Originally written on April 29, 2015-
Yesterday, I was browsing Facebook from my phone. Skimming posts containing updates of riots in Baltimore, what everyone was having for lunch, crochet patterns and clever memes with The Most Interesting Man in the World, when my eyes met her face. There she was – smiling with her mouth partly open, some bearded guy at her side - under the title of “People You May Know” – my ex husband’s mistress.
Yesterday, I was browsing Facebook from my phone. Skimming posts containing updates of riots in Baltimore, what everyone was having for lunch, crochet patterns and clever memes with The Most Interesting Man in the World, when my eyes met her face. There she was – smiling with her mouth partly open, some bearded guy at her side - under the title of “People You May Know” – my ex husband’s mistress.
It’s been close to 5 years since I first encountered her
name. It’s been a good long time since I
gave her a thought. I have been happily
rid of her and the object of her desires for quite a while. There was the time she followed me on Pinterest. Then the time when I was pitching my ex’s
leftover possessions from my new home and some things she had given him were in
the boxes. Fortunately, most of her
memory has been eliminated from the minds of my children as well. (Unless we are talking about why The Middle Son despises his father and his plans to change his last name when he is old enough
and why he doesn’t want me to fix his birth certificate to reflect his “father”.) The Youngest Boy was too young to retain many of those
memories. Mini-Me was just an infant. The Oldest remembers, but she’s one of those things
that is only of negative significance and has long since been healed. Like the blank spot left after a tooth has been pulled. You can run your tongue across it and remember the sensation but the pain is gone.
Years ago, the simple sight of her brought me to tears. She was the last in a long line of side
dishes my then husband sampled. The
torment she brought to my soul and to our family was unspeakable. Though, the responsibility lies solely on the
shoulders of her boyfriend who was supposed to be faithful and put his family
first. Instead, he used her. He played games with her. He’d bounce in and out of our
marital home while she was away at school and none the wiser. I was the wife. I was the pregnant wife. She was the intruder. I didn’t and don’t owe her a damned thing. And he picked her. I did make an attempt to warn her of what she
was getting into. I tried to spare her
the shit storm that she was about to enter.
But, being all of 18 – she already knew more than my 33 year old self
did.
That’s a hard blow to take when you are pregnant and
watching your 3 children cry on a daily basis over the loss of their father for
reasons they were too young to comprehend.
Until you have walked that path, you don’t know. You don’t understand what that pain drives
you to do. You have no idea how you will
react. You just know that you have a
hand that you don’t know how to play. It’s
a feeling of repudiation. I was good
enough to create a child with but she was the one good enough to run to
afterwards. In my mind at the time, this
was the most difficult fact to absorb.
It took a lot of growth and thought to come to the realization that this
was not rejection. This was taking the
easy way out. She was a child. A teenager – and too immature to see what she
was doing. She thought she was being
chosen, she thought she was adored, she thought she was loved. She was just easier. They could live in this little fantasy world
of song lyrics and dreams of Paris vacations, comparing their relationship with
The Notebook and Hollywood promises. But
reality was that he was a broke, married guy that abandoned his family for the
first piece of ass that bought his lines.
She was just too inexperienced to see it. I felt bad for her. How low is your self esteem when you will
accept this as a “prize” that you “won”?
She went for my children.
She made my unborn daughter the butt end of some joke. She sent a fake email to my ex, knowing I had
his email password, where she stated how excited she was that he was going to
take care of their baby, planning a nursery, and picking out baby names. She wasn't pregnant. What kind of person does that? If that was my daughter behaving that way – I’d
be mortified. It would probably play out
similarly to the #MomOfTheYear in the current riots. Being with the right person is supposed to
make you want to be a better human. Was
that better? I’ll never understand. But I fought back the best way you can when
you are losing a battle for what is rightfully supposed to be yours. Eventually, he came crawling back home with
his tail between in legs and in the most cowardly way possible. He left her a note and was gone before she
came home one night. He ignored her
texts. He declined her calls. And nothing about it felt like a win. Nothing about it was right and I told him so.
In spite of the wretched behavior she exhibited – coming to
my home, telling my children to call her “mom”, playing mind games that only
children play – I have come to owe her my most sincere thanks. Thank you, Katie, for the sleepless nights,
for the awful things you did, for the part you played in the crashing burn of
my marriage, for the hits to my self esteem, for convincing Ex Douchebag to stay gone, for
convincing him to file the divorce papers, for all of the parts you
played. Boy, did it hurt at the
time. But in retrospect – It was the
greatest gift you could have ever given someone. It was so easy for him to go, it was so easy
for him to choose you, it was so easy to keep him away – you showed us what he
was really made of. You exposed him for
the person that he was. I became
stronger than I ever thought possible in the process. I saw through my sham of a marriage. My backbone was already pretty solid but this
experience strengthened it more than I realized. I learned not to settle for anything less
than the best. I learned that I don’t need help to raise kids or even give
birth. I found out what I was made of. I grew patience and understanding that I didn’t
know I was capable of. I discovered who
my true friends were. And, the door
opened between Darling Husband and me. We reconnected after 15 years during that time. That, in
and of itself, made all of those painful things worthwhile.
I offer my most gracious and sincere extension of gratitude
to her, and her family. From it came so
much positivity and happiness that I almost can’t even express it with
words. Ex Douchebag and his terrible family
moved back to Texas. My children have
the most incredible step-father that loves them, takes care of them, sets an
example for, teaches them, and is always there for them. I have the husband that I deserve – he works
hard, he’s loyal, he’s loving, he puts family first, he’s honest, he’s
trustworthy, and he makes me laugh every single day. He is talented, sweet, thoughtful, and
gorgeous. From a terrible act came such
tremendous love. I’m not bitter or angry
anymore (I will still tell it like it is).
I’m just grateful. I hope that
she grows up, finds real love, and never has to experience what she helped do
to my children and me. I hope that she
loves herself more now than she did then.
I hope that she develops camaraderie with other women and never wants to
compete against another one for the affections of a man (or for any other
reason). I hope that she does something
good with this experience. I forgive
her.
So, Facebook, I’ll pass on the suggestion. We’re already familiar and that’s enough for
me.
