A friend recently found out that her husband - and I use that term very loosely - has been lying to her for 30 years. His "deceased" 1st wife has miraculously been resurrected. To add insult to more insult and injury and ickyness, he moved the supposedly-dead woman into a house down the street and has been having an affair with her.
My first reaction was, "WHAT????" After my head stopped spinning, my next thought was, "Thank you, God, for delivering me before I spent 30 years of my life with a liar."
As her story unfolds and I try to help her navigate the scariness of being separated, I've been retracing my own journey. I've relived the early days when I couldn't stop crying and only got off the couch long to take the dog outside. I've reminisced about when I started a new life in a new place with a new job and had no clue how I was going to make things work. I've listened to the echoes of the shattered vows we made. After all that, I can come to only one conclusion.
I went about this all wrong.
While I was trying to honor what I thought we had had together, he was plotting how he could end up with the house, the big tv, and the new girlfriend with no arguments from me. What I should have been doing was making some calls to find a guy named Vinnie who knows a guy who could make my problem disappear. Fineto. If I had I wouldn't still be dealing with him 2 years later.
The problem with do-overs is, how do you know how far back to go to start over? Should I go back to the day he left me and hire a hitman to get rid of him? Should I go back to the day I met him and stay home? Should I go all the way back to 3rd grade and not learn how to use a computer so that I wouldn't one day meet him online?
In the end, we have to just accept that we've made the best choices we could with the information we had at the time. Sometimes we're operating with corrupted data. Sometimes we trust the wrong people. But all of the things that have happened thus far have molded and shaped us into the people we are, for better or worse. So while I may occasionally fantasize about ripping the ex limb from limb, I wouldn't be at this place in my life if I hadn't lived through those painful years. This is the place I'm supposed to be.
I guess that means he gets to live....for now.
DISCLAIMER: This blog is only talk and wishful thinking. I have no actual intention of hiring Vinnie to make the ex problem fineto. If something happens to him, I will not be held responsible for wishing it on him.
