Category: Twenty One Day

The Surrender Part 2……

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Day 22 – Tuesday 1st May 

After speaking to Rich on the phone ( Day 22 The Surrender Part 1  ) I had called Mary; she had been with me through all of this, listening to my never ending tears and madness whilst I tried to make sense of what had happened. At the time she was  over an hours drive away but she made the journey back and arrived at my home that evening, just to give me moral support.

We chatted as I got ready to meet Rich; I  knew that I look good, I have lost over two stone and am more  toned  than I have been in years, thanks to all of the hours I have spent on the stepper.

Mary says that she always knew that Rich would come back, because things just did not add up, that you only had to look at his face when he looked at me to know that he loved me. It made me think back to the evening I was told what was going on; of Rich’s face as he was watching ‘Her’ partner whispering in my ear. That is an image I have constantly thought of in the last three weeks, because it was the thing that gave me the most hope. The first shot is fired….

After Mary leaves I wander around the house trying to occupy my mind. I cannot even have a drink because I have to drive; I can hear my  heart beating in my chest again, that terrible feeling that my heart is going to burst is back. It is nearly an hour before I am due to meet Rich but I just cannot stay in the house a minute longer so I go to Mary’s house, for more moral support because I know that this is it, if this meeting does not work out then we are lost forever.

When I get to the car park where we have arranged to meet, Rich is already there, and I am surprised to see that he has lost as much weight as me. I refuse to get into Rich’s car, it is contaminated by ‘Her’ now, so Rich gets in my car and after a long silence I ask him what he wants to tell me and he starts to tell me what had happened over the last few months:

It had started in July the previous year when they had kissed at one of ‘Her’ parties, the very party where I had pulled Rich away from her when I found them dancing together on the dance floor. After that Rich had looked for her number on my phone and had made contact with her, supposedly to say that the kiss should not have happened and he wanted to forget it all. The Background story – Making a new life and there are clouds on the horizon 

I didn’t for one minute this is why Rich had contacted her, by doing that she had his number and he knew that she would pursue him; and that is exactly what she did: bombarding him with texts and calling him as he drove to work.

Rich then went on to tell me that he had met ‘her’ at her brother’s house in Essex in the October of the year before,  in the month leading up to our Halloween party. Rich was supposed to be on a nights overtime but instead he signed out of work and went to meet ‘her.’ I feel sick as he tells me that they had a fumble but that he could not perform and that they did not have sex. All that time they had been laughing at me, lying to me; I think of the Halloween party and how I found ‘her’ sitting on Rich’s lap, of how upset I was, and of how Rich did not follow me when I walked out.  Now I know why, because he had already fucked ‘her’! The fact that he could not get ‘it’ up is neither here nor there.

Rich tells me that after their meeting he had stopped at a service station on the way home and thrown up, because he knew that if I ever found out he would lose me forever. ‘She’ had him trapped now,  because ‘She’ had something that could be used to blackmail him; and that is what ‘She’ did. If ‘She’ text him and he did not reply ‘She’ would make a pretense to come to our house and then threaten him saying that ‘She’ was going to tell me. (This was unlikely because I would have fucking punched ‘Her’ in the face!) But Rich believed her.

The whole time he is telling me his story I am just sitting there looking out to sea with my eyes brimming with tears struggling to understand how my life has changed. We are sitting in a car park, by the beach, people are walking past with their dogs, something we used to do; people are on the beach because it is a hot sunny evening, people are going to the pub behind us, these are all things we used to do; and now? Now we’re sitting here in a car surrounded by the debris of our lives, and I am wondering what the fuck has happened.

Rich says that he tried to stop things, had stopped texting ‘Her’ or answering ‘Her’ texts for months, and that it had only started up again in March of this year. I think back to that month, I had been really ill with a chest infection, in fact I could not shake it and they were worried that I was going to develop pneumonia. As I sit there I realise why I had become so ill, because I had been ignoring the very things that were under my nose. More than anything I could not understand why Rich had gone back to texting ‘Her’ again, Why? For fucks sake why!!

After that they had then started to meet up in the next town along the coast. a pretty small seaside town called Tankerton. They would both drive there separately and sit in Rich’s car kissing. I could not understand how he had been able to  meet ‘Her’  when he was always at work, and I ask him how and when because he would always call me when he was leaving work. Rich said that it was when I was at work, he would meet ‘Her’  before leaving for his shift, or after his shift had finished and he would lie to me and tell me he had been held up.

It all seems to make sense now, the text to our house in March, the times ‘She’ came over to see us because ‘She’ needed someone to speak to, the time when ‘She’ told me that one day I would hate her.

I asked Rich what he wants to do, does he want to come home?  I cannot believe it when Rich says he is not sure that he can do that to ‘Her’, that he cannot leave her in a mess!

