by Band Back Together | Nov 9, 2010 | Anger, Blended Families, Breakups, Coping With Divorce, Divorce, Emotional Abuse, Infidelity, Marriage and Partnership, Marriage Problems, Psychological Manipulation, Suicide |
Fourteen years ago, I was a carefree college student. I was content with life, was climbing the proverbial ladder as if there were no obstacles in my way, but I longed to be in a relationship. I spent much of my time kissing frogs and drinking far more than my share of tequila. Six months later, I found you.
I should have seen the warning signs early on in the relationship, but I forged ahead. Six months turned into a year. One year turned into five. And by our seventh year together, we had a child, a mortgage and a blended family of sorts. A yours & ours. I was happy, the kids were happy. You were not, and you had an affair.
Again, I should have seen the signs. We argued, I fought for the relationship, you blamed me for the affair. We worked through “our” issues, I thought.
We added a child, lost family members, added a house and then the ugly monster reared it’s head. You were not happy again. And again it was my fault. There was no affair – just a threat of suicide. I talked you out of it. I thought we worked through “our” issues and we forged ahead.
Eight months later, you were unhappy again, you were suicidal again.
And again you felt it was my fault.
You came home because you had no where else to go, but you tricked me into thinking that you wanted to be here. You insisted you wanted a “normal family”. But when push came to shove, you finally admitted that you really never wanted to come home, never wanted to be with me, you just had no where else to go, no job, and no family.
So you have decided that you are done with me, you don’t want to have the “stress” of owning a house (or two). You say you want nothing, but refuse to leave until your “name is off the house”. You say you need no one, and that you can do it all on your own. Yet we all know you are wrong. You know you are wrong.
Your anger and your blame has nothing to do with me. It has to do with whatever it is that you are hiding from. You need to find help, we need you to find help.
Help doesn’t mean you have to stay with me and your family. Help means fixing you, and whatever it is that is making you unhappy. Because fixing you is fixing our children. Because when you are broken, it breaks them.
You deciding that we are not going to be “us” anymore is probably the best decision you have made for all of us. Because I can no longer take the blame for your shortcomings and insecurities. I have my own, and I need to be the best example I can be for our children. I know I am not strong enough to leave you on my own and I still want to “fix” you/us.
So while you waver in the wind and deny you need help, I’m going to get help for myself, my children and my own well being. I will seek out legal advise and I will seek out counseling for me and for our children. I will find my way from here.
But, I hope someday you will realize how much you are loved, how much you have hurt us and how badly you need to be fixed. I hope that you make the choice of life and that you realize your kids need you, not a “replacement daddy”, as you like to say. I hope you that you make the choice to fix you, so that they too can be fixed.
by Band Back Together | Nov 9, 2010 | Anger, Blended Families, Breakups, Coping With Divorce, Divorce, Emotional Abuse, Infidelity, Psychological Manipulation, Suicide |
Fourteen years ago, I was a carefree college student. I was content with life, was climbing the proverbial ladder as if there were no obstacles in my way, but I longed to be in a relationship. I spent much of my time kissing frogs and drinking far more than my share of tequila. Six months later, I found you.
I should have seen the warning signs early on in the relationship, but I forged ahead. Six months turned into a year. One year turned into five. And by our seventh year together, we had a child, a mortgage and a blended family of sorts. A yours & ours. I was happy, the kids were happy. You were not, and you had an affair.
Again, I should have seen the signs. We argued, I fought for the relationship, you blamed me for the affair. We worked through “our” issues, I thought.
We added a child, lost family members, added a house and then the ugly monster reared it’s head. You were not happy again. And again it was my fault. There was no affair – just a threat of suicide. I talked you out of it. I thought we worked through “our” issues and we forged ahead.
Eight months later, you were unhappy again, you were suicidal again. And again you felt it was my fault.
You came home because you had no where else to go, but you tricked me into thinking that you wanted to be here. You insisted you wanted a “normal family”. But when push came to shove, you finally admitted that you really never wanted to come home, never wanted to be with me, you just had no where else to go, no job and no family.
