Monday May 2008 

When I came to write this today I was shocked at how long ago it had been since I last wrote in it. Now I am even more shocked when I realise I have been writing it for nearly a year!

I don’t feel the need to write everything down, word for word anymore. I don’t always feel like writing in this journal. In fact I have been so happy I have almost felt afraid of writing in it, of bringing everything back. But I have come to realise, over the last couple of days that it has not fully gone away. Never will. Time will ease it but it won’t ever go away completely.

I have felt weird over the past week I suppose. Nothing I can put my finger on, other than time is kicking in and things are changing without any effort or control on my part.

I am happy. I have had a fantastic holiday in France, at a time when it should have been awful. I learnt how terribly bullied Danny was when he was younger( thanks to Mandy) and what I have realised, as a result of our conversations was that Danny wasn’t leaving me, he was running away, the only thing he has been taught to do.

I gave Danny a ‘bye’ in France, and promised that if he told me the truth I would not leave as a result of it.

The Truth:

Danny never met ‘her’ in the October before ‘The War’  at ‘her’ brother’s house. He told me that because that is what ‘she’ put on the divorce papers, he was so terrified I would see them so he made up a lie! That was what he had told the counsellor that was what the counsellor told him to not tell me the truth about. I did not need to know. But that just led to Danny telling one lie after another and digging deeper and deeper hole – running away again!

At first I was elated, that it had been proved to me that I could not have got it so wrong, But I have also come to realise how different Danny and I are; always have been. I have just read my first entry in this journal, today a year later: when I said that I did not know Danny at all; and the answer to that is ‘no’ I didn’t!

All these years and I never realised how afraid Danny is of everything. I can look back and see so many instances of it over the past ten years; I am so me again! And so not like Danny, and it makes me wonder what I was doing here in the first place. It makes me wonder if I can ever have any respect for Danny. I can now see what everybody else could see, he was an arsehole and not good enough for me. I am now sad, but in a resigned sort of way, not in an all-consuming way anymore.

I asked myself a question – What is the most important thing that I would like to keep in the near future? And the answer was ‘my job’. I can never ever give up my independence again.

I think I will be writing some more of this – a new phase now – I need to analyse me.

Rosie

The Surrender Part 2……

Reflections 2019 

The first thing that really surprised me when I read this entry was that I had not felt the need to write in my journal during the anniversary of when war broke out.

As you know I have written in my four previous posts (links are at the bottom of this post) about what happened and about the things I had learnt; but whilst we were away I did not write in my journal. I know it came with me (God knows it came everywhere with me; it was my little angel that kept that demon at bay!); but  I did not write in it.

I think what I said in this entry was true I was afraid to write in it because I felt happy and did now want to bring it all back. I think part of the other reason was that the whole point of going away was to make new memories. Whilst I could not fight off the urge to re-live every second of what had happened the year before, I knew that writing in that journal was a link to the past; and that the time in France was about trying to make a present and a future; so I didn’t write in my journal to try to give the present and future a chance.

I know that many people read this blog, and they want to understand how to just put one foot in front of the other; get through another day; they ask me often how I did it. So I have to say  that the biggest lesson that I learnt was acceptance. It was in fact a gift that I took forward in all aspects of my life: when we are afraid of something, when we want something to be different we often fight it tooth and nail, but there is no point: what has happened has happened; where you are is where you are: there is no going back. What you have is what you have; if something is playing on your mind do you know what? It’s playing on  your mind! Accept it.

If your heart is broken your heart is broken; if you feel better one day and then shit the next then accept that is a fact of life at that moment: one day you will feel okay, the next you will feel distraught! Only then will those things start to lose their power; only then will you be able to take control of them.

If you read back over the last year I have written about in this blog I learnt: to get in the car and say hello to the demon who was waiting to torment me on my drive home with what had happened. I learnt that (and would continue to learn as you will see) I could feel great and then within seconds I could be in tears. I learnt to say to my head when it became so down ‘Oh there you are! I wondered when you were going to appear!’ I literally used to say that!