I could have punched him in the mouth!  I started to shout at him so he got out of the car, then I got out of the car, all of the people enjoying the sunny evening are looking at us now and  I don’t care! I am so fucking angry with him, he left Tom and I without a second thought and now, after the conversation that we had that morning on the phone when he said that he had never loved ‘Her’ and had always loved me, now he is saying that he is concerned for ‘Her’.  I lose it and  I punch him round the head, forgetting that I have the car keys in my hand, I punched him four or five times, with everyone watching, and I didn’t  fucking care! Rich just stood there and let me.

I’d  had enough, really had enough of being in a soap opera with a bunch of skanks, Rich included! I walked back to my car and get in and just before I drive away I open the window and say “if you’re not back home before midnight tonight, don’t ever fucking contact me again.” With that I drove away.

I went straight back to Mary’s and as I talk to her I realise that I am worth more than the treatment that I have received, worth more than Rich for what he has put me through; when I say that to her she agrees with me.

I am suddenly no longer afraid to go home, it is my house now, I no longer see it as a home that belonged to Rich and I. When I got in I opened a bottle of wine and call my sister; I tell her what has happened and that I really feel that I never knew Rich at all, and that he was beneath me, the Counsellor was right.

At that moment in time I have decided that actually I don’t want Rich back. My sister then calmly asked me “So what will you do if he walks down the path later? You have asked him to come back, and give up his home I think you should consider that, because although he did not consider you, that does not mean that you have to stoop to his level.” That stopped me in my tracks and I have to think about it. I have given him an ultimatum so  I decide that I will have to let him sleep in the spare bedroom until he finds somewhere.

For the first time in a long time I was tired and go to bed at ten, I am not thinking about Rich anymore, neither am I going to wait up for to see if he calls or comes back; I have done too much waiting for him already and I am  not doing any more.  I need sleep, and for the first time in three weeks  I fall asleep quickly.

At ten past eleven my mobile rings and it is Rich calling. When I answered the phone he explains that he has left ‘Her’ and wants to come home. He has parked in the next road and when I ask   why he has parked his car around the corner and he says that he does not want it to be seen.

So I get up and wait for him to arrive, he has no key now, I had the locks changed within three days of him leaving;  he has to ring the doorbell – how apt!  I am in my pyjamas and I don’t care how I look, because I don’t care about Rich any more. I know that even though he is standing on the doorstep I am still on my own.

When Rich walked in it all seemed really strange because he looks uncomfortable in what was his home. It is as if we are two strangers, Rich sitting on the edge of the sofa and me sitting comfortably in my pyjamas on the other sofa, as far away from him as I can get.

Rich then suddenly asked me if I had an affair with my old boss, James. I am incredulous where the hell did that came from!  Rich explains that ‘She’ told him that I had confessed to ‘Her’ that I had an affair with James all those years ago. I just looked at Rich in disbelief, as if he had grown another head, and said ‘No’, and with that  Rich started to cry; because he  realised that he may have lost everything because of  all he has done over the past three weeks, actions that had taken place because of his own insecurities and this lie.

I asked Rich to be honest with me and tell me  if it was him that had called me the night he left, and he said it was.  He explained that they had been in a crummy bed and breakfast place with a payphone in the hall, and when ‘She’ had fallen asleep he had crept down and tried to call me from the payphone. I asked him why he had not called from his mobile, and he said he was afraid to because ‘She’ checked it all the time and would have noticed if he had taken it.

I asked him why he had called and  he said it was because he was worried about me, had found himself in an awful place and just wanted to come home; but when I didn’t answer he thought that he had lost me and  that ‘She’ had been right when ‘She’ had told him that  I had not wanted him all along

I just didn’t know whether to believe him; if Rich felt that way why did he not just get in the car and come home? Why did he put me through three weeks of hell? Why did he let us get to this place we were in now? I just didn’t understand none of it made any sense.

I don’t ask him if he had sex with her, he had already told me he had in one of our conversations we had when he was being a cunt.

I tell Rich that if he wants to be with me there are two conditions, he has to step up to the plate and face his fears about whether he is good enough for me, and he has to change his phone, number, everything.  Rich gives me his mobile and says that he knows she will just keep sending him texts  until he answers, because this is what she always did. I turned the phone off because that will fuck ‘Her’ right up!!

I told Rich that he had to sleep in the spare room; but really I don’t want him to, I want him to sleep with me and I feel so exhausted, as if all of the fight has gone out of me so I  decide to just let him.

As we lay in bed we just talked and talkedand suddenly Rich kissed me, not a full on kiss, a tentative kiss as if he was waiting for me to smash him in the face! But do you know what it told me so much: of  how much he has missed me; and how much he has wanted to do that,  and it tells me he is afraid of me. I kissed him back because I was too exhausted to feel angry.

