It’s OK…Unless, You Stay and Betray

Let’s be creative. Let’s start at the end and end at the beginning. That takes extreme courage, new-found self-love, choosing triumph over pain, are you ready? Come along on my journey; let’s hope it embraces you with a hug that squeezes you so tight, it puts your broken pieces back together again. Not just in the now, but along this karmic journey that’s meant to heal unresolved wounds. Get ready to emerge from the dark shadow and feel the sun, warm on your face again. As you glow-up, you’ll smile and release a much needed exhale; then, allow the fresh air to enter your body and your mind once again. Count with me out loud, “3” inhale, exhale; deeper this time, “2” inhale, exhale; “1” you’re breathing. It’s deep and rhythmic, you feel each breath filling you where it once was so empty. It’s like a breeze lilting across your soul, it feels serene. Here we go...

Be ready to accept that really nothing of what you experienced had anything to do with you; at it's core, it was all about them. Close your eyes and think about the word you just can’t put your finger on. Don’t give up, take your time, that’s it! BETRAYAL. Relationships with emotionally healthy and grounded people are nurturing, supportive, playful. It should engage the mind, body and spirit of TWO people sharing the same moral compass and values. Imagine a strong, beautiful tree. Roots anchor the portion of the tree above ground. It is important to keep the portion above ground healthy to ensure the roots continue to receive necessary nourishment. That relationship’s roots are trust. Trust anchors a relationship. With trust securing the foundation of two people, what grows above is lush, thriving, and impenetrable. It survives the elements, moves and sways with the changing seasons, standing tall. Feeding the roots of that relationship is reciprocity, honest communication, mutual passion for not only one another but for life, vulnerability, the truth always and loyalty. As above, so below. That genuine relationship, I will be available to receive it. The one I’ll nurture and give my love to for I have wasted too much time thinking that was the relationship I was in.

He did not break me down, he broke me open; the light found its way back to me. I want to share my light with everyone and anyone standing in the dark. I have healed my broken heart so it doesn’t bleed on my Divine new beginning. You can too.

My nine weeks, start to finish. I’m sitting on the deck of my new apartment that overlooks a private lake. I am keeping company, apparently with a magical bird. It’s true, I just googled it. “What is the spiritual meaning of a heron?” Fascinating! Here’s what I found. The heron meaning refers to tranquility and stillness. The symbolism signifies determination because naturally, we are bound to wade through muddy waters through life's journey, but we must never give up. Of course I immediately call my sister (she’s used to me) and share this news! How delightfully perfect. I feel blessed, relieved, revived; grateful for the journey. It was beyond exhausting but ever so necessary as I continue to find my footing and balance.

I journal. I tuck scribblings on torn paper into random books on the shelf. I delight in a fortune cookie, so that gets slipped into a drawer somewhere. I do it just for the sheer joy and curiosity of stumbling upon a thought, a feeling, an idea - something I clearly felt at the time was worthy. I am unpacking, bonding with my new home when I find one of my journals. I grab some iced tea and sit in my favorite reading chair that has been with me for what feels like forever. I begin thumbing through pages and there it is, May 21^st, my birthday. My belief has always been as long as I can sift through the year that’s been, and see something, just one small thing that’s moved my life forward in some way; light the candle, I’m ready to blow it out and begin another 365 days! 

Journal entry:

“My birthday was hurtful and sucked. I chose to have an un-birthday and shared the news with my family. They’re shocked. It's my favorite celebration for everyone! It was the day you were born, pretty worth celebrating every year until you can’t anymore. My marriage, my life here with him is destroying me. It’s dark, paranoid and depressing. It’s been horrible for a long time, it’s over and must end. I’ve never felt so trapped, lonely and without resources. My self-confidence and pure sense of self, vanished. Who am I? I need to remember so I can bounce back and reinvent.” 

The next line, in big, bold letters leaping off the page:

“This TOXIC BULLSHIT stops now!!! No more playing defense, I shine and can give energy in offense! It will be quick”

I never remembered writing this. My mouth fell open. I then grabbed a pencil (love pencils) and paper and figured out the timeline of my recent whirlwind. Here is the exact and true timeline to escape my sparkle vampire. 

