The Pyrrhic victory

Pyrrhic victory \PIR-ik\ , noun:
A victory achieved at great or excessive cost; a ruinous victory.

They say, that you should stay after your partner cheats provided they understand the amount of pain they have caused. They say that once a cheater sees the destruction they have caused, he will treat you like a queen. They will never ever cheat again.Why let another woman benefit from the pain from you have endured. To reap the rewards of living with a reformed cheat.

But what measure of happiness can really be gotten by staying? So what if he treats you like precious stones - where was this care before? So what if his now on the straight and narrow? By staying you have doomed yourself to a lifetime of questioning his faithfulness...every background sound over the phone could be another woman...every tap of a keyboard could be an online chat. What price am I to pay for my 'reward'. They say that being with someone who has cheated on you once is better than being with someone has never cheated on you before. The logic being that once its done, its over with. But someone who has never cheated is always wondering and can do it at anytime.

How fucked up is that. It's better to stay with someone who has betrayed you, in the hopes that they have learnt their lesson after seeing you cry? In the meantime your life slips away, waiting for him to betray himself again. What kind of life is that? Is this the life I am meant to have? Seeming gratitude that its happened and move on as if its all par for the course? I can't...I just can't. It hurts to much. I would rather be alone, than to wait for him to slip up. I don't want to be with anyone else. I just don't want to be with him...

The loss is to great, tainting dreams in hues of bittersweetness.

I am left dying on the battlefield of his addiction. The trauma to my shattered heart can barely be endured through gritted teeth. He wails over my broken self, trying to withdraw the knife he savaged me with. He tells me the battle is over and we won...I try to smile but as far as I can see I am the only casuality of war. I am the bloodprice for his victory...

The escape plan...

Sitting alone in living room with some b grade action movie playing in the background, I am considering my escape plan. My husband and child are fast asleep and I really should go to bed, but I can't let it go...my escape plan has taken over my imagination.
The thing is, is that I can't possibly stay in a marriage where its become very clear that my husband is an asshole even though his trying to change. It drives me crazy wondering if staying is just going to bite me in the ass down the line. I have always believed once a cheater always a cheater, and now faced my own cheater - I am forced to take a leap of faith if I am to give my marriage a fighting chance. So as I prepare to take this leap of faith, I have decided to strap on a parachute...my escape plan. I am going to open up an account and start saving money. I have started calling it my freedom fund. The sole purpose of this fund, is to allow me and whatever children I may have to start afresh, without daddy dearest. The thought of the fund already makes me feel more at peace. The notion that I will be able to move out or chuck him out with some sort of financial cushion, helps me to breathe easier.
Also I need to pursue my studies more aggressively. Maybe I will do my masters. It will make me more marketable if and when my marriage finally gives up the ghost. I won't have time to study then...but I can study now while he babysits. So ja studying and saving, will give me a fighting chance to be a successful single mom and provide for my family. Mmmm that feels good...

#6 Things I can't say out loud

I miss believing in my husband. I miss the surety that his telling the truth and that he would never hurt me. A drift at sea...I miss the comforting feel of solid ground beneath my feet.

If I could choose - would I choose to know the truth? I don't know if I would...after all if I believe that something is true doesn't it make it real? I miss my innocence...

When truth plays hide and seek

Truth...what is the truth? Is it the truth that he loved me, but not enough to be faithful? Is it the truth that he loved himself more than he loved me and thats why he found it so easy to betray me...or maybe the truth is more heartbreakingly simple. Maybe he just didn't care...

The hardest part about trying to heal, is coming to grips with that the fact that two truths seemingly in conflict, can both exist - valid in its own right and yet discordant when placed next to each other.  Its true he betrayed me...its also true that he loves me. Its true that he cooks, cleans and pays the bills...its true that he never looked after my heart half as well. He loves me...he loves me not...he needs me...maybe not.

In my head I understand what went wrong - I understand how addiction wrapped itself around his heart like a boa constrictor until it finally squeezed the life out of him. I understand it all and yet I don't understand any of it - the questions of why keeps coming up. Its as if my heart refuses to understand, no matter how much I tell it to let it go...come on dear heart,  you read that article of porn addiction over and over again, it makes sense, so let it go....come on dear heart, his already said his sorry a million times, don't you believe him? Come on dear heart, I know you're hurting, but try one more time...just for me.Try to believe...

His porn addiction has robbed me of so much. It has stripped me of my joy and gave away my hard won peace, for not a nickel or dime. He allowed his fantasies to blur into reality and turned my world into a place of doubt, self loathing and insecurity. He took what was good about me and made a mockery of my beliefs...my belief in him...and my belief in myself. Maybe the truth is, I shouldn't have given him that much power...but how do you love someone and hold a part of you back? I don't know how to be self-protective and its killing me.  How do I become stronger, without becoming bitter.