I cannot stress enough that acceptance is the key; and if you cannot accept where you are then you are going to struggle to move forward; or even survive. Some people will say  ‘why should I accept it? I didn’t do anything!’ No you didn’t! But that doesn’t change where you are. Either accept where you are and become stronger and move forward or don’t; and stay trapped on the ocean of despair.

In this journal entry I say how happy I am; that I had not written in my journal because I was happy; and then by the end of this very entry I say what an arsehole Danny is and how he is not good enough for me! I say that if I had to choose something in life I did not want to lose it would be my job! Clearly I was really happy!

Looking back I can say I was happier; but  I was still destroyed; and I know that you all understand that. It does get better but only with acceptance and time.

With regard to Danny telling me ‘the ‘truth’ about what had happened: as I have said before what is the truth? Whatever you want to believe; because you will only believe what you want to anyway.

I don’t believe Danny, even today. I believe that the original story that he told me the night he wanted to come home was probably as near to the truth as I was ever going to get. I believe that Danny told me a year later, whilst in France, that  it was all a lie because he was so desperate to keep me; and he could see that I was becoming stronger and stronger; independent of him both financially and personally. That I had got ‘me’ back again (and I was never going to lose ‘me’ again). Danny knew that the possibility of me leaving him actually grew greater every day and he did what he could to keep me: he lied.

Now I know that this is a massive thing for all those who have been betrayed.But here is my take on it many many years later:

Even today Danny is adamant that it is the truth; but for me there are too many things that add together to make the original story more feasible; and I will never lie to myself again.  But I can forgive Danny that lie, and probably many others, because I understand that he was terrified of losing me; which in itself showed how much he loved me.

I know it doesn’t matter how long it went on; it happened. It doesn’t matter what he lied to me about; he lied. It doesn’t matter how many times they had sex; they had sex: how many times they spoke on the phone; how many places they visited together; how many times he met her when he was supposed to be at work and on and on and on: He had an affair; he broke my heart, he lied to me, he laughed at me, he said he loved someone else: that’s all I need to know. Only I can make up my mind whether to stay and what to base that decision on: and it wasn’t going to be the past but the here and now, the man who came back and work so hard; the man in France who stood in front of me the and the man who stands in front of me now.

Danny made a massive fucking mistake and his urge was to run away and he did; then he came back and he stayed; he put up with every piece of shit I threw at him (and trust me he was covered) and even today the demon in his head tells him I will leave one day; but he stays anyway because although he is terrified of losing me he loves me and will take every day with me, living in fear or not.

One of the things that I see now is how harsh I was. I never considered, even a year later,  that Danny’s heart was as broken as it was, I learnt that over the years; and I know that it is still broken today. The sad thing is that Danny broke his own heart and no matter what I say to him now to make it better I cannot help him fix it. It will be broken forever. But when I wrote this entry  I had failed to see all the hard work that Danny had put in to keep us there – At that time, where I was concerned I was a selfish cow and  it really was ‘it’s all about me.com!!’

Danny had been bullied throughout his years at secondary school, and, yes his answer had always been to run away; but when I wrote this entry I had failed to see that although Danny had run away from me, because his fear was that I was too good for him and that he would never keep me, this time  he had come back! Even though I had said in my journal many times that Danny had stepped up to the line, in fact pulled me up there with him, when I wrote this entry I forgot all of this. I think that it is fair to say that is how selfish you can become when someone has broken your heart; and I understand that in a lot of ways you have to become selfish to survive; but over time you have to be careful that you don’t become a victim, or bitter because the only person who will be damaged from that is you. I was never prepared to let it beat me; not any of it!

As for work defining me, well that is another story, but not a hopeful one like this one is now. The only advice I would give you is don’t let any‘thing’ define you. Define yourself.

I will also say that I chose these memes carefully today………

Rosie

The Anniversary – Part I  The anniversary: Part II- running away

The Anniversary part III  The Anniversary part IV: It’s not exclusive we all get damaged!

Making This Better the book is now available including the journal entries for the first 5 years of our recovery & the whole 21 days of ‘The War’. Available internationally in paperback and ebook  at Amazon and Barnes & Noble also available at Xlibris and Apple Books for iPad and Waterstones Bookstores for click & collect

I would love to hear your feedback.