I got a book at the library last week that I've read reviews of in several magazines and newspapers. It's called Perfection, by Julie Metz. It's about this woman whose husband dies and she finds out after he's dead that he's had affairs with 5 other women, one of them a friend. He is basically a pig. Originally, before I actually read the book, I thought they'd had this perfect storybook marriage and all she found out after was a total shock. I think she was shocked (I think it would be hard not to be shocked, even if you KNEW your husband was a pig) but their marriage was far from idyllic. He was a jerk.....and he is sometimes eerily similar to another jerk I know.
The end is coming very near here, with MY jerk. I despise him at times, tolerate him at others. I really think he'd go on like this forever just to maintain the status quo. So it's really up to me. There are days I come THIS CLOSE to saying "I don't want to be here anymore" but I think about my girls and it just about kills me. I know it's inevitable....logically I know what I have to do and I know what has to happen. But the whole thing still makes my heart hurt.
Oddly though....I DO feel better. Life is so much different now that I am not wanting to stay together. I'm not hopeful, only to have my hopes dashed each and every time. I don't give any more chances....because I've given too many as it is and he doesn't deserve anymore. Ever. I don't spend my life wondering anymore, or searching, or verifying, or ANYTHING.
One really really good thing: I haven't had a cigarette in 4 weeks. It will be 4 weeks tomorrow. Before that, I'd smoked since March 2007, so almost 2 years. Not a ton on a daily basis, but every single day I'd say "today is the day I'm quitting". But I wouldn't quit. Then I'd be disgusted with myself. My last one was on Dec 18th. I never smoked over the weekends anyway, and I was working the following Tuesday - with a friend who would KILL me if she smelled smoke on me, then on Wednesday the girls would be home for Christmas break. My only chance would have been Monday and I decided it wasn't even worth it for just one day. So I gave them up. The girls have been back in school two weeks and I've had ample opportunity to smoke but I haven't. I think I finally passed that point where the benefits of not smoking meant more to me than the fix. I think if I could have one without getting hooked again I probably would. But I don't think that's possible. At least not for a long long time.
2 comments:
Congrats on not smoking. Feel free to read my private blog:
http://www.kristi-keepingitreal.blogspot.com/
I know when I'm helping people with their marital issues, I'm always wondering which jerk behaviors suggest infidelity is lurking behind the curtain. I'd like to read the book. I take it, it's a memoir?
You've done your kids a wonderful service by keeping things as stable as possible, for as long as you have. Maybe the thing to do, now, is focus on how your kids will benefit from your new life. That you will be giving them the chance to see how strong you are, how independent a woman can be when she needs to be, and how a wife doesn't need to allow herself to be treated in jerkful ways. She can make a new life for herself and her kids. She can engage in healthier relationships and her kids get to see this. Because kids can and do grow up healthier when they no longer have to watch their parents in an unhappy marriage. At least this is what I hear from adults whose parents divorced - they were glad to escape the tension - as well as kids whose parents never did divorce - they wish they had.
Congrats on quitting smoking! Big kudos to you!
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