Monday, 8 February 2016.
Day 50
During her lunch break at school, Anna sits down to scribble in her diary.
Dear Diary,
Long time no write! Sorry.
There’s something I’ve been reflecting about and want to register here.
Betrayal.
Awful word, but intrinsic in human nature.
I remember just last year, a month before moving out of our last home together…
…I had already signed my rental apartment’s contract and was spending my afternoons and evenings looking for good deals to buy furniture and whatnot. (That part was fun, tbh. I adore moving and decorating. I’m good at it! I love looking for solutions).
Anyways, the shopping kept me busy and focused on practicalities for the near future, instead of the immediate pre-separation…
…valley
of
death.
As you can imagine, I’d go from excitement and exhilaration to deep sadness.
Agonizing joy.
Energetic exhaustion.
Blue fun.
Fearful hope, dreaded freedom.
Oxymoronic paradoxes.
The silent screams of my soul felt pretty loud to me, at times. Good grief!
Some say that people get divorced too easily nowadays, but sincerely? I don’t believe that most people take separation lightly. It’s scary and painful! They say it’s like amputating a leg.
More like amputating a part of your heart. :(((
For better or for worse, we were together for 22 years. Neither he nor I took it lightly, see? Even though it wasn’t ’til death – at the end of the end.
I wish we had divorced eight years ago, when he first said he wanted it. We wouldn’t have wasted so much of each other’s time and would have avoided more excruciating heartbreak and some other drastic measures (no comments)…
Nevertheless…
I am grateful we were able to part in one piece.
Ops! Part in peace!
Where was I?
Yes, during that pre-separation month, I’d feel relieved and then anguished. Little did I know it was going to turn out to be a cruel kindness – what he was doing to me (at least that’s my hope now).
If only people knew! They’d divorce sooner.
But people with bad marriages fear. So, they make haste s…l….o…..w……l…….y…………..
They’ve got to go through the process to progress.
OK! Be wise, don’t rush it too much. Prepare the way for a (better?) future.
As I was saying… at times I’d cry in the shower. I’d let go and then the next second hold on for dear life.
I’d love him with all my hate.
I’d agonize and think about betrayal.
“Do you already have somebody else?”
“Anna, I’ve already hurt you so much in this marriage. There’s no reason for me to hurt you more right now.” — The holy sinner – damned saint would repeat!
Not unlike me…
Some of the church people we know judge him, but I’ll respect him for not remaining a hypocritical chaplain in the end. For finally having the courage to be true to himself.
And give me my freedom to (try) to find love again.
(Maybe the painful journey of self-love first?)
It’s always better to deal with the truth, no matter the blow. I’ll choose hearing the honest truth 90 out of 100 times.
The truth shall set you free – true – free to fly the dreadful flight of freedom.
How can we make the best decisions for our own well-being without the truth??? People have no right to keep us prisoners of lies.
Nonetheless…
…”Speak the truth with love”.
Would it have been better to stay in the bad marriage and feel alone together?
♥️ I’d much rather be together alone someday. Just the two of us! Mr. Bf and me. ♥️
As I was saying… I’d cry in the shower thinking about betrayal. I felt so betrayed!
Yet, what was the betrayal??
Was it that he was jumping in bed with another lady?
For me, the greatest betrayal was not that.
He fell in love. O amor é lindo.
As Dr. Helen Fischer says, “love is a powerful brain system, more powerful than sex drive. It comes from primordial parts of the brain – way below the cortex. It gives you the energy, the focus, ecstasy, the despair and the motivation. To win life’s greatest prize – a mating partner”.
Aye, no!
(Btw, she’s studied brain scans of couples who have been romantically in love after 21 years together. It can happen!)
“Passion makes people climb the highest mountains and sail the raging seas. Romantic love inspires poets, musicians, commoners”.
Its memories make people write books. 😇
The Bible says love covers a multitude of sins.
Then, what was the betrayal?
The betrayal for me was this:
How can he prefer not to have me in his life? To just erase me, swipe me out.
After everything. All the memories. All the battles, victories, photo albums and family memories. All the patience and forgiveness. All the support and growth. All the emotions!
All that investment in vain?
How can someone actually find they’re upgrading their lives by taking me out of it??? His best friend for over half his life… To think he’s better off without me than with me? Unfathomable.
I felt like garbage. Rejection was the betrayal!
That actually felt like death. A resurrection I should have welcomed?
Why not sooner then? It would have saved me some of my youth.
And what about our kids? They say divorce is harder on teenagers than children.
Wow.
But no problem.
Now I know his cruel kindness was for my best, too.
A passionless marriage is not true for me. Holding on is just wishful thinking. Wasted years? I think so…
Men and women out there: pleeease do not hold on to someone who doesn’t love you. Please do not fear. You deserve to be loved with all of your lover’s flawed human heart. Everyone does.
Mutuality!
But, silver linings, silver linings, Anna! Don’t get depressed now.
Everything happens for a purpose. Or at least you can give it a purpose and make it meaningful.
I sure am turning my pain into something beautiful.
In this long, long diary entry, my mind has been wandering everywhere – itinerant from place to place. I can break it down later, but I did warn you in the title.
And it does happen with pre-separation. Consider separating, do it, and your mind will thus wonder and wander while your heart rides a scary merry-go-round.
OK, long story short – finally:
Divorce??
More like amputating half of your heart!
Hey, maybe I need a heart transplant!
A new heart? I like that.
I’m gonna think of divorce as an open-heart surgery from now on. Painful, risky, extreme. I’ll need time for convalescence… But not alone, please…?
The Divorce Paradox = a seemingly false, but significant step.
Anna, you’ll get a new heart – hope for a stronger one!
You’ll still retain your brain, your memories, your soul, your you. But you’ll have the chance to start over.
Bitter sweet. New beginnings. A crash landing? New-found grace.
And an opportunity to be true. To love again and do it much, much better.
© 2017 rf
Obs. Day 50 of an oxymoronic new life.
http://gtotd.blogspot.fi/2007/06/oxymoronic-paradox-wisdom-of-yogi-isms.html
The Chronicles of a Happy Divorcée 