Therapy Dog
I was sitting alone late tonight watching a show that had a man on it who was a recent widow and was struggling. I began to sob. Buddy, sitting next to me, continued snoring. Willow jumped up from across the sectional and hurried to me. She licked the tears off of my cheeks, put her paw on my leg, then my shoulder, and slightly whined. She looked at me with eyes full of empathy. It was just what I needed.
Entry 2 6:28 a.m.
A mutual friend of Jenny and mine, a fellow MDA camp counselor, stopped by to see me yesterday morning. Jenny has multiple factions or clusters of friends, and this friend is part of a group of 4 women that would meet every few months for dinner. We both have known this group of women since we were kids in the mid-80s. This cluster knew about el pinché, and had definitely been told all sorts of terrible untruths about me for a long time, per Jenny's distortion campaign. I don't know when it started, but I suspect this group was a testing lab for the broader campaign. The coolness with which the one person I had regular contact with because she came to walk our dogs regularly these last few months, a person who had an unalloyed love for for years, was sustained and obvious.
The specific friend, who came to see me yesterday, was formerly married to the guy with whom Jenny had her first affair back in 2011. This woman's perspective may or may not have been colored by the fact she met her current husband, who was married at the time and had been for decades, while on a flight.
When we began to discuss Jenny and el pinché, this friend--let's call her Sally--had a fascinating take. I started the conversation by telling her that I was having a terribly difficult time grieving. I am overwhelmingly sad, I said, but the affair, Jenny's failure to spend time with the kids, and the lying she engaged in--especially the lies about me--were making it incredibly complicated and hard to grieve her death. Sally responded by saying life is complicated and she doesn't judge Jenny and her affair.
My point isn't, I told Sally, to convince her Jenny was a monster, but to make it clear that the things I suspect she told her were abject lies. Explaining that I cared about her knowing the truth after having both read all of the texts and listened to all the voicemails on Jenny's phone, and learning how skewed and largely fictional Jenny's story was. Sally told me that Jenny and I had different perspectives on what happened. I acknowledged that is true, but that this wasn't me asserting Jenny had a parallax view, but instead about intentionally lying through omission or wholesale invention of a false reality in order to justify the affair and to gain the support and understanding of her friends. This stratagem, it was confirmed as we spoke, had worked. Sally kept telling me how complicated life is. I told her story after story, all written down in this journal. I explained that Jenny would tell people I didn't take care of her and I was angry or rafe-filled all of the time, and suspect she told these lies to this group of friends. I reminded Sally she had known me for decades, and that I never showed evidence of having a temper. I explained I stayed and cared for Jenny because I loved her, that I stayed, despite mistreatment, because I was there to make sure Jenny's suffering from cancer was minimized.
Sally. Sally just kept explaining that Jenny loved me, that she told Sally she loved me. When I told her love is action, not simply words, and that Jenny told people she didn't love me, and that she stayed only fornmy life insurance and because I took care of her, Sally had nothing to offer.
While we talked a lot about my relationship, I was repeatedly clear that the biggest hurt was Jenny's virtual abandonment of the kids. I told the story of Leiney's interventions, when my eldest pleaded for time with Jenny that never came. Sally had not much to offer on this. When I said Jenny complained to friends that I was always home at night, Sally didn't deny it. When I explained I was home spending time with the kids because Jenny was never home, Sally was implacable, had no reaction.
This conversation went on and on, and to little avail, in my estimation. I told her of a conversation I had with Jenny's sisters the night before, when her sisters told me they had come to the belief Jenny was mentally ill and that I concurred, Sally was silent. I couldn't gauge at all if she believed me.
Ultimately, the conversation confirmed my belief that Jenny was, besides on texts, painting me in a false light. I don't expect I will speak to anyone in this group of friends again, which saddens me. As I mentioned before, I have known these people the majority of my life. Before the affair, I am certain Jenny was painting me as failing on my end of the relationship, making it easier to paint me as a monster when the time came to make sure she was seen as the hero, the wronged woman looking for a Prince Charming to rescue her from Snidely Whiplash. I can't say I am surprised, in fact the opposite is true. I am hurt and saddened, however at how effectively Jenny's strategy has worked.
Entry 3. 9:14 a.m.
How do I accept that being painted in a false light by the person I love and that some people I have known forever will always believe all the bad things? I would never claim to be even close to perfection. Moreover, I understand that the people who know me best, including my kids, Jenny's family, and my friends know who I am and that the bad things Jenny was saying were patently false. Still, I can't stand the idea people think I would ever be mean or cruel to Jenny. Did I get enraged a few times over her lies, or her prioritizing el pinché and her friends over the kids and me? The few times it happened are captured here in this blog. She was dying and mistreating us. I let my emotions get the best of me, but that release was saved for tandem therapy as encouraged by the therapist OR arose when I found out she was lying. . . again. That Jenny never shared the reason for my upset, or simply lied and said I was angry all the time--nut in therapy admitting I only showed upset in therapy--is master manipulation and just about breaks me.
At times she would tell her friends, as if she were seeing Halley's Comet streaking by 40 years early, that I had been nice to her that day. In reality, we were generally kind to each other as a rule. We would--on those evenings she was home--so when she was recovering from chemotherapy--cuddle on the couch most every night. I would, many mornings, sit with her before I was working, stroking her head and holding her hand to chase off her sorrow. Even though I was desperately trying to bifurcate our relationship, it was intensely difficult to pull off.
Ultimately, anyone reading this and I will be dead, and I long forgotten. Knowing this, I understand the truth is irrelevant, the pain transitory. I guess what hurts is that I did my level best to stick with Jenny, to love her, to be kind to her, and reduce her suffering. All the while, she was putting her needs first, neglecting the kids and trashing me, disregarding my feelings and with zero compunction about her behavior. And, I hate this, especially because I still love her, knowing what I know.
Entry 3 10:36 a.m.
How do you hold two things in your heart at the same time? Its the, "Yes, and" of dialectical behavioral therapy. It's the "I love her, yes, and I hate her behavior," e.g. I learned DBT when we sat through a year long weekly class with Leiney back when she was suicidal. We learned coping mechanisms, many of which I hadn't heard of before, but spent a lot of time, a lot of time understanding that more than one feeling or idea, or truth can exist at the same time and how to work within that understanding. One of the ways that I managed to stay sane while staying with Jenny the last 19 months, was availing myself of the training we received.
It isn’t working today. It hasn't worked for a few days. I alternate between feeling completely bereft because I know she didn't love me (Please, if one more person says she loved me in her own way, I'd ask for you to stand in my shoes having experienced what I have and knowing the things she said about me and about not loving me or not even liking me) and incredibly sad for my children, who are motherless now. I only cry incidentally for myself, for my loss, for her. I am crushed, ruined, feel worthless, guileless, a rube. I feel robbed. I struggle because I can't talk about it with her, cant clear the air. I know she would likely lie or apologize and cry crocodile tears, but I don't even have the chance to have her prove me wrong.
I want to swallow the world in this blackness in hopes it would end my pain. Instead, I am anchoring myself here, on my couch, content today to see no one.
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