Internal Struggles, Cartwheels, & Tequila

Posted on April 5, 2021 by faithsju243
Just imagine me and several friends shooting tequila but with the same sentiment. Photo credit – https://sayingimages.com/wp-content/uploads/divorce-celebration-memes.jpg

Welcome back Faithfuls. I hope you took a minute to reflect where we left off last week.  If you missed any part of the story I suggest starting here before going forward.

Sometimes you wake up and the weight of your decisions make getting out the bed impossible. I know, not because of allowing The Nino Brown of Sugared Beverages aka My Past to walk out of my life with 5 contractor bags of his incidentals…no I’ve had grand risings pretty consistently since the sun stopped shining on the crack of his narcissistic a$$ through the wooden blinds in my master bedroom. A weight leapt off my shoulders at the count of 260+ adult man pounds. I’m simply sharing that I can appreciate that some of us divorcing our insignificant others feel all the stings of breaking up with someone who shared life space with us for a number of years. One might confuse my grand rising admission with removing all the unsettledness that exists once the dust clears, and you’re left with pictureless walls and an empty other side of the bed. Let me be clear, being a broken mess is 100% okay and cartwheeling down your hallway is also okay, if of course cartwheels are in your ministry.

They aren’t in mine but what I did do for myself to plunge headfirst back into my life absent a human sponge, book a trip. And this trip booking was the first of many confirmations that I started down the right road, the path back to me. Before I committed to the life of raising a man child, holy matrimony, traveling set my heart on fire. There’s an infectiousness to travel, especially when you’re able to immerse yourself in another culture. It gives perspective to your life in ways that I wish everyone had the favor to enjoy. Being ¾ of a union where I should have been ½ destroyed the ability to travel freely and absent complication. I can’t tell you the number of trips Nursing Chocolate (the travel agent extraordinaire) sent invites for that I politely declined or flat out ignored because I knew going would mean flying solo despite my coupled-ness that required explanation of My Past’s absence. I admit to being embarrassed. Or having to stroke My Past’s ego about why it was okay (when it wasn’t) that he didn’t have his share of our expenses. Instead of dealing with the obvious I abandoned a passion.

Always confident me literally couldn’t face telling the truth to friends and family nor could I stomach lying so I exited group texts or fell silent when travel became a topic. I did enjoy a girl’s trip to Costa Rica early in our relationship. It was the first and last full Faith outing. The rest were friends’ weddings or family excursions, my personal fave, the one, where The Anti Husband accused me of cheating with his cousin during a reunion of sorts (a story for another day). It burns admitting that as conflict resolving as I am typically, I became very avoidant. Sidestepping the spaces in my relationship where I needed and required more from My Past became my default. I packaged my avoidance in the spirit of compromise, that if I just gave a bit more My Past would see my effort and magically change his behavior. As we all know nothing changes behavior besides the person behaving. (I still hold fast to the notion that you shouldn’t have to tell an adult how to adult.) I couldn’t good wife him into being a good husband. And to be clear I never stopped voicing my need for my five asks. Even still I could blame My Past for why I chose avoidance, he’s an easy target ripe with toxic tendencies but instead, I will own my shit. I chose avoidance because my other choice, at least at the time would have been full on rage, and I’d learned from past situations that rage is a beast better caged. Despite being resolution minded more often than not, I struggled addressing the real obstacle…me.

For as much as I’d “adulted” from the Faith that lashed out in anger (the emoticon I hold dear) the Faith that compromised until pain crept through her soul was equally bad. I just didn’t realize it. Folk told me the change was maturity. They called it growth and applauded me for it, so maybe it was ego too. Friends and family commented on the “positive” differences they were seeing in me. No lashing or running away from a relationship at the first sign of “imperfection.” In hindsight I categorize ignoring those early red flags as flat-out stupidity with no one to take ownership but me.  

Instead of telling My Past right where he had me fucked up, I would evade, ignore, and let months that grew to years of irresponsibility couched as “chasing his dream” build up to the explosion that happened when Wander Bread fell ill.  At some point his irresponsibility, laziness, and total lack of appreciation of my effort became normal. How could I call it out when I was basking it in daily? I literally had no emotional space left to shield all the things I let go unaddressed. That is my cross to bear in the downfall of our together forever but not really. If I could have just found a way to say the things I needed to say. Not because the outcome would be different…we don’t belong together, we are not evenly yoked. But time wasted remains time lost. It’s the one thing in life that can’t be duplicated. Plus, what I needed to say, just wasn’t that nice but I will explain that in a later installment.

So, in early August when Nursing Chocolate hit the group chat with who’s going with me to Tulum, I was the first person to respond in the affirmative. His text arrived just 3 days after the bridge. It was the initial sign I needed in a long list of signs fully and completely confirming that splitting from the bullshit was all the way right. As a reward for good behavior, the universe gave me back one of my passions, travel. Not only that, Nursing Chocolate and Modeling Mom were the first friends to fully receive my story. And for all those years of embarrassment and hidden face, I was exposed as raw as I’ve probably ever been…and my highest fear judgment from people I adore didn’t happen. Instead, they poured into an empty reservoir that was dying to be filled. They affirmed me in a way that I’d been missing for years. A spark of old but new Faith emerged, one who can appreciate the need to rage but understands that speaking your truth with grace and compassion is never wrong.

In a few short days a flight and hotel were booked for the trip that forever exists as my freedom voyage, a vacation celebrating another year around the sun, divorcing My Past and my love affair with improper emotional connections. It also filled itself with lots of tequila, a broken faucet, titties tittying and tons of self-reflection. During that time, I cried for the loss of something that at the start was deceptively amazing, I had Issa Rae-esque rap sessions with myself in the mirror, and I accepted that everyone is in my life for a reason, season, or a lifetime (shout out to Grannie Frannie who told me these words a long a$$ time ago and they remain so very very true) and that my season of The Anti-Husband was at a close….and that was all the way okay as well. I returned home bandaged but not bitter and ready to fully be done with the bullshyt forever.  

Y’all know there’s always more and I will serve that tea in the next installment. But what says you Faithfuls, do you believe that relationships fail because of both parties or is there always someone who’s solely to blame? I honestly will take a smooth 25-30% ownership for our collapse. Have you ever compromised so much you gave up a cherished part of yourself? Is that the definition of settling?  Are there times in your relationship where you bit your tongue in the spirit of not hurting feelings only to have it blow up in your face? Speak on it in the comments, in the meantime, and between time, please share, like, comment, and subscribe…isn’t that what we do on this here interweb.

Remember to share is to care and hashish.

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Lite Skin Future Vandross

Posted on March 17, 2021 by faithsju243
But imagine this guy bald, lite skin, Rick Ross full beard & size and there you have it, the
Anti-Husband!
Photo credit – https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/032/245/Screen_Shot_2019-12-26_at_10.53.10_AM.jpg

Welcome back Faithfuls. I hope you took a minute to reflect where we left off last installment.  If you missed any part of the story I suggest starting here before going forward.

Truth be told, I don’t miss My Past. At first it scared me. It made me question whether I ever loved him. I say that because every man with whom I share a soul tie, has left an indent. There was a sharpness I felt in their absence. There was something about their leaving or my going that stirred doubt and a sense that maybe I jumped a little too soon. I didn’t feel that pinch even when I woke early and walked my dogs, his ask in my love language. It’s been cold and rainy. Still, I never once thought I wish The Anti Husband was here. It’s for that reason and others that I know I’ve made the right decision. It didn’t come to me easy. Despite what you read here I’ve struggled for the better part of three years trying to pull the trigger.

During that time, I know I wasn’t the worse, but I probably wasn’t the best wife either. I wish I’d served My Past a lesson in treating people the way you want to be treated. I didn’t and I know it’s petty to think that…but we all fall short of the glory. I’ve never once confessed perfection. Granted you’re supposed to love someone the way they need to be loved, but I stopped actively loving The Anti Husband a while ago and since this is the trust tree, I know that he never loved me. I was an extended stop on the road to his next prey. If nothing more, I existed as the person he consumed until I was unable to give. I say that with ease today because I can accept that users use, but what I know for sure, a man takes care of what he loves without exception. I can’t say The Anti Husband took care of me. There’s no conclusion to reach besides, HE DIDN’T LOVE ME…at least not the way a husband needs to love a wife.

