This morning, after the pent-up feelings of yesterday, i feel like a weight has been lifted.
With D17 now finished at school, it's like we're entering a new phase of our lives.
I think i have been dragged down by the scandal XH has created amongst the close-knit (hot-house) group associated with school.
It's been tough having to brazen it out at school events for the last couple of years as the woman whose younger husband left her for a much younger woman (and a life-style of conspicuous consumption), and flaunted this trophy around our small community as if i had never existed.
Knowing that I don't have to mask-up and present myself in front of them all as 'that woman' any more is producing a sense of relief.
I suppose i am shallow and need to care less about what people think of me... but I have been ashamed for so long.
It's hard when you are defined, in other people's minds, by what someone else has done to you.
I have felt like a cuckold (or, at least, a female equivalent), a dupe, an old fool... all of those stereotypes of ridicule and victimhood.
I think that moving away from the hot-house gossipy environment of D17's school will be a relief.
I still have S15's school to deal with, but somehow it doesn't feel so bad any more.
