~How Does Your Garden Grow~

What you love my flower garden? What kind of fertilizer do I use, you ask?

“Well, Well, Well”, stutters with my words in search for a response.

This is where I need to back this story up.

It’s 2010. I have been married to the same wonderful, good looking, hard working, charming, loving man for years, Oops I’m dreaming again, (wakes up from her fairy tale) Reality hits.

I am really now married to a stranger. A man who sometimes resembles the man I married but most days not so much. I like to believe (imagine) he aka the anti-christ, aka my husband has been abducted by aliens and they have replaced him with this negative, not so charming, often mean, asshole who now lives in my home.

The days are long and the nights are even longer. I find refuge in my kids and the couch. How did I, a smart, confident beautiful woman, marry such a man. Is this karma, biting me in the ASS for all I have done in my past or too others? Ponders this often. Anyway,  I am unhappily married. miserable to be honest, but making the best of it. I’m staying for the kids, I’m staying because I made a vow in front of god and family, I’m staying because that is what I do. I stick with something. Okay that’s all bullshit. I stay because it’s easy, leaving and starting over seems hard, overwhelming, down right terrifying to be honest. I stay because I choose to be comfortable over content and happy.

I start finding it easy to stay out (late) while out with friends, I find comfort in booze and men. I am making myself more and more miserable by the moment. not only am I married to the anti-christ, but I am now becoming someone, something I don’t even recognize. It’s time to make a stand, it’s time to leave. I can do this!

I tell the anti-christ I want a divorce, he laughs in my face. Literally, he laughs in my face. He proceeds to list off reasons I will never make it on my own and, and and. I hang my head low and walk away, shamefully. What was I thinking, I need this man, I need this life, I need my kids, I need this car, I need this PTA position. I need this, wait I don’t need this. No one needs/deserves/wants this kind of life. This is not happily ever after. This is not where this story is going to end, but I don’t leave, not yet.

My life is already dismal at this point. I have been sleeping on the couch for years, I have intimate moments when I am either completey drunk or on Ambien, is/was the sex bad, absolutely not, but sex with my husband makes me feel dirty, used and yukky. It is one of loneliest, degrading things you can ever feel, its like having sex with a stranger.

Wait I found solitude in strangers, sad and pathetic, I know, but it is what it is/was. A stranger says nice things, builds your ego and shows you a little attention, affection, what girl doesn’t want that. So it became almost an addiction. I went out more often looking for attention. Did it lead to sex always, absolutely not. But this is/was not a healthy way to live, or be.  I am the mother of 3 kids, how would this look? (Drinking, partying, staying out late) I for sure will not be invited to mom’s nights, morning coffee, to chaperone any upcoming school events and/or get an invite to the next PTA meeting *shrugs*.

Society has judged me as the cheater, the bad wife, ( i hear the whispers and see pointed fingers) what do they know of the life I live, what do they know of anything? Oh wait, Because I like so many others, paint my life to be picturesque, I make excuses for bad behavior or actions by my husband. I make excuses for almost everything and anything that doesn’t seem rainbow and unicorny. Now mind you, the anti-christ seems perfect to everyone on the outside. A man providing, a father, a brother, a son, a friend to a few, and yeah he is all those things, but there is so much more to this man, and not all of it so good.

Well the days are becoming almost unbearable, the fighting is at an all time high, this is not healthy for anyone involved. The putting me down is constant and I return with like minded immature behavior. I am truly at wits end. I can’t take much more. I need an out and I need it now. I lay awake on the couch thinking of ways out of this. Why does divorce not sound like an option, why am I brainwashed thinking this man is MY only way of  life, the only way that tomorrow will come. Tons of women get a divorce, tons of women don’t put up with an unhappy life, an unhappy existence. Tomorrow is the day, the day I will free myself, my kids, and him even, from this nightmare, this marriage,  this life.

I wake up early, I put on my happy face, I should have an academy award by now, from the acting and from putting on the “happy face”.  I decide I am going to write the anti-christ, as I have always been a writer. I find peace and ease in putting pencil to paper or this time I’m just too afraid he will interrupt me during my Dear Fuck You, I’m leaving letter or list off once again reasons why I cant live without him. I am determined, today is the day. So I sign the letter and send it, of course via Facebook and email and I wait. As I know there will be a reply. Something demeaning of course. Waits……..Still waiting. Okay no reply, Now I’m overly anxious, nervous and my anxiety is almost at panic mode. It is not like the anti-christ to not lash back. I feel like puking. I am crawling out of my own skin with anticipation for the fight I know will happen the moment he walks through the door.

4pm comes and the anti-christ pulls in the driveway, I take a deep breath and I am ready. I am ready to end this marriage. I am ready to start a new life. He comes in and acts nice, really he acts nice. I am thinking wtf, did I send it to the wrong email, the wrong Facebook? Runs to the computer to double check, Nope, it was sent to him. He offers to make dinner as he often does. I want to confront him, I now want to lash out, “Get out” I want to scream, “I hate you” I want to scream. “Why are you being nice” I want to scream, but instead quietly I am like did you get my email. He looks at me and says, “Yes and you are so dumb, I’m not leaving, I’m not going anywhere”.

So, a friend comes over a few months later for some mid morning coffee and is adoring my beautiful flower garden, she is really curious to what I’m using for fertilizer.

Did I mention I am single!

 

Sidenote: Before I used my (ex to be) as fertilizer I will say, there was GOOD years, and 3 AMAZING kids and YES in case he reads this the sex was good (early years)  When you were still nice, LoL. But as some fairy tales end, so did mine. As for the anti christ, well I try to maintain a friendship with him, okay, we try to raise our two teenage daughters as adult “like” as we can and remember there are 3 sides to a story, his, hers and the truth. As I am sure I am the “demon woman” to him, if he was writing the story and I’d be in the trunk of his car vs him in my garden.

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