·        May 21^st apparently wrote that journal entry

·        May 26^th the Super Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse, sat at fire pit w/sage, released everything that no longer serves my higher good

·        June 1^st talked to a lawyer

·        June 2^nd sold my jewelry to pay deposit for lawyer, informed husband of my intention

·        June 8^th met w/lawyer, outlined Marriage Dissolution Agreement

·        June 10^th documents emailed, signed, notarized and returned to lawyer

·        June 13^th met w/real estate agent, listed house

·        June 23^rd full ask, cash offer, as is (cried tears of joy)

·        July 8^th signed lease new apartment

·        July 19^th moved

·        July 22^nd Closed on house

Of course so many details missing from all the in-betweens, lead-ups, exits, words spoken and many more left unspoken. Coexisting, barely, in painful, emotional chaos. Just one more time of unpredictable, cruel behavior and per the divorce agreement, he has to leave immediately. While he was silently intent on destroying me, I was trying to be fair and kind not wanting him to feel forced to leave the house. His ability to remain in the house was in his own hands. Within a week or so, he couldn’t take the pressure but left golf shorts and a few shirts behind so he’d have an excuse to connect and manipulate. That opportunity never happened, he hit my wall hard. He clearly never knew me. His ego and self-sabotaging stubbornness always getting in the way of true communication. He never listened during the serious conversations, the ones I attempted throughout the year telling him this marriage was running out of time. His response, the “flip-flop.” You know the flip; the professing of so much love for me, I was his whole world, he didn’t understand blah, blah, blah. Then the flop; more severe, unpredictable, cruel and ridiculous behavior to break me down. I told him, you will lose at your own game. I know you now, your mask fell off, and you can’t put it back on. I’m done. 

My answer to despair in those nine weeks clearly was action, logic, mastering my emotions and here’s the kicker – I truly, to my core, felt we just didn’t work out. Both in our 50’s, it was a fast romance dating to married in one year; for the life of me, I don’t know how or why. I think back, telling my sister about a month in, that I was breaking it off the next day. Something just felt off, one dimensional, he wasn’t my type, I didn’t feel the connection. The next morning I wake to him texting me the song “I’m going to make you love me” that, and a whole lot of love bombing, lies in the form of telling me what I wanted to hear, to be sure we did share the same moral compass and life values, led to being married not quite three years.

My healing is about me not him. I’m consciously choosing not to elaborate on how special I felt the first year or so. This story's journey, is the one where I fall into what literally felt like a living hell. It was doused in him trying to provoke drama, all the time. So many flipped-switch moments, emotional mood swings, harsh manipulation, COVID, the world shutting down, my sensorineural hearing loss that had me needing to leave my well-established career behind; and ultimately, like a veil slipping from my eyes, the illusion of my Prince Charming morphing, suddenly, so quickly into something raw, ugly, real and in focus, holy shit! He thought he had complete control now, where would I go, what would I do? I voraciously read and searched to understand how I could have been so wrong about a person when I stumbled upon “Covert Narcissist.” It was a good fit for my confusion. My father was a narcissist, a very emotionally cruel one. I married my father! I get it now, check that box. But, little did my husband know, because he never cared enough to really know me, is that I am the forever rising phoenix from the ashes. My life has experienced many fires! At that point, I could actually wrap my head around my mistake. Sadly disappointed in the outcome but tenacious in my pursuit to get through to the other side of whatever this was; and what this really was, actually revealed itself towards the end of those nine weeks. 

Already breathless with exhaustion, anxiety, stress, fear I had the wind knocked out of me. I innocently discovered the entire time we were together, he was leading a double life with another person whom he had been with for many years. He struggled with addiction and this apparently was one of them. An extremely toxic, twisted relationship that had him in its grip, off and on but never really free. My understanding is it wasn’t really even a relationship but more of a materialistic, shallow contract. One devil looking in the mirror until surprise, it’s a window! 

Our marriage never had a chance to take root and grow. I unknowingly was put in the third party position. It all started making sense, connect these unhinged dots and boom, there’s the inescapable big picture! Never in a million years would I have ever assumed him possible of this, narcissist or not; nor does my family who thought they knew him so well. I had expressed to him in the last six months that I felt like I was in this marriage alone and guess what, I actually was. I was picking up the vibe that maybe he hadn’t unpacked emotional baggage from his last marriage, surely that was the block but in reality, he never even packed his bags. My heart actually broke for him knowing that he associates love with emotional and mental pain in order for it to feel real and nothing could be farther from the truth. This will likely sound strange too, but out loud, I thanked her, whoever she is, this dark external energy of his, for letting me out of my gilded cage.

