Lies, Damned Lies

I'm trying to decide whether to use this blog as a sort of blowing-off-steam, getting-it-off-my-chest space in which I tell all about the demise of my marriage or as a space to talk about getting my new life off the ground. Perhaps a bit of both.

So much has happened in the months since I last blogged. Not much of it positive. I could blog on and on about Hubby and the lies he's told (and probably continues to tell). Small lies. Big lies. Needless lies. And I know them all. How? The man who sneeringly told me I should never write anything down wrote everything down himself. Then threw it in the bin. Passwords for www.match.com. Passwords for his email account. Passwords for his googlemail account he opened to send me a fake email from my paramour. Passwords for the real list of assets (as opposed to the one he showed me). Did he not know that years of doing jigsaw puzzles with my children made me a dab hand at piecing together his rubbish? And then there was his diary. He felt compelled to write everything in it too. When my daughter texted him to tell him she saw me coming out of his study (I don't remember why I was in there -- either to read the diary or to get a copy of a utility bill so I could open a bank account in my own name). When he told our son's cross-country coach that we were splitting up (in October, but he lied about it in December). I got quite obsessed with all the subterfuge for a while. Then, I decided I was better off not knowing. I just assume now that he comes in my room and goes through my stuff (and every now and again I find telltale signs). I just assume that he continues to lie. I believe nothing he tells me. If he says it's dark outside, I go outside just to check it's true. But I don't go through bins. I don't read his diary. I don't go in his study. I don't care anymore.

He's always been a liar, but I used to have nicer words for it. He embellished the truth. He exaggerated. I used to find excuses for his lying. Not anymore.

One of his acquaintances used to read this blog and told him about it. Zoe P, if you still read this, and I hope you don't, I hope you realise there is more than one side to the story of every marital breakdown. I noticed today that I have one less follower. Was it Zoe? Was it Hubby? Was it Hubby's sister?

Here's another lie I heard Hubby tell someone on the phone. According to him, my first marriage broke down when I got caught red-handed by first hubby having a one-night stand. Pure fiction. The one-night stand happened AFTER the marriage ended. First hubby never caught me red-handed at anything. And how do you think Hubby found out that there ever was a one-night stand? He read a diary I kept nearly 20 years ago. He read that diary 11 years ago but kept quiet about it. Till he read a diary I kept for about a week in September before he took it out of my handbag, read it, and made photocopies of it. I wrote private things that I never wanted anyone to read. I was trying to organise my thoughts and feelings, hoping against hope that I would "come to my senses" about staying in my marriage. More fool I for writing them down.

Hubby bragged to his friend that he would destroy me. He emailed my parents to say they would never see their grandchildren again because he had no intention of ever going on holiday to the US again (did he think I wouldn't take the kids to see their grandparents?). My mother had chest pains all night after reading that. He told Daughter he was going to take her and her brother on a Caribbean holiday, then told her "the lawyers" said he couldn't do it till the divorce was final. I don't know who "the lawyers" were, but my lawyer never said a word about it and I doubt his did either.

Sometimes marriages break down and the people involved don't have a clue why until the divorce proceedings start and it gets down and dirty. And that's what has happened in my case. I realise now that my marriage was in trouble before I even started this blog. It was in trouble before it even started. Hubby lied and I chose to believe his lies. I lied too, to myself mostly, because I didn't want to admit to myself that I'd given up so much for such an unsatisfactory relationship. I used to believe that we could tell each other anything, but the truth is we never told each other much of anything at all. For example, Hubby had a MAN problem that I didn't even know about. He went to the dr. and told me later that it was for something else. I think the dr. gave him some blue pills, which I think he took the night before he discovered the infamous draft email. I think that's why he reacted so extremely bad. I think all of his behaviour since then has been a result of his hurt manhood.

I can understand being hurt and being angry. But vowing to "destroy" me? Involving my family and telling them they won't see their grandchildren again? Lying to me and about me? That's just downright cruel. I didn't set out to deliberately hurt him or destroy him. I should feel guilty. But I don't. I did feel enormously bad for the kids, but after Christmas -- when I tried so hard to make it as pleasant as possible and they tried equally hard to hurt me -- I didn't feel so bad about them anymore. After all, I haven't run off with another man. I'm still here living in an extremely difficult situation. I still wash their clothes, cook their meals, give them money, take them places. I'm the same mother I was. I just don't love their father anymore. They don't know how hateful he's been to me. And I won't tell them either.

So here I am at 50, about to be single again and a lot poorer. Unable so far to find employment. I should be scared, so scared I don't want to leave my marriage. But I'm not. Instead, I'm excited by my pending independence. My mother has warned me that some of my friends might dump me along the way. Let them. If they do, they weren't very good friends in the first place and I'm better off not having to carry that baggage around.