I'm taking a break

I recently found out my husband betrayals have been going on for at least 2 years. I am so hurt and lost right now. With this information I have decided I'm in over my head. With work, being a mom, a spouse in a broken marriage, I've decided I need a break from my blog. I need time to think, process and heal. I still love to blog..... But with everything going on I don't find time for it. Or I'm also finding it is taking time away from my boys. I'm going to keep a journal of my thought and feelings to write down. (Which i'm sure will bring excellent posts in the future.) But as for now I'm putting my blog on hold.

As for those who read this blog, thank you for your support. Thank you for following and helping me feel like I have a voice again. Most of all thank you for helping me feel heard and important again.

When I feel comfortable in my recovery and I'm comfortable with giving the time towards my blog I will let you know when I will be posting on here again. 

Today

Today I sat down during my break and started devouring my delicious salad from a cafe down the street from me. Half way through eating it, my favorite song popped on the radio. I am in love with the song "fight song" by Rachel Platten. Immediately I stopped eating and listening to the lyrics. I felt overwhelmed during that moment to pray. My  last year has been from Hell. I bowed my head and started giving thanks for my food. But then I started pouring out more thanks. Thanks for my amazing vacation I just had, for my amazingly supportive family, for my beautiful boys, for my AMAZING job and so much more.

But then I paused...

I thanked the lord for my husband. I thanked the lord for this hard time. I told him I didn't like it and that it has made me soooo sad. But I'm grateful for the knowledge I have learned and will be learning.

I find it crazy that I had to pray right then and there to thank the lord for my life. But I don't regret it! I especially think I'm crazy for being grateful for my challenges I have been going through. But when I dig deep down I know it has caused me a tremendous amount of pain. But I have also gained a lot from my experiences. And I would rather be where I am now then where I was when I was trusting and naive.

Today is a good day. Today the sun is shining. Today I have had a great day at work. Today I have talked to loved ones
Today...I am happy.

The Dreaded Question

Did I do anything to deserve what I did?  Did I not provide you with enough love? Was I not good enough for you?  Am I going to find more?  Why did this even happen?

Will we ever be happy again?

I have new questions running through my head everyday.  The most common ones are "why is this happening to me?"  "Am I not good enough?"  "Will the pain never go away?"

I am an emotional wreck everyday.  I have good moments and I have bad ones.  I can't get the horrible images out of my head.  They haunt me all the time.

My husband used social media to cheat on me.  He found women, lied to them and told them we were separated so he could enjoy intimate pictures/videos/conversations with them.  No he didn't touch them.  But he still cheated on me.

I use to love social media and how it kept me connected to friends and family near and far.  Now I freaking hate it!  Not a day goes by that I want to hack onto Coles Facebook to see if he is still betraying me.  Don't get me wrong I still check.  Cole agreed to let me take his phone whenever to do a check on his facebook and messages.  He has strict instructions not to delete anything.  But I still fear to find more.  And I hate not knowing.

He is trying so hard to fix his problems.  He admits he was wrong and he is sick.  He sees the pain he has caused me and wants to make it go away.  I am so proud of the efforts that he has made but I still have a hard time.  He tells me he loves me..  He says he is fighting for me and he doesn't want to lose me.  He says he doesn't want to lose his family.  I don't trust him.  Trust me I want to.  But only time will tell.

I'm 50/50 on keeping my marriage.  50% I still see the man I loved.  He is still an amazing father to my boys.  I see the effort he is making and I want to see us succeed and grow old together.  The other 50% I'm so hurt by the betrayal.  I don't want to go through this again.  And I am so scared to move forward.

I haven't made my choice yet.  Like I said Coles choices and actions will determine the outcome from here on out. But the outcome I want most is that we are happy.  I can honestly say that no matter what happens I hope we find our happy endings whether we are together or not.

To find my happiness I have to learn to forgive and forget.   It would be stupid to try and forget everything.  This trial has been a huge learning experience for me. I have and will continue to forgive Cole.  I chose to forget the questions.  They aren't important.  I know I'm beautiful, a great mother, friend and wife.  I am  more then enough for him.  Will the pain ever go away.  I'm sure majority of it will.  There is no way I will 100% heal from this.  But I can try my hardest!

Like I have said a million times.  I chose to be happy.  I chose to let go of the questions.  I chose to forgive.

