Greetings, Dear Readers! Long time no babble about my life to the ether. If you are somehow still here, may I just tell you that things are so much better in our lives? Well, aside from the whole pesky earth-wide virus that’s decimating everything. Cept for that. For those of you freshly out of abandonment or betrayal or both, take heart. Things do get better, because time acts as a salve in a way nothing else can. It doesn’t take away the injustice you were handed, but it makes peace with it. Buys it a cup of coffee. Put another way, grief from abandonment is kind of like a toddler constantly knocking at the bathroom door while you’re just trying to get a minute’s peace. But with time that toddler grows up and eventually he’s off quietly reading a book and you can actually have a BATH if you want one. The pain eventually stops knocking. 

In our little lockdown world, some things are very difficult for us while others are massively improved. Yes, Honey still Skypes, and yes, he is still as obtuse as ever and hasn’t come to visit his kids in 6 years. Whew. 6 years. That is completely insane to me. In fact, what’s even more insane is that the 7 year anniversary of the night of 1,000 horrors is coming up, and I really don’t care. I don’t want to acknowledge the day in any way because I don’t want to give it permission to have power over me anymore. Healing looks different for everyone, but I think my yardstick has come in the form of releasing control of the Skype calls. I don’t hold the camera, and I leave the room and I close my door so I can’t even hear their conversation. I don’t feel pain or trauma or want to know what he’s saying to them anymore. I simply do not care. If that’s not healing, I don’t know what is.

I’m not perfect. I occasionally let the cheese slip off my healing cracker, and yesterday is a perfect example of that. I haven’t looked at either of their FB pages in…years? Maybe not that long but it’s been a really long time. I don’t know what prompted me, other than I’m in the middle of writing my first book and there’s an element of betrayal in the story that made me think of H and HW. My curiosity got the better of me and I thought, what’s the harm in looking? They don’t hold sway over me anymore. I thought I could mentally handle it. (cue head shake here)

Ok, there’s the family pictures of them their two young kids, no surprise there. Yep, and there’s the metric ton of sex kitten duck-faced HomeWrecker selfies with sparkly filters. **Gags softly to myself** Also no surprise. Nothing unusual happening to me on the emotional Richter scale, so let’s keep going. I scrolled a bit farther, and suddenly my eyes landed on this post. It didn’t appear to be shared or written by someone else, because it sure seems to be penned in all her grammar-be-damned glory…

My issue with this is not that I think she’s wrong, it’s that she’s the one saying it. Of all the people on this earth to be saying this, it’s the person who by her own admission encouraged a married man to leave his wife and toddlers thousands of miles back in his rear-view mirror. Repeatedly. For that reason, I must shred this to fine confetti. I cannot help it. It is my jam.

(If I were a man) I’d be able to get a female pregnant and leave her for another woman that doesn’t have kids.

OMG small world! Your astute observation that this CAN be done is in fact what WAS done. By the two of you. To me. I was the one with new babies, and you were the woman without kids. It helps when you push him, like writing him email after email saying ‘you don’t love her, you love me! Put up a fucking fight for what you love! Oh, you agreed to go to counseling with her! Fine! Tell her she won! I’m done with you! Wait, are you still there? I think I’m pregnant kinda! Move here!! I love you!! #gentleencouragement #nothingsaystruelovelikefakingapregnancy

(If I were a man) I’d be able to put all my responsibilities on hold and live life.

Or in Honey’s case, he just straight up walked out on all the responsibilities of one life and glided easily into another life with you. You made that possible. He left and drove away, and dumped all the heavy lifting onto the woman he destroyed. Chivalrous, right? A prince of a guy. Leaving the marriage ethically or trying to work on whatever his (newly invented) problems were with me? Didn’t even occur to him. What do you care that he left his dirty clothes and hot coffee on the counter and his toddlers on the floor climbing around his sobbing wife? You told me in a message that you knew about me and the kids, but ignored all of that anyway. You made it possible for him to not have to face any discomfort whatsoever. He never had to comfort a crying child or pack a box or move children cross country to seek help from family or rebuild a firebombed life, because you just left the door open and he hung his hat in a new place and that was that. #disgraceful  

(If I were a man) I could just throw my work boots on the ground and turn on the game.