We then started to kiss passionately and was clear that Rich had an erection; but I just can’t do it, I can’t have sex with him. I have worked too hard to get my self-respect back and I am not giving myself away again that easily.

I pushed Rich away and started to cry, I cannot do it and he understood.

I think for the first time in a long time we both slept.

In the day
In the night
Say it right
Say it all
You either got it
Or you don’t
You either stand or you fall
When your will is broken
When it slips from your hand
When there’s no time for joking
There’s a hole in the plan

Oh, you don’t mean nothing at all to me
No, you don’t mean nothing at all to me
But you got what it takes to set me free
Oh, you could mean everything to me

Say It Right –Nelly Furtado

Written by Nelly Furtado, Nate Hills, Timothy Mosley

Moisy

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Day 22 The Surrender Part 1

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Day 22 – Tuesday 1st May

When I got up I did not know if I wanted to respond to the text Rich had sent the night before.  I was tired of it all now, I needed to move forward and extract myself from this ‘daytime soap opera’ that Rich had dragged me into. I was worth more than this!

I had booked a day’s leave from work to clean up the house after the repairs made by the plasterer. It is starting to feel like just my house now, and I feel that things are changing, I am starting to feel that I am now able to make it on my own. I notice that I don’t tend to hear the echo of my own footsteps following me anymore, it is as if the house has quietened the floorboards and allowed me to come to terms with being there on my own; it has become my ally.

But as I start to make my first cup of tea of the morning my eyes start to well with tears; this time because I know that it won’t be long before it is too late for Rich to come back. I have always been the type of person who seems to have an internal switch; it is not something that I can control it just ‘flips’ where my feelings are concerned and once it has ‘flipped’ I cannot get those feelings back, even if I want to. I know that it is starting to happen where Rich is concerned. I think of things that have happened over the past few days: when I visited Auntie Edie in Essex at the weekend and she told me that I could stop crying if I wanted to, and that I was worth more than Rich. I did stop crying! Perhaps because Sunday had been the tenth anniversary of my mum’s death it marked a turning point for me, because after that I forgot my phone and didn’t cry right through my counselling session. I knew that these were all signs of me moving on, and I was crying because I didn’t really want to.

I still felt this inexplainable feeling that Rich was crying somewhere; that no matter what he had said to me really he was heartbroken. I could not get that look on his face when ‘her’ partner was telling me what had been going on, that look of pure pain on his face, and I knew that if I moved on it would be such a terrible waste of something. (The first shot is fired….)

As if she could read my mind Jess came round and when  I opened the door I was crying. I explain to Jess that I am afraid that I will respond to Rich’s text and that he will not reply; all those memories of three weeks ago when I called and called him and he just did not answer are back in the forefront of my mind.  I cannot bear the thought that he will do that to me again. But I am angry that Rich seems to think that he is entitled to anything else from the house, and I am sick of checking my phone waiting for him to call or send me a message.

Jess suggests that I text Rich back and ask him what stuff he thinks he should have out of the house and then delete his number from my phone book completely so that I cannot look for his name, or ‘The Arsehole’ on my screen. So that’s what I do, I send a text and then Jess deleted Rich’s number. But Rich immediately replied with a text saying that he wants a stereo, his tools, a telly, some furniture and his bike! That made me laugh, as there was no fucking bike, it had paid for the start of divorce proceedings against him!! (Day nine (Wednesday) I started to fall out of love with you….)

I am incensed that he thinks that he is entitled to anything  and call him, this time he answers immediately. I know, I just know that this is not a happy man, from the tone of his voice and I can here that he has been crying,  and I am so fucking glad. I ask him, “Are you still in love with ‘Her’ Rich?’ He starts to cry.

I’m on a roll now!

“Are you still really happy Rich?” His answers clearly “No”.

“Have you realised what a terrible fucking mistake you have made now Rich? How you have lost everything, me, Tom, the animals, this house, and now you are living in a little terrace I hear, with a door that leads straight out onto the street, you must be so fucking happy!!”

Rich says that he is not happy, that he knows he has made a terrible mistake, that he does not want anything he just used it as a way of getting in touch with me because he thousht that I would just tell him to ‘Fuck Off’. I tell him that all of the TV’s and Stereos now belong to Tom and he cannot touch any of them, and that his bike has been stolen!

I ask Rich why he had wanted to talk to me, what does he actually want. He says that he just wants to talk to me face to face, that he knows that he has treated me so badly and that he feels really ashamed of the way that he has behaved; and he asks if we can meet up that night to talk about what has happened; how we came to be where we are today. Rich says that he has been afraid to come back and approach me because he thought that I would do back to him what he had done to me, that he thought that ‘She’ was the easier option; through it all Rich just keeps saying how sorry he is about all he has done.

