There are at least a bazillion reasons I hate to admit what I’m about to admit, all but one having to do with a tragedy my family has been suffering, but it’s been two months today and time I got this out of the way and began to prepare to move through this crisis and ahead.
Ready for it?
Miguel was right. (Read back a few posts if this doesn’t ring any bells. WordPress has changed format lately and I can’t be bothered to figure out the html for a link right now.)
No, not about anything having to do with life in Seychelles, me as a person, or life in general, being so clearly an ageist, sexist, racist bigot who probably beats his wife, but he did nail one thing … my husband had been “hitting something much younger”.
Yes, my dear Mark, the love of my life I’d left all other lives behind for, the kindest, most gentle and honest man I’d ever known, has been having an “affair” … if that’s the right term for banging some whore during lunch hours.
Home every night, calling six times a day just to say “hi”, fully engaged as a father and husband (if you catch the drift), giving no sign whatsoever that anything was amiss, his skills at duplicity were completely unsuspected, and his “confession”, delivered on what is Mother’s Day here, the 2nd of March, shocked me to my core.
The girl is from the slums of Antananarivo, Madagascar, and came to work in Seychelles because the pittance she makes here is many times what she could bring in in her own country. Of course, it’s also much easier to supplement her tiny wage at the factory that makes tin cans in a place where professional prostitutes are few and far between, so she’s done fairly well for herself. Having broken up one marriage already … and she’s still married to that poor slob … she’s ready to move on to fresher … and, she hopes, richer … meat, and Mark must have given the impression of one tasty chop ready for the flame.
For Mark, being a long-term faithful husband set him up nicely for this, and since the factory he works in (they put tuna in those cans) is right next door and both companies share canteen facilities, easy pickings.
Mark will be 42 this year, so fits the profile of the aging male perfectly … not as young, fit or cute as he used to be, and in a relationship that has been solid and reliable for many, many years. In other words, totally impressed by and with no doubt in his mind … or much of anything else … that blow jobs are what life is all about.
I’m sure hers are impressive, as a pro’s would be, and that she is more than generous than I have been with them over the past decade. It’s been years since I would drop to my knees in an uncontrollable outbreak of passion or as a congratulatory gesture for some slight benevolence, but I well recall those days, and remember them fondly. They were not, however, the foundation of the love we developed … more like icing on the cake, if you can forgive that image, and with two kids and hours of hard work, there’s been less time for icing.
Bestowal of such favors limited over stolen moments can only have heightened the excitement, and Mark, being a man and therefore stupid, has actually confused this for love.
Yes, he’s chucked our family life and is now living in a dirt bag hole with his dirt bag whore and thinking that all that he has lost is worth it for the sex.
The kids, of course, are impacted, and having been the child of divorce myself I know how deep and permanent the effects of such betrayal and the processes that follow are. He insists they’ll adjust just fine … but, then he would have to, wouldn’t he? He doesn’t do well with taking on guilt or facing consequences — surprise, surprise.
I have been grieving. Not only was Mark, until the 2nd of March, considered my hero, the best husband in the world, wonderful father, and so on, I had also always been under the impression that he was my best friend, and I miss all those people he used to be.
Apparently, his body has been invaded by a pod person that rather looks like him, but who I otherwise don’t recognize at all. His trail now leaves lies, disloyalty and treachery, and his chosen path is now trashy, tacky and common as muck.
Friends and family are stunned, and we are all sad … me for so many reasons, but everyone for the loss of the man we respected and admired. Even he has the good sense to be embarrassed by how far he has fallen, but seems to be compensated by her efforts to keep him inflated.
So, like so many other women whose husbands proved not to live up to their best or their brightest, whose honor ebbed when the ego took the hits all egos do with age, I now have to leave Mark to the life he has chosen. I doubt it will be rife with engaging conversation, shared visions for a greater future or long lasting, but it’s his life now, and I need to get on with mine.
Being a writer and a blogger of material that often included personal experiences for a long time now, composing and posting this needs to be part of my healing process, a practice in catharsis. After a two-month break in a career of prolific writing, it seems I should give some idea to those of you who read me often and have been wondering where I’ve gone. I’m sure there are some who will take joy from my pain … there are a lot nasty people out there in Blogland … but perhaps there will be someone reading who’s riding in this boat, too, and needs to know they’re not alone.