Oof! Been there, done that my feminist sister. Honey was not…he didn’t…he never…hmmm. How can I put this as kindly as possible without being cruel? Ummm, ok got it. Honey never did anything of his own volition with regard to the care of his physical surroundings, ever. I paid the bills, washed the clothes, cleaned the house, took care of the kids, cooked the meals, and when he could see I was about to pass out from exhaustion or break down crying, he would occasionally perform a chore when directly asked to do so. Otherwise, he wanted his eyes to be fixed upon the box of light that told him stories and showed him sports. I thought I was being a good wife, but in reality, I was just being a good chump. I should have demanded a reciprocal partnership, but Honey always got defensive as though I was mothering him when I did. #loseloselosescenario

“Mom I dont feel good”..check temp. Get fever reducer. Stay up all night checking to make the fever doesn’t return. Clean up puke. Cold wash rags.

I don’t even know how to begin to calculate how many nights I spent like this while my partner was off secretly partying with you. Nor can I come up with a sufficient sum total of the nights like I had like this after he just walked out on his life to be with you. Oh, and unlike a normal divorce (if there is such a thing) I have had zero co-parenting in 7 years to help with ANY aspect of life. I’m so sorry to hear you are experiencing that with a partner sleeping nearby who could run to the pharmacy, or stay home with the other one while you run one to the ER, let you sleep in the next day. I have had none of the things our marriage vows promised me. #sorrynotsorry

Get a job, but can only work these hours because of school. Lose Job because the kids had to stay home because they were sick. cant afford a baby sitter.

In an email a couple years back, you felt you were owed some explanation about why I wasn’t working full time, and questioned why I’d chosen to live in such an expensive state when that meant Honey would have to pay higher child support. The kids were 6 and 4 at the time you wrote that. I believe you said I should be able to work full time because they should either be in school or daycare by now because they’re ‘of age’. You simply couldn’t understand why this wasn’t happening. Allow me to explain myself to the last human being on earth deserving of that explanation. Somehow I found a part time job that I could earn good money at and that worked with my kid’s school schedule and sick days. I’ve kept that job and those hours for years now, which has allowed me to care for my kids, get them into sports after school, and generally be the one raising them. And now, during Covid, I’ve been able to do that job from home so I can help my children with distance learning and still put food on the table. As far as moving to an inconveniently expensive state, I can only say that I guess when people are in dire need they go to where help is. In my case, that meant my family in California. Many apologies that I don’t work full time or live somewhere that may cost less in child support but where I have no family to help me with the children he abandoned. It seems like the difficulties of holding down a job when you have to care for kids is suddenly not lost on you, even if everything else is. #yourempathychipismissing #honeyowes$50,000inunpaidchildsupport

Take a nice hot bath and relax for me time. Kids banging on door or walking in because they are fighting over a sucker they found under the couch from their halloween party 2 months ago.

Yay! I love toddler analogies! (see paragraph 1). On an unrelated but quasi-related note, I have a memory of a past Halloween I’d like to share. Honey had left us several months prior and I was living in the guest rooms of my mom’s house, everything I’d owned in boxes all around me. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating, and I spent most of my time sobbing next to giant piles of used Kleenex. Both babies were still in diapers and every minute of every day they needed of me. I had no peaceful place to process my abandonment. Each day was filled with diaper changes and crying babies and endless meal making when all I wanted to do was lie down and never get back up again. I was mourning my life, my family, and my husband. Back then I looked at FB more often, and I opened it that night to see pictures of the two of you out partying. It looked like you were at a Halloween party dressed up in cowboy and Indian costumes. You were around a bonfire in someone’s yard, clearly drunk and having a great time with friends. Honey’s face was lit up with laughter, not a care in the world. I remember being frightened by the level of rage this brought on. I’ve never been an angry person until all this happened. I was like one of those cartoon tea kettles you see on the verge of a piercing whistle, boiling over everywhere. I wanted to put my fist through glass at the sight of him off having fun and not caring that he’d left every task to his destroyed wife. That he’d just left his babies behind, who were constantly asking where he was and when he was coming back. I guess the point of all this is, if you’re trying to evoke pity that you can’t get peace because your children interrupt your ‘me time’ when you have a spouse that can watch them, keep driving. #nopity #youreapwhatyousow