I ask him if he is still in love with her and Rich says no,that he was never in love with her, that he had always been in love with me; so I asked him why he told me he was in love with her and I cannot believe it when he tells me that he was trying to  make it easier for me to move on! I say to him that I cannot believe for one minute that he was thinking of my welfare when he said that, even thought I knew in my heart of hearts that he always been in love with me I struggled to believe that he was so cruel to make me feel better. What a load of bullshit!

I ask Rich to come home if he is so unhappy and we can try and work it out;  and he says he does not know if he can!  I just don’t understand why Rich still does not know where he wants to be. One minute he says he is unhappy and not in love with her; that he has always been in love with me and then he says that he doesn’t know if he wants to  come home! Surely it is simple, your unhappy so come home! All Rich keeps saying is that he is afraid; afraid that if he comes back to me I will just throw him out once I know that he has no-where to go.

I agree to meet him that evening to have a face to face talk. Rich will not come to the house, he tells me that he knows that it is being watched by ‘her’ partner so we arrange to meet  in a car park by the beach away from anyone who may know us. It appears that ‘She’ has arranged for him to collect a chair they have bought, and that ‘She’ does not know that he has contacted me; that if she knew she would not let him out of her site.  I am dumbfounded when  Rich tells me that he is afraid of ‘Her’ because has started to realise how much trouble she has caused and how he should not have listened to her; that he has been so stupid to listen to the things that she has told him, and that he knows that now. As I suspected, and as Beth rightly predicted, she had been checking his phone constantly;  and when he did go to work  (which has not been often because he has been so stressed)  ‘She’ had started to ring him to make sure he is there. I am starting to realise that I may well be dealing with a ‘Bunny Boiler’!

All the time I am talking to Rich I am pacing back and forth across my living room. I feel a mixture of anger, relief. elation, satisfaction and fear. Anger because I could still just punch Rich for what he has put me through; relief because I was right all the time when I said that Rich was not happy and that something did not add up; elation because we may get back together, and because Rich is now hiding things from ‘Her’; satisfaction because the happy little home that she clearly thinks she is building with Rich (buying a chair!) is actually starting to crash down around her fucking ears and she does not even know; and I feel fear, in case Rich let’s me down again.

After I hang up from Rich ‘Her’ partner comes over, and he knows from my behaviour that something is different. He asks me if I blame him for any of this and I tell him that I do. I blame him for some of it, him and her; the more I thought about the games they had played the more angry I got and the more I raised my voice: telling him how  I blame them for the games that they have played; I blame him for knowing about it long before he told me; about I blame him because he had waited to tell me, waitied until I was drunk to ensure that he could cause as much chaos as possible. I point out how he didn’t consider me in any of this; in fact how none of them did, and how that was the mistake that they all made; that they have all grossly underestimated me and now I will make them all pay.  Then I tell him to get the fuck out of my house. …………

I thought I told ya, hey
(What goes around comes back around)
I thought I told ya, hey
(What goes around comes back around)
I thought I told ya, hey
(What goes around comes back around)
I thought I told ya, hey

What goes around comes around part 2. Performed by Justin Timberlake

Moisy

 

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Day 21- Repairing the ramparts

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Day 21 – Monday 30th April 

We have had a hole in our kitchen ceiling for nearly a year. Our shower and bath had leaked and in the process rotted the ceiling. Tom had been going on and on about how it seemed to represent a ‘wound’ in our house, and I realised that it had happened just as we had become friends with ‘her’.  I made a resolve to get it fixed and called a plasterer and arranged for him to come to repair it;  this is my house now and it is time that I took control of it. Tom’s right it’s like a festering sore and it needs to go.

Because of the plasterer coming I had to move some furniture and arrange things before I left for work and in my haste to get everything ready I forgot my phone. But the important thing is I did not even know I had forgotten it until I was at work for over half an hour!! My phone had been with me all the time ever since ‘The war’ began; and yet here I am without it. I know it is a sign that I am moving on and, in a way, I am glad.

I have another appointment with the Counsellor after work and when I explain about my phone she confirms that it is a step forward. I notice that I didn’t cry all the way through this session and when I leave I feel better than I have for a long time, I know that I am definitely starting to move on.

When I get home it is past seven o clock and Tom advises me that my phone has been driving him nuts because it has been beeping since ten that morning and I know, I just know, that it is going to be a message from Rich.

I check the phone and Rich (or ‘The Arsehole’ as he is now saved as in my phone book!) has sent me a text. It says: ‘I thought that I would text you as I need to collect some stuff. Hope you’re okay, I am worried about you.’

