stalker – Sweat & Sparkle

And Now…

I love this quote. It’s like it was written just for me and my husband, because this is exactly where we are right now.

Last month, we celebrated our wedding anniversary at a resort on the beach. As we sat together at the outdoor bar one evening, waves crashing in and out nearby, I sipped my drink, watched my husband a moment, and thought how amazingly far we have come.

We have leapt hurdles, climbed mountains, and battled like warriors simply to be together. We found each other in the middle of our own personal thunderstorms, both fresh out of the most toxic relationships of our lives. With each other, we found peace and learned to smile again.

And that was something that certain other people simply could not stand.

I could go on and on for volumes, describing all the assaults and attacks we survived over the years, and you would think I made up at least half of it. Who’s crazy enough–childish enough–to do all that? As soon as my husband’s ex, Psycho, found out that he wasn’t sobbing in a fetal position without her, and had in fact found happiness with someone better, she devoted every moment of her empty life to harassing, haranguing, and badgering us.

Despite her relentless efforts to push us apart, we moved closer to each other. Maybe because of that, actually. We had each other’s backs, supported each other, fought for each other. We navigated our relationship through an endless battlefield, yet we still enjoyed being with each other. That says so much.

We could have given up. We could have said “Enough” and walked away from each other, just to be left alone. I know that is what Psycho wanted and fully expected. If we ended it because we just weren’t right for each other, I could live with that. But I would be damned if we said good-bye because a vindictive cockroach didn’t want us together. Fuck her.

I still feel that way. And I’m glad we chose to focus on us instead of her hissing and slithering. We quickly learned to block her out and make our relationship about just us, no outsiders welcome.

Sitting at that beach bar with my husband, I thought about our many years in a cramped, teeny apartment, dreaming of a house of our own, a garden, a swing in a tree in the front yard. After all the struggles, all the battles, all the scratching and clawing, we deserve to stand at the top of that mountain now, with our arms around each other, proud, loved, happy.

What does Psycho have after 18 years of resentment, bitterness, and hostility? Exactly what she deserves: nothing and no one.

It’s beautifully ironic. My husband and I are still together, closer than ever, waking up in each other’s arms every morning, dreaming up new things to discover and places to explore together…while Psycho, after years of hatefully trying to bulldoze me away from him, is as unwanted as a scrap of trash, hurling herself at every guy that wanders by, desperately pleading for attention. It’s humorous, fitting, and nothing less than what the stringy-haired, horse-faced bitch deserves.

Oh, I’m sure someday she will manipulate some lonely idiot with no other prospects into dating her beyond a sloppy, disappointing one-night stand. And someday, quickly, when she tires of wearing her mask and can’t keep up with pretending to be even a slightly sane and reasonably decent human being, it will crumble like it always does into non-stop arguing, screaming, throwing things, accusing, cheating, and making his life unendurably miserable, which is the only thing at which she excels.

Psycho foolishly fantasizes that she can drive us apart, when she can’t even make herself like her. (Get real, her own mother didn’t like her.) She wouldn’t lie about herself so incessantly if she is proud of what she sees in the mirror.

Well, when her reflection is a worthless sow who has never stood on her own two feet; who has never independently provided the kids with anything; whose only accomplishment is collecting a plentiful array of mug shots, arrests, and felonies; who exploits and uses the children for her own selfish gratification; who goes home every day to a trailer as trashy, used up, and beggarly as she is, like a scavenging rat returning to its slovenly hole…well, then living a perpetual lie is actually an understandable alternative to facing her truth.

Ultimately, Psycho will never have what my husband and I have. When she isn’t lying to herself, she knows that is why she is obsessed with us and the reason she attacks us. If she can’t have it, why should we?

Because we work for it. We deserve it. We fight for it. We found it with each other when we least expected it, took a chance on it, and we treasure it, protect it, and hold onto it for dear life. And now, we intend, with every beat of our hearts, to enjoy each cherished moment of what we have built together to its absolute and triumphant fullest.

Don’t worry, Psycho. You can still watch jealously from the sidelines when you oh-so-sneakily use the kids’ Facebook accounts to stalk us and make yourself even more bitter by gorging on our happiness. What else are you possibly going to do while you rot in your shitty shack, spin more lies, steal more shit, creep your exes on social media, sprout more wrinkles, and futilely, frantically, and pathetically wish you were anyone but you?

Pathetic

My husband’s ex-wife, Psycho, has never been accused of being overly stable. The instant she found out my husband had moved on after their divorce and found someone new, she launched a stalking and harassment campaign that has spanned over 16 years and shows no sign of slowing down. Lucky me, eh?

While she has been obsessing over me, I have made some observations of my own. For years, I have watched her lie, steal (from her own children at times), backstab, use, manipulate, sneak, gossip, and badmouth, and very little else. It shows.

What has all of this earned Psycho over the years? Let’s see…in 16+ years, Psycho has transformed from a ragingly jealous hag to…a ragingly jealous hag who is 16 years older.

It wasn’t difficult to determine that Psycho is a textbook narcissist. That word gets tossed around a lot these days, slapped onto the forehead of anyone we don’t like, but I mean it in its clinical sense: a mental health disorder in which the person has an unreasonably high sense of their own importance, and the person seeks excessive attention and admiration, while lacking the ability to care about others, even their children.

