — and getting upset by the thought that she’d write such a thing — I said some things here that I now regret. I’ve since modified this post to remove the passages she might find offensive. My apologies to her. I only wish that we were closer; I would have called her to discuss the comment attributed to her before referring to her in this blog post. I would have also called to apologize for my error and any pain it may have caused her. – ML

An explanation for those who don’t understand.

I’ve been blogging a lot lately about my divorce and the emotional turmoil it’s putting me through. Although it’s not easy for me to do, it’s something I feel I must do. It’s part of my healing process, recommended by my grief counselor; writing out my thoughts and feelings help me to understand them. The blog posts not only help me (obviously) get things off my chest, but they document this difficult part of my life. And as I’ve discovered lately by the outpouring of supportive blog comments, email messages, and even Twitter and Facebook responses, other people have also been benefiting from the way I’ve been revealing and discussing my open wounds here in my blog.

I was surprised and saddened the other day, however, to get the following comment on my blog post, “On Marital Infidelity,” posted by someone using my niece’s email address:

get off your horse and smell the roses.You and only you and him can work it out, not by blasting away.Stop and move on like you always do.

It turns out that the comment was posted by my brother-in-law — my niece’s father — for reasons I’ll never understand. It seems truly idiotic that he used his daughter to get under my skin. He should know better than to post such a thing without expecting a response. He knows firsthand how the ordeal of my divorce is affecting me. His comment was hurtful and uncalled for; pinning it on his own daughter was inexcusable.

But rather than go on and on about that, I want to focus on what he said.

My High Horse and the Roses I Need to Smell

The Urban Dictionary offers several definitions of “high horse.” I’m pretty sure my brother-in-law means the first:

Arrogantly believing oneself superior to others, often by putting down large groups of people. In usage, such a person is described as “on a high horse” or may be told to “Get off your high horse.”

Apparently, my brother-in-law believes that I’ve taken a superior attitude in the situation of my divorce — that I think I’m better than others. I’ve given this a lot of thought. The only way he could possibly interpret my thoughts and feelings — as expressed in my blog posts — as evidence of a superior attitude is because he doesn’t understand the simple concept of what’s right and what’s wrong.

That made me wonder whether this is something (1) my brother-in-law doesn’t understand or (2) today’s society doesn’t understand.

In any case, it’s worth explaining; I’ll get to that in a moment.

My brother-in-law also apparently believes that I’m putting down my husband. My recent blog post, “Wanted: A Strong Man,” can probably be seen as a put down — although that’s not the post he commented on. It was a difficult post for me to write, mostly because of what I said near the middle of it: he wasn’t always a weak man. But I think I was honest. And I think the people who know him well — including, ironically, my brother-in-law — would agree with many (if not all) of my observations. Instead of looking at it as a put down, perhaps my brother-in-law should think of it more as a diagnosis of a problem — something my husband could fix if he wanted to, probably with professional help.

But I don’t believe anything I said in the post commented on — “On Marital Infidelity” — could be considered a put down. That is, unless my brother-in-law believes there’s nothing wrong with marital infidelity. More on that in a moment.

The Urban Dictionary also defines “slow down and smell the roses“:

this means stop stressing out, overthinking, or complaining. put your troubles in perspective and try to enjoy the short time you have on earth.

I’ve been getting versions of this from several people who don’t understand the gravity of my situation and the way it is affecting — and will affect — my life. It’s easier said than done.

Try, for a moment, to put yourself in my shoes. I’m 51 years old. I spent more than half of my life with a man I loved, someone who I trusted implicitly with my life. I have 29 years — now nearly 30 years — of memories with this man. Nearly seven years ago, I made the ultimate commitment to our relationship by marrying him, standing before a judge and witnesses to recite vows — promises — that actually meant something to me. I thought they meant something to him, too.

Oddly, things with our relationship started going bad not long after we made those vows. Perhaps he thought they would change our relationship? I don’t know. He never told me what he expected from me. He never told me what I was doing that he didn’t like. Instead, communications shut down and, after 29 years together, he actively sought a replacement for me — while leading me to believe, through actions, lies, and misleading statements, that he wanted to fix the problems with our relationship. He hooked up with the first woman who would take him and, after less than a month with her, dumped me on my birthday.

And since then, he and his new mommy have been fighting me in court and harassing me, trying to take away everything I’ve worked so hard for all my life.

And I’m supposed to “smell the roses”?

I don’t see any roses here. Do you?

Working it Out

The comment also included this cryptic phrase: “You and only you and him can work it out…”

I find this particularly painful because I’ve been trying since June to work this out with my husband. I can even argue that I’ve been trying since last March when I went to the marriage counselor at his request, hoping to fix the problem.

Although my husband’s initial request for a divorce came over the phone, it also came with lies about why he wanted the divorce. And since then he has agreed to meet with me in person only once — two weeks after that initial request. That lengthy meeting — full of tears on both sides, was also full of lies from him. And since then, he refuses to meet with me.

Do I need to share each of the long email messages I sent him, pleading with him to understand my feelings and explain himself to me? The mournful texts — like the one I sent him after dreaming about having sex with him? The angry texts — like the ones I sent after he left me copies of email messages I’d written that he’d been saving since 2008, apparently to take them out of context and use them as ammunition against me? Do I need to share every single attempt I’ve made over the years to try to get him to talk to me?