So you have decided that you are done with me, you don’t want to have the “stress” of owning a house (or two). You say you want nothing, but refuse to leave until your “name is off the house”. You say you need no one, and that you can do it all on your own. Yet we all know you are wrong. You know you are wrong.
Your anger and your blame has nothing to do with me. It has to do with whatever it is that you are hiding from. You need to find help, we need you to find help.
Help doesn’t mean you have to stay with me and your family. Help means fixing you, and whatever it is that is making you unhappy. Because fixing you is fixing our children. Because when you are broken, it breaks them.
You deciding that we are not going to be “us” anymore is probably the best decision you have made for all of us. Because I can no longer take the blame for your shortcomings and insecurities. I have my own, and I need to be the best example I can be for our children. I know I am not strong enough to leave you on my own and I still want to “fix” you/us.
So while you waver in the wind and deny you need help, I’m going to get help for myself, my children and my own well being. I will seek out legal advise and I will seek out counseling for me and for our children. I will find my way from here.
But, I hope someday you will realize how much you are loved, how much you have hurt us and how badly you need to be fixed. I hope that you make the choice of life and that you realize your kids need you, not a “replacement daddy”, as you like to say. I hope you that you make the choice to fix you, so that they too can be fixed.
by Band Back Together | Nov 9, 2010 | Anger, Bullying, Childhood Bullying, Coping With Bullying, Gender Nonconformity, How To Heal From Being Bullied, Intersexed, Transgender |
Get out! You’re a girl!”
The shout rang out from the men’s room in the Chicago airport, and I heard it all the way in the women’s room next door. My husband had taken our son, Sam, who is seven, to the bathroom between flights. It was not the first time I’d heard such a shout. I ran out with my daughter to find out what was happening to Sam.
Sam looks like a girl. Even that day—wearing khaki pants, a blue t-shirt, and grey sneakers—his long hair and pretty face trumped his boyish clothes. People inevitably think he’s a tomboy. His natural femininity makes boys in restrooms across America feel justified in screaming at him, believing that their knowledge of his gender is greater than his own, lunging, as one boy did at a New York airport, ready to strike until my husband stepped in. Kids in his own California elementary school tell him he’s in the wrong bathroom, ask him if he’s lost or stupid, and, if he stands up for himself and says he really is a boy, tell him to drop his pants and prove it.
A few years ago I read an article by New York Times writer Patricia Leigh Brown. Brown wrote about adult transgender and gender-nonconforming people who face discrimination when they try to use gendered public bathrooms. I had no idea that it would one day be relevant for my own child
by Band Back Together | Nov 3, 2010 | Bullying, Childhood Bullying, Coping With Bullying, Gay Is Okay, Gender Nonconformity, How To Heal From Being Bullied, Teen Bullying, Transgender |
This post originally appeared on my blog on October 17, 2010
A while back, I was Facebook-friended by someone with whom I’d gone to elementary school, a woman I hadn’t seen in 15 years. In that same week, I was friended by another schoolmate, a man I hadn’t seen in 25 years. I’ll call these two people, who are not Facebook friends with each other, Leia and Mork.
I was happy to be back in touch with Leia and Mork. Leia and I, and Mork and I, in separate sets of messages, chatted in the way that long-lost friends do, telling each other where we live, how many kids we have, what we do for work. We exchanged several messages. A few messages in, both Mork and Leia asked me what sort of writing I did. And so I told them, as simply as I could: I write, under a pen name, about my son, who likes to wear a dress.
And you know what? Both Leia and Mork never wrote back.
Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe the conversations just dropped off in the way conversations eventually do, and it just happened to be after I dropped the pink-bomb on each of them. Maybe they both got busy, sick, or their computers went on the fritz.
Or maybe they got freaked out.
Because people sometimes do.
I notice that the tomboy in Sam’s grade who plays on the boys’ soccer team is cool and socially in demand, while Sam doesn’t get invited to many birthday parties. Sometimes people look at us strangely when we disclose that Sam, the long-haired kid they’ve taken for a girl, is a boy. Sam’s school administration can talk eloquently about diversity and acceptance up and down, except when it comes to gender, when they get all panicky and quiet.