My response was to say out loud “Yes! You fucking bastard! I knew that you would come crawling back. I knew it!!” Followed by “What stuff?!”

I did not text Rich back, he could fucking wait for all the times he had ignored me. I knew that they had moved into their rental property only the day before,  the Sunday before he sent this text on the Monday! He  had been in that house with ‘Her’ one day and now he was sending me texts me! Clearly things had gone shit shaped in paradise!

Instead I called my sister, Beth,  who said she knew he would come crawling back, that it was only a matter of time.  My sister asked what time Rich  had sent the text and when I tell it was at round ten inthe morning she told me not to reply to it; she had guessed that when Rich had sent the text ‘She’ had probably been at work, and he had did not want her to know that he had contacted me. I thought about the time I had sent Rich a text and he had not replied, of  the times that he had rung me in the past two weeks, and it was always when he was not with ‘her’. I knew Beth was right, she has always been an astute cow my sister!

I was so happy, not because Rich might be coming back but because I knew that he had realised that he had made a massive fucking mistake, meaning it was my turn to make people eat shit now!

I put some music on and danced in the kitchen for over an hour, like a mad woman. Then I drank a bottle of wine, and it was only  then that I realised that the ‘wound’ in the house had been fixed, the hole in the ceiling had gone; and that Tom was right it was a sign of bad things that had been in our house and now I had finally started to get rid of them.

 

Let me paint this picture for you, baby

You spend your nights alone
And he never comes home
And every time you call him
All you gets a busy tone
I heard you found out
That he’s doing to you
What you did to me
Ain’t that the way it goes

When you cheated girl
My heart bleeded girl
So it goes without saying that you left me feeling hurt
Just a classic case
A scenario
Tale as old as time
Girl you got what you deserved

And now you want somebody
To cure the lonely nights
You wish you had somebody
That could come and make it right

But girl I ain’t somebody with a lot of sympathy
You’ll see

I thought I told ya, hey
(What goes around comes back around)

What goes around comes around part 2. Performed by Justin Timberlake

Written by Nathaniel Hills, Justin Timberlake, Timothy Mosley

Moisy

Day 15 -Counselling

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Day 15 – Monday 23rd April 2007

I returned to work on the Monday as agreed. I needed to try and get some sort of semblance of normality back into my life; I was sick of feeling as if I was in a parallel universe that I would soon wake up from; and I knew that teturning to work would help me come to terms with the fact that this shit was reality and it wasn’t going to change. I really was on my own.

By now Rich had contacted Della and arranged for his stuff to be collected from her house; it appeared someone from his family was going to collect it on the Monday as I returned to work, a part of me was glad that I was not going to be there. I always believed that Rich would not collect his stuff; that all the time it was there across the road there was hope; and now that hope was gone.

When I got to work everyone rallied round me and was so kind; with my two closest colleagues and friends, Sheri,  and Hannah, acting as my bouncers; they wouldn’t let anyone near me and one look from them told  people there would be trouble if they made me cry.

But nobody intentionally wanted to make me cry; my eyes were  doing that all by themselves.

So many people came to see me, to hug me, some to tell me that it had happened to them, and that I can get through it; I cannot begin to describe the kindness that I felt from those people; and I used their kindness and compassion to give me strength to get through the day.

I needed to work, I needed money and my contract of twenty hours a week was not going to enable Tom and I to survive, let alone pay the huge mortgage I would have to take on. Even on my first day all of my colleagues rally round and are immediately there offering me an increase in hours on a flexible basis, so that if I cannot cope I can go home.

One of the nurses that I work closely with came to see me and suggested I  make contact with Occupational Health for an urgent referral to a counselling service. She could see that I was just in a very bad place so she called them for me and said that they would be in touch within two days with an appointment. Looking back now I think that April pulled some rank and called them afterwards, because she was so worred about me and the fact that I was not eating, the weight was, quite literally falling off me;  by the time I got home I received a call asking me to go to see them the the following day after work.

So the day after my return when I leave work I  go to the Counsellor. I have the same dress on that I wore to the solicitor’s. This dress is starting to represent me now, something that I had left behind, had let go, like I had left myself behind, and let myself go. Now it gives me comfort because every time I put it on I know I look better and better in it.  I cannot eat, the food is like cardboard in my mouth,  and I am also stepping liking a maniac because it helps me cope, and  is something that I have control over, as I have control  over nothing else.

When I get to the Counsellor’s house I just cry throughout the session. The counsellor explains to me that she thinks that Rich thought that I was too good for him and that “it is often the case in situations such as these that he has left you for someone who he will think he is superior to; someone who is perhaps not as pretty, nor as intelligent as you; a person that he has confidence he will keep. ”

She showed me with her hands, that I was ‘up here’ and Rich was ‘down here’, and that if he was with ‘Her’ the situation would be reversed. I think basically she was saying a lot of men go off with ugly women!

