Love Letters to a Healing Heart

92: No More Guessing

May 14, 2018October 3, 2023 Wanders

I’ve waited for over five months for C to step-up. Instead, she stepped away. I cannot waste any more time guessing.

Therefore, I asked K.

These are the initial things C may have said at the time of reveal. Again, it’s been five months, I’m getting it second hand, so some of the details will be oversimplified or one-sided.

Thank goodness. I’ve been looking for a reason to throw him out.

Then why didn’t C tell me?

Clearly, she had been thinking about this for months prior to discovery which also explains some of the confusing things I have since realized she was doing on social media and with money.

He isn’t qualified to do a single job.

Every financial and job decision I made from the time I moved to Yo-Yo Town was about making sure we could travel 20 weeks per year to do juried art shows and pay our bills.

Definitely unpacking this one later.

His brother is a narcissist. His whole family are probably narcissists too.

Only my brother is a narcissist. The rest of us took the abuse.

I know what I did. I know who I am. I’m the selfish prick in this experience. I’m not a selfish prick in every experience. I’m certainly not a narcissist. Tossing around the label is intellectually and emotionally lazy armchair psychology serving no useful purpose but to justify abusive behavior.

He is controlling and isolating me by keeping track of all my emails and social media account logins and passwords.

This one really bugs me.

She had access to all of my logins and passwords too. If something happened to me I wanted her to be able to access all the bank accounts and my social media platforms.

She also made me responsible for sharing art show updates, pictures of her and buyers, art related events, and news about her art business through all her social media. I had no access to her Facebook account or banking accounts. The only thing I asked was for to tell me what she was spending so I could plan a family budget.

I only had access to her business emails because she was ignoring customer commission requests and art show deadlines.

She never said a word to me about this being a problem.

This is also how I became aware of Ks’ first email to C. I saw it and panicked. Everything afterwards was about covering the last lie. I didn’t hack her email or accounts to steal identity. I had access because we had a partnership. I betrayed her trust to cover my ass and protect the relationship. I never touched any other emails.

He is hiding money from the family.

No idea what this is about. I tried to sit with her every Friday and review all of the A/P and A/R for my business and our personal accounts. I’ve talked about this elsewhere and I’m not going to waste energy on this on

He blew the deal to purchase CC.

I’m chalking this one up to angry revisionist history. She knows the reality of what happened here. Maybe. That is way more complicated than I want to unpack here. I’ll come back to it if I decide it is important.

It wouldn’t surprise me if she refriended them and then blamed me.

He is mean to my kids.

Yes, I probably was.

I was mean to her kids on occasion. Also, I made them sit up at the table and stop shoveling food into their mouths. I expected them to properly use a knife to cut food into bites. I demanded they stop dropping their school bags into the middle of the living room. Occasionally I yelled and punished them when they back-talked or ignored C or me. I expected them to flush the toilet. On more than one occasion I took their devices away after they failed to do chores, fought, or were generally being little shits.

Almost every other day I was also incredibly supportive and loving making sure they clothes, shoes, play things, and food. I threw the baseball. Worked the hockey concession stand. Drove them to school. Picked them up.

I could go on about this…I’ll stop.

He has a darkside and I’ve seen it.

Too bad she wasn’t willing to talk to me about it. We all have a dark side. Whether she likes to admit, so does she.

There was never any violence, threats of violence, physical intimidation, throwing or breaking things, holes in the walls, or adult temper tantrums. Yes, I could be a moody prick. Especially in the months leading to discovery.

Which is why, as I told the Twins and C I was returning to Al-Anon and going to counseling.

He is incapable of love.

Definitely coming back to this one. That is such a bullshit ghost story.

I supported him all summer.

Yeah? No, but this does explain some of the trolling comments and her attitude about money.

He forced me to sell my art trailer to pay my sales taxes because he used the money to pay household expenses.

This is news to me. She didn’t sell her art trailer.

Also, we had the money to pay the sales taxes but we never had a chance to talk about because she was too busy playing the victim.

He never had any money.

This one boggles my mind. I cannot even respond. I have no idea what this is about and cannot venture a guess.

He wanted us to buy life insurance and have wills.

Well, duh…

This was a discussion in year three of our seven-year relationship. I only found out she was bothered by this around Day 70 post reveal.

I was committed to a future with her. Which meant if something happened to me I wanted her to have the money to pay off the house, buy a new vehicle, continue to travel selling her art, and have enough money left over to be safe and secure while she grieved my loss.

I wanted her to have a life insurance so if something happened I could pay off the house, the boys wouldn’t have to worry about college money, and I would have enough money to be safe and secure while I grieved the loss.

And the wills? I have commission contracts and I wanted to make sure she continued to get paid on them. I wanted to make sure if she died her family didn’t immediately throw me out of the house I had helped pay for.

I even offered to pay for it all. Holy shit! That almost sounds like adulting. Okay, this one actually pisses me off.

Like any other difficult issue, she just ghosted on my request and did what she wanted. I said nothing and moved on because C doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to do.

He flirted with other women at art shows.

An honest statement lacking truthfulness.

C made fun of my friendliness but she also assured me it wasn’t a problem because she knew who I belonged too. Completely revisionist history.

Also, a lot to unpack to understand context.

He humiliated me at me at an art show in RW.

Also, honest but lacking truthfullness. After hundreds of shows together this is the first fight we ever had a show. Ever.

I was an ass. She was dramatic. We were both wet, cold, and tired. Probably need to unpack that too.

He tried to introduce porn into our sex life.

Once! One time. And she said she didn’t like it and we never did it again. Ever. I didn’t even watch porn without her. It wasn’t even hardcore porn…

This one just annoys me because it lacks any context and I cannot explain without devulging deeply personal aspects of our private life.

He was talking about marriage.

Yes. Yes I was. After seven years and she announced on more than one occasion – even after the reveal – we were Partners for life. We bragged that we could overcome anything if we stuck together.

If C needed or wanted something else she never said. Ever.

His behavior with F was reckless, insensitive, selfish, and wrong.

Absolutely and a significant betrayal but like the porn discussion this one just annoys me because it lacks any context and I cannot explain without devulging deeply personal aspects of our private life.

I need to walk away from this one.

S’s best friend’s wife, JD, asked me two weeks ago if we were still together.

I have no idea but this leads me to believe JD saw something C was doing on FB, or elsewhere, that made her questions C’s commitment to our relationship.

I have questions and absolutely no answers.

I have to admit when I heard this list I was shocked and numb. I left and went for a very long walk. After the shock wore off, I realized I wasn’t angry. This may be truly how C feels.

It may, like so much else, simply be her survival tactic. I certainly have mine.

I hope someday she can walk through her fears and talk to me about it. I know facing my fears is the only way to grow through them.

After the walk, I went back and tried to learn more details about the list.

Some of Cs’ resentments and fears go back to the beginning of our seven years together. If she ever tried to talk about some of them I either didn’t hear her or she wasn’t clear.

Just as I am responsible for my failings, C is ultimately responsible for hers. I don’t read minds and if there were other problems and resentments she carried, it is not my responsibility to figure them out even though I tried.

I reviewed what she may have said but the reality is, outside of gaining a better understanding of my actions, I’m not really interested in C’s betrayal or deceptions. I have mine.

She clearly has hers. I’m only responsible for mine.

In hindsight, I think C had made the decision to end our relationship well before the call from K. That breaks my heart.

My betrayal was simply the Way of Cs’ Thing and it certainly wasn’t the Thing.