I was married to the Rat Bastard for 45 years. I met him when I'd just turned 18 so was with him my entire adult life until DDay. Short version of long explanation: I have photos on flickr, icloud, amazon photos, one drive and on countless flash drives, CD's, 2 external hard drives and 3 computers because I was so afraid of losing them and didn't really understand how to store them in a logical way so I just kept piling up storage upon storage. Some photos are backed up 6 or 7 times). For a few years now, I've tried to go through them and delete pics of and with him and black out his face if it's a photo I want to keep but don't want him in it. But then I realized I'd only deleted it from the device I was on. I'm preparing to dump them all onto the large external hard drive and run the duplicate file program so the end of the confusion/chaos is in sight but in the meantime, I still find photos of him here and there.
Anyway, yesterday, my DD, her mother-in-law, a friend and I were pulling up old photos and talking about out cute kids. This A.M. I went into my Google photos to find the picture of DD's first day of 6th grade (1986!) because she wants to see it and came across a whole slew of pictures of our family from the '70s & '80s. Birthdays, Disney World, first days of school, Christmases, etc. And I look at them and I want to feel nostalgic and warm about my life but I just can't because all I can see are his lying, soulless, self-centered eyes with the fake smile and how did I never notice it for 49 years? Or am I seeing something that isn't there because of how betrayed I feel? Maybe he was a good guy who went bad? How do we figure this shit out and decide whether we should enjoy our memories or avoid them?
And this is something people who haven't suffered infidelity can't grasp. The reach of it into our very souls is so crushing and saddening and infuriating and we can't escape it. We can't even look at old photos without realizing that our memories are now tainted and we don't know what to feel about our past: Was I happy or was I deluded? Oh, crap, did he actually hate being at the Graduation dinner? Here's a nice photo of us at the company picnic-oh, shit, was he having an affair then and was she there that day? Here's a picture of us on a cruise - did he love me at all then or did he just tolerate me?
I'm - holy cow, I was going to write that I'm about 5 years out now and realized it 5 years and 6 days to be exact. May 3 came and went without me remembering the anniversary. Now if I can just forget that the 50th anniversary of May 27, 1972 is right around the corner. Not sure what to do with myself that day - might just drink myself into oblivion. Which won't be hard - 2 drinks will do it but how long will that oblivion last? Will I have to have Alexa "remind me" to have another drink every 6 hours or so? What's the formula for staying drunk? So am I sad or am I angry with myself for wasting my life? But maybe I didn't waste my life - his life was definitely better for me having been in it even if he doesn't realize it and I was a great help to his parents and my kids are fantastic, wonderful human beings and so it goes and I don't think the wondering will ever end, at least not for someone like me who had it happen so late in life. People say to create new memories but at my age, even 2 or 3 years of new memories are a drop in the proverbial bucket. I'm pretty sure I'll be alone for whatever time I have left and I am sad about that because I wish I had someone to cook for and to talk to about the news and tv shows (I finished Ozark last night - oh my!!!) and sports and to travel with and, well, you get what I'm saying. I miss being connected to another human.
(And I'm ADHD and I have no routine and I REALLY need to live with someone so I stay centered, getting up within a 4 hour time frame everyday, showering at regular intervals (I DO shower but sometimes at night, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoons), fixing meals and eating at normal times, not making a sandwich at 10:30 for dinner cuz then I can't fall asleep and then I don't get up until 11 AM and by then it's hotter than Hades out there and I don't want to even open the door, let alone go anywhere. And why am I rambling so much? I need an increase in my meds. And I'd put a smiley face there but it's not really funny now that I think about it.)
Ah, Hell - sometimes we make progress and some days we regress, eh?
[This message edited by josiep at 3:21 PM, Monday, May 9th]