Well where ‘Her’ and I are concerned that makes sense! I get it now! Rich needs to feel top dog, and he was never going to be that with me! But he could be it with ‘Her’ ‘She’ never seemed to be the brightest fucking button in the box!  I smiled to myself when I remembered that one of her favourite sayings was ‘I don’t get it..’

When I get home I call my sister and tell her this revelation, and she tells me that she knew that all along!

I realise that what the Counsellor had said was probably on the ball. Rich had sais how much he hated  it when I got an admiring glance; I thought back to that conversation before ‘The War’ broke out when Rich said that ever since we had been married he wondered if I would be there when he came home, because he always felt that I was too good for him; the Counsellor had got it spot on.

I remembered when he left he said as he was leaving that he was taking this option because he was terrified that I would do to him what he had done to me, and he just could not bear it. It was starting to make sense now, Rich had run away because he was afraid, so he thought that he would take the easy option. What a stupid fucking mistake to make!

I feel that I am getting stronger all the time and I wonder if wearing the dress that I wore to see the solicitor to my appointment with the Counsellor is an omen; and is the fact that it is loose on me now even more of an omen? I feel good in that dress, think of all the times that ‘She’ brought up how much weight ‘She’ had lost, constantly rubbing my face in it as I got fatter. Well here I am, thinner than her now, and I know that I look better than she ever will.

I will be stronger, I will get my career back, I will become my own person, and my God I will look good when I’m doing it.

And Rich will realise exactly how much he has lost!!

So I get on the stepper and make sure that I work off over two hundred calories by stepping to the ‘Pussy Cat Doll’s’ “I don’t Need A Man.”

I don’t!

Moisy

 

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Journal Entry: Day 11 (Friday) Weeping for the lost

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Friday 20th April 2007

I am still not sleeping!  Every time I close my eyes I see Rich and her together, naked, kissing. I was awake throughout the night so I got up at five o’clock and did the ironing! I knew that I had to keep my mind occupied and I had read that doing things was a mechanism to allow you to feel as if you were in control. I needed to feel in control, because, in reality, I was still so out of control. I tried to look at the positive at least I was getting the fucking ironing done!!

My boss, April  called me, as she had every day since The war’ had broken out; she was seriously concerned about me and wanted to make sure that I was alright. She suggested I go into work to see the girls, who are also all worried about me. The thought of going into work frightened me; all those pitying looks and hushed whispers, but I knew that these people really cared for me and I had to move forward so I agreed to go in to see them all.

Driving into work I have the music blaring out, ‘Hit ‘em up style’ by Blu Cantrell. I needed anything to try and fill my mind, and I cry all the way there. When I get to work and walk into the office the girls all came in and hugged me, told me that they were there for me, that I was worth more than what had happened. All of them are shocked at the amount of weight I have lost and I know that April is especially worried because I am now nearly two stone thinner.

No-one can understand why Rich has done this, when it was clear that he loved me so much. I know that they’re trying to help me when they tell me this, but it doesn’t help, because I can’t understand it either; and if it were true I would just feel that all that love was wasted.

I decide that these people care for me so much that I need go to back to work, and make the decision to  I go back on the following Monday.

When I get home I sit in the car for about five minutes gaining the courage to go into my own home, because as always I dread going into the now empty house. Tom has gone to Essex with his friends and I am alone in this beautiful house, the one that we were so happy in, and now it is just this shell with all the memories echoing around me as I walk on the bare floorboards, the floorboards that I lovingly sanded and varnished. The house just feels so sad you can almost hear it sigh.

After about five minutes of me going in her partner knocks on the door because he wants  to tell me  that ‘She’ has contacted him and told him that ‘She’ and Rich are going to rent a house together; in a town nearby, and that they have a tenancy agreement in place. I ask him why he is telling me;  can he not see that this is exactly what ‘She’ wants him to do? ‘She’ wants him to tell me because that will increase the chances that I will never have Rich back. I tell him that I don’t want to know anymore and ask him to leave.

I am so shocked. That is it then! Rich is not coming back! Rich is setting up home with someone else and I cannot believe it, cannot believe that he is setting up a home with ‘Her’. How did I go from holding hands with this man two weeks ago, to him now moving to a new home with a new woman?

I can’t stay in the house, I can’t bear it for one moment more. It is Friday night, a night we would have spent together, If Rich had still been at home he would have just finished a night shift and we would have had a rare weekend together, and it makes this particular Friday night, when we both would have been so excited for the weekend ahead, even harder.

I have to get out, so I go down to a pub where I know the landlady well. I don’t care about the fact that I am going into a pub on my own; I see it as a rite of passage, I am on my own and I need to get used to it and get used to doing things on my own; and I see going to the pub alone as a fear to face.

