some perspective

here’s yet another entry from 3 years ago (oct 29th, 2006). i don’t recall the exact reasons behind why i wrote this, but i think it was at least partially because i was getting 2nd- and 3rd-hand information through friends of mine about friends of theirs who were friends with tamara. (clear as mud?) perhaps related to the “last entry” i mention (which was this one), since i had learned yet more new bad stuff about tamara recently at that point. regardless, it’s obvious i felt i needed to explain my position to the “faceless” readers of my blog who were “new” friends of tamara’s (of which there were at least several). in the end, i probably decided to hold onto it because i figured they wouldn’t care about what i had to say for myself anyway, that i would be opening myself wide open just to get spit on or mocked. which was probably true.
but it’s three years later, and there is truth in what i wrote, and they probably don’t read my blog or care anymore (and they probably aren’t friends with tamara anymore now anyway), so fsck it.
———-< original entry, october 29, 2006 >———-
as i laid out there for everyone to see in my last entry, understanding how to deal with tamara and the choices she’s made and makes (and the person she was and is) is very difficult. how can you appropriately respond to someone who you loved dearly but that has taken advantage of you again and again? sure, if you’re not the one who was betrayed, if you’re not the one who was financially ripped off, if you’re not the one who was led through an emotional hell, then it’s easy to see past that and just feel pity for the awful things she’s gone through and is going through. but if you feel sadness for her, imagine how someone feels who devoted his life to her? to know what she’s done to herself, what she’s gone through. and that you are powerless to do anything about it.
but it’s not that simple for me. because she also did so many things to hurt me. she tore apart the future that i thought i was trying to work toward. she betrayed my trust, she broke our vows, she lied to me about so many things. i went through ups and (a lot of) downs with her. i tried to help her through a lot of things. we shared a lot of good times, as well as the bad. but in the end, she betrayed me and left me and then came back for a cash grab. i was left emotionally beaten and robbed, and i can’t just walk away and forget that. maybe a stronger man could take it and quickly move on to greener pastures — forget about the wife, family, and future that was supposed to be there in the years ahead.
well, at this point in time, i’m not that man. i’ve been trying, but those blows she inflicted knocked me down hard. nothing was resolved for me — i had a massive injury delivered and then she walked. then sort of came back and said she wanted to work it out, but then drug me through way more emotional pain. so excuse me if i don’t act like everything is okay and nothing wrong happened and she had the right to do the things she did. because she didn’t. and her failures and issues and complications since that time do not erase or negate those past actions.
i understand if she’s your friend. if she told you her latest version of who i am and what i did or didn’t do and that makes you think less of me. if you feel anger or annoyance at the ex-husband who is displaying his version of the past, which differ from hers no doubt. but you need to understand that i weep — that my heart and soul grieve — for tamara. even to this day. in the beginning, i spent months crying every time i came home. every time i had to think about or interact with the “new” tamara. i came home to my empty house and, alone, i literally curled up on the floor and cried, sobbing uncontrollably, shaking until my body ached and i couldn’t stop coughing. for me? yes. but also for her, and for our marriage. i spent months numb, walking through life as if it wasn’t real — as if the world around me was unfamiliar and irrelevant. i went to counseling and tried my d4mndest to figure out how we could reconcile to some reasonable semblance of a rational future. i have plumbed the depths of my being trying to process, work out, and deal with what happened between us, and her choices toward me. i’ve spent months…years…trying to understand my responsibilities in what happened, trying to figure out what if anything i could have done differently that could have lead to a different outcome. i want the experience to make me a better person, but most of time it just leaves me feeling confused and broken.
so, yes, i do know what it means to have loved and lost. and to be honest, i’m not sure if it’s better than to have never loved at all.