Before we married we made a pact; unfortunately, I didn’t realize I was making a pact with a player dressed as a prince but spoiler alert, that’s actually how they come packaged. Our pact? If at any point in the marriage one of us just needs out, we would be honest, truthful and above all else respectful. It would be OK. He however, chose, repeatedly to stay and betray me. He had the best of both worlds. Toxic trysts with an evil twin and a beautiful, domestic goddess stuck at home to nurture and genuinely love him until his nasty attitude, berating comments and fierce behavior burned my love to the ground and then, wait for it, up rises the phoenix. I have to be honest, it took me awhile to put my finger on what I was feeling. I wasn’t sad, I didn’t miss or want him, I wasn’t jealous. I was truly relieved. I experienced speechless moments of gratitude for the Divine intervention. The butterfly trapped in a Mason jar, with just enough holes poked in the cap to breathe but not die, was finally free and she did it all by herself (well with her sister by her side of course). I took an immense leap of faith! I literally made the decision of "I'm done", having no money, no ability to get a job and expand my world again, no retirement, nowhere to go when/if the house sold but my fear of one more minute of this, was far greater than the fear of the unknown. When we met I had a career, my own home, retirement funds, friends, my dog that was the daughter I never had; and in three years, I was at ZERO on every possible level, everything gone. I put together a divorce that would allow me a chance to figure out how to rebuild my life. I haven’t been this happy, calm and genuinely peaceful in a long time so what is that word? BETRAYAL, that’s it! I never used the word. I never thought about the word. I didn’t really know what the definition of this word was so I began to educate myself. 

My personal understanding of betrayal is that it is intentional, deliberate, thought-out, conspired, hidden and unspoken to the person being betrayed. Why? Lack of self-control in achieving some form of selfish, self-satisfaction that’s being driven by jealousy, greed, power and fear. Betrayal is personal to them; you, your hurt, that’s inconsequential and quite frankly inconvenient for the betrayer. It’s the ultimate and most painful violation of a person’s trust and confidence in a relationship. The moral standards being kept by one, thought to be shared by both, was simply an insidious waste of time. The realization that the person holding your heart in their hands is purposely corrosive...just think about that for a moment; visualize it, the disengagement of it, the complete lack of care, devotion and protection. Am I supposed to feel the joke’s on me somehow? I don’t think so as I gracefully and tactfully retrieve my precious heart from a coward’s hands. My heart clearly doesn’t belong to you.

He betrayed me and I betrayed me. I abandoned myself to this situation, ignoring my own needs and desires and worst of all, my intuition. I take ownership of being trapped and stagnant for so long. I now understand my contribution to the negative situation. I really, really wanted to believe I finally got it right. (Side note: my first marriage is where I married the version of my Mother! another story for another time.) In retrospect, I acknowledge that I even sacrificed who I am as a person and believed that my lack of attraction and passion for him all combined, was the trade-off to simply be loved. He picked up on this low vibration and ran with it. I over gave, over loved, over shared to a ludicrous degree and he was someone who was just going to keep taking, that was his plan all along. He thrived when the scales were full-on tilt, like a junkie getting a much needed fix. I was so wrong but understand how I rationalized this concept on how to be loved. I have now successfully healed over any inner child delusions and weeping, abandoned wounds. 

The personal evolution this connection brought is an indescribable gift. Lesson learned, know your value and go after your version of happiness. On no account settle, don’t wait for the timing to be right because it never will be, not for one moment compromise yourself for anyone or anything and when your happy place arrives, protect it! Grab hold of faith and keep it close. For me, spirituality meets practicality and that’s when my magic happens.

Here’s where that hug I mentioned earlier gets tighter. If you want to be free from your pain you need to make peace with it, understand it in the greater order of things. The last stage of grief is acceptance, get to that place and you never have to feel that pain again. Put a pretty, bright string on a finger if you have to, to remind yourself that “forever” can’t be rushed and if it is, it’s not your “forever.” Get to know the emotional investment. Give your tree the gift of time, let the roots grow strong. Know that you don’t need to hold onto anger or negativity that doesn’t belong to you. Release it. I promise it will find its way back to the rightful owner. Surrender your resentments. Getting attached to them is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. I know how you feel. I know you too can allow yourself to gently move forward into positive situations. Like me, you have great power within you. You are the sun and the light, embrace it and let yourself shine brightly. Never dial it down because it’s getting in someone’s eyes. As you heal, you will rise to a higher vibration which attracts other people with that same high vibration. I am more open to love, in all its forms, now than ever before. 

I placed him in God’s hands to be dealt with, the Divine knows best. My marriage truly was the classic story of good versus evil. I have finally felt and seen with my own eyes the power of Karma and how what you reap based on what you’ve sown plays out. He chose to return to a familiar swamp with the same snakes. I hope he finds his path to humility so he can heal what’s so broken within himself; putting a hard stop to hurting others. Unfortunately though, the only way out of darkness is with light and right now, he has no light to shine. OK everyone, beware the fairytale and don’t kiss the frog! Please realize with an open mind, that if you make room in your heart again, using the wisdom you’ve gained, the Universe will fill the space.

The Beginning.