Day Four: Healing Through Divorce

Let’s have a little more back story to my husband and our marriage and then I’ll get to the realization I had today…

My husband and I were together for 5 years when we were younger. We had our daughter, he proposed, and he left when she was about 15-18 months old. He cheated on me. He decided he didn’t want to get married, didn’t want a wife or a family or have that life yet. He was only 19, I was 20.

I. Was. Broken.

He was married 3 weeks later. Yes, you read that right. THREE. WEEKS. LATER. He dropped off the face of the planet (how we reconnected was in day 2 or 3, now I can’t remember) for about 3 years. Him and his wife had a daughter also. He reached out to me and asked if I’d meet him for dinner to talk about Isabelle. I agreed. He said he wanted to be part of her life and I said he could IF he was consistent. So he would text me regularly to ask how she was or try and call her. It’s hard to have a conversation with a 4 year old, I get it. He asked me one day if I’d meet him somewhere with her so they could play and spend time together, knowing I wouldn’t let him take her alone. We went to a mall that had a play land thing and he ran around with her and played and she had a great time. He came back to our house for a little bit to spend a little more time with her before going home. She fell asleep and I assumed he would leave.

Instead, he started apologizing for what he had done, leaving her, leaving me and generally just how he went about it. Then came the “I miss you” line. He said his wife was horrible (which she actually is, I know her personally), and he’s so unhappy in his marriage and he wants a divorce. So he’s telling me how much he misses me and tries to cuddle up next to me on the couch and uses all his charm to try and suck me back in. I have morals though. I know that God won’t send me someone else’s husband. I got up, opened my front door and told him to leave. I WILL NOT be the “other woman” in your story. He left and we didn’t see him again until she was 8 and we reconnected and ended up getting married.

He did end up divorcing his wife. He cheated on her and had daughter #3 (my beautiful bonus daughter). While she was pregnant with my bonus daughter, he had an affair. She kicked him out and took him back. He proceeded to do this to her 2 more times. She made him leave for good after the 3rd time. One of the girls he had an affair with also got pregnant, but she had an abortion. Had I known he had cheated on her also, I never would have taken him back. I just didn’t know about any of this until this past weekend.

How we connected is in day 2 or 3, but HOW did the feelings come back? He love bombed me. He said all the right things. He did all the right things. He made simple promises he knew he could keep for a while. He’s a classic narcissist. Slowly over the last 6 years of our relationship, he started to flip the script. If I would get upset about something, he would turn it around and make it my fault. I was crazy. I was over reacting. “I only responded this way because you…” (insert whatever you need to here, I’m sure you’ve heard the same line). But at this point, I was so madly in love and so deeply attached, that I believed it! I believed I was the problem.

So, my realization: Trauma bonding is real. Trauma. Bonding. Is. Real. I don’t love my husband. I love the lies he made me believe. I love the person he PRETENDED to be for the last 6 years. It’s hard to let go of someone that you have that trauma bond to. It’s incredibly painful. But it’s also okay to grieve. It’s okay to ugly cry. It’s okay to scream. It’s okay to process this any way that YOU need to.

He keeps texting me during the day asking for random things. Usually our joint checking account balance. Then he asked me to borrow 1k because he moves into his apartment tomorrow and he has to get utilities turned on and get groceries and pay the deposit. Wait… So… you want your WIFE who you CHOSE to leave to HELP YOU walk away from your family…? Y’all, it’s the audacity for me…

I was okay for the most part all day. Sure, I cried a few times randomly. I had incredibly high anxiety again. But the tears didn’t last long. And then I absolutely lost it after dinner. I sobbed for a solid 30 minutes. Like inconsolable, half a box of tissues, loud, ugly cry. Levi came and laid down beside me in my bed and put his arm around me, which made me cry even harder. And Jelly Roll’s new song definitely didn’t help (I Am Not Okay – totally check it out, it’s actually really good).

So my point – he’s a serial cheater. My bonus daughter’s mom calls him a “hobo-sexual” – he only loves you for a place to live until he gets bored and moves on. He’s literally NEVER been single since he started dating me at 16. He moves from woman to woman. Being charming and an ENTIRE smoke show (and he KNOWS he’s friggin hot) and love bombing and doing/saying all the right things. As much as I love him, I need to remind myself it’s not HIM I love. It’s the lies he made me believe that I actually love. He isn’t any of the things he made me believe. But trauma bonds are real. And they’re strong. He’s only texting me daily to keep me at a distance, yet not lose me completely so he can repeat this cycle with me. Only I won’t let him. I need to protect my peace. As painful as it is right now, ya girl is DONE.

I still can’t take off my ring. But here’s to getting through day 4.