Scene 7: Holiday Hurts

Thanksgiving was upon us. I own the T-Day in my family. We all take turns hosting holidays and somehow Thanksgiving became mine. I love cooking and having people over. It's always a great day with lots of food, laughter and Pictionary. We do not play about our Pictionary, understand? Folks have almost come to blows about drawing and guessing! But I digress!

Since he had not been home since July, we were discussing whether or not he would be able to make it home. He had been traveling a lot with the military and so we weren't really sure if he could make it. 

I so wanted him to come here. I hadn't seen him in months and I was anxious to see if things were going to be different when he got here. I wasn't sure of anything anymore, except that I believed we were going to be alright once he retired and came home. 

He had planned to come home but work kept him from making definitive plans. He wasn't sure if he would be back in the states in time and so I was up and down, back and forth. Finally he said he wasn't going to make it. Then he was. 

Anyway, Thanksgiving Day he arrives home, I rush out to the car to greet him and I can tell in his eyes that something was wrong. He tried to mask it but I could see that he was disappointed in something. I don't think he was disappointed to see me. More that he was expecting that when he got out of the car and saw me that everything would turn normal again. That his confused feelings would go away and there would be extra sunlight or something. Whatever he was looking for was not there and we both knew it. 

I ran up to my room and cried. I remember saying to God, "I thought you said everything was going to be ok!" and not getting a response. 

I had people coming so I had to get it together quickly. It was tense and weird and after the holiday was done and everyone was gone we lay in bed trying to talk. But I knew something was so very wrong. 

He left the next day and I would not see him in person for another 5 months after that Black Friday morning. 

Did I still have hope? Of course I did. I still believed that once he retired and came home everything would eventually get righted. I did still have faith in what God had said. I still believed that this rough patch would get made smooth again. It was a good marriage. It could survive this. It would have to or I was going to lose everything.

Back soon.

Scene 6: Birthday and Blurry Days

So he had asked for a divorce (that's two if you count the initial incident) and I balked. No, we were not going to talk divorce. I was going to give him time and space to think, without the pressure of having to talk to me everyday or answer my probing questions. He could take whatever time he needed to get his head on straight. No divorce!

In September I turned 41. (Just a year before we were on a cruise for my birthday. So much changed in 12 months!) He sent me flowers, like he did every year, and on the card he wrote "I will always love you. No matter what we're going through." I don't think he'll ever know how that crushed me and how it ruined my favorite day in the whole world. I knew we were going through stuff, but did he have to put that on my card? I couldn't stick that in the plastic pronged cardholder for all the world to see. I was gutted about that. Still am. It seemed so insensitive. 

Anyway, we trudge along through the fall. Me trying desperately not to do or say *anything* that would upset him. Me holding my tongue during every phone call. Me changing the way I respond to him or his conversation. All because I know if I make him mad, he's going to leave me. But also knowing, somewhere in the back of my mind that if I stay the person I was quickly becoming, he'd eventually leave me anyway. Who the hell was I? I mean, I am not the type to bite my tongue about much. I am outspoken, strong, determined and a badass. But right then and there, I was just mostly scared. Terrified. Panicked. What was I going to do?

I prayed. I blogged. I read scripture. I tried listening to God's voice instead of my own. And I heard God say that there was going to be restoration. Jeremiah 33:6-11 was what He gave to read over and over and over. And I did. 

But I also cried. A lot. There were times when I looked like I had just come out of the ring Mike Tyson. People at work thought that I had terminal sinus headaches because that was the excuse I used to cover the blood-shot and swollen eyes. I told so few people. Only 3 people in my circle knew. No one else could ever know. 

Between my birthday and Thanksgiving, it was nothing but a blur of crying, praying, blogging and hoping. I don't remember time going by at all. Just that one day I was giving out candy to the neighborhood kids and the next I was desperately trying to figure out how to tell the family that I was in no mood to celebrate Thanksgiving. 

My aunt had died the year before. She died a week after Thanksgiving and it was only because of her and her memory did I relented to continuing the tradition of hosting T-Day at my house.

Boy was it something.

Back soon!

Scene 5: Absence Does What?

Hi ho hi ho and off to work he went. When he left, everything between us was a decent status quo. We reiterated how much we loved each other. We talked about the things that were between us and we really knew that he just needed to retire and come on home. It was going to take some time but that was the plan.

He was going to end whatever was or was not going on with this woman. Although he repeated again and again that there was nothing to "end". Nothing ever got started. Ok I can work with that. 

So how come a month or so later he was telling me that he wanted to go ahead and get a divorce? What the...? I really just didn't know what to do, so I started to write. I wrote about being knocked down and getting back up. And I wrote it from a Christian perspective. I knew that prayer was the only thing that was going to keep my sanity. 

These writings led me to start a blog Fanning the Flames of Faith which I used to process all of these feelings of hurt, anger, resentment, hope and everything. Check it out sometime, but be sure you start from the beginning (August 2009).

Anyway...I still don't know what happened when he got back to work. Hadn't I convinced him that we were going to be okay? Didn't we leave things in a good place? What happened? He got back and saw her and all of that went out the window? 

Well I had already decided that I wasn't giving up right? I told him that we weren't going to talk divorce. I told him that I was going to give him all the space he needed. No pressure, just take the time he needed to get his head right. 

As for me, I'll be praying and writing. 

See you back here soon.

Scene 4: Home Sweet Phone

We finish up our California vacation and head back home. Once home I am confident that being back here will help him to realize all that he has. Our family, home, dog. All of the things he misses being away. If he can just touch reality, then everything can go back to normal. 