My dear friend Lisa shared with me that there is a Hebrew term: soog bet. It translates to “damaged and inferior” and has to do with an innate shallowness in men that takes little to bring out.
Not that I ever thought I would have to admit this, but now Miguel and Mark share the designation … not just as men, but as soog bet. As I said at the top, it takes one to know one, and this one was well spotted.
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
Paradise Preoccupied 
Mark sucks (no pun) and deserves to be strung up by the very member he is so driven to satisfy.
“It takes one to know one”. You sure hit that nail on the head. You sure did.
Know that this is about Mark, and what HE lacks (and no, it isn’t a daily blow job), what HE has failed to do and what HE will live to regret, if he doesn’t already.
Hey, maybe Mark and Miguel should hit the bars together….two sexist egotistical men completely ignorant of how pathetic they appear to others…… .
Sandra,
I really am sorry for the pain you are feeling. You seem like the kind of person who will come out the other side ok, but it has to be a horrible thing to deal with. You and your children will be in my thoughts.
~Katie
I too am a child of divorce. My father fought to avoid having any visitation rights. I was old enough to understand he was divorcing us kids too. He didn’t hate us, he just reallly didn’t care for us. As a kid, it wasn’t until I was 19 years old that I finally stopped hurting over this rejection.
I am sorry your pain…
Good for you for getting this out and off of your chest! I am so proud of you for taking the next step in the healing process! I know that times are hard now, but he will have to reap what he sows, and once this relationship of his fails because neither can trust each other, after all if they will do it with you (cheat) they will do it to you, he will have lost absolutely everything, due to his own stupidity.
Your children have you to lean on, to show them how to rise above as best they can, the damage that their father has done, and for that I am thankful for. I know that you will keep them safe, and secure, and help them to get through this. It will not be easy, and yes there will be a lifetime of scars, but I am confident that with your strength they will be fine.
Mark is a fool, and if he hasn’t realized that now, it is only a matter of time before he begins to realize just what he has done, destroyed, and thrown away. The harder he tries to justify his actions, the deeper in denial you know he is.
Life will get him for the pain that he has caused, karma is a powerful thing.
Oh Sandra. I am so, so sorry.
That sucker punch to the stomach feeling when someone you love with your whole heart betrays you so badly is awful.
He’ll have to pull up his pants eventually, and when he does, I suspect he will indeed be faced with the empty idiocy of his life. I hope he hurts. I hope he hurts so badly he wants to die. I know that isn’t kind of me, but he is contemptible, for he has hurt you and your lovely kids for the stupidest, basest of reasons.
I wish you peace and continued healing.
Oh Sandra, I know there’s little I (or anyone) can say that will make things better. If we could set things to right with our words, you know we’d do so in a heartbeat. You and the kids have been wronged so very deeply, and the anger and hurt I feel just on your behalf I know is nothing compared to what you’ve been going through.
But I hope that you can take a bit of comfort in the fact that there are quite a few of us our here in your virtual community thinking good thoughts for you, sending our best wishes and prayers to help as best we can.
(((((Sandra)))))
Mine was also 42 and she married as well. “Soog bet” perfect! What empowered me was knowing I was the sane one. What allowed me to let go was knowing he was no longer the person he was before he lost his mind. The man I had such an incrediable life with no longer existed. The man she got was someone I would have never wanted. I have complete faith that you are the same Sandra I knew when, intelligent, strong, beautiful, amazing.
Sandra, although I have spoken and written to you during this horrible experience, I have missed your blogs TERRIBLY. For the last few years I started everyday with your blog. And why? Because you are honest, incredibly brave, a brilliant writer and blogger, and a genuinely good person.
There are a lot of us who love you and will help in anyway we can. Just let us know what we can do.
Love,
Lisa
I’m just so sorry for what you’re feeling.
I too know this pain. I am so sorry to hear of his betrayal.
I believe to my core that Karma exists, and he will get his.
I ditto what CinnamonOpus says… there are quite a few of us!
I am so, so sorry. Hope you and the kids are OK.
(((((((( Sandra )))))))))
I am so sorry about all of this. I am very glad to see you taking steps to heal. He didn’t deserve you.
Hang in there.