I make it my business to talk to as many people as I can about Sam (while being careful of his privacy and his safety), to make gender nonconformity something that gets talked about, not something swept under the rug. Because when we hide something, we make it shameful. So I open my mouth, maybe even more than I should, and occasionally I lose an audience member or two, like Leia and Mork.
But maybe the next time they hear about someone’s son who wears a dress, they’ll remember that the woman they kind of liked back in elementary school mentioned something about her son wearing a dress, and maybe that will make it a little bit more OK.
by Band Back Together | Nov 3, 2010 | Infidelity, Marriage and Partnership, Marriage Problems |
t seems like my heart and soul are always wandering. In my life I have always had guy friends. And it was always OK, except when it went too far 2 years ago.
I had become friends with a guy on Facebook, let’s call him Henry. We had some friends in common but I’d never met him in person. Henry was a blogger, and a very good one at that. I would read his blog and comment on his FB status daily. We flirted back and forth. His FB relationship status was “single” while mine was “married.” I quickly liked him.
We began chatting on FB. We would chat for hours at night. After the third night of this, my hubby noticed and got really pissed. He finally confronted me. I ‘fessed up that I had developed feelings for Henry. We began marriage counseling.
I recognized why I had strayed and was determined that it would never happen again. But in the time since this happened, I realized that I need that male presence in my life. I like to flirt.
So now I am friends with guys that are “safe.” These are guys that my husband knows or is friends with. These are guys that I don’t see alone. I don’t know what would happen if I did. Could I control myself?
I had once thought of myself as a butterfly, flitting from person to person, never finding a home. But I know where my home is, and I always come back to it.
I just hope I don’t get carried away by the wind again.
by Band Back Together | Sep 30, 2010 | Child Abuse, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Economic Abuse, Emotional Boundaries, Infidelity, Psychological Manipulation, Trust |
Once upon a time I could forgive anyone of anything.
Hell, I forgave my first husband when he tried to kill our then five month old (after he’d completed his jail time, and I’d received counseling).
My best friend had sex with my boyfriend? Everyone makes mistakes right?
My sister drained my bank account. Well, these things happen.
But I don’t want to have to forgive you.
I lived through two years of our relationship and all of the bad things that it caused me.
You left me countless times. I begged you to stay. You finally came home and asked me to marry you. I said yes. If I’d known about her then, I would have run over your foot in the driveway as I left.
We got married. I didn’t tell anyone, because no one but me seemed to understand that you HAD changed. No one supported this relationship. My own mother didn’t even find out until a few months later.
Eleven days after we got married, you went back across the country to her. You said things were too hard here. What you meant was that I wanted you to work because it wasn’t fair that I had two jobs. She could support you (or rather her daddy could). You could drink and smoke pot all night with her. I expect you to be clean and sober. Yeah, I guess I could see how that would be hard for you.
While you were gone, I lost the house. My mom took the kids back to her house because I couldn’t work 70 + hours a week and still remember how to make lunches in the morning. I cried every minute of every day, and organized a way to kill myself.
Then you called me and said that you missed me and wanted to come home. So I dropped the $350 to fly you back from Seattle. We decided to make a go of it and told the kids that you were home and everything was fine.
And everything was fine. I’d started opening my heart again, believing that you were honest with me and that you loved me and things would work out.
Until she e-mailed me… She’s pregnant. It’s yours. Your first biological child is due on my birthday. How sweet. You told me that you used protection with her. You said it was safe, that she was on the pill. You SWORE to me that she was out of our lives FOREVER. And now I find out that I have to deal with her and her spawn for the rest of my life?
You say I’m supposed to be the bigger person? How do I explain to my kids that their “dad” has a kid from another woman. Who will be born the month before our first wedding anniversary? How do I tell my son that it’s NOT okay for a man to treat a woman this way? How do I show my daughters that this is NOT what a good relationship is?
Oh that’s right… By being the bigger person and forgiving you.
Silly me, how could I forget?