A few years ago, those thoughts drove a knife through me in a way that left me silently crying nights while he slept peacefully. I wrestled with myself and held such anger within wondering why I devoted the best thotting and bopping years of my lifespace to someone who should have been left on read. I struggled outward and inwardly.  I’m sure there were times when My Past could sense my unsettled spirit through passing hellos and obligatory secks. Oddly enough, I found some level of comfort in the discomfort of a fucked-up relationship which truth be told mimicked the lives of the women I saw growing up. A relationship can’t operate in the good all the time. Hell, pre-marital counseling taught me during tough times to dig in that much more. There’s some serious couch time, virtual or otherwise, needed to dissect the why behind the acceptance of a thing that brings you pain, and I should have questioned why any professional would preach to me to endure it. I witnessed the light go dim in Wander Bread’s eyes by the hands of a man as a pre-teen and truthfully, I don’t know that she’s ever fully recaptured it. It’s that loss of light that I prayed to avoid in my adulthood yet still fell into the unbalanced love trappings of a fake family man. I am truly a product of how I was raised.

When I met My Past, no one could have told me he wasn’t the most amazing dad, the best uncle, greatest son, ultimate brother, and ride or die friend. I admired these qualities and felt they mirrored how I approached the world I wanted to build and share with my forever. None of my other suitors provided the family I craved. What I loved about My Past more than anything else was the family vibes he gave off when we were together. He remains the only man I ever had a real conversation with about kids. Y’all know my ovaries are no country for wayward man swimmers so this was A LOT. My decision remained unchanged, but I was open to the possibility with My Past and at some point, on our journey together, strongly considered birthing his child. Plus, I had My Bonus Son. I finally felt comfortable in my life, nestled in the cocoon of the family we created. I adored our family more than anything I’ve ever loved in life.

My Past shattered that image about two years ago, reminding me why I don’t dream. It ripped a hole in my spirit and re-opened family wounds surrounding the loss of my parents as parents. It’s a wound so deep I’m not sure there’s anything that can fill it. After My Past had a falling out with his ex I lost time with My Bonus Son in a way that gnawed at me. I found solace in traveling. I’d book work outings, leave early and stay late to avoid the childless walls that no longer echoed My Bonus Son’s laughter. I never shared this with the Anti Husband. How could I? I was too busy shouldering everything else in our life including nursing his wounds, supporting pipe dreams, providing a dry shoulder for man tears, propping up a deflated but inflated ego, couching all our finances, and listening to the pain life caused in him. But I needed a shoulder too! I needed to seek comfort in the man I married but he never asked how I felt about this loss, and I never told.  

As sensitive to his own emoticons as the Anti Husband is, he never made room for mine, not in any meaningful way that gave me security or confidence, so I kept them caged and unsettled. My Past found a way to negatively internalize everything I shared so I bottled even more. He might ask if I liked his outfit, and I’d say yes, I think it’s nice, but I would switch the shoes. Somehow that meant I no longer found him attractive. It grew tiring constantly reassuring and talking him through molehills he morphed into mountains. Maybe he felt things deeper than me? I don’t know. I admit to being emotionally unavailable for most, but for My Past I opened my entire emotional reservoir. Over time, he drained without refilling every basin. Before long I realized that even if I shared, The Anti-Husband flat out didn’t listen and had no capacity to ease my hurt and even more cruel, he didn’t care enough to try. Those five things, my minor little acts of service to show love how I need to receive it, they didn’t matter. He was careless and his excuse that he never learned the importance of consistency rang hollow at his big age.  Resentment grew in the space where love used to reside, my light began to drain, and I could feel it. Some saw it, but never spoke up.

Our bridge conversation coupled with the Dear Faith Letter topped the pile of I don’t fucking love you that held space in our marriage. About a week or two after the Bridge he pulled up to my house with a U-haul to grab 5 contractor bags of clothes and incidentals, a bachelor pad leather sectional, and an oversized television. We didn’t share much conversation. Marine OG was there to ensure it remained at a minimum and minus My Past trying to give back his birthday dog and not hand over all of my keys, the day went smoothly. When the door closed for good, I hoped it would be our last physical interaction…it wasn’t.  For someone who told me he was leaving to live his dream, I can’t adequately wrap my brain around his random but not so random follow up phone calls, voice messages, texts…and a second letter. The Anti-Husband residuals linger in my space making it impossible to miss who’s not fully gone. It’s not clear to me if his reach backs are about staying attached or if he’s just that fucking toxic a person, one who consciously enjoys ripping the seal off a wound so it can’t properly heal. His level of toxicity involves wishing me well but telling me he doesn’t care if I respond. In my mind I’m thinking, ok, Light Skin Future Vandross. But I know he wants me to respond. I know he craves the interaction I have no interest in giving…so I don’t.

Since the bridge, he has never once asked me how I feel, only if I want to go through with the divorce. Each reach back exists as a smaller or larger version of telling me how he feels and what he wants. Another reminder that I was his wife, but he was never my husband. Maybe he needs more hugs. Maybe…I don’t know but I do know that I’m no longer responsible for those feels and for that I’m grateful. It never ceases to amaze me that a person who pushes you to the edge acts surprised when you fall off the cliff. But what says you Faithfuls, what level of toxic is your most toxic ex? Do you know why you stayed with him/her? If given the opportunity would you tell them where they had you fucked up, have you told them? Did they receive it well? Did it end up with buck nekkid secks like a true amazingly toxic relationship? Or did it end up like mine, on bridge with a man child telling you he’s in the best mental space of his entire life at a couple months shy of 37 with nowhere to live but a family member’s couch? No matter which way it ended, don’t forget to join me next Wednesday, for the newest installment. In the meantime, and between time, please share, like, comment, and subscribe…isn’t that what we do on this here interweb.

Remember to share is to care and hashish.

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What’s Your Love Language

Posted on February 25, 2021 by faithsju243
He reminds me of a friend of My Past who has a quality that women respond to…
Photo credit –
https://miro.medium.com/max/1200/1*lgrpr0TX5CFyjFDkDxZr_Q.jpeg

Welcome back Faithfuls. I hope you took a minute to reflect where we left off last week.  If you missed any part of the story I suggest starting here before going forward.

Believe it or not The Anti Husband and I had pre-marital counseling. Shocking I know. It was particularly emotionally painful for me because I don’t like flushing out my feels in front of people. It did however teach me that a truth I held self-evident was wrong. Where was I wrong? I’m glad you asked – you can’t treat people the way you want to be treated. For it to work correctly, you must meet a person where they are and love them in spite of, not for their potential. Marital class requires that you leave agreeing to wed someone if you accept them for what they bring to the table today and if there’s no growth from that day forward, you’re still rocking. Loyalty runs deeply in my DNA so I prayed and then ultimately swallowed my desire that irresponsibility would grow to responsible, dreaming would grow to planning, and generalized lazy would grow to productive. I decided to marry the guy who dreamed, believed in ridiculous conspiracy theories, drank a little too much, smoked a bit too heavy, and generally thought life was fully and completely about being happy solely in the moment. All of that collectively sits in opposition to Faith, but I needed someone who didn’t trigger where I came from.

My Past filled that requirement. I’d never met anyone more interested in “stuff” for lack of a better term that literally had no bearing on life lived daily.  Seriously he would spend hours on YouTube listening to folks who probably lived in their mother’s basement talking about lost universes and alternative creation stories. He’d recite their teaching as gospel and get upset that I wouldn’t entertain things like Bill Clinton, the real one, didn’t have relations with that woman and the proof rested in a part mysteriously moved from the right to the left side of his head thus proving it was his alien abductor. Word? Word…spending precious time dabbling in nonsense didn’t put food on our table nor grow us as a couple. My Past came up with no life plans during those hours of YouTube rabbit holing. This amounted to the saddest thing in life, wasted talent. So, you can see where my struggle for speaking words of affirmation might have been difficult. But My Past loved in the words and the touches. He needed someone to validate his existence with congratulations and strokes to his ego. This is not my love language. In fact, it’s so far removed from what I consider love it felt some days like an assault on my sensibilities. That is not a knock to My Past as a person, it’s an example of how we loved different.  How we clashed from the onset of coupledom and how it would be work, to stay in love.

As a person fond of hard work, I challenged myself to reach outside my comfort zone and find ways to show care for My Past within his love language. An example, text message short cuts which allowed me to respond in affirming words to shit that just didn’t mean anything to me. Until I no longer cared. It didn’t happen immediately but over time the breakdowns in communication led to messages on read with no response. We were not evenly yoked. I admittedly found it difficult speaking in sweet nothings when my days filled themselves with fixing work problems, my problems, his problems, and righting drama he created while he busied himself with videos about why Blacks were/are the original US inhabitants (this one might be true). I can’t tell you the number of parking tickets I fixed, licenses that I removed from suspension lists, jobs I tried to rescue by setting early morning alarms, relationships I advised how to repair…not that I was keeping score but know it’s strenuous to feel like you’re navigating two lives and you’re only present and making decisions in one. I LIVED IN EXHAUSTION day-to-day and for a lot of the time I didn’t realize how burnt I was.