– Faith
Go Girl! Yes there is a time that needs to be allotted for mourning but you are right – you should move on. What I find bothersome about MEN is that even when they’re at fault they somehow find a way to put the blame on you – “I was pushed to that situation. If you were…” I hope this is not the case with Mark else that would really make him soog bet, not that he already isn’t. Moreover, men hardly think of the effects of this on the kids.
yeah… men are soog bet….
Thank you all for the support and understanding. There will, of course, be more on this from me, but please understand that I am far from the end of this journey. I begin to see the light, but it’s a very long tunnel.
As I make my way, I will try to write about other topics that interest me … and, hopefully, you … and try to regain my voice and my confidence, and relearn all the HTML tags my fingers used to crank out without a pause.
How quickly this will come, I can’t say, but getting back to the world already has me pissed off about the hoopla on the Olympic Torch getting all the rah rah as it makes its way to Beijing, so there may be life, and opinions, in this old girl yet.
So sorry to read what you have been going through. And so *furious* that he would happily and willingly hurt your children this way, while he rationalizes that they will be fine. He deserves to be bobbited.
Sandra, I am so sorry. Even living in Paradise doesn’t help this kind of pain, betrayal and that deep shock that makes you question everything you thought to be true
It’s rare to find someone in your situation who is able to write about this particular hell in the way you have managed to do – combining the sorrow with humor.
It’ll be such a great feeling when the day comes that you realized you made it through and you are happy again. I hope that day comes quickly for you and your family. Not so much for Mark and the Tin Can Whore.
I understand the courage it took for you to bare your soul and private life for the whole world to see. I admire your strength and determination to move ahead. The last two months have been a terrible, agonizing struggle for you, but you’ve managed to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving in the right direction. Not many people, including myself, would have come so far in such a short time.
I know there are hard times ahead for you, but you are going to make it. One day at a time. Remember, you have so many friends waiting to help in any way possible.
As for Mark being “fresh meat”, he is dead meat to me. Stinking and rotten.
Hi Sandra,
Remember this journey will only make you stronger. Good luck!
I love this blog. Fell upon it last night. Great writing.
Oh, my dear, dear friend! I second Lisa S’s sentiments – all of them.
I’m so glad to see you blogging again. I know you aren’t even near getting past all of this yet but I’m so happy to see that you’ve come this far.
At the risk of sounding too cliche:
“You’ve come a long way, baby!”
Just take it one step at a time. You’ll get through that dark tunnel.
((HUGS))
Sandra,
I am truly sorry. Having lived through that with my father and mother and than later with my father (in reverse and as he finally admitted-what goes around comes around- good one, dad), I can only say hugs to you and a giant fork in Mark’s eye.
Romee
Oh Sandra, what a terrible betrayal. My heart goes out to you and your children.
Hi Sandra:
I am so sorry to hear what you and the kids are going through. Divorce stinks, being married to the wrong person stinks worse. In a man’s world, Mark was thinking, but he was using the wrong head.
I am thankful you have resurfaced, we miss you. After blackness, there are rays of sunshine. They happen and they can keep you going. I am glad you are beginning to see some light. DLTBGUD. John
I knew that there had to have been something up for you to be away from your writing for so long. Selfishly, I have missed your way with words. So sorry that your world has been shaken – especially for the little ones.
Oh Sandra, I am SO sorry 😦 You and the kids deserve so much better and I’m hurting for what all of you now have to wade through.
I’m not sure if words bring much comfort, but I know that you will be able to help your kids through this betrayal. And good for you for putting it out there as a step in your healing! Ughhh… I am just sickened. There aren’t words derogatory enough to fit the prick.
((((hugs))))
Rebecca
Got here via the “go to a random blog” arrow at the upper right hand corner. Wow! what a powerful post. I am sorry to hear about your predicament. I hope that you and your children will find peace sooner than later. God bless.
I have missed reading your blog every day. I have been praying for you, bless your heart! What a sucko thing to happen. Then again, you will come out stronger once you have grieved it through.
When I was in the process of adopting my daughter I met and began an intense relationship with a man that I was convinced was my soulmate. He broke off the relationship a few months before I went to Russia for the adoption. I was totally devastated. Then my daughter saved me – I had to buck up and be a mom, for the first time ever, to a 13 year old. Talk about shock therapy!
Thank God for our children, who give us the courage to keep going!
Sending cyber hugs, hon!