Gaslighting

I look back now on the last year of our marriage and all the hard times we went through. The hardest months when Cole pointed his finger at me and made me feel like I was the one destroying our marriage, I find out that he betraying me behind my back. He was so good at distracting me from seeing what was going on behind my back by pointing out the small flaws in me.  When in fact there was a huge elephant in the room screaming at me.  I look back now at how naive I was  and curse at myself.  I had doubts and suspicions that something like this was going on.  But I ignored my gut thinking there was no way he would ever do that to me.  Would never cause the pain I am now in.  He would never betray our marriage so bad that I would be contemplating divorce right now. But now I see the truth and all the lies and distractions he made. He distracted me so well that he was able to get away with his bad choices for months.

I knew then that he was sick from his alcohol addiction and he didn't want to admit that it was him. When in fact he was starting a whole new form of betrayal.  I still have yet to find out if he has a new addiction.  My gut says yes but he swears there isn't.  Right now I trust my gut more then I trust him.  My gut has been more honest to me than he has. He is willing to go to therapy and support groups to prove it's not as bad as I fear it may be. I pray he proves me wrong.

What am I doing now?

I'm separating my emotions to him. It hurts to much to care right now.

I Listen to what he has to say.....But that doesn't mean I believe him.

I encourage him to keep being stronger and getting help.  Whether we end up together or apart I care that he is happy in the end.

And the most important thing.  I'm finding my own happiness....once again.  I'm enjoying the small things.  A bowl of my favorite Ice cream at night.  A long bubble bath after the boys are asleep at night.  I take time at my work to have happy conversations with my clients.  (thank goodness for my job.  I love every second of it and it has been such a good distraction). Taking the boys to the park and enjoying their smiles.  I even snuck a few minutes on the swing for my self.  When I was younger the swings were my favorite thing at the park.  I could swing on it for hours.  There was something about the sun on my face and the wind in my hair that brought me happiness. 

For too long I sacrificed my happiness for Coles.  And he selfishly took it and took it for granted.  My husband is sick.  He has never been the same from his deployment from Afghanistan.  He fights demons from his deployments and his work that he has had to deal with in his past.  With the few stories he has shared with me I can't imagine what hell he has had to go through in his life.  And I ache for him to be free from his pain.

But I will no longer sacrifice myself to help him.  He needs to fight this on his own.  He used and abused me and I will no longer let that happen.  I chose to be happy.  If he wishes to be in my life forever he needs to find his happiness on his own and vow to love and cherish me forever.  I deserve it.

Healing

As you all can guess the last year has been a very new experience for me.  I have had some of the hardest experiences of my life.  I have blossomed and bloomed into a very different person.  Some may see that I have gained some strength in some areas.  And some may see I am lacking strength in others.  Overall  I am handling each unique situation the best way I can.

The biggest thing that I've had to let go of is fear.  For all my life I have always feared disappointing those I love.  I in the past have been such a people pleaser that I have cheated myself instead of disappointing others.  This last year I made a vow to stop doing that.  It has been a complete game changer for me.  I am finding that no matter what there is always something better you can do for yourself.  But as long and you are striving to be your best that is all that matters.  No one is perfect.  And it is impossible to be perfect.

My blog post from last week revealed that I hit a rock bottom with a very devastating situation that happened to me.  Last week was probably the worst week of my life.  But from the pain and sorrow I learned a ton.

The first thing I learned is that I am not alone.  I had so many people reach out to me to let me now I am appreciated and loved.  I had strangers reach out to me.  I had old friends I haven't talked to in a while reach out.  I had some of Coles old military buddies reach out to me.  I found out that I was loved by more people than I thought.  What a tremendous thing it was to be cared for by so many.  If you were one of them thank you.  You have been a huge blessing to me.

The second thing I learned is that when you are in a crisis you make mistakes.  And the biggest thing I learned from those mistakes were not to do them again.  I turned those lose stones into stepping blocks to help me become stronger and to achieve greater heights.

The third thing I found out is people heal in different ways.  I turned to new outlets.  Some people may or may not agree with my choices but they are what worked for me.  I found out that Yoga is an amazing thing and I will definitely be doing it a lot more in the now and future.  I also found out that a girls night at the bar with my close friends turned into a nightmare and I was sick the whole next day regretting my decision. (probably will never be able to look at alcohol again without wanting to throw up.)  But that was my choice to make.  And that was my way of healing.  And most importantly it helped.  It wasn't the best or smartest choice but in that moment I wanted/needed it.  And I learned from that choice.  And I learned not to fear what others think and learned that others need to respect how I heal as long as I am not putting myself or anyone else in danger.