I grew to resent enthusiastically fixing mess, and performing the secks, and all the other shit that comes along with bolstering the ego of a person just living life absent personal responsibility. So, it was a breath of fresh air when he wrote me a Dear Faith Letter and decided the ladies were his refuge, and the streets his oyster. I let out a sigh of relief minus the heartbreak of losing my Bonus Son and was happy when My Past moved his things out of my house. I still wonder what happened to our dog. Just a little before the letter I remember overhearing a conversation My Past had with LSTS where he told her that he was popping in these streets. It continues to be my hope that these streets remain popping while he lives out a 90’s era gangsta movie and that those same streets and ladies provide the words of affirmation that by the end died before leaving my lips. Relationships are fucking hard work…and for the majority of mine, I was doing it alone.

Long before he neglected the label husband, My Past abandoned the title friend. I’ll never tell you I was smart for staying. In the midst of it all, I honestly did not compute he was a bad partner. Walk with me, my love language is acts of service. After I realized My Past struggled putting his own words into action. I put a short list together to help him love me. And I started small because I appreciated his response that he’d never been taught how to be a responsible anything. My list:

  1. Take the trash out and bring the cans back in
  2. Make sure the laundry baskets are in the laundry room on Sunday morning and return them to the bedroom when I finish the wash
  3. Walk the dogs daily
  4. Sweep and mop the floors weekly
  5. Put a set amount of coin in the joint account weekly and don’t touch it

Simple? Simple. This was and remained my only consistent asks of him. I struggle to recall a month where all five took place with no issue.  And of course, fidelity. His need to frolic with the wimmens was laughable because My Past while adorable (he’s cherubim in face minus his beard) is not the man women respond to, not on that level. I chose him specifically because he wasn’t that. That man is a trigger because that man is Marine OG.

Marine OG loves in sweet nothings, fists, gifts, and harsh words. He is a man that walks into a room and gets noticed by every woman present because he possesses a quality that women respond to. Some of its money and some of it’s the way his charm seeps throughout his syllables as he speaks. Even in his old age with pants a little too high to be cool I see the over eagerness in young waitresses high off the last word dripping from his lips and the giddiness in older women just happy someone still calls them baby girl. My Dad is the man women hate to love. Don’t get me wrong I heart my dad. He is the protype, but for as much as he’s taught me through lectures, he’s taught me even more through actions. I studied my daddy as a girl, he was mesmerizing. Everyone loves him at first meet, in his prime, he was captivating.

I remember a girlfriend of mine saying, “Mr. Marine OG is like that.” I cringed but I knew it was true. He flirts with his eyes, mouth, and ultimately with the parts he should have kept in his pants. But men who have a quality women respond to, often disrespect their significant others in ways the outside public scream about and ask why didn’t she leave. It’s the intoxication, manipulation, roller coaster riding of being with a man that is that man. I can’t fully articulate what it is that makes chicks gravitate to the fire but what I knew was I would never marry this man.

And I didn’t. I purposely chose a man not like my dad, because Marine OG was a cruel husband. Unfortunately, what I knew as a bad partner rested solely in the qualities that my dad displayed. If the love wasn’t in fists and harsh words, then why should I complain? I know that sounds crazy, but for a time I couldn’t reconcile why I should leave My Past. Why should I walk away when he hadn’t placed hands or me or called me foul names, at least not to my face?  It pains me to admit that’s how I processed romantic love. My barometer for ain’t shit only had a single setting and it didn’t include soul sucking, gaslighting, selfish, soft spoken asshole.  I realize now to be a fucked-up husband is more than just fists, harsh words, and entertaining other women (if you subscribe to monogamy).  The Anti Husband wasn’t Marine OG and yet and still, not good. It took me far too long to reconcile that truth, but it is absolutely self-evident.

Once it became fully clear to me that The Anti Husband was in fact a bad partner, I was okay with him leaving my life. So, in mid-August My Past removed the little he came with. I wish when I closed the door the final time I could say it was all over, but then starts the real process of divorce. But what says you Faithfuls, what is your love language? Did you have good examples growing up of romantic relationships? If so, how did it help you? If not, how did it hinder you? What does a good partner look like? Do you agree with the professionals that you have to love someone how they need to be loved? Or do you think there’s something to treating people how you’d want to be treated. I still struggle with the last one if I’m being honest. But don’t forget to join me next Wednesday, for the newest installment. In the meantime, and between time, please share, like, comment, and subscribe…isn’t that what we do on this here interweb.

Remember to share is to care and hashish.

Posted in Cooling Off Period | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

My Saving Grace

Posted on February 17, 2021 by faithsju243
I wasn’t his sec-cra-tar but y’all catching what I’m throwing. photo cred –
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/84/15/1b/84151b07517442e7c420e63126775a64.png

Welcome back Faithfuls. I hope you took a minute to reflect where we left off last week.  If you missed any part of the story I suggest starting here before going forward.

Much of last year exists as a fever dream, some odd vortex of a place that we know happened but yet we still pinch ourselves for confirmation. What stands out distinctly for me in March of last year besides the obvious, the small piece of Faith that hadn’t died under the weight of all of my happenstance. It burned a little brighter knowing a trip to Italy loomed on the horizon. Just a year before I’d been invited to a friend’s nuptials on the Amalfi Coast. And although I’d be leaving behind a still sickly Wander Bread, the stress of it triggered my gut so much I was considering not going, I also knew it meant Lil Sis Thee Stallion (LSTS) would be home. She’d agreed to accompany me since My Past’s passport had been revoked shortly before our 2018 wedding (another story another day). In the moment, it felt like generalized happy to see my sister who’d been away for the better part of a year, but deep in my feels the trip presented an escape and an opportunity to be fully and completely me with someone who cared about me selflessly.

Truth be told LSTS is my best friend. She knows me far better and truer than any person on the planet. She is the only one who fully gets me, and I mean that not as a diss toward any of my closest friends because they love me fiercely. I learned that later in the 2020 fever dream, but my sister knows what I’m saying even when I’m not saying it, which is both refreshing and frightening. If I’m being honest, had it not been for my sister being with me through the storms of 2020 they may have consumed me whole. I say that with complete and full honesty. Panorama aside, 2020 hit me with a haymaker left hook that left me winded, wounded, and struggling to pull together Faith. Sometimes the strength is in falling down.  

By mid-March, Italy was ground zero zombie-ville, all flights in and out were halted. And while I fully intended to board a plane to the other side of the world it was probably best for everyone, especially Wander Bread that I stayed home. I asked The Anti Husband, if he minded LSTS crashing with us to ride out her two-week vacation. Remember at that time, we all thought Covid-19 was just another Zika or Ebola that ravaged places we could barely point out on a map. Little did we know, almost a year later we’d be double masked, half shut down, and still working from our houses, at least the privileged few. But to the point, My Past agreed, and she stayed…and stayed…and remains my current day roommate because, the fucking panorama, Wander Bread’s care, and because she got a real up close and personal view into my life. I’m sure in ways she probably wants to forget and ways she’s glad she witnessed because she stood in to remind me who I am. There are no words that I can string together that give enough praise to her for what she helped restore in me.

My sister had the privilege of watching the happenings in my home when she arrived back to Philly. As we drove those Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays for months to Wander Bread’s house to take care of our mom in ways we hadn’t imagine would become our jobs until much later in life, LSTS would ask me questions that at first, I found intrusive. They made me hide within myself for fear of betraying the covenant I’d made with a person who I thought deserved my protection. But Lil Sis Thee Stallion is nothing, if not persistent. Unknown to me at the time, she and the Grumpy Gardener secretly spoke about my unraveling. They’d separately witnessed and heard about things that gave them pause, specific to my marriage and The Anti Husband. Full truth, the Grumpy Gardener has never liked My Past…I’d always thought it was little brother jealousy because he no longer held the prized guy in my life role. In hindsight he probably saw the ain’t shit-ness through the guise of good. A fake good guy will get you every time.

