As soon as I got to the DB site, my stomach hurt. I saw new names….names that implied such incredible hurt and betrayal that it made me almost sick.
It’s been about 5 years since I began posting here. First on the “Separated, now what?” board, where I think I posted every 5 minutes, looking for a cyber life line, to the “We’re separated…..” while I was training to go to Iraq and then while in Iraq, and finally......"Surviving...."
I saw the new names, but with the old feelings of anguish. I can remember when I couldn’t get out of bed, and making my bed seemed like running a marathon.
I think about the night I tried to check out for good in April of 2006 because all I wanted to do was end the pain.
I think about the anguish and torment of dealing with an absolutely impossible STBXW. (If you can check out my posts from 2005-6, read them if you don’t believe she was just miserable!)
Of the constant two year battle just to get divorced. Of finding out my STBX was having an affair with her 65 year old boss who was still “married” to his wife who was dying of cancer.
To both of their denial that this was an affair, to my days in Iraq during the “Surge” when I kept in touch with all of you and slowly but steadily began to get “GAME” again, to my return home, a reborn person.
This is a horrible, hideous vortex I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. It is the most upsetting thing I have ever gone through, including a year in Iraq at the height of the violence.
But then…………..while doing leg presses at my favorite gym in October of 2008, still having a deployment-shaved head, the universes converged and “Gym Woman” appeared……when I least expected it. This was a woman that I had known for years. Her daughters and mine went to school together. We were in the same social circle for years, we actually enjoyed each others company at parties for years.
In 2001 her husband delivered the “I’m not happy, you aren’t into me and my career, you don't sit next to me, but with the kids on an airplane I want a divorce” speech……You remember one of that nature, right?
He left her and two kids…and forgot to tell her that he and his secretary had become, Ehem… cough, cough: “exercise partners”!
I had survived mortars, rockets, “pucker-factor” helicopter and plane rides and other flying metal debris in Iraq for a year, and all I wanted was some joy in my life. “Of all the gin joints in all the world, you had to pick this one” (Casablanca?)
I think we were both immediately hit by lightning. It was an unbelievable coincidence. She had only moved back to town a week earlier, and I was never at the gym at that time. She said “I’m so glad you’re back. I read about you in the paper, but I didn’t know you were back.
Truth is, I thought a lot about her when I was deployed. Where she was, if she was remarried, if I could ever contact her and how awkward and sketchy that might be!
After a few more “chance meetings”, I asked her out and she gladly accepted. We have been together ever since. Inseparable. Two years later on July 4th, I asked her to marry me and she accepted. It was awesome. My divorce was final in May, but I had been separated since July 2006…4 years.
Here’s my message: I was probably lower than anyone on this page. I actually tried to take my own life because all I wanted was to make the pain of losing my family (at least that’s how I viewed it) to stop.
Looking back, I was a verbally and emotionally abused MALE! As hard as I tried, I couldn’t influence my miserable STBX to change her mind. Looking back, some marriages should NOT be saved. Mine was one.
Not that this type of ending will ever happen for everyone, but there is hope, light laughter after this heart-wrenching process. It might take 5+ years or more, but it does happen. Time is a wonderful friend and the best possible medicine.
There were times when I was alone when I would physically tremble from fear and could not stop. The word “Divorce” made me want to throw up.
There are some great people on these boards. They got me through some horrible times….five years and a combat tour worth of times. Relationships are hard work. I’ve done a lot of personal overhauls in my outlook as well.
My STBX was miserable, but if you don’t take stock in your own failings, you’ll fall right back into the same tar pit. Be reflective, introspective….....always try to see how you can improve. FORGET your “former spouses”. They’re not worth the time of day.
For now, keep hydrated, wear your protective eyewear, and turn off the shower when you lather up! (Operaton Iraqi Freedom Wisdom!)