Maybe the truth is, that some truths you don't need to know. If he had had one or two indiscretions and stopped it there - I didn't need to know and I would have been happy - happy but foolish for loving a man, who doesn't love me the same way, I loved him.

The truth is smoke and mirrors and I am tired from trying to understand. I am worn out by reality and heartbreak. I long for the eternal sunshine of spotless mind...

I live by simple truths these days. I love my son and he loves me. God is good all the time. I am on my own... and thats the truth.

My marriage rocks... NOT

So we started a marriage course last night called My Marriage Rocks. It was really uncomfortable for me, even though I have been the one pushing for us to attend some sort of seminar. Last night the discussion was around myths and marriage - the guy had some interesting stuff to say. He spoke about how we shouldn't encourage the culture of "falling in love" because if you can fall in love, you can fall out of love. Instead he advocated that people, should grow in love together. Slowly and overtime, so that by the time you have been together for 20 yrs - you should love your partner more, than when we first started going out. He spoke about how we compartmentalise our partners into roles i.e. wife, housekeeper, sexual partner, friend etc and over time, we only start relating to our partner on one level -either as just the wife or husband. All other roles are given for other people to fill. So someone else becomes the sexual partner, someone else becomes the best friend. I was honest enough in my own self reflection to acknowledge, that my husband wasn't the only one who did this in our marriage. I did it to- to a lesser degree. We were bored...

He spoke about how what we see growing up, influences how we believe marriage should be. Well my husband had a womanising father and was emotionally unavailable to his mom, and true as bob, my husband is the same. Same could be said for me...my father stayed with my mom even though she has become severly obese, to the extent that she can't walk properly anymore- he stayed. Maybe I thought my husband would be the same...that it wouldn't matter how weight I gained, that he would be faithful and love me. Of course, he denies my weight has anything to do with it- but I was literally double the girl he met. I jiggle in all the wrong places and my double chin is unfortunate to say the least. He tried again last night to tell me that looks don't count - but thats what people say to ugly people. I know looks count and more so to men because they are visual creatures.

And then he gave us an assignment - women need to create a poster for their husbands and say something nice on it and men have to find a rock and write something on it for their wives. I was uncomfortable to say the least. We have didn't celebrate our wedding anniversary, we don't say I love you anymore and now we need to do something good to each other. I was tempted to tell my husband that I am not going back, that I am not ready for this - but I honestly don't know if I will ever be ready. So I will trust the process and see what happens, as awkward as it feels.

After the class, we went for coffee and spoke for a little bit about stuff, we haven't spoken about in a while. We spoke about his addiction and how his recovery is going. We spoke about his feelings around me asking for another lie detector test. It was the first time we had connected in a while and it felt...ok.

I don't know what I am going to put on my poster :-( Putting yourself out there is hard...we'll see what happens.

Start weight: 110.6
Current weight 103
Lost: 7.6 kgs

#5 things I can't say out loud

It feels like someone kicked you in the stomach, feels like your heart stopped beating, feels like that dream you know the one when you are falling and you want so desperately to wake up before you hit the ground but its all out of your control, you cant trust anything anymore, no one is who they say they are, your life is changed forever, and the only thing to come out of the whole ugly experience is no one will be able to break your heart like that again.-Catherine Frazier:

Yeah, I don't think so pal...

Everyone betrays you in the end.Everyone.

Valentines day came and went. He cooked a really great romantic 3 course Italian meal - not a single word of love was said and quite frankly I was relieved. I didn't have to tell him to jump off a cliff and I didn't have to pretend that I was okay. The day simply existed and it was brutally honest in its reflection of our dysfunction. I didn't put any effort into the day, except not to tell him to shove it - which was quite a lot of work actually. I was determined just to get through it...and then it was our 4 year anniversary. I had told him at Christmas, that I never want to celebrate our wedding ever again. As far as I am concerned, we should never have gotten married in the first place. He remembered and not a word was said and in no way was the day ackowledged. It was weird when family would remind us and say congratulations and I had to smile and say thank you. But at least thats the only pretending that had to be done.

If anything, I have realised that I am not ready to hear my husband say he loves me. I am not ready for him to re-propose or whatever the heck else he wants to do to show his committment. With thought of divorce constantly surfacing, I am a married woman not ready to commit.

Today, I asked him to take another lie detector test. The last time I did this, he started challenging why I wanted one done, only to then find out the rest of his sordid history. I wonder what will come out now? Has he managed to stay faithful for the last year? Did he continue relationships, that he said he had broken off. Will it confirm his committment to being sober and being faithful? If the test has a good result, I may be able to at least consider staying longer with him - but if its not. I actually don't know what I will do. Do I look the other way, for the sake of my son and just believe that whatever mistakes he had made, its all over now. Do I leave the man I love?

It will be interesting to see his response over the next couple of days - will he challenge me again? Will he be honest and tell me that he had continued being unfaithful even post discovery? Will it affirm his love? I don't know, but one thing is for sure. This year my life will change and it will change for the better.