But I digress, The Sibs collective decision, while away on the trip to Italy LSTS was to get to the bottom of my discontent. As much as I thought my veneer of put togetherness fooled those closest to me, the one who sees me even when I’m not speaking knew things had fallen so completely off the rails, an intervention was necessary. But we didn’t get a pasta filled, lively, Italian get-a-way intervention. Instead, we faced dialysis visits, cleaning two houses, masked trips to the grocery store, and trying to stay gainfully employed in the midst of the pandemic. Throughout all that other than married life shit, my sister continued to ask, “Are you okay?” She watched as I sloshed caretaking off my shoulders to come home and attempt to prop up a bruised husband’s ego. There was nothing left for me. Those marital cups that are supposed to be filled by your spouse were running dry. I mean 8 years of depletion can do that to a girl. And I struggled to continue to fill him with all of me…because honestly it was at my own expense. But still, I celebrated each idea (minus the full scale shift to the Nino Brown of Sugared Beverages) he presented even if I knew it had no legs. My slip showed at times, I’m human. My Past asked that I stop being so negative. In my mind presenting the risks to any plan isn’t negativity but proper assessment to avoid failure. We understand life differently.

So, I celebrated that he finally decided to put the Pop Up together. My reward, being told that if it weren’t for his friends, he’d wouldn’t have pulled it off. He said that to me not appreciating that I’d given of my time, money, energy, and taking care of my mother that day to help his raggedy ass yet again. He said that to me when here he was poorly executing my idea. He said that to me, when I’d already had the wind knocked out my sails more times than I can count by the man responsible for lifting them. He said that to me. But you know what, it wasn’t and isn’t the worst thing he’s ever done. Some of you probably think it’s him asking if he could have the secks with other ladies. Nope, not that. Sure, I may or may not have wanted to stab him when I told him my mom almost died in my arms and he brushed it off like lint to tell me about another pointless argument he was having with his Stepfather. I do remember locking myself one night in my lady den because I couldn’t stand the sight of his face. But what I still can’t seem to let go from all of this, and maybe this makes me bitter…I know for a fact that a little piece of me died when I watched my Bonus Son move all his things out of my house in early August. That is a pain I will never forgive My Past for until the day I stop breathing air. That is all I can write about it because I just CAN NOT! Sometimes the thing you never wanted is the thing that brings you happiness. The Anti Husband is a happiness killer.

Lil Sis Thee Stallion held me as I ugly cried in a fetal position until I couldn’t any longer. Oddly enough, later that same day the Anti Husband called to make sure I read and processed his letter. Maybe I married a monster. I remember during that conversation saying to him specifically that I’d been his wife, but he’d never been my husband. He had no idea what that word meant and none of his actions supported its weight. My Past doesn’t understand the violence he invokes on the people in his life. I watched it manifest in so many ways in people who I love but will not name because I’m not fit to tell their stories. But know I see you. He will never know how nights when he was “working” at the restaurant I would sit in my Bonus Son’s room just because his scent lingered there. It became a little shrine until LSTS returned home. I probably could still be in his life, but I also know that would mean being wrapped in the life of someone who, I wish I never knew intimately. There is no ability to reclaim my time. My heart splintered into tiny pieces during a hug with my Bonus Son I knew would be my last and the only person there when the dust settled was Lil Sis Thee Stallion. This is all I have to give today Faithfuls, but you know there’s more to tell.

Don’t forget to join me next Wednesday, for the newest installment. In the meantime, and between time, please share, like, comment, and subscribe…isn’t that what we do on this here interweb.

Remember to share is to care and hashish.

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A Hard Head Makes a Soft As…

Posted on February 11, 2021 by faithsju243
Girl I know he’s heavy and probably ain’t worth it…put him down and run.
Photo credit – https://myweddingreceptionideas.com/images/products/accessories/cake_toppers/funny/4427_bride_carries_groom_lg.jpg

Welcome back Faithfuls. I hope you took a minute to reflect where we left off last week. If you missed any part of the story I suggest starting here before going forward.

We have come full circle, right? Right! You learned that My Past wanted to be a weed infused juice salesman, aka the Nino Brown of Sugared Beverages. In his mind I’m sure he thinks that’s a compliment, but sensible people know Nino died alone a disloyal backstabbing snitch, respectfully. He also wanted to frolic with the ladies, remain married, but get separated in the middle of the panorama. If that wasn’t enough, I’d stepped fully and uncomfortably back into the role of parenting a parent.  Wander Bread’s illness struck me clean in the gut with little time to brace for the impact. At the onset, I believed The Grumpy Gardener would take some time to full on assist. I was mistaken. Lil Sis Thee Stallion (LSTS) had moved to the City of Angels just the year before and I didn’t want to trouble her with a trip back to the old life she’d left to flourish in the Hollywood Hills and in many ways, to escape. Philadelphia came with its own set of weight for all of us. In the Grumpy Gardener’s defense, he does reside in DE, over an hour away, and actively has three small children, all under 7.

Rightfully, my proximity and known “abilities” dictated that the whole of Wander Bread’s care rested in my hands. This included trips to various specialists, hospitals, and three times a week visits to dialysis in addition to preparing her meals, running her errands, and tending to her housework. My energy was on low and my stress was on high. High levels of stress trigger Crohns, so layer general fatigue with underlying health related tiredness. I don’t know how I was moving. No specifics but my day job, demanding. It requires more of my time than the 40 hours allotted in my paycheck and I was for all intents and purposes a full-on involved wife with everything that comes with that role. I was giving of myself in ways I never imaged were possible and depleting of myself in ways I didn’t know existed.

But I didn’t ask for help. I’m sometimes my own worst enemy. To shoot the Anti Husband some bail, I never did say to him, help me. Okay I’m exaggerating. But hold that thought for a minute, by late February I was on the verge of what felt like a breakdown. Partially because I was hiding my pain from everyone, pushing it into the work. And more because I didn’t have an outlet or a partner who made space for me. My Past was not going to couch my feels in any way to make it just a bit easier to keep going. The sheer embarrassment of admitting my then husband wouldn’t show up for me, kept me guarded and wrestling with my hurt privately.

Let me tell you a story inside a story, to give you a bit of an example why I felt alone in crisis despite being married. I’ll take you back to the evening preceding my wedding. The evening before fills itself with rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, generalized chatting it up with the family and friends who are part of the ceremony, basically should be one good ass time. For the most part besides my wedding planner getting stuck behind an accident on I95 and universal colored folk late-ness, things were going close to plan. All true, until the sump pump flooded my basement bathroom. It didn’t help that this flooding happened after traditional working hours, let’s call it 9PM on Friday evening. Adding insult to injury, I’d planned a block party wedding and said bathroom was to be used as an inside option for family and friends. There could be no wedding if the house smelled like sewage and the bathroom was broken. Like any wife to be I called my then fiancé to “save the day.” I mean it was only right? Right! To his credit he arrived ready to lift up his sleeves, or at least I thought. Instead, he dropped some towels off in the basement and left me standing in 2-3 inches of dirty toilet water. He later told me he couldn’t miss his bachelor outing. LSTS stayed with me through the 24hr plumber and the clean-up afterwards. We didn’t get to sleep until close to 5AM. It makes sense that one of the to be married was bright eyed and bushy tailed for the nuptials that afternoon. I pretend happy well.

The Anti Husband, one early 2020 evening, doused the open wedding wound with salt by arguing me down about “our” wedding music. Unbeknownst to him a black cloud already hovered over the day for me.  Instead of actually remembering or not remembering and listening to the person who planned nearly every detail of an event he almost allowed not to happen, he instead told me about a conversation we never had, about an artist I don’t like, highlighting a song I’d never pick. The Anti Husband was adamant the song I told him our wedding party walked down the aisle to, didn’t play because the only person he knew that walked to that song was his friend’s wife. Maybe he should have married her. I remember saying these exact words, “I’m glad you know His Fake Bestie’s Wife’s wedding song and not your own.” I turned over and went to sleep. And true it’s not that much of a deal by itself, but it did ice the cake of, I don’t give a fuck-ness about you.

So no, I didn’t ask him to help me. I did however, initiate an argument. Outside of my character completely, but my wit’s end died long before I slammed the front door as he slept on our living room sectional. The long and short of the argument as I hollered through strained tears and a level of anger I’d prefer to forget, was a plea – do you not see me drowning? His response, I should have told him exactly what I needed him to do. I reminded him that I was the one in the middle of a fucking storm essentially lit on fire. I needed him to do something, any fucking thing that let me know he recognized I was burning. Hell, could he make sure the dogs were walked so when I came home dead tired after caring for my ailing mother, then circling the south Philly streets trying to find a parking spot not 4 blocks away from my house at midnight, I didn’t have to also pick-up shit. Could he do that on any type of consistent basis? I get it, he was busy too. I can’t tell you the number of times I’d wish I was his level of busy and not mine, but I digress.