The passing of time has left its mark on Psycho, as it does all of us. The difference is, after decades of living lie upon lie, desperately trying to force everyone to swallow a false image of herself, Psycho just might be suddenly realizing that instead of building a genuine life, she has devoted all of her time and energy to jealous fits and propping up flimsy fabrications of what she wishes were reality.

The result is nothing less than disastrous. Pushing mid-50s, Psycho has never even minimally supported herself, let alone the kids. The crumbling shack of a trailer she squats in isn’t even hers. It is an act of contemptuous charity by her adoptive mother, who barely tolerates her but wishes to bolster the illusion of Psycho’s normalcy by offering up a place for her to live, under the watchful eye of her enabling father. Dysfunction runs in their blood.

Psycho has managed to obliterate not only two marriages, but every semblance of a relationship she has attempted since then. In all honesty, what does she possibly offer to someone? Dishonesty, mood swings, non-stop complaining, inability to pay her own bills, and oh yeah, an uncontrollable fascination with her ex-husband and his upgrade…what does she possibly hope to attract with that?

When my husband and I first started dating, he used to joke, “Thank you for not being crazy!” We would laugh, but I also knew it wasn’t completely in jest. He has told me how grateful he is to be with someone who doesn’t scream, curse, throw things, threaten, steal from him. We enjoy each other. We have fun together. We respect each other. That is not possible with her, and eventually, everyone discovers that for themselves.

In a nutshell, Psycho has focused so hard on raging against people she is violently jealously of, and trying to force others to believe she is something much grander than she truly is, that she failed to develop as a person, to form any sincere interests, or build an actual life. She is now left standing in the dark with her scraps of props on an empty stage, a discarded character of a show no one is interested in anymore.

I wouldn’t care about any of this if it didn’t impact the kids, but naturally, it does. Their mother is desperately vying for attention in any way she can get it, indiscriminate as to who it comes from. How can they not be embarrassed? The youngest child still lives with her, and Psycho’s mothering skills are loud and clear in this child’s chronic absenteeism from school, which is now nearly 15% of the school year. (That, at least, is nothing new. Psycho has never given a damn about the kids unless they score her likes, praise, and accolades.)

It’s only going to get worse. Narcissists like Psycho don’t suddenly wise up as they age. They deteriorate. They shrivel. They panic as their failures stack up, and their mask rots off. Psycho will be left to stand on the only things she has devoted her pathetic life to: jealousy, anger, bitterness, and endless lies.

Protected: Mother of the Year

Something Better

Once upon a time, I had a “what-was-I-thinking?” relationship. I cringe now at how many red flags I ignored, the dysfunction I danced around, the denial I embraced, all with the failed hope that it would get better…someday.

But it wasn’t always that way. Of course it wasn’t, or I would never have been with him in the first place. At first, we had fun. I laughed a lot when I was with him, and I looked forward to seeing him. It’s hard for me to superimpose Crazy Him on top of Normal Him, because they were so different to me. It was hard for me to let go of Normal Him, because I loved him, and I wanted him back.

Sometimes I need to remind myself that at one time, that is how my husband must have felt. At one time, he must have liked being with Psycho (his ex and my stalker), must have even had fun with her. It’s hard to imagine now. Actually, it’s downright impossible, but once, she either wasn’t like she is now, wasn’t as bad, or was putting on a good act. Who knows?

I don’t believe for one second that it’s just coincidence that both my husband and I had the worst relationships of our lives right before the happiest relationship of our lives. After putting up with the drama and stupidity and insanity of a selfish and toxic parasite, we were both ready for a real friend, stability, someone we could trust. We had both lost any tolerance for histrionic bitches of either gender. We both slammed the cellar door on the slobbering beast we had left and were ready to step into sunlight, happiness, laughter.

I didn’t want someone who was anything like the man-child I had just left, and my husband didn’t want anyone like his ex. (Luckily for him, I don’t have much penchant for lying, stealing, committing felonies, abusing kids, relying on Daddy to pay my bills, penning fake suicide notes, baying at the moon, etc.)

A lot of people just stay in septic relationships. I’m glad we didn’t. I’m glad both of us escaped those foul cages, those infected traps. I’m glad both of us never gave up on the idea that something better was possible. And I’m glad we eventually found each other.

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We moved on, and we are happier. One more thing we have in common is that our exes have not. They both wallow in their own dysfunction. They learn nothing. They don’t improve or grow. They fester and rot, rooted in their own waste, trying their damnedest to drag everyone down with them. Not surprisingly, both of them are miserable creatures who offer nothing but stress, unhappiness, and disgust to those around them.

It is what they choose. It’s not what I would ever choose, but to each their own. I am happy that my husband and I disentangled ourselves from noxious people and freed ourselves to find each other. I’m happy that our paths crossed so that we could finally discover what a truly loving relationship feels like. I’m proud that we can offer an example of a healthy relationship to the kids, who desperately need to see that relationships don’t need to involve screaming, fighting, threatening to leave, name-calling, or non-stop drama.

I only wish we had found each other sooner, but maybe walking through fire first just helps us to appreciate and value and adore each other even more. So if I have anything at all to say to my ex, I would say thank you for clearly showing me what I don’t want.

And to my husband’s ex, I would say thank you for showing me what I never want to be.

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