IMAGE BREAK

I just returned from a trip to New Mexico. I have a lot to say about it, but until I get my act together, here's the picture that concisely captures my feelings and experiences while out there.

RETELLING MY STORY

So I've been "healing" since my ex left. I have to admit that I have done quite a bit of it. There are times though that describing my life becomes awkward. You see, my ex and I did a lot of things together. So some of the most interesting things in my life invariably invite a discussion about him. This is how a typical discussion goes "that's awesome that you taught art to kids in South Dakota, how did you end up there?" then comes the awkward silence where I have to figure out a way of talking about my experiences without mentioning an ex-husband. So it goes something like this... "yeah this acquaintance of mine knew I painted and the group he was with was so desperate to have anyone spend time with kids doing art that they asked me to come along."

I have finally gotten used to saying "divorced" but it's difficult to practice the story about the guy who saved my life without mentioning he was my husband... and then it just becomes weird..."why would a stranger save your life?" aww..."Maybe that was your soul mate" uhmm...no. I've noticed that substituting "we" and "us" with "me" and "I" works well... now, I am learning to substitute "husband" and "ex" with "acquaintance" "colleague."

All I know is that with every divorce there should be a handbook that teaches you how to talk about your past. As I go along this journey I will continue to post rules that are helpful to me. In the meantime I'll search for a post-divorce writing/talking manual.

WHY I LOVE THE OTHER WOMAN

As I've mentioned before, my husband was a fun guy, but a total slacker. I recently came to learn that in addition to having a drinking problem, he was very likely having an affair with another woman. Everyone who suspects as much apparently hate her. I, on the other hand, am sooo thankful to her.

When my husband left, he told me that he wanted to be single and said to me "you can take care of it"..."it" meaning the divorce. Like a fool, I almost started to do the work, but folks who had seen his slacking off advised me that he should be the one taking on the work. Months passed and I became anxious wanting to start the divorce and finalize it. Nothing happened... I kept wanting to file the divorce, until one day, the divorce papers were filed... my name had been misspelled on several occasions. I originally thought it was a marker of how stressful the process was to him, but now that I know that he was very likely having an affair, it all makes sense.

She is a family law attorney, and I have a unique name. That means that no matter what happens, people misspell my name regularly...unless you've been married to me for 9 years of course. I now know that if it weren't for her drafting the documents, I might still be married to an alcoholic or I would've taken on the additional set of work which is the divorce. He would've never done it on his own. Like a sociopath he transitioned from one enabler to another. I feel bad for her, unless she can convince him to address his drinking... her future with him will be almost identical to his parents'.

Besides the workload that she saved me from, there is also a psychological benefit to me. I have felt very guilty about the prospect of his life falling into serious alcoholism and it all being my fault. But now that he has another relationship, I can sleep at night knowing that whatever happens in his life has nothing to do with me.

All in all, I am happy with the knowledge of another woman. I am thankful to her and I am liberated in my search for happiness... no survivor's guilt for me :)

SEX and FURRY

One of the things that has really bothered my friends has been my inability to be angry at my husband. I have lost so much to his decision to choose to continue to drink that I should hate him. I couldn't though, I have accomplished so much in the last nine years, I don't think I could have made those accomplishments on my own. I also felt a little guilty for giving a sick man the ability to walk away from the one thing that kept him healthy.

But now, I am am enraged. You see, I had sex, and I had sex with a man who did not have liquor on his breath. That alone reminded me of how much fun sex actually is. I had sex with a man who enjoyed watching me naked, and enjoyed my body for all that it is and for all that it isn't.

I had always been uninhibited when it came to sex, but over the years sex became a task more than a leisure activity. My ex-husband always thought I overreacted to the impact of alcohol on our sex life, but he never thought that maybe he was not being sensitive to my physical needs. I didn't mind having sex every once in a while with a guy who smelled like beer...but always? Sex is an activity best enjoyed when all five senses are pleased. For the last two years or so, sex at it's best could only be 80% of what it could be. Now I am angry at my ex. He took away sex from me and I am mad at myself for allowing him to take it away from me.

In rediscovering and reclaiming my sexuality, I am finding my furry. I guess that's a good thing. I am closer to "healing" and maybe this "process" will come to an end sooner rather than later.

