Just a little venting
Been spending a lot of time with an old friend lately. She used to work with my husband and I… she was a good friend of hubby’s and then became a friend mine when I joined the company waaaaay back when, and consequently started dating hubby.
She was one of the people who noticed a ‘Spark’ before it was common knowledge.
Anyway, long story short, her marriage is ending and she’s going through a difficult time. I spent a whole day last week with her moving boxes etc. out of her house into the place she is house-sitting in for a while. She discovered that her husband was having an affair… and has been on-and-off for the past 3 yrs. She was completely blind-sided by this and had no idea that he was seeing somebody.
The weirdest thing about all this is that, if y’all recall, I have a friend in Toronto who split from her partner almost a year ago. Nearly same scenario, except that she was the cheater. I love my friend in T.O. and we’ve been friends for nearly 20 years and will always be friends, but this recent experience has certainly given me some insight as to what it’s like to be the injured party in cases like this. While Brenda (T.O. friend) felt terribly about what happened, she’s still the one’s who’s nice and comfy in her new relationship while Sharon, her ex-partner, is still trying to put the pieces of her life back together. I see this very clearly now more than ever as I try to help Connie (here in Ottawa) come to terms with the fact that, after 15 years of marriage, Mark moved directly out of their home and bed into the bed of some woman she didn’t even know existed. Perhaps this was much easier for him to do because there are no children involved, but for Connie it’s devastating.
Anyway, I can only hope that I don’t end up playing one of those roles at some point in my life. It’s all a very scary reminder that things happen very quickly in relationships and sometimes those things are not always under your control. I love my hubby, and we’re very happy. What scares me is that these two couples were very happy together too…. At one point they were anyway.
I think for Connie, at first she was in shock. Yes, of course she knew that things weren’t great in their relationship, but every marriage has it’s peaks and valleys and she just thought that they were in a valley and that they’d work their way through it.
Then came the grief. She really felt as though she was grieving. In a way, I guess she was as she certainly suffered a loss. She had a life, she loved that life. Then one day all of a sudden that life was no longer and she had no say or control over any of it.
Now? Now she’s just really pissed off, angry, and upset. God I wish I could help her.
So hubby and I do the only thing we CAN do… Tech. support. I know it sounds funny but that’s all I have for her right now.
Connie isn’t very technical and she was having problems setting up her new network at the place she’s staying in. So she calls me up and tells me she left Mark a voice mail asking for help because she can’t set up the network on her own. She was very upset about this because the last thing she wants to do right now is admit that she can’t get by without his help. I was like… “ummmm… DUDE! You call him back or better EMAIL him and tell him that you need passwords, network names, and domain names… and anything else relevant to the home network. THAT’S IT! YOU DON’T NEED HIM.!!!...”
Once we got that info it took hubby and I 30 minutes to get her up and running in her new place.
But, alas, it’s just not much at all considering everything else she’s going through. I hate it when you have to watch someone go through something and you can’t do anything about it…. I HATE IT!