So, hell no! I didn’t ask him for help. Maybe this is my downfall as a wife, he didn’t know he was needed. But I also didn’t know that I had to ask My Husband to see me. He never had to ask me to stand in where he couldn’t. I just stood. He never had to think about too much of anything in our relationship. Clearly thinking and decision making weren’t his ministry. I remember saying to My Past one time, you know you just live. I don’t know what it means to not have a care in the world. Maybe I am too resilient. I’ve always considered being dependable for my loved ones a personal virtue…and like many a woman I had my ability to get shit done weaponized against me to stab me in the heart at a time when I needed help the most. Maybe I married a monster…more like an adult in body child whose trauma reaches so deep and so wide he lacks the full capacity to understand or take accountability for his actions. Or he could just be a selfish muthafucka, jury’s still undecided. 

Luckily and maybe by the grace of Black Baby Jesus, Lil Sis Thee Stallion arrived home in early March. Much like that night of cleaning up the basement floor for a wedding that started in a few short hours, my sister stepped in to fill the void. I’ll leave it there for today even though there’s so much more to tell. But what says you Faithfuls? Have you ever felt alone in a relationship? Did it make you resent the other person? Are you able to ask for help when you need it? How do you know, or feel needed in a relationship? In a strange turn of events, my laptop murdered itself, I can’t tell you how but with its demise it took all the professional pictures from my wedding. God remains the funniest comedian.

Don’t forget to join me next Wednesday, for the newest installment. In the meantime, and between time, please share, like, comment, and subscribe…isn’t that what we do on this here interweb.

Remember to share is to care and hashish.

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The Final Response

Posted on February 3, 2021 by faithsju243
In My Past’s mind I think he saw himself this way! Photo credit – https://www.passionweiss.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/themack2.jpg

Welcome back Faithfuls. I hope you took a minute to reflect where we left off last week. What I’d like to say before we get into the getting into, fuck 2020 and the set it claims. With that out of the way, let’s roll back in time to January 8th, 2020.  I recall that day better than any other in my memory bank. It’s the day the balls I juggled crashed to the ground. Picture me sitting in a loaner from the car dealership when I receive a call from Wander Bread’s doctor. I can’t tell you the exact words because they’re so jumbled in my mind against my own thoughts and feels. Essentially the doctor told me to find my mom immediately and take her to the closest emergency room because she was in full scale kidney failure. You know on TV when they show you someone’s heart beating by moving the camera in and out of focus and there’s a throbbing sound, that shit is real.  I parked the car and cried for 2 minutes. That’s my process if I’m alone.

The first order of business was to find Wander Bread. Her doctor let me know that she’d stopped answering calls and her voicemail was full. Out loud with myself in the car, I yelled this woman wants me to kill her. Dramatics I know but I literally needed to put some of the feels in the air to avoid them swallowing me whole. Luckily, or fate may have it, or because I don’t know if Wander Bread fully processed all that was happening to her, as I was walking into the building to explain to my Director why I needed to leave immediately, so was my mom. She’d decided instead of calling me to tell me she needed a ride to the emergency room she would ignore all phone calls, neglect her full voicemail, and hop on a train where all cell reception was dead to tell me in person. Her reasoning, because I might receive the information better that way. It was like this woman didn’t know me.  

If I’m being honest, I believe Wander Bread was scared and did what came naturally, going to work. Although as I came to learn later, my mother had stopped going to work regularly. She’d been “working from home” for over a year because she could barely get out of the bed. The weight of that admission hadn’t hit me just yet, but it would. I caught her walking into the building, ushered her back to the double-parked car, and told her not to move. I’d already cleared things with her boss, and I was running upstairs to square things with mine. With little time to process much of anything I drove my mom to the ER visit that would change the rest of our lives.

As soon as we entered the hospital, I tried to prepare Wander Bread for her worst-case scenario, she wasn’t coming home. And not only was she not coming home, she was getting ready for the extended stay. She wasn’t thrilled…by midnight she’d been given every kind of drug you can imagine attempting to bring her stroke level blood pressure into normal range, it barely budged. Her fate, resting uneasily in a private room, in the fucking Intensive Care Unit. That was the first time I legitimately thought, just for a moment, that Wander Bread would die. The whole of that thought never took full control because I had to prepare my siblings, square away Wander Bread’s employment situation, and figure out how I could finagle working from a hospital for the foreseeable future. Proudly or vainly I crushed those tasks before telling my mom goodnight that evening.

And until Superbowl Sunday working from the hospital was my life. I’d wake up early, get some face time in the office, leave midday to get to the hospital to catch the morning doctors to get my mom’s prognosis, and drive home close to midnight exhausted both mentally and physically, almost every fucking day for an entire month.  The exceptions? I’m glad you asked. Every Saturday when I spent 2-3hours cleaning my house from top to bottom, 2 days when I literally had to be in the office until 5PM, and the weekend The Bestie and Nursie Poo helped me de-hoard-a-fy Wander Bread’s house that had gotten the absolute best of her as she struggled barely getting out of bed.

Auto Pilot was in full effect. In those moments of absolute crisis while I watched my mom cycle through illness, depression, anxiety, drug induced seizures and a host of other things I struggle describing because I’ve compartmentalized how her sickness impacted me, all I needed was the person who promised to love me…to SHOW UP! Instead the memory that’s fixated in my head from that time about My Past, coming home one gut wrenching evening describing how I’d held my mom in my arms screaming at the top of my lungs for a nurse while she seized to what I believed would be her death. The Anti Husband stopped me mid thought to tell me about yet another disagreement he’d had with his Stepfather at the restaurant and asked my opinion on how to fix it. To his credit, about halfway through his rundown of the day, he did say something like, hey you were talking about your mom, right? I stood there motionless for a minute…I remember giving some cookie cutter advice and walking away thinking I married a fucking monster. I may have hated him at that moment. The feeling was fleeting, hate’s terrible for the complexion. But I’ll stop there and let you read the last part of his letter to me because you’re now more in tune with almost all my feels when I received it. As always, if you’ve suffered enough, skip the italics and read my response.

1 of those experiences is being free in myself to interact comfortably with women whether it leads to sex or not. That lack of experience is the lesson that has always fleed me. I do not want to be married to anyone else but the woman I committed to making my wife. However this lesson is one that I’ve always felt I needed. Whether it’s it’s the lesson that shows no other woman equates to you, whether it’s the lesson of these hoes ain’t nothing but trouble. Or most importantly is the lesson of being comfortable in urself while being out all on ur own with no safety vest, or clean up crew to put u together when ur broken. The lesson that shows me the ability to use my talent for communication and being likeable by all to take over a board room or a conference hall. Bcuz that level of confidence is only instilled in a man thru concur not concurring coochie but concurring my own fear and learning how to fuck up in a moment by talkin myself out of the P-Valley but bein quick witted enough to spin it back and close the deal. It may sound dumb to u but u have to acknowledge that if a dude can recover from a full walk out from a female acquaintance and still close the deal, then no board room or business deal stand a chance against the conference, showmanship, and strength created in that experience.
I could go further but I think u get the point,so I’ll finish up with this clear statement of exactly what I want.
I want my wife to be everything she always has been to and for me like nothing bad ever happened. Now obviously that’s not even possible cuz clearly shit happened and is happening. I see that currently all I’m doin is causing u hurt and anguish and that’s on top off all the other life shit ur dealing with. So even in wanting to be with u I see that it’s best for both of us to have this time apart 1 so that u don’t have to worry about me and my pressure so that u can then turn and focus ur efforts to ur mom and urself. Now u may say that it’s not fair cuz u always were there to help me. But u kno if I stay I’ll do nothing but add more weight.
And 2 so that I can grow in myself to finish developing. Yes I want the option to behave freely and inner act with other women, bcuz I need that. It’s the a statement on the highest level of selfishness. But I’ve come to the realization that in this life there are times where u have to be selfish so that u can grow out of that comfort zone, in order to come back selflessly and take ur seat next to ur queen to provide and rule with knowledge, wisdom, confidence, love, and compassion.
I would never disrespect u by creeping around with some other broad. Which is why I asked for this separatation so I can grow without the guilt of pain caused to you. I don’t want to lose communication with you and and don’t want a divorce.
This is the most honest I’ve ever been. And I’m glad I didn’t say anything yesterday when u wanted me to cuz I know it would not have come out clear and concise. Another lesson I got from u.
This is not easy for me to do bcuz I do love u and don’t want to hurt u. But u also trained me to make a decision and stand tall on it. This is the full truth of what I want and need.
If u want to remain married work on our relationship and allow me this freedom well than by all means I’m in, but that’s ur decision and I’m not asking u to make it. Which is why I asked for the separation.
I do love u, and in whatever fashion this plays out I know we’ll always be together.

