For Better or Worse...Unless you Gain Weight???

In typical female fashion, I have a delayed rational reaction to many situations. I either quickly overreact or I close myself off. I know…gasp! A woman who admits she can overreact.

I am working hard to find a happy medium but it isn’t easy.

When I am in a confrontational face-to-face conversation I usually struggle to find the words I want to say but when I am alone on an airplane, 33,000 feet in the air, I suddenly become a Webster's Dictionary complete with a Thesaurus (which is the dilemma I am facing right now).

In the situation at hand, I didn't overreact or close myself off.

I completely shut down.

I didn't know how to react.

Here it is a month later and I finally have so much to say that I am finding it difficult to get it all out in a polite and rational way. So bare with me because I am trying to refrain from cursing.

I have a love/hate relationship with the fact that I tend to go the extra mile for people who won’t even cross the street for me. I give too much of myself and I love too blindly.

At times, these traits make me feel stupid because I get taken advantage of far too often.

After everything I have been through in my life I should have a blast-proof concrete wall up preventing others from penetrating but my heart is too big to contain. Becoming a hardened bitch is not my forte. Even after what I am about to tell you.

This past year has been a struggle for me and when I got sick in February my body paid the toll. Apparently because of that, my marriage paid the toll as well.

Without going into too many horrible details, there are two reasons my husband gave me when he told me he wanted a divorce.

The first reason he gave was that he was tired of my attitude over the previous six months. I reminded him that my bitchy attitude was the direct result of discovering the various online profiles he had created for himself advertising his availability on casual sex websites and the fact that he actually had another woman spend the night in our house while I was traveling.

He said he felt that since he had already apologized for those incidents a few months prior that I should have gotten over it. That I needed to let the past go.

When I brought up that my attitude had recently worsened because just a few weeks prior I found 17 f***ing emails on his computer that he sent to women on Craigslist who were looking for sex, he didn’t have much of a response.

I told him that I was beyond mortified that he offered to host these women in our house while I was traveling for work and that it was heartbreaking that he had sent eight of those emails while I was in the emergency room for my heart condition.

His defense was that he didn’t touch any of them and that was all that mattered. I told him that it didn’t matter if he did or didn’t because the only important fact was that his intent (ahem…very strongly worded intent) was there. Multiple times.

The second reason he gave was, and I quote, “You didn’t hold up your end of the bargain in our marriage.” When I questioned what that meant, his response was, “You didn’t maintain the way you looked.”

When I acknowledged that, yes, I had gained nearly 40 pounds over the year because of my illness, he said, “don’t kid yourself honey, it was more than 40 pounds.”

Because I have this heart that is too big to contain, I actually sat there and tried to defend myself.

But, it didn’t matter to him that I had been back at the gym for the previous six weeks working my ass off (and loving every sweaty, breathless moment) to lose the added fluff.

It didn’t matter that at that point I had already lost 20 pounds.

It didn't matter because he said he fell out of love with me and was no longer attracted to me due to the weight gain and pissy attitude.

At that moment, I stood up, looked him dead in the eye and with the most perfect annunciation while my finger was pointed directly at him I said, “FUCK YOU!”, and I walked out of the house. (Yes, his words were the driving force behind my previous post.)

I’m sure you can imagine what a number this ordeal has done in my head. The emotions that had wreaked havoc on my life for more than 20 years had resurfaced after I worked so hard to overcome them. I have gone from feeling stupid, weak, and pitiful to raging beast mode bitch when I think of his words, “you didn’t hold up your end of the bargain because you didn’t maintain the way you looked”.

Who says that to someone they supposedly love?

Sure I could dwell on the what if’s…What if I didn’t travel so much? What if I didn’t get sick? What if I didn’t gain weight?...but I won’t. Why? Because none of that matters.

Our wedding vows didn’t say, “for better or worse…unless you gain weight”. They said, “for better or worse, in sickness and in health.”

I did not choose to be sick and I did not choose to gain weight. My husband chose to make himself available and offered himself to multiple women on multiple occasions.

At the end of each day, I find myself reflecting on the words my friend said to me that night after all of this went down…“You are a strong woman.”

Those words make me feel a sense of peace.

They also validate why it is so easy for me to move on.

If not, it would be too easy to become a hardened bitch.

It would be too easy to continue curling up in the fetal position and crying myself to sleep.

It would be too easy to give up on my goals.

Instead, in my truest form, I will continue to love blindly and unconditionally.

I will continue to go the extra mile for others.

I will hold my head up high with a smile upon my face…even when I am out of breath with sweat dripping down my face while climbing that damn StairMaster at my favorite gym (Anytime Fitness - Katy, TX) where they love and accept me for who I am.

More importantly, I will continue to seek AND achieve my goals.

I have a little more than 30 pounds to go before I reach my first goal weight. I have no doubt that I will not only achieve it - I will demolish it.

I refuse to be sabotaged by anyone, including myself or my soon-to-be ex-husband.

I am not seeking sympathy from anyone.

I am not seeking anyone to justify my thoughts and emotions.

I know I deserve better.

And one day, when I least expect it, that truly better half of myself will magnetically find me…regardless of what my weight is.

I got this.