Because it is Friday night, and early, the pub is full of blokes all celebrating finishing work for the week, and getting ready to go out and get drunk. I know that it looks as if I have been crying for a fortnight, because I have, but I don’t care.  I also know that my figure is starting to look really good, with all the manic exercise and the amount of weight I have lost, so I sit at the bar and buy myself a wine. Some of the men in the pub live in our avenue, it is as if they all rally round me because they know what has happened. They stand with me, buy me drinks, talk to me so that I don’t feel alone.

Another kind deed.

After they leave I finish my fourth large glass of red and I am totally pissed, because I have not eaten for nearly two weeks. I stagger back home, crying all the way; I don’t care what the people who pass me must think, I just look like a sad drunk woman to them, but I feel so lost that I just couldn’t give a shit. Everyone is laughing at me now, the sad bitch whose husband went off with the woman who tried it on with so many others husbands, but mine was the one who left. What does that say about me?

When I walk into what was my beautiful home that I cherished the door slams shut and the sound echoes up the hall.  it is just an empty house, constantly taunting me with the memories of the past because of all the happiness that it held, happiness that was a sham, happiness that is now lost; and all it contains now is the sound of crying.

Snowy our Westie is pleased to see ‘mummy’ as always. I put on my new CD’s and dance around the kitchen; I play Justin Timberlake, “What goes around” over and over again. Then Nelly Furtado’s album , but I don’t know all of the tracks on the CD and suddenly  I find it …“In God’s hands” and it hits me like a hammer.

As I listen to the words of that song I just sit on the kitchen floor sobbing, playing it again and again for over two hours, whilst the beautiful Snowy tries to kiss my tears away; but he cannot keep up with the volume and they plop onto the floor until  the floorboards are soaking wet.

 

I looked at your face
I saw that all the love had died
I saw that we had forgotten to take the time

I, I saw that you couldn’t care less about what you do
You couldn’t care less about the lies
You couldn’t find the time to cry

We forgot about love
We forgot about faith
We forgot about trust
We forgot about us

Now our love’s floating out the window
Our love’s floating out the back door
Our love’s floating up in the sky
In heaven, where it began
Back in God’s hands

You said that you had said all that you had to say
You say, ‘baby, it’s the end of the day.’

We gave a lot
But it wasn’t enough
We got so tired
That we just gave up

Now our love’s floating out the window
Our love’s floating out the back door
Our love’s floating up in the sky
In heaven, where it began
Back in God’s hands, back in God’s hands

We didn’t respect it
We went and neglected it
We didn’t deserve it
But I never expected this

Our love floated out the window

By Nelly Furtado and Rick Nowles

Moisy

Day Ten (Thursday) The Battle for Divorce begins

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Divorce papers

Thursday April 19th 2007 

Today was the day I had to attend the solicitors. I put on a dress that I have always loved and not been able to get into for some time. It was still unseasonably hot for April, and it hit me that it was far too nice a day to be attending solicitors to start divorce proceedings.

I can honestly say that I drove there in a blur, a state of shock at what I was about to do. Grant the mortgage broker called me as I was going into the solicitor’s and asked me if I was okay. Bless him; he cared more about me than the man I had been with for the last nine years.

There I was, sitting in the Solicitors waiting room with other women of all different ages wondering what the hell I doing there? This time last year Rich and I were on holiday in Mallorca, we had such a lovely time and, as we always used to do, we laughed constantly throughout the holiday. Now I was sat in a solicitors office  getting ready to start divorce proceedings against Rich and I realised that my life was all a lie.

I think the solicitor knew that I was still in a state of shock; my eyes were brimming with tears and I was shaking, and he asked if I was sure that I wanted to do this, I told him I was sure. I instructed him to start proceedings against Rich citing adultery. I did not know where he was, although I was aware he was with his family in Essex, and I asked him to send it to Rich’s sister’s address. She thought the sun shone out of his arse, let her give it to him!

When I came out of the office Grant rang me again to check that I was okay. Whilst I was talking to him I realised, for the first time in a long time, that I was getting admiring glances from men, it was a small thing that meant so much at a time when you feel like crap. It made me  realise just how much ‘She’ and Rich had played cruel mind games with me, like a dripping tap over the months, making me feel so unattractive and awful. Yet here I was, devastated but now over a stone and a half lighter, toned and really fit and I was looking good again. Better than ‘She’ ever would.

On the way home to Kent I was caught up in a traffic jam at the river crossing and I noticed that some men in a van were looking at me. I wasn’t interested in them, but the fact that they were looking at me made me feel good, and I realised that I was no longer the shadow that I had been for the past few months. Despite all the things that they had done I was no longer in the shadow of someone else; I had found myself again and I knew that I was and always would be, better than her.