This part of the letter, while disgusting on its face is also just absurd. It’s not the first time he’d mentioned his need to chase the ladies. So, in some respect it came as no surprise. The last time he’d mentioned this, however, we were dating just about a year and recently admitted we were in love, so I cried a little to myself on a business flight to LA. This time, I laughed. Is it wrong to wish your husband well as he dabbles in the heauxs? It’s my sincerest hope he’s found a pucci(s) so good that when he tossed it in the air, it turned to pure sunshine.  Mine had long since called it quits for him so on some level, I guess he deserved it.

My Past is a walking contradiction wrapped in a cherubim smile. He oozed selfishness at a time when my need for a spouse was on high. But I get it. It’s the one time in our marriage where my focus wasn’t squarely on him and he needed to do work. Due to his abbreviated capacity, he responded the only way he knew how, to run and try to become an over-sized pale-skinned Goldie but he isn’t the Mack, so I’d say he left because he’s a coward. I wonder if he’d feel my same level of contempt for him if I bailed on him when his world was in shambles. To add insult to injury at the height of my personal storm he told me to my face he was in the best mental space he’d ever been in his life. Maybe I married a fucking monster. Admittedly, I could be in my feelings. You can’t blame someone for being who they are. Takers will consume you until they have feasted on all your life’s energy and blame you when you’re depleted with nothing left to give.  It takes the highest levels of audacity to tell the person you committed your life to you’d rather frolic with whores and sell weed infused juice because it’s your new dream when the life you committed to is on fire. He doesn’t have loyalty inside his DNA, respectfully.

But what says you Faithfuls? Has your significant other ever suggested a separation so he or she could dabble in the heauxs? How do you think you would respond? Do you think it’s possible for a marriage to survive some of these layers of betrayal? Is there ever a right time to be selfish in a marriage? What part of the letter had you most in your feels? After this, what would your next step be? I’ll tell you all about mine next Wednesday.  Don’t forget to join me for the newest installment. In the meantime, and between time, please share, like, comment, and subscribe…isn’t that what we do on this here interweb.

Remember to share is to care and hashish.

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The Response Part II

Posted on January 27, 2021 by faithsju243
Most relate-able line – she’s always considering my feelings…photo credit – https://genius.com/Ne-yo-why-does-she-stay-lyrics

Welcome back Faithfuls. I hope you took a minute to reflect where we left off last week. Note my, I hate you so much right now stance. In honesty and truth, I don’t and can’t hate My Past. I could never hate a person who I willingly shared intimate space with for almost a decade. In many many ways he prepared me for the next chapter of my life. Before I dip into my response part deux let me give you a bit more insight into my headspace. Acknowledge my shit and shit.

I should and want to thank My Past for pulling the trigger on our relationship. I had ample opportunity to leave, but I didn’t. I stayed. It’s my struggle, and honestly on that bridge it’s where my anger resided, not the money. I was furious with me. The Anti Husband, always a step behind my actual emotions, mostly because he never listened and some because I’m a giver of my thoughts not my feels by nature, probably read my upset-ness as a sign I still wanted to be with him. While that was the farthest from my truth, for at least 5 minutes I lost control. I let a hint of my anger breach the surface. Also, he lied to my face. I don’t do liars well. To be clear, I don’t regret the small piece of letting him know where he had me fucked up. Quite frankly the weight of the world was on my shoulders, at least my world, and his separation request was just another boulder on my back and problem to solve.

See that is who I am. I’m a problem solver, a fixer. It has been my station since I was a child. Minus a few standout events I don’t recall a childhood. My distinct memories of my past start and end with required responsibility. I have always been a caretaker. It is against my grain to even consider that someone would, should, or could take care of me (I’m working on that). On some level I believed in My Past I’d found someone to break this generational curse. That he was the one who should…would… and could take care of me. I believed him when he said he would because I needed to believe it even if his actions betrayed his words. See, in leaving I would have to admit the person I chose to take care of me, didn’t love me enough to do the work. That is a hurt that eviscerates the soul. It is spirit scorching even for a person who hides her feels deep inside. Don’t get me wrong, there were glimpses of care. And it is in those glimpses where I couched the whole of my relationship. They helped me ignore the day-to-day until I couldn’t any longer.

When I became deathbed sick from Crohn’s in late 2016, I remember My Past picking me up off the floor after I collapsed in a hallway. I was a ball of tears and embarrassment and possibly feces because, Crohn’s. In that moment, I felt the love. Because if it isn’t love, how could it feel this way, right? Someone who applies lotion to your dying skin must love you. Maybe? Maybe. In hindsight, it could have been obligation. Yet in the moment, it was the love I needed.  It was just enough to ignore the fires lit around us. But…you know what else I remember from that time, getting up sick and going to work aka, holding it down. And I recall telling My Past that at my weakest when I needed him to step in and fill the void, fear drove me forward to do things I knew he wouldn’t. That is not love. I remember specifically saying, “I can’t depend on you.” His response…nothing, a blank fucking stare with no words. Not even an, I’m sorry you feel like that type of backhanded apology to acknowledge I felt a way. Every moment of care got clouded just enough not to fully bask in the loving rays of the sun. I was an idiot who couldn’t admit to herself or anyone else that I kept making the wrong decision again and again and again. I was in my feels for sure. And most of the feel, was my own vanity. I’m the fixer…right?

The clouded care moments played in my mind at the start of 2020 as I wrestled with asking The Anti Husband to leave. I’d been contemplating his departure since the fall of 2019. Fuck it, this is the trust tree nest, I’d been contemplating asking him to leave since his birthday trip to LA in the fall of 2018. Yet, I still stayed. How could I just run out on my responsibility? By that point I’d transitioned from the love to the obligation of the marriage. It was no longer fun. It was no longer healthy. Shit it was far from happy and we both knew it on some level. But insert childhood Faith with her required responsibility. Couple that with adult Faith who vainly believed in her own ability to fix any and everything. I couldn’t just walk away from someone I promised not only my body but my heart and my soul and all the other shit that came with me. I owed him a fix to this marital discomfort. And while I searched all parts of me for a plan, an answer, a fucking carrier pigeon with a clue to get us out of the hellacious relationship pit we’d fallen, there was nothing I could have dreamed up that had me prepared for what 2020 smacked me with at the start. But before we dive deeper into the world cascading down around me, note the words so creatively crafted by My Past. If you’ve suffered enough skip the italics and get into my response below.

Lessons of I don’t care if u go out where u go and I’m not askin no questions. Taught responsibility independence and the recognition of the importance of making the correct small decisions that could alter life in an instant.
Loud debates that internally beat me down and caused doubt and internal embarrassment. Taught me to be able to stand firm in ur arguments but make sure ur knowledgeable enough to not be a fool. As well as the patients and confidence to be able to hear the loud ferocity of an opponent and not crumble bcuz I’ve been trained for this.
The lessons of inconsistency and the need to not only focus but to set goals, plan, and take notesso that it’s easier to not b distracted. Bcuz there’s a written guide that says hey u were here b4 u “Wander”ed now u can come right back without having to start over or getting pulled to something different.
I would have to believe that in reading the above u will agree that even thru all the pain I’ve caused I’ve been growing all along.
I know that you see that the man I was, the man who u scraped off the sidewalk after a nasty fall and pieced back together but unlike humpty dumpty who couldn’t be reassembled. You built a better model.
I recognize that in the moment none of that matters to u and all I’m doing is being selfish. And I recognize that it seems that way, and I hope to show u 1 day that I’m not.
U’ve grown me to feel not only comfortable in my own skin but more importantly confident in my ability. Through lessons of comin to ur office and u remindin me to just be myself. A lesson that is imperative for my next step.
The clarity I currently have to be able to look back on all those things I felt were negative in the moment and be able to see the lesson and actually learn from them. And that’s not just lessons from my wife but seeing the lessons of 36 yrs of life recalling details to memories so clearly as if it were happening right in front of me in the moment.
But with the ability to do that you also see some lessons that may not have been learned bcuz all the negatives of the past didn’t allow you have the experience.

You’re welcome…I guess. I mean seriously how else should I respond to someone who acknowledged with his own words that he started broken and left ain’t shit. Being selfish in a marriage is marriage cancer. Thinking in the we, is a necessity. Acknowledging your growth at the expense of another is borderline psychotic…it’s definitely toxic. My thoughts see-sawed. Did I help him or inflate a crippled ego? Did I teach him how to stand or did I simply place band-aids over a wounded soul? Was I empowering a King or biding time with a peasant?