I’ve sat and thought about this and I just dont understand it. I cant just walk away because I have little lives that rely on me. Women have the most responsibility of all. Men can come and go as they please.

I don’t understand it either, sister. #abandonmentenabler.

They have a cook, a maid, a therapist, a sex toy, a nanny, a good woman at home that does all she can for her family while they get to live life.

Yes, he had all that with me, but you were shinier and newer and indulged his sexual proclivities and didn’t have baby puke in your hair. You wrote to him and told him he deserved to have what you considered to be ‘real love’ with you. No, sis. Real love is a VERB. It’s an action word. It stays through the hard times, the moving out of state emotionally tough times, the post-partum depression times, and the generally unsexy times…like right after you have his babies. I suppose when people like you encourage entitled cheaters to ‘follow their heart’, the unfortunate byproducts of children losing access to their parent and my destroyed heart just aren’t your problem. #thehypocrisylevelisjusttoodamnhigh

Men want to throw attitude about having to watch the kids so the women can go have an hour or two to themselves. That does not sit right with me.

For once you’re right, H Dubs. That should not sit right with you, because it sounds like your pleasant-as-punch husband is finally starting to let the mask slip and you’re glimpsing the flaming narcissist I met at the end of my marriage. Welcome to the joys of learning you are married to a selfish jackass whose been wearing a harmless nice guy suit.

This also brings to mind a horrific memory I carry from the morning after the night of 1,000 horrors. I’d only slept for like an hour. I was trembling and traumatized, and thought I might to lose it. I told him I needed to get out of the house for a while. Before I left, I said ‘Hey, I’m not going over to your parents house to ‘tattle’ on you, I just need some perspective, and these are the only people I know within 1,000 miles of here.’ And that’s when it happened. He said ‘You’re just going to leave me here with both these kids?’ (he also went on to do far worse, you can read about it here: ) I’d been their 24 hour a day caretaker for the 5 months he’d worked on the road. I had no friends because we’d just moved there. I’d had not one ‘moment to myself’ in that entire time. Not to mention, they’re HIS EFFING KIDS. The way he phrased it was so obtuse, like they were strangers. So of course, in my destroyed state of shock, I offered to take the baby with me and just leave him with little man. Always the good wife. Enjoy being married to that, H Dubs! #karma

For all you single fathers out there. You understand exactly what I am saying..you know exactly where I’m coming from. It’s hard. You can vouche for us mamas. I thank you men for doing the work that a female does and fighting the battles that a female fights in everyday life.

You aren’t a single mom. You aren’t an oppressed woman. You aren’t even a representative of normal human beings. You have agency; you made your choices, now deal with them. I don’t really know fully what you are, but I do know this: you are nosedeaf and wildly hypocritical, and everything you are experiencing is a natural byproduct of your terrible behavior and treatment of others. #youareNOTthevictim

Here’s the hardest truth to take away from all of this: people like H Dubs don’t change. People like Honey don’t change. They will remain blind to their flaming hypocrisy, even when it’s slapping them in the face. If you’re waiting around for a character transplant, don’t. If you’re expecting some other behavior that would redeem them to be the person you once believed them to be, don’t. The hardest truth is that all we can do is keep on heading down the road to our own healing, to the place of MEH, and we shouldn’t be the ones to derail our own healing just because we wanted to take a peek at the trainwreck. Let me be your example of what not to do. It would be my honor to serve as your cautionary tale! Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.

Move on. Heal well. Head high…you can get there. Just don’t look back. That’s the hardest truth.