Tonight, as with many other nights too numerous to count, I’ve hurt myself and should have known better. I looked at Homewrecker’s FB page. I’ve tried to figure out the root of this masochism, and really, it just boils down to wanting some kind of answers. I search and seek and look and ponder, all in order to get the explanation that I was denied. It’s like someone endlessly searching for a family member in the mangled wreckage left by a tidal wave. When does search and rescue become a recovery mission? How does one decide that kind of thing, exactly? Would I yell and scratch and claw at those around me telling me that the search has to be called off? Or would I go back at every waking hour, trying to negotiate with God as I searched for some sign, any sign of that which was most precious to me?

And Honey is blissfully ignorant, unaware of my heart’s frantic search for something I know to be long gone. And Homewrecker? Well, let’s just say she’s ignorant, but not to my pain. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, this woman is shameless. She not only has no repentance for her part in the destruction of my family, she revels in torturing me. And like a moth to a flame, I go back for more. I can’t not look. I’ve tried. I can go long periods of time without looking. Then, curiosity gets the better of me. And without fail, every time that I do, I’m left speechless and shocked and enraged. She isn’t just shameless, she’s a walking contradiction. A dichotomy of dueling intents, a hypocrite of the highest order, and a shameless narcissist. Just like Honey.

She regularly posts crap about hating cheaters. Yes. You heard me. Daily. Memes, phrases, daily affirmations, you name it. She hates ‘them’, because last year she was engaged to someone that cheated on her, and they broke up. So…either she doesn’t understand that she is AGAIN engaged to a cheater, and that she is herself one, or…she knows and doesn’t care, because she really only hates cheaters that cheat on HER. Yep. Pretty sure it’s that one.

Tonight, however, wasn’t yet another meme espousing moral fortitude, or wanting ‘God to take an inch from his dick every time he cheats’. Nope, tonight was the picture I knew I’d be seeing sooner or later. It was a picture of him with his new family. There he sits in the car, a giant smile on his face, with her 2 kids right behind him in the backseat making silly faces. It’s captioned ‘Priceless’. Oh, no, Homewrecker. There’s a price. A very dear price has been extracted that you could never afford to repay.

Deep breath, shaking my head with my eyes closed…I can’t process this level of pain. It’s beyond my pay grade.

I know people in my position often turn to drinking or drugs or sex to escape their life and to deaden the pain. I can’t do any of that, nor would I if I could. But I guess I can see the appeal. It’s escapism. It’s going numb to this very thing I’m feeling right now. And God knows I desperately need to be numb to this. But I’m a mom, and I’m all these kids have now. Every choice I make to be selfish will effect them. Honey’s done the easy thing, and run toward a life of selfishness. And because he made the easy choice, I now have to make every hard choice. I have to be the grown up. Hell, I have to be two. So, I’m either working at my job, or training for a 5K late each night, or doing my schoolwork whenever I’m alone (which is…when?), or taking Little Man to his therapy appointments, or I’m engrossed in 24/7 childcare and all that that entails, such as cooking/cleaning/laundering/sorting/entertaining/teaching/soothing/organizing/emptying/washing/bathing endlessly until I fall into sleep like I’ve taken a blow dart to the neck. Not a whole bunch of time for selfish pursuits, like shopping for a bra. Or taking a shower. You know. Those selfish things.

So, I’m in school now to get my bachelor’s degree. I just started 7 weeks ago. It’s all online, and it’s extremely time consuming, and it will be for the next 3 years. Child support is a myth. It’s not to be relied upon. He could marry her and have a new baby and our support would dry up to next to nothing. I am in school because I have to get my degree and get a well paying career in place…because if I couldn’t count on him in marriage, what the hell makes me think I can count on him in divorce?

So to see Honey with Homewrecker’s kids smiling…stuck forever in time in some fun moment they were undoubtedly sharing…makes me want to hurl my laptop across the room, shattering as many decorative breakables as humanly possible. I whisper ‘What about OUR kids, Honey? What about OUR family?’ But it gets lost in the tide of rage building in the back of my throat.

And no one is going to answer me anyway. Not now, not ever.

I just get to echo these haunting questions to the ether for the rest of my days, and try like hell to not let the rage and pain take over in an all-consuming blaze. Wow, that sounds like a fun way to spend the rest of my life. And here I foolishly thought I’d be laughing and holding Honey’s hand as we watched Baby Girl in her first play. That I’d get to revel in the moments I’d worked so hard to have kids for while watching Honey beam with pride at her performance. Little Man leaning into the warmth of Honey’s shoulder, half-asleep after the show, secure in the knowledge that Honey would never drop him. I see it all in a broken heap, along with all of the other things we lost in the tsunami. The bent and mangled wreckage of my beautiful family juxtaposed against the smiling faces I saw tonight on Homewrecker’s FB page. It’s too much, God. It’s just way, way too much.

How differently I see my life now. How cold it looks from here, devoid of my beloved’s gentle touch. Devoid of his presence for the 10 million things, large and small, that comprise a lifetime. Devoid of the the warmth that only our intact family could bring.

And it’s all so utterly wrong. How is it that I’m the only person that gets that here? You have 2 of the cutest, sweetest kids you could ever hope to be blessed with, and a wife that you get along with beautifully and who loves you to death…and yet you lie, cheat, and bail. You move to the other side of the country. And you have a replacement woman and replacement family in place before I even know we’re dead in the water. And then I think, what if Little Man saw that picture? Would his little mind understand why his daddy is being a daddy to those other kids, but not to him? The cruelty of it is unbearable. And on behalf of my broken heart, and the broken hearts of our lovely, innocent children, I say to Honey…

…you are a disgrace.