What I did know and I what I was feeling stronger than anything else, RELIEF. Not my problem any more rang so strongly in my ears I could have cried little baby tears of joy. I don’t think this is how his letter was intended to hit. My Past bailed at the height of a storm and I am becoming okay with that. Everyone is in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. He made his time with me, a season.

Truth be told I needed him to pull the trigger. It was the emotional tie I needed severed in order to walk away for good. So many times, I’d thought of leaving but stayed because I believed I owed him something. I stayed because I needed to prove to someone (I don’t know who, maybe me) that Black women supported Black men. I stayed because there was almost a decade of memories wrapped around an extended family I miss to this day. I stayed because I fell in love with a man who in the beginning brought a smile to my face in a way that no one else had, but that man died a long time ago and I was holding onto a mirage of who I wanted him to be and not who he is. On that bridge and with this letter I no longer had to hold onto that image. I was free to let it go.  

And I let it go by way of his hands. Just like the great poet laureate, Jay-z said, “Shit, I’ve got to live with the fact I did you wrong forever….” He does. On an unrelated but related note, I don’t think My Past knows what consistency means, clearly not in his actions and absolutely not by the quasi definition he wrote in this email. But what says you Faithfuls. Have you stayed when you knew it was time to tell someone to pack a bag? Have you loved someone who in their actions proved they didn’t love you? How did you recover from acknowledging the loss of the relationship? Have you ever struggled with relief that someone was out of your life? Did you feel guilty you were happy they were gone? Remember to share is to care and hashish.

Don’t forget to join me next week for the newest installment. In the meantime, and between time, please share, like, comment, and subscribe…isn’t that what we do on this here interweb.

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The Response Part I

Posted on January 20, 2021 by faithsju243
This could be the weed juice empire but I don’t know who plays G-Money – photo credit https://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/1101001-new-jack-city-reboot-movie-in-the-works

If you haven’t read the Dear Faith Letter, I suggest you go back and give it a whirl before you dive into Part I of my response. To be fair, I probably should set the scene a bit better. How did I get to the point where I was meeting My Past on a bridge in Fairmont Park? I’m glad you asked. Let’s skip to the middle of the end. Why? Because the middle is where I’d like to start. Shortly before becoming the Nino Brown of Sugared Beverages, My Past started a pop-up sandwich shop. Please note this “idea” while not novel, had been my brainchild for him 2-3 years prior. He’d ignored me because he wanted to (“research” conspiracy theories on YouTube) pursue catering. 

I shouldn’t and will not downplay catering. And to be fair My Past can cook. With every fiber that is me, I know his gift and God given talent is cooking. He is the most alive and attractive behind the steam of the stove. To hear him tell it, we were scratching and surviving so he could become one of Philly’s premiere Chefs. I latched to that dream so strongly, in some ways it became my own for damn near 8 years (probably 5 and a possible). Hell, I have a bunch of expensive kitchen equipment, including a pricey stove he insisted get added to the cost of the house I purchased because he needed a convection oven. And you know when you’re not throwing a pea in a pod, I guess the cost of things really doesn’t matter.

But I digress, Seasnin’s Pop Up Shop came about on the heels of The Anti-Husband’s unfortunate firing from his family owned re-opened restaurant. After his untimely termination, (did I mention we were a month into full scale lockdown) My Past who’d been actively complaining about how overworked he was decided cooking elaborate meals (Covid cooking) and loafing around the house was the best part of waking up. Getting fired amid a pandemic when the government starts paying an extra $600 weekly probably seems like the way to ride out life…if you’re a teenager with no responsibilities.

Honestly, I would have been more sympathetic if this wasn’t a normal part of our relationship cycle. He was not experiencing pandemic induced job loss. I’m not a banshee but after the 3rd or 4th “new” job, joblessness gets a bit old. My tolerance for the poor decision making hit an all-time low so I told him flatly, the word of the day is J.O.B! And if no job could be procured, you know pandemic, putting the plan in motion for his own restaurant, pop-up shop, food cart or some form of securing money through his gift of food, was all types of necessary. Truth be told, I was less concerned with the money; I’d grown used to “holding it down.” My fear, idle hands, and as we know idle hands are the devil’s workshop. In The Anti Husband’s case, idle hands equated to disaster.

This is but half a window into the house I was living, in early to late May. Now, with a bit more flavor in your ear, let’s tackle the emoticons following the first part of the Dear Faith Letter. Feel free to skip the italics if you’ve suffered through the read. Nosh with me.

From the day I 1st laid eyes on you, I saw and recognized you as the strong super smart and confident leader that you always have been and thru these 8 years I’ve watched you grow that base and mature it into the woman who wins awards and gets recognized as a stand out in her field. To have the focus to be able to combat not only the day to day of that pressure is amazing in itself. Then throw on the tenacity to and wisdom to not want to have but also the recognition and heart to know if not u than who, to throw everything and anyone who is close to u on ur back and carry them along ur journey. Myself included.
The patients and strength it took/takes to meet someone who is far from complete. Shit a person who’s barely even comfortable in their own skin, and be able to dig in and constantly work and pray to build and mold that person. Constantly teaching whether the lesson was excepted in the moment or not always forward pushing.
Lessons of I need my space or my quiet time to a child who’s clingy and lookin for that attachment of protection. Taught me to be quiet and still in the moment.
Lessons of don’t ask me what’s wrong with me it’s annoying, taught me that even though you have the option to put it off on someone else, the end result just hits different when u do it urself.

Soooooo, fuck you Sir! I promise you that was my first response.

Maybe I should get a cookie for raising a grown child. But I never asked for a cookie, I wanted a partner. Not for nothing, I wanted THE partner I was promised when I first met My Past, the man I fell in love with not the child I came to know. I dulled my accomplishments so they’d dimly shine, to avoid overshadowing his lack of masculinity, with my success. This half apology part admission of my sacrifice rang hollow. It felt robotic and emotionless, coming from the sensitive man I thought I knew and loved and who I believed loved me at some point. It was foreign and familiar in a way that had me feeling a way. I fought the urge to dial his phone and tell him he’s a fuckboi.

I didn’t call. I have never actually called My Past anything but his name even in anger. Minus the Bridge event, because there I might have told him he was a stupid motherfucker who owed me the discomfort of a struggling marriage for all the times I’d cried my eyes out praying for how to solve his self-induced problems…on some level I still do think he owes me. He chose to walk away in the middle of a storm under the guise of finding himself while delivering a backhanded apology. Toxic a$$ Negro. More couch time needed? Maybe…

I do not understand how someone eviscerates your life energy, watching you wither to a phantom of where you started and comes in fresh from “inner acting” with other women while selling weed infused juice, composes this masterpiece, rereads it, and still hits send. It burns a little less to read this so far removed from its arrival, but I will not lie. I wanted to be who I was in the past and cuss him the fuck out. You know those good cuss outs women do, where men look like deer in the headlights and apologize later by asking if you want food. That’s what I wanted to do after reading this…but I just couldn’t. And it was at that moment when I couldn’t, that I knew I would never be with My Past again. And yet there is so much more to dissect.

Come back next week for the second part of my response.

How is this tea? Have you ever given so much of yourself in a relationship when you look in the mirror you don’t’ recognize you? Have you supported someone through their dreams only to be abandoned? Have you helped raised your significant other or had your significant other help raise you? How do you know when it’s over over? Is it a single moment or the culmination of a bunch of little moments? Speak on it in the comments and remember to share is to care and hashish?

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The Dear Faith Letter

Posted on January 13, 2021 by faithsju243
I do not own the rights to this image – see source https://imgflip.com/tag/dear+john+letter

To be fair, editing or manipulating My Past’s letter would be improper so I’m going to give it to you raw no chaser. I’m positive he typed this on his phone, the guy had time time.

