What I Really Meant To Say...

The state of our relationship, if you could really call it that at this point, was very fragile. He was still going through the emotional roller coaster and she was still tormenting him. By that, I mean she would call him and lay on the guilt, call him names, tell him how awful he was. He just took it. He told me once that he thought he owed that to her. That if she needed to say those things to get through what he had done, that he owed it to her to let her. From what I understood of their marriage, that wasn't a new thing for her. She was simply a mean spirited person who would use words to hurt him just because she could. While I will agree that what we had done to her was not exactly nice, I feel like she wasn't taking any responsibility either. I know that Mike disagrees with me on that, but I have been the person who was cheated on as well. I understand that my actions as a wife, played a role in pushing my husband away, to a certain extent. Again, Mike disagrees with that. But I digress.

Everyday he would take these verbal beating from her. I encouraged him to just tell her that if she had nothing to say regarding their son, that there was nothing for them to talk about. Eventually, he took that advice. For a while there, he looked like Eeyore to me. Always with the dark cloud hovering over him. So I did my best to keep him distracted and keep him busy. We would go climbing, hiking, or even just out to lunch at our little spot at Liberty Station. But there was one huge difference.

I wasn't allowed to see Justin.

That didn't last too long, but longer than I wanted. I love that kid and it killed me that all of a sudden I wasn't allowed to see him anymore. That was the one thing he let her control for a little while. But again, not for long.

During this transitional period, I knew Mike was being torn to bits. He knew what he wanted, but he hated that he had to hurt his ex wife to have it. It was inevitable, but that doesn't make it any easier. My ex husband tried his own things to try to get me to come back or to reconsider leaving. But I wasn't torn. With or without Mike being in my life, I was gone. Knowing how much turmoil Mike was feeling left me in a precarious position. He was always wanting me to tell him how I was feeling or what I was thinking, but I knew it wasn't good for him to hear it. He needed to sort out his own feelings before really considering mine. However, I needed to get my feelings out there too. I was frustrated and angry and hurt by a lot of the back and forth as well, but he didn't need to know that. Not yet. I wasn't going to act like his ex wife and make him feel guilty for not feeling how I wanted him to feel. So, I went to my go to stress relief... Writing.

I started journaling on February 19, 2012. I kept a little journal that I wrote everything down in, knowing that one day I would let him read it. I felt wrong keeping my feelings from him, but I told him that I was writing it all down and once I knew he was in a better place, Id allow him to read it all and then there would be no doubts. Looking back on that journal now, I can see that I went through waves of bliss and agony. Some days were better than others and the pages tell the story of us come back to one another. It's beautiful. Here is an excerpt from 2/26/12:

"I just need to be enough. I was never enough for Justin, and I feel like I am not enough for you at the moment. Nothing you are doing outwardly is making me feel that way... It's just this idea of the reasons behind why you want to go to Bishop. I know it will be good for you. I want you to have that clarity. But selfishly, I wish I had a way of knowing that my heart won't be devastated in the aftermath.""... it just feels like all roads lead to heartache anymore. Its just crushing, the weight of all the things I am insecure about." 

It was right after that trip to Bishop that I got to see Justin again because he did gain that clarity he was looking for. From that point, I knew where I stood, and it felt amazing. I knew I was his, and he was mine. That's something he still reminds me of, every single day.

But that didn't mean that troubled days with the exes were behind us. We still had to officially file for divorce.