And it seemed to do just that for the week that he was home. We talked about the things that were going on with his life in the military. The medical problems and her. We were pretty open and honest. We spent time together but I must admit I was VERY clingy at this time. I was not myself at all. I was afraid to let him out of my sight. I was terrified of it. All because of that damn cell phone.

He kept his cell phone on serious lockdown. It was hidden from my view day and night. I think he slept with it under his pillow. And *that* made me crazy. A classic sign that things were not as easy breezy as I wanted them to be. He insisted that he was not talking to her in any way, not voice, email or text. But he was like Houdini with that phone. It stayed disappeared. And the more it did the more paranoid I became. 

We finally had the "talk" right before he had left. We hashed out his feelings, hashed out my feelings. Talked about why I felt like I had to stalk him. Talked about that fucking phone. Everything came out that night and I felt so much better. 

He told me that everything was going to be alright. He told me that he was going to retire and come home and we were going to work it all out. He told me that I didn't have anything to worry about when he went back to his duty station. He was going to end it, even though he also insisted that nothing had ever gotten started. 

Whew. That was a close one! I knew it. A week at home was all he needed. 

Right?

See you here again soon.  

Scene 3: Fightin' Dirty

Fight. That's what I needed to do. I needed to fight for my man. 

Now it's important to note here that when I was teenager I vowed that I would never get into a fight with another girl about a boy/man. I mean, what was the point? If he didn't want me then fuck 'em, right? I am not afraid of a fight, mind you. I have a big brother so throwing down wasn't the issue. It was the idea that I would fight over a man? Nah, not me. 

Fast forward several decades and here I sit in a room at my mother-in-law's house trying to figure out how to fight for my man. I felt like I was in enemy territory. I was surrounded by his family and I didn't have anyone to turn to here. I was feeling very isolated. 

We tipped toed around each other for a day or so. At that point we were saying out loud that we were breaking up. But inside my head I was working on a game plan. Something...anything to keep my marriage together. But what? 

One thing I had was proximity. He was with me. I needed to take full advantage of the fact that we were in the same place. 

We talked. He told me repeatedly that he loved me but he wasn't in love with me. (I swear if I hear that bullshit sentence one more time in this lifetime I will kill someone.) Every time he said it, a slice of my heart was cut away. 

I tried hard to understand where he was coming from but I was getting desperate. So did the only thing I could think of at the time. I used what I had. Sex. I was sure that if I could reach him in this way, that I could him back to his senses. And it kind of worked. We began relaxing with each other. We were starting to be a little more like our normal selves. I felt confident that I found the missing link. He just needed to get laid and everything would be alright again. 

I was anxious to finish our time in California and get back home for the last week of his trip. He just needed to remember us and our life. All I had to do was get him back to our house and our life and all of the pieces would fall back together. He needed to cut the grass, play with the dogs, sleep in his own bed and balance would be restored. 

But was I right? 

Back here sooner than you think!

Mona

Scene 2: Growing Apart?

So we're back to the surreal fireworks display going on over my head while my world explodes right in my face.

He's telling me that we've grown apart? What? Grown apart? When? Just 6 months ago we had the best time of our lives. I never sensed one ounce of trouble then? When did we grow apart?

According to him he had been feeling that way for a year or so. When asked why he never said anything to me, he says that he was 'just trying to figure out why I was feeling this way.' I immediately call bullshit on this play, but whatever.

*side note - it has taken me a year to analyze this whole 'grow apart' crap. I will acknowledge that when he left for his duty stations I got to stay home and live my life normally, so I never 'grew apart' from anything. He was out there 'growing apart' on his own. Well I don't think he grew anywhere except in his selfishness. But I will concede the 'apart' part. See...I'm not *all* bitter!

So, here we are and I am ready to leave and go back home. I talk to my very wise mother who insists, "Don't you go anywhere, girl. You better stay there and fight!" 

So fight is what I decided to do. And trust me, I end up pretty battered and bruised in the end. 

See you back later!

Scene 1: My Spidey Sense

So what did I feel and when? Well we have to go back to Christmas of 2008. He was home for several weeks over Christmas and New Years and it was literally one of the best holidays that we'd ever had. We spent so much time together. We laughed a lot and spent lots of time with family. It was just a really good time. 

He was going to try to come home in February or March, but work duties were getting in the way. He was out of the country a lot during that time. But we kept making plans, month after month, but it just never worked out. 

In April 2009 my internal husband meter, my spidey sense, was going off at an alarming rate. I strongly sensed that something was wrong, but I didn't know what. I was so desperate to get him home or go see him. I just felt like I needed to connect. I don't know who, what, where, when or why but *something* was amiss. But again, that connection just never happened. 

We had a planned vacation to California for early July to see his mom for her 60th birthday so I knew that I would eventually see him. Waiting 6 months had happened before so it wasn't that big of a deal, but that damn meter never died away. 

My daughter and I were meeting him in Atlanta and the 3 of us were flying together from there to Los Angeles. 

We arrived first and hurried to his gate to meet him. I was so excited. He was one of the last off the plane and as soon as I looked in his eyes I knew something was different. I didn't know it then like I know it now, but bells, whistles and sirens were going off inside of me like a 5 alarm fire. 

I tried to ignore it but the whole flight there I knew that the man who I saw at Christmas was not the guy sleeping next to me on the plane. 

I just could not have imagined how different he had become. 

See you back here soon!