From the day I 1st laid eyes on you, I saw and recognized you as the strong super smart and confident leader that you always have been and thru these 8 years I’ve watched you grow that base and mature it into the woman who wins awards and gets recognized as a stand out in her field. To have the focus to be able to combat not only the day to day of that pressure is amazing in itself. Then throw on the tenacity to and wisdom to not want to have but also the recognition and heart to know if not u than who, to throw everything and anyone who is close to u on ur back and carry them along ur journey. Myself included.
The patients and strength it took/takes to meet someone who is far from complete. Shit a person who’s barely even comfortable in their own skin, and be able to dig in and constantly work and pray to build and mold that person. Constantly teaching whether the lesson was excepted in the moment or not always forward pushing.
Lessons of I need my space or my quiet time to a child who’s clingy and lookin for that attachment of protection. Taught me to be quiet and still in the moment.
Lessons of don’t ask me what’s wrong with me it’s annoying, taught me that even though you have the option to put it off on someone else, the end result just hits different when u do it urself.
Lessons of I don’t care if u go out where u go and I’m not askin no questions. Taught responsibility independence and the recognition of the importance of making the correct small decisions that could alter life in an instant.
Loud debates that internally beat me down and caused doubt and internal embarrassment. Taught me to be able to stand firm in ur arguments but make sure ur knowledgeable enough to not be a fool. As well as the patients and confidence to be able to hear the loud ferocity of an opponent and not crumble bcuz I’ve been trained for this.
The lessons of inconsistency and the need to not only focus but to set goals, plan, and take notesso that it’s easier to not b distracted. Bcuz there’s a written guide that says hey u were here b4 u “Wander”ed now u can come right back without having to start over or getting pulled to something different.
I would have to believe that in reading the above u will agree that even thru all the pain I’ve caused I’ve been growing all along.
I know that you see that the man I was, the man who u scraped off the sidewalk after a nasty fall and pieced back together but unlike humpty dumpty who couldn’t be reassembled. You built a better model.
I recognize that in the moment none of that matters to u and all I’m doing is being selfish. And I recognize that it seems that way, and I hope to show u 1 day that I’m not.
U’ve grown me to feel not only comfortable in my own skin but more importantly confident in my ability. Through lessons of comin to ur office and u remindin me to just be myself. A lesson that is imperative for my next step.
The clarity I currently have to be able to look back on all those things I felt were negative in the moment and be able to see the lesson and actually learn from them. And that’s not just lessons from my wife but seeing the lessons of 36 yrs of life recalling details to memories so clearly as if it were happening right in front of me in the moment.
But with the ability to do that you also see some lessons that may not have been learned bcuz all the negatives of the past didn’t allow you have the experience.
1 of those experiences is being free in myself to interact comfortably with women whether it leads to sex or not. That lack of experience is the lesson that has always fleed me.

I do not want to be married to anyone else but the woman I committed to making my wife. However this lesson is one that I’ve always felt I needed. Whether it’s it’s the lesson that shows no other woman equates to you, whether it’s the lesson of these hoes ain’t nothing but trouble. Or most importantly is the lesson of being comfortable in urself while being out all on ur own with no safety vest, or clean up crew to put u together when ur broken. The lesson that shows me the ability to use my talent for communication and being likeable by all to take over a board room or a conference hall. Bcuz that level of confidence is only instilled in a man thru concur not concurring coochie but concurring my own fear and learning how to fuck up in a moment by talkin myself out of the P-Valley but bein quick witted enough to spin it back and close the deal. It may sound dumb to u but u have to acknowledge that if a dude can recover from a full walk out from a female acquaintance and still close the deal, then no board room or business deal stand a chance against the conference, showmanship, and strength created in that experience.
I could go further but I think u get the point,so I’ll finish up with this clear statement of exactly what I want.
I want my wife to be everything she always has been to and for me like nothing bad ever happened. Now obviously that’s not even possible cuz clearly shit happened and is happening. I see that currently all I’m doin is causing u hurt and anguish and that’s on top off all the other life shit ur dealing with. So even in wanting to be with u I see that it’s best for both of us to have this time apart 1 so that u don’t have to worry about me and my pressure so that u can then turn and focus ur efforts to ur mom and urself. Now u may say that it’s not fair cuz u always were there to help me. But u kno if I stay I’ll do nothing but add more weight.
And 2 so that I can grow in myself to finish developing. Yes I want the option to behave freely and inner act with other women, bcuz I need that. It’s the a statement on the highest level of selfishness. But I’ve come to the realization that in this life there are times where u have to be selfish so that u can grow out of that comfort zone, in order to come back selflessly and take ur seat next to ur queen to provide and rule with knowledge, wisdom, confidence, love, and compassion.
I would never disrespect u by creeping around with some other broad. Which is why I asked for this separatation so I can grow without the guilt of pain caused to you. I don’t want to lose communication with you and and don’t want a divorce.
This is the most honest I’ve ever been. And I’m glad I didn’t say anything yesterday when u wanted me to cuz I know it would not have come out clear and concise. Another lesson I got from u.
This is not easy for me to do bcuz I do love u and don’t want to hurt u. But u also trained me to make a decision and stand tall on it. This is the full truth of what I want and need.
If u want to remain married work on our relationship and allow me this freedom well than by all means I’m in, but that’s ur decision and I’m not asking u to make it. Which is why I asked for the separation.
I do love u, and in whatever fashion this plays out I know we’ll always be together.

Was it a tough read for you? Imagine how I felt. No but seriously there’s a part of me so incredibly happy (odd sentiment I know) my heart stopped bleeding My Past long before I opened this email. And trust I know no relationship dies by the hands of a single person. Mine died a 100 tiny deaths well before I forced myself through the written stream of consciousness pulled together in this dear Faith letter of sorts. It is my utmost intent to respond honestly and to discuss the relationship, of course through my lens but with some level of grace for the person who will not be able to speak his “truth” beyond a few letters he wrote to me. But also give context and really delve into how meeting on a bridge sealed the fate on 8 years of together. I’m going to be honest about myself, what I learned, what I will never accept again, what I will do better, and why love is never the wrong decision, but how it must be entered into with someone who has the capacity.

Sip some tea with me. Would you send a dear John/Jane/Jaquan/Jaquita/Juanita/Jose letter? How do you feel about open(ish) relationships? Is there a difference between separated and divorced? Does it count as cheating if your husband inner acts instead interacts with females (ugh I hate when men use this term when they mean women)? How long would you give a spouse who needed to find himself/herself before you signed the papers?

Drop a comment in the box below. Remember to share is to care and hashish.

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The Beginning of the End

Posted on January 13, 2021 by faithsju243
Owner rights – https://cannabisdrinksexpo.com/cont/news/imagePot/cannabisdrinksexpo-08132018092241000000-5b714de1cebb1.jpg

Some days you wake up and your husband tells you he wants to be a weed infused juice salesmen. Nothing more. Nothing less. Trust me I know what it sounds like but at the same time this is the same husband who told me that King Tut was an alien whose head was an over-sized oblong sphere, hence the headdress. That’s not a joke, although I know it sounds like one. And yet somehow I found that absolute nonsensical jibber jabber somewhat endearing. At least I did in the beginning.

Honestly I wish his sudden burst of excitement toward all things THC related came as a shock because it would have made the actions that followed his excited utterance more palatable. It was not. Nor were the somewhat erratic but on brand antics that followed anything short of par for the course of the emotional roller coaster I’d ridden for the past 8 years. Yes I said 8. Some of them were fun. Others not so much. And others so depressing I could do nothing but work to find some semblance of the person I was before I met My Past.

Truth be told I can’t blame him fully. Correction, I can’t blame him for being an outlandish dreamer because his ability to dream big with reckless abandon gave him an edge, that everyone else I dated the 8 years preceding our divorce, just didn’t have. In hindsight, you know with it being 20/20, his inability to do the work needed to even touch the tip of his craziest dream should have been the sign that told me to run. But, stupid is as stupid does.

And I can’t tell you exactly what I said to him after he dropped the bomb, but I do know I asked if he planned on doing this moving and shaking research (you know because in order for him to be a weed infused juice salesmen he would need to travel back and forth between states where marijuana is legal, namely not our home state of PA) during the got damn 2020 Zombie Apocalypse? To which he told me absolutely and walked out muttering about my lack of support and that I complained when he didn’t tell me things and now he was sharing and I still complained.

In my defense, he opted to have this conversation during my only 10 minute work break between Zoom meetings with very little ability for me to process. Under the most normal set of pressure I perform well, but as we all know now, 2020 was anything but normal. I am not going to say I failed him in that moment but I am going to say that I’d barely caught my breath from him getting fired a month or so earlier, this weed juice admission was just a bit too much.

And to be fair, My Past getting fired, or let go, or plain being jobless for any stretch of time wasn’t something new. In some ways maybe I did fail him, but there’s so much context that’s needed for you to fully appreciate how my emoticons danced that day. There is so much to unpack…I think I’ll start with his letter to me shortly after we parted ways on the Strawberry Mansion Bridge. That pre-final conversation was absolutely the most real I’d been with him in years, hell it was probably the most real I’d been with myself. But still his letter is the best place to start this journey.

Sip some tea with me. Drop a comment in the box below. Remember to share is to care and hashish.

Click here to read the letter.

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