The journey to healing

I remember the day like it was yesterday….

A text from him: do you have 20 minutes to chat

Me: yes

Instant phone call 😳

Right when I answered I said “why only 20 minutes? We always talk longer than that.”

The next words out of his mouth took my breath away and nearly stopped my heart. I love you, I’ve always loved you. I’ve left my wife and I want you. Come away with me.

After a long discussion together and a few mile walk so I could get away from my young kids and focus on this call I agreed to go away with him that Friday for the weekend.

Now…. Let me catch you up with who I was at that time. I was a stud. I had a thriving gym, a rapidly growing online presence and income, I was a sponsored athlete and I was making a lucrative 6 figure income, I had provided a gorgeous home which resembled a castle in an amazing neighborhood for my kids. I had become… but had I?

Looking back during this journey I realize so much of that was ego, it was grit. I refused to let my kids feel the woes of having a single mother with full physical and financial custody. Refused. I kicked ass and gave them a life that most would dream of…. Hear the ego friends? I thought it meant I was healed. I mean how could you do all of that and create such amazingly, wonderful, loving little humans if you weren’t healed? We traveled, they were all in club sports and dance, we had countless hours together, I worked entirely at home and was changing the lives of hundreds and hundreds of people and my kids got to be in the front row watching me sweat and build the entire thing.

But I’ve learned so much now. I wasn’t healed, I was angry. I was vengeful and prideful and stubborn beyond all belief.

I was simply… surviving.

When that phone call came in from someone I had admired and respected for so long and had thought about often I felt so full. I felt special. He had this way of making me feel like I was the only person in the room. He wanted me? Me? The crazy single mom who chases life by the tail? The shit show? I was full of doubt and speculation but gosh darn it that call felt good. Is this really happening? Then came the weekend. Boy he did it all. You pretty much can picture fireworks over a candlelight meal off the back patio of a gorgeous cabin with promises of the world. This is where the love bombing started but I’d never been witness to or even heard of the phrase “love bombing”. I resisted over and over but he wore me down and we both seemed to fall madly in love ✨

At first he lived with my kids and I, he’d drive carpools, cook, wine and dine me to the fullest, US to the fullest. Then some of that “bad” stuff started sneaking in. Little red flags here and there that I would excuse for his divorce, the big work stuff he had going on, alcohol. One night it was way too much and he got after my youngest bringing his biological father into the picture (calling him a loser) which was always a hard no for me. But remember, I was a stud.  I was the highest level of independent, confident and on that unfortunate evening I kicked his drunk ass out of my home and told him he was never welcome there again if that was how he was going to act. A few days of cooling off and we met and worked a lot out and made some new boundaries. That version of me, she was strong. She was fierce and she was firm with her boundaries of her life and the lives of her kids.

Later on down the blissful love bombing road full of elaborate gifts and promises we decided to buy a house and do the family thing. He quickly began to harass me and tear me down mainly because of my job. Finding ways to tell me it was a “loser” Career. That my clients were losers, that my friends were using me, that I was a loser so did that make him a loser for choosing me (real words out of his mouth). That stuff didn’t do much to me (at the time) but where he did get me was “don’t our kids deserve to have all of you without the distractions just for you to make that “little” amount of money? It doesn’t even pay the house payment”. Of course enter the promises that he’d “never” do to me what was done in the past and he’d “always” have my back and well friends, you guessed it, he finally wore me down. I let go of my gym, my clients, my online presence, all of it. What a tragic mistake.

I often wonder today if we would have made it had I never. It was far easier for my personality to place boundaries when I had my own two feet to stand on. Over a very short period of time the money control started, the abuse started, the scare tactics came on strong. Don’t mistake this for me saying I bowed down. I certainly didn’t. I seldom fell to my knees and cried. I stood right up to my bully. But…. I couldn’t leave, could I? I had nothing, I got rid of everything including my income, even my dang Facebook was gone. This was just another drunken episode right? We were happy? Aren’t we? I loved him, all the way. And I do believe he loved me just the same. But just enough substance and just enough drama with his ex and his kids, well, these things happen.

So here I was, no career, my nest egg dwindling, older kids that often seemed far more expensive. An entire family that was so far off of anything I’ve ever known as “family”. The way these people loved and the things they worshiped and believed were foreign to me. But I just kept thinking, just a few more years. Get his kids out the door and safe and the drama the ex will settle and we can just be on our back porch in Montana like we constantly talked about.

So here I am, healing. It hurts. He was the love I always wanted. I felt it through my core. How did this happen? How are we here? Well that answer is easy. I stopped being me. I tried to be this image of what he wanted, or I suppose thought he wanted. This was so not authentically me. And the more of me I let him remove the worse the two of us got.

I suppose I’m writing this to maybe reach the one person who could be at a crossroads with boundary setting. Set them. Stay true to you. I let him take me to his dark side and I didn’t thrive there. I need to lead, I need positivity, love and kindness. Those are the things I thrive on and the things I want my kids to exude. Set those boundaries, no matter the cost because at the end of the day you will lose it all if you don’t.

When I’m fully honest with myself I know he would have still been the same person. It’s just who he is. but I could have left, I wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in now for trusting a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’d be just fine and happy. I am “fine”, I am even almost happy or some kind of version of it. I miss my family, I miss being a mother daily to not only my kids (now all adults) but to his whom I love dearly. What I learned here was that nobody will ever take me away from me again. Not the hell ever. Even you Ryan Reynolds’s 😉

Exploring and embracing the depths of my being,

Finding the path to recovery, forgiveness, and healing.

Though I can move forward, the memories linger,

My mind trapped in the past, wounds still tender.

The pain runs deep, beyond what I ever knew,

The aftershocks haunting, tearing me through.

Fear grips me, waking me in the dead of night,

Recalling the torment, enduring the plight.

Once whole, now scarred by a traumatic event,

I've moved on, but refuse to disengage, relent.

I choose to remember, to heal and to grow,

To forgive him, myself, gracefully I'll bestow.

I am not shattered for feeling the pain,

And with strength, I'll find my way out again.