Mawage is what bwings us togever today. Mawage, that bwessed awangement, that dweam wivin a dweam.
Mine was a nightmare.
Once upon a time I thought I loved my husband. I really did believe that. And there might have been times that I did.
It wasn’t his fault. I was painfully unaware of who I was as a person. I hated myself most of the time, felt unworthy of even being alive, much less loved. So I didn’t know how to love, I thought it was all claws and teeth. Hanging on for dear life. Jealousy, pirates, murder, revenge.
Wait, that was Princess Bride, wasn’t like that. Not at all. That was true love.
Someone brought up sisterwives last night.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Yes, I had a sisterwife. Inconceivable right?
Like I said, I thought I loved my husband.
That wasn’t love, it was a war of wills and egos. His, hers and mine.
Some part of me felt like I had to do penance for the years I spent as someone else’s mistress. In retrospect, even karma is not that creative of a bitch and the things I put myself through made baby Jesus cry on my behalf.
To the pain.
I was never like her. I cared about the man I was sleeping with, I was never vicious or malicious. We made each other happy and he came back to me eventually. Then I left him for this mess.
We’ll never survive.
Nonsense. You’re only saying that because no one ever has.
I survived, barely. Hubby was cheating on me with a rodent of unusual size. I regularly fell into lightning sand, drowned, left to fight my way out on my own. I really should regret that decision to move into the Fireswamp, trying to build a summer home there and the ensuing 7 year chaos. But I can’t. I was born of that hellfire, heated, hammered steel, I am unbreakable.
At the time I thought I had what I wanted, mostly. Hubby had some semblance of a hobby farm.
I loved the farming, sometimes. Most times it was a struggle. A battle of dirt and wills, massive effort versus minimal reward and struggling to keep the myriad of animals hubby brought home and dropped in my lap from dying.
I wanted two baby goats, (as you wish) I ended up with 2 dozen, way too much. I wanted one horse to ride we ended up rehoming 6 and I rode two of them twice. We had 6 dogs, 3 liked ripping the pigs and sheep apart. I had geese and ducks and chickens that were constantly getting killed by this or that because the fences were shit.
He brought home critters to keep me locked in while he cheated. I kept their suffering to a minimum, mine was immense.
But in between I got a whole bunch of good pictures to slap up on Facebook. My little virtual internet existence looked pretty fucking amazing. It wasn’t. I edited out the bloodstains, death, dirt and the tears. The nights he would disappear and I knew he was out with her, she was in charge of posting those photos. The epic fights wherein I would drive away, further and further each time until I landed in the city and stayed. He put an ad in the paper and sabotaged the new relationship I had landed in to get me to come home.
I went back and things were good for a few months. My old paranoia crept back. It was inevitable him sneaking off to see her again. So I made a proposition, move her in. Lightening my work load, easing his financial burden and just eating the pink elephant in the room once and for all.
We could just kill each other as god intended, sportsmanlike.
It was the best/worst idea I have ever had.
I truly believed that after him cheating on me with her for 6+ years there must be some redeeming qualities about her. Nope. She was a burden and a drain. A true parasite, with borderline personality disorder and a love of opiates. She was high most of the time and the sneakiness continued, I just had front row seats and got stuck making her lunches for work.
He told me if I let her move in he would give me a baby. I died that day.
I’m not a witch I’m your wife. But after what you just said I’m not even sure I want to be that anymore.
I am a witch. I should have gotten in my truck and driven to a land far, far away, but I didn’t.
I was mostly dead.
We tried the threesome thing once. I was so grossed out by how she looked, tasted, smelled and behaved…I walked out in the middle of it. What is that thing? Haven’t touched a woman since and I cannot begin to imagine a scenario where I would again.
It was the best idea I ever had because it finally pried me out of there. We slipped back together in hotel rooms for 4 months until I gave him an ultimatum. The last ultimatum I ever gave anyone. He countered with one of his own, said I needed therapy, and boy did I ever.
Seriously, how did he think that was going to go?
I learned a lot about myself in the process. I am tenacious as fuck. Loyal to the point of insanity. I survived something that would have killed a lot of people, and there were moments where I wanted to die.
It took me three years on my own turning my entire life over in my head, learning fighting and fencing anything anyone would teach me and spilling my guts out here to figure out what love is. I filled my drama quota for the next three lifetimes.
As I sit here now, in my clean, tiny house, writing away, I am warm and happy. The only souls I have to look after are mine, my son’s, a tiny dog and two kittens. The gardening I do consists of watering my houseplants and orchids once a week. My bed is my own and I can chose who comes and goes. This is infinitely better.
I almost fell back into the pit of despair, but I’m out now.
Not sure how to proceed, maybe if I had months to plan or a holocaust cloak.
Someone is trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen.
And I am trying not to rush a miracle (you get rotten miracles.)
*All italics are from the Princess Bride by S. Morgenstern.