When I got home I decided to stop in town and buy myself two new CD’s: Justin Timberlake ‘Future sex, love sounds’ mainly for the song ‘What goes around comes around’ because I knew that for Rich it so was going to come around and bite him on the arse! That song became my anthem during this time, because I knew that what it said would come true.

The other one was Nelly Furtado’s album “Loose”, because of the track ‘Say it right.’ I was getting my own music collection, uncontaminated by Rich, and I felt elated; I felt that I could take on the world.

 Everybody searching for a hero
People need someone to look up to
I never found anyone who fulfill my needs

A lonely place to be
So I learned to depend on me

I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone’s shadows
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I’ll live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can’t take away my dignity
Because the greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all……

‘The greatest love of all’ performed by George Benson Written by Linda Creed, Michael Masser •

Day nine (Wednesday) I started to fall out of love with you….

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Image result for hearts and tears images

 

Wednesday 18th April

After my conversation with Rich on the Monday  I went to Mary’s house. Her sister was there and she worked in a solicitors office; I told them what Rich had said about not divorcing him and Mary’s sister said I must start divorce proceedings because if I bought Rich out of the house he would still be entitled to half of the value even though it was just in my name.

I knew she was right, I really didn’t want to but it made sense, so she arranged for me to go and see her firm because they provided legal aid. I had no money to pay for a divorce and even with legal aid I needed an initial payment to start proceedings; so I got Rich’s bike back from Della’s house and I took it to the bike shop at the end of the road and sold it for eighty pounds. With the money from this in hand I made the appointment with the solicitor to commence divorce proceedings.

I could remember when Rich had bought that bike, it was as a celebration of his promotion to a supervisory role.  How ironic that Rich had inadvertently funded the start of our divorce proceedings, a divorce he had said he did not want; for the first time in a long while I laughed.

The mortgage was moving at a pace now and I was pulling together the paperwork for all of the loans that we had, because they had to be paid off as part of the buying out process.I was shocked at how much debt we actually had, and I was determined that I wasn’t paying them all off. I sent a text to Rich to advise him that my initial buy-out offer would be less due to the amount of loans outstanding; as a result Rich then rang me!

As soon as I heard his voice I just felt so much anger towards him for what he had done, what he was putting us all through, how he had turned our life upside down for a woman who had made a play for nearly every other person’s husband that we knew.

So why did it have to be my husband who had fell for it?

I asked him if he was still happy with ‘Her’, and he laughed at me, and said that yes he was happy with ‘Her’, and that yes he did love ‘Her’. It felt as if someone was stabbing me in the chest, but I did not cry.

I asked him why? Why was he doing this when we had been so happy? He said that he had started to fall out of love me the year before and that it had been coming for a long time. Rich said that I had been too needy, always wanting him to show how much he loved me, and it had begun to grate on him.

I’d had enough, as he was talking to me he called me Mois and I told him not to call me Mois, that only people who were my friends and those I loved called me Mois and he was not my fucking friend and was certainly not someone I loved so he was never to call me fucking Mois again.

I was more determined than ever and told him he would get as little as possible out of the house, reminded him of our wedding speeches, when all his friends who knew him called him ‘Lucky Rich’ implying that really he was just  a loser, reminded him of how I did not believe he was a loser; that at that time I believed in him. Then I told him that now I believed that they were right; I told him how my sister had said that they were right that he was just that, a “fucking loser”, and that he could fuck off! I hung up, my resolve to proceed with the divorce and for him to end up with nothing.Then I started to cry; and wondered to myself how I got to this place in such a short space of time?

When I went to visit some friends later that night the oil light came on in the car and Mary’s husband Den sorted it out for me.

Another kindness.

After I got home Della’s neighbour, who had seen me crying in her house, came over. He explained that he had been to France that day and, because he knew I had not been eating,  had brought me a big bag of fresh prawns from Calais and some French bread and wine.

Another kindness.

The kindness of other people was unbelievable and after he had left I started to cry. I could not eat, everything in my mouth just felt like cardboard, and Tom tried to persuade me to eat some prawns with a jacket potatoe; I managed one prawn and three forkfuls of jacket spud. I drank the wine though!!

I’ve lost twenty pounds now!!

 

Say it right
Say it all
You either got it
Or you don’t
You either stand or you fall
When your will is broken
When it slips from your hand
When there’s no time for joking
There’s a hole in the plan

Oh, you don’t mean nothing at all to me
No, you don’t mean nothing at all to me
But you got what it takes to set me free
Oh, you could mean everything to me

Say It Right –Nelly Furtado

Written by Nelly Furtado, Nate Hills, Timothy Mosley