The fourth thing I learned was to follow my gut.  If I didn't follow my gut and follow the inspiration I was given the week prior, I would be in a worse situation.  I would have been lost with out any future plans or ways to get out of my mess.  But instead I was blessed with inspiration, knowledge and love that became a huge help to me.

The fifth thing I found out was that I am a warrior.  I am one tough cookie.  I showed a moment of weakness and from it I became so strong.  I became the mother/wife my family needed during that time.  I wasn't afraid to get my hands dirty to make sure things were done the right way this time.  I showed strength I had no Idea I had inside.  I didn't become controlling,  I became a humble and powerful woman.

Sit Back, Relax, And Enjoy The Ride

Some days I wake up completely happy.  I am so grateful for my boys and what strength and happiness they give me.  I look at Cole and I'm so happy he is changing for the better and working to improve our marriage.  He is finally putting in some effort to save our marriage.  It may be at a snails pace but its better then nothing. Sometimes I get a glimps of the old Cole. The man I feel in love with who would do anything for his family. These short glimpses give me hope. And I need that hope right now.

Some days I wake up and I hate the world.  I get flashes of images I don't want to see in my head.  For some they are unforgivable things.  And I have to suck it up and deal with it because I chose this path.  I chose to fight for my marriage and work things out with Cole.  I even get so made sometimes I wished it progressed to the absolute unforgivable thing so it would be easy for me to hate him and not have to worry about getting hurt again.

Some days I wake up sad.  Sad that I had my heart broken.  Sad that now that I let Cole hug me again I just want to cry and cry.  The first time I let him hug me I cried in his arms for a long time.  He squeezed me tighter and told me to let it out.  I deserved to cry.  He stroked my hair and rubbed my back as I cried my eyes out.  This is a big deal because he hasn't done that for me for years.  I didn't realize till then how distant we had been.

Some days I have all 3 emotions.  Those are my really crazy days.  The worst part is I am at the point where I don't care.  I feel like I deserve to let out my emotions and ponder on how I feel.  I take each day at a time.  At first i was giving deadlines and not being patient. Some say he doesnt deserve it. I somewhat agree. But this is my choice to stay in our broken marriage and try to fix it. He is putting in some effort. As long as he is trying then it is worth it to me. I would love to be a happy family again.

So i have decided to sit back and try to find happiness in this crazy roller coaster ride. It will be hard sometimes during the rough turns. But with each day and each new step I'm learning. And I'm becoming stronger every day.

It Happened

We hit rock bottom.  I did the unthinkable in my case.  I snooped behind his back.  But I'm so glad I did because I found out the horrible truth.  I was able to find out that Cole had been lying and doing horribly inappropriate things behind my back while he was drinking.  I confronted Cole and scared him to death.  I scared him by how smart I am at catching onto things so fast.  I scared him with how calm I was about the situation and I had reached my breaking point.  I looked him in the eye and said I don't want you anymore.  I don't want you to ever touch me again.  I don't care to continue a marriage with you.  You have hurt and betrayed my trust so bad, I'm not sure I want to continue being with you.

His eyes popped out of his head.  He looked at me like he was terrified and he said he wanted me and he wanted his family.  I don't fully believe him.

I gave him a list of requirements.  There are no if or buts.  If he wants a family this is what he has to do.  If he decides not to follow through I'll get a divorce attorney.  I took a step back after I confronted him and was super proud.  If you read my post last week you know that I have learned from the hard things that I have turned into my own hero.  I have gained so much knowledge and emotional strength the last 6 months and they prepared me so well for what happened this week.  Don't get me wrong I am scared of the future and what it holds for us because of our incident.  I don't want a divorce.  Right now I think all men are scumbags so a new spouse is out of the question for a long time.  But I'm also scared to continue a relationship with Cole.

Only time will tell how things go.  And I have no idea what our future holds.  What I do know is I have an amazing support system.  I have the most beautiful and lively boys that bring such happiness to my life.  And most of all I know that I am a freaking amazing person.  And I am not taking any more hurt or pain from the person I loved most.  I deserve love and happiness.  I will no longer settle for less.

Right now I'm admiring the quote the wise Bob Marley once said.  I'm stronger then I ever thought and I will once again be able to enjoy my view at the top of my happy mountain.