THE TROUBLE WITH SEX

Since my husband moved out I have been struggling to find a suitable sexual partner. I have not been looking for romance or a relationship, just a sexual partner. I have now come to learn that being with an alcoholic really ruins your self esteem a lot. I was once someone who was relatively uninhibited and not ashamed of my body. My ex-husband loved that he didn't have to have sex only in the dark or in limited positions. We did sex well... but over time, months and years of someone never being able to have sex with you without previously having consumed alcohol can make you feel bad about yourself. I know he didn't get himself drunk to tolerate having sex with me, but that is how it felt. He would choose to be drunk instead of having sex with me. I remember begging him to come into bed with me and he just never would because he had to stay up to watch the game (code for I need to drink more).

Anyways, I now find myself in a strange place, wanting to have sex, with very attractive men who would like to have sex with me and the nightmarish fear that they'll see me naked. I don't know how to manage those conflicting feelings. In a strange twist of events though, those conflicts landed me back with the person I was sexually involved with before my husband. Our relationship had been purely physical, and I never really talked to him about anything other than sex, but his ex was also an alcholic and he seems to understand exactly what it is I am going through. He's been so kind and thoughtful... he reminds me of things he found beautiful about me... and reassures me that my husband wasn't drinking to put up with having sex with me...the thing is that I am still scared to be seen naked.

So this may be the strangest goal to accomplish before the end of the year you have ever heard, but I plan to have sex with the lights on before the end of 2011. My ex is willing to ablige... my body can't be that bad when someone still wants to have sex with me, ten years later with 30 extra lbs. Who would've thought that doing something I love to do would be so difficult. I guess that is how you know your marriage was not worth holding on to.

WHY AM I ATTRACTING THESE PEOPLE?

So I had a discussion with an old friend about his experiences post divorce. I talked about how difficult it was to find people who are single, period. He explained that his experience was different. The moment he began his divorce process lots of single younger women just kept making themselves available. To this day, he has no idea what he did, but somehow that was the group of people that were attracted to him. He advised me to be patient and to notice when a particular category of people surface, and most importantly, to stay away from them... just as young women were bad for him...whatever group I attract will be bad for me.

He was not kidding...I just figured out who my group is...they are married men. Of course I am having trouble finding single men, because the married men are just all over the place. I don't know what is going through their minds, but somehow they are attracted to me...they swoon, they seem all giddy and find random ways to touch me. Men who didn't hug before, now hug; they find ways of touching my hands and brushing against my breasts. These are men I am absolutely not interested in, but I am thankful I was warned to look out for. Now I know.

So it looks like the very first batch of men I attracted were alcoholics (three in a row), now I am attracting married men. Maybe eventually I'll be able to attract a healthy person, but that will not happen until I get healthy myself. I hope it's soon...because you can only politely dodge inappropriate touchers for so long.

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF ALL THE TIME

I look back at some of my postings that came immediately after my husband left and realize how naive I have been about this process. Since then, I have learned that this is in fact a "process" and there is no rushing it. I really thought I would be over this by now, but every once in a while I just start to cry. Because my life just wasn't getting "fixed" fast enough, I thought I was doing something wrong at which point my friends who have been divorced began to talk to me about the reality I must come to accept...this is a "process" and "it will take time". I hate those words! What is even worse, is that if I try to move things along, I will be worse off.

Since my husband left I began to work my heart out, my healthy friends were candid enough to tell me to stop it. I apparently had no sense whatsoever of what it meant to "take care of myself", which is what I was supposed to be doing post divorce. Taking care of an alcoholic took everything I had so that I had nothing left for myself and in my perverted little world "taking care of myself" meant working more. I have to say that taking care of myself has been the funnest part of the divorce, learning who I am and what truly makes me happy. It is strangely also the toughest, because it reminds me that I don't have a husband anymore. If I had a husband I wouldn't be at the ballet, I would be at a baseball game; if I had a husband, I wouldn't have the money to pay for the massage.

Because I worked my heart out initially, I put off feeling "feelings" which just came one day in a panic attack as I prepared to go on a trip. I had never had a panic attack before. That's when I learned that my friends weren't joking, I can't rush this.

As each day goes by and as I engage in different activities, the absence of my husband becomes less and less apparent. I've learned though that living with myself and taking care of myself takes practice. I've learned that I can have fun on my own and that I am a person on my own. I just don't know when or how I forgot this. I guess once you forget you are a person, you forget how to take care of that person.
Well, I hope you learn from my mistakes, always take care of yourself. If you're finding that you are in a relationship where you put off taking care of yourself, it probably means something needs to be revisited. If you don't revisit, you'll end up like me trying to learn what it means to take care of yourself after the divorce...instead of alongside someone who loves you.