Dee
I am so sorry!! There are so many of us out here who support you, and have missed you so much. I’m glad to “hear” your voice again, and I wish you well as you get through this.
I have been away only to learn you too have been away from your blog. I am so sorry to hear of this horror. In the end you have your beautiful children what will he have? Regret and more emptiness than he has left you with. I wish you well on your journey through this wretched development.
Dear Sandra, I am so sorry for what Mark has done to you and your children. One day he will regret what a total personal failure (a TPF ) he has been. Please know that our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. I have missed your blogs so much. God bless you!
hi Sandra,
its with pain that i read and learn your story through a personal friend.Been there too many a times.I won’t adivise what others had .As a Christian and one who believes in Christ understand very well what is happening in this world….
What moral conditions will be characteristic of society in the last days? It’s in the Bible, II Timothy 3:1-5, NIV. “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.”
Sandra,the power of darkeness has conquered the heart of your dearest husband .It will take you to deliver him.Like Christ came to save us 2000 years ago because of his great love for us ,we should also be doing this for others especially the one whom we share a special bond.
so ,many a times we women cry out to the whole world about our problems( i did the same) when they can do nothing for us!Many a times those who sympathise with us are not really true.
My advise: you need to intercede for Mark In prayer ,right now he is blind and deaf …dont’t forget that he has made alliance with the devil by sleeping with this girl..its hard and tough but u need to also pray for this girl .Forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing .Ask Jesus to set your husband free and he will.
You need to change your approach towards him show him kindness and pitiness and most of all show him that you love him. Sandra ,it doesn’t matter what the world may say ,its you who konws what your dreams have been and what Mark has meant to you for all those years.My dear don’t let another woman take him away from you after all he is still your man and you can still make a U turn and stop the worse from happening!
I had arrived to the point of Divorcing ..which is biblical when one is unfaithful but Christ rejoice and have special blessings for us when we are determine to fight for the lost souls just as he did 2000 years ago and still is advocating on our behalf.
My husband is back home,my children are happy and i have set my mind to forgive and forget all his faults…after all he is just a man.
The devil is a defeated foe ,u can only win in this battle by claiming the blood of Christ .If you want to persevere and learn more about his love
Go on : Bibleinfo.com
I will be calling on you soon.I pray that the holy spirit guides and protect you Sandra.
I don’t know how you would take my notes but i do hope that it will be seen with great sincerity from a woman who understand what you are going through.
I’m sorry you went through all of that.
Still going through it, I’m afraid. Every single day is a slog through muck.
dang
I’m sorry : o(
It is a temporary devastation to ones sole, making you question everything you believed in up to the exact moment you learn of the ultimate betrayal. I do send you positive thoughts of strength every day. Peace
Hi Sandra. I’ve been a long time lurker and was wondering where you had been. I’m so sorry you are going through this simply horrible ordeal. My sympathies to you and your children.
Oh Sandra you have no idea how sorry I am to hear that! I was getting worried about you…I was going to ask some Seychellois friends to find out what had happened.
I am glad you are back…I missed you!
All the best
You are in my thoughts!
Saskia
The truth is you are going to wake up every morning and for a split second you will not remember, then it all comes back, along with that searing pain in the hole where your heart used to be. Most times you don’t want to get out of bed but you are a mom so you have to. Like a robot you do the things that need doing. Your brain is trying to wrap around the fact you are no longer two. It’s not very easy. In the past when you woke up you knew what your day was going to be about. For many years you have been building a life with the other half of who you are. You expected to grow old together, reflecting, laughing, crying about all you’ve experienced together. Now that is not going to happen. The worst part being that you cannot undo it no matter how badly you want to, and believe me you want to. It is so hard to believe all those years no longer have meaning. You look for reasons and ways to forgive but you know you cannot. It is not being weak, it is simply the fact that you are still in love. You were not the one that stopped loving him and now you have to. That is the hardest part. In a time when good relationships are so rare to lose one for such an incredibility stupid decision is insane. It makes you crazy for a while. All we can do is send you our support and some well meaning advice however this is truely a journey you will be making all alone, I know.
Always your friend, Chrystal
Sandra – I was checking out something on ouradopt.com and found your blog there…and needed to hear the rest of the story.
I know how much you were in love with the persons you thought he was! No words can convey how sorry I am for the loss you and the children face!
Be good to yourself…
HUGS from this side of the world,
Julie