Life 2.0

[Painter]

I wanted to post yesterday but never got around to it. My thought for the day yesterday was to forgive ourselves. We're talking about forgiveness in connection with a partner who deserts us, but I think we're often hard on ourselves and need to be more forgiving of ourselves.

Today turned out to be a nightmare. I had just clocked in for a shift and sat down with my manager for some training when my phone dinged with a message. We're supposed to keep them on silent, so I pulled it out to mute it, and quickly glanced at the incoming message in case it was something I had to deal with.

A friend of H - I received an odd message about H and OW from him before that I posted about about a month ago - had sent me a screen shot from OW's Facebook page. It was a picture of her and H smiling into the camera at a restaurant. She had framed it with some kind of effect with flowers. The photo was taken the day before yesterday, the same day I was chatting with H and he was telling me where the organization he was visiting for work was going to take him and his colleagues out for dinner. They always take them out one night for a really nice dinner - I know because I used to go there with him.

H's friend said in the text to me under the screenshot, 'Guess everything is over now since this is posted on Facebook in the public'. I have no idea why he sent it to me or what he was hoping to achieve.

(I later noticed that there were 17 likes and 'loves' below the post. Clearly, she has many friends who support her in her 5-year long effort to steal my husband.)

What hit me extra hard, was that I had just relaxed and accepted that H was not lying about having no contact with her. I learned that he was going back from the trip on Friday afternoon (he was going to take care of something at home then), which seemed very unlikely if he was going to spend time with her. He has said he broke it off before Christmas, but I was always suspicious (not surprisingly, with him having lied several times before about it). After our text exchange a few days ago, I finally relaxed and thought, okay, he *is* telling the truth. It is finally over. Maybe he won't file for D in 5 months.

Then this. I started to shake and then cry, and had to leave work and go home until I was able to calm down. Before I left work, I called H from the car and he answered, so I let him know how hurt and upset I was. He initially tried to work up a bluster and tell me she wasn't there, but I cut him off and told him I had the photo in front of me. He got calm and more serious. He tried to cut the call short once to go back to work, but I told him he needed to finish this conversation and listen until I was done, and he did. He said some odd things - that her being there wasn't worth it ('it' being the pain and suffering I'm experiencing), that it was just 'okay' to have her there, and he tried to make it sound like she just came up on her own initiative. She's two states away so I'm guessing she flew in. I told him I didn't believe for a second that she just showed up, and he admitted he called her and told her where he was. Maybe I should let her know that he's making it sound like she's chasing after him.

I went back to work and was able to stay mostly distracted for the rest of the day, and as soon as I came home, I took my anti-anxiety medication because I could tell I was breaking down again. My son has been very compassionate and sweet, and my SD has been texting with me and then we had a long chat on the phone. She is going to see her dad when he comes back (she is visiting our home state for a couple of weeks) and she's dreading it. She doesn't know what to say to him or how to talk to him. She feels that he is on a self-destructive path, and she will never accept OW in their lives. She is going to tell him that and try to make him realize what he's throwing away through his choices.

So in short - a day in hell again. I'm going to take another pill and see if I can get some sleep. I just hope I don't have any of the horrid dreams I have at times.