My brother-in-law should understand this. After all, I spent 90 minutes sobbing over the phone to him just a few weeks ago. Why the hell does he think I now cry every single day of my life? Why I can’t have a simple conversation with my lawyer without bursting into tears? Why I’m crying now?

So tell me: how am I supposed to “work it out” with my husband when he’s failed to be honest in any of our discussions so far and now refuses to talk to me? How am I supposed to get closure on this when I still don’t understand why he was willing to throw away everything we had together? Why he cheated and lied to me?

How can I get past this when I can’t get answers? When I can’t understand how a man who was so good and honest and loyal could do this to his partner of 29 years?

Right vs. Wrong, Good vs. Bad

Let’s step aside from all that and get back to the main topic of this post: my “high horse.”

It all comes down to my feelings regarding right and wrong, good and bad.

Throughout my life, I’ve developed a very strong sense of moral and ethical values: a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. Simply said, I believe people should do the right thing, the good thing. I believe that the world would be not just a better place, but an amazing place, if we all did the right thing whenever we possibly could.

I touched upon this briefly in a December blog post that I wrote when I was trying to understand why my husband had lied to me: “What is Truth?” Honesty is right, honesty is good, honesty is something we owe to each other — especially the people who trust us. Lying is wrong, lying is bad, lying destroys trust and lives.

How about marital vows — you know, the “love, honor, and cherish until death do us part” stuff people recite when they marry. Doesn’t that mean anything to anyone?

Is it right to make a vow like that and then lie to your spouse? Is it right to make a vow like that and then cheat on your spouse? Is it right to make a vow like that and then lock your spouse out of her home and business property? To fight her in court in an attempt to make her homeless and keep her from her possessions? To subject your spouse to harassment week after week and month after month, hoping that she just gives you what you want and goes away?

Am I the only one who thinks that’s wrong?

And no, “everyone does it” doesn’t make it right, so stop feeding me — and yourself — that bullshit line. It’s wrong, pure and simple. No one can deny it. There is no excuse.

In my blog post about truth, I considered the fact that I might be naive. My brother-in-law’s comment on my blog post gives me reason to think about that again.

Am I part of a small minority of people who understands the difference between right and wrong? Or maybe just a minority that cares?

Have today’s societal values degraded so far that people no longer care about what’s right or wrong? To the point where someone who is being wronged is considered to be complaining from a “high horse”?

Have things gotten that bad?

Fighting for What’s Right

The Apparent Irony of An Atheist Fighting for What’s Right

I have to digress for a moment and a sidebar is the best place to do that.

As some people know, I’m an atheist. That means I don’t believe there’s a god (by any name) who oversees the universe, makes things happen, answers prayers, and punishes those who “sin.”

A lot of religious folks who don’t understand atheism think that atheists are bad. They think that it’s impossible to conduct yourself morally without the fear of God’s wrath when you do something bad. Oddly, these are often people who demonstrate low moral standards by lying, stealing, cheating on their wives, breaking laws, hurting others, etc. I’m not sure why they think this is okay — perhaps they don’t but are relying on God’s forgiveness to get into Heaven when they die. It’s almost as if their belief in God and their willingness to go to church and/or confess sins has given them a free pass to do whatever they want, no matter how wrong it is.

I can’t speak for all atheists, but I can speak for myself. I try hard to do what’s right and good because it’s right and good. I try to avoid doing what’s wrong and bad because it’s wrong and bad. I don’t have a god — I have something far more powerful: a conscience. My conscience is with me every day and it guides all of my actions. When I do something wrong, I pay for it immediately — with a sense of guilt: a guilty conscience.

Isn’t that more effective than relying on some supernatural being to reward or punish you when you die?

A handful of my friends have advised me to “give him what he wants and get on with your life.” Those people don’t understand me or what’s driving me. And apparently, neither does my husband.

Because although my husband seems to have forgotten the difference between right and wrong, I haven’t. And although my husband apparently thinks that I don’t care about what’s right and wrong, he’s very much mistaken. (I guess it’s just another example of how we’ve grown apart over the years.)

My good friends and most family members understand why I’m still dealing with all of this nearly nine months after my husband made the call that ruined every single birthday I’ll have for the rest of my life.

I have been wronged. I cannot simply walk away without fighting for what’s right.

I was discussing this with a friend a few weeks ago. He said he understood completely. “You have to be able to live with the person you see in the mirror,” he told me.

His words triggered an epiphany. It’s not about being difficult or seeking revenge. It’s not about putting people down or making judgements from a “high horse.”

It’s the simple fact that if I did not fight for what I thought was right, I’d never be able to live with myself. I’d never again be able to respect the person I see in the mirror.

I knew it all along but didn’t understand it until my friend made it clear.

And I think that’s why I began blogging more frankly about my situation. I wanted to clearly state my case. I wanted make it clear what I was dealing with. I wanted to make it clear why I was suffering so badly. Why I still cry so much — sometimes over the smallest things. The pain of being wronged is so incredibly fierce within me.

I expected readers to connect the dots — to see that I’d been wronged and draw the conclusion that I was fighting for what was right.

And then my brother-in-law’s comment appeared. That’s when I realized that not everyone understood my situation and what was driving me. I realized that although right vs. wrong is important to me, it’s not important — or even of concern — to everyone. Including, apparently, my brother-in-law.

And that makes me sad.