How dare YOU......

There is a painful part of my past that is a little vulnerable and pings me from time to time.....and it is a little harsher than the rest.....but has been a driving force in my story too....In the end of my marriage I felt the most unattractive I had ever been......I had put on weight but more than that I did not recognize myself.....my hair was graying and falling out, my face didn't look like me.....and that shift hadn't been happening for all that too long....it happened in light of my ex and his affair, under the weight of those last two years as the pandemic raged on.....and right before that began, I had felt pretty good.....but in the two years that I lived under the weight of his affair I also lived under the systematic dismantling of me......finding out his girlfriend was calling me names about my weight......feeling like I was in competition with her to some degree.....which is absurd from where I sit today.....like why on earth would I compete with any woman for my own husband! Crazy right:(......but at the time so much started to become normal......stuff that makes my head spin today.....but I felt ugly.....plain and simple.....that was what was being reflected back to me through him, and in turn I was spiraling into that......not knowing how to get rid of that feeling......and the harder I tried the worse it got......and as women we are so hard on ourselves right?? I own the part of me that initially started to loosen the grip on aging......surrendering way too quickly to it all....but also not being loved and adored by my husband, or invited to feel beautiful in his eyes.....and that was hard......perhaps the deepest of betrayals, because he had never made me feel like that before....until........and so I guess as I express this this morning, I felt bullied by them, like the ugly duckling, chubby and washed up.......and then he was gone....leaving me feeling discarded.......like I was not worth it anymore.....and then excruciating pain took hold, and I couldn't eat....so my initial weight loss was by accident, not in response to any of what happened.....and I have said it many times.....I am only 27 pounds less than the night he left.....that's it.....but my entire body changed due to what I did next:) Which was to use that feeling of being discarded to FUEL me.......I thought there is no way I am going to crumble, and become who you said I was, and who she said I was......and I used my stubborn Taurus bull for good:) lol and now today here I am.....feeling more attractive than maybe I ever have.....not even much to do with the way I look, but more to do with the way I FEEL.....strength and vitality running through my veins......and because my self love comes from within, not externally driven :) but it is so painful to see your person reject you, to look in their eyes and see the disappointment they feel when they look at you....and what I needed from him was support and love and all of the rest.....but he was done....no question.....and as I have said over and over, it was the greatest gift I was ever given.....I could not have been able to live this life, this version of health and well being with him......that is true....and I suppose that is one of the things that prompted me to walk away from my last situation too......feeling like I was vying again for attention......feeling him shifting his attention elsewhere.......his forever pattern to create intimacy with lots of women endlessly.....I had told him how dangerous that was.....not because I told him he couldn't have female friends, I am not in the habit of telling people what to do or not do.....more letting them do what they do, and that tells me all I need to know.......but he did exactly what I knew he would.....created intimacy and subsequent relationships with other women, leaving me on the outside looking in again....and this time I wasn't having it......THIS version of me not tolerating that......I will never find myself in that situation.......the person that is meant for me in this life will never make me feel less than.....or leave me wondering where I stand.....never.......and I suppose in terms of him and part of the hurt he left in his wake, was his knowing that I had gone through all of that with my ex husband, and yet he still served the same kind of energy......wondering why scraps were not enough for me.....I mean c'mon......get out of here with that nonsense.....I didn't walk through fire to compete for any man's attention.....I just didn't......and as I express all of this this morning it is one of the more shame filled parts of my story.......that I did all I did with my ex's to prove my worth.......over and over......hoping if I just__________________they would get it.......and I am certain the realization of it all has found them now....but to be honest it is neither here nor there.......what matters is that I do........and as I have also said often, you have to sometimes live in the contrast to see it all so clearly.....and I am clear......the ultimate betrayal.....I am glad my former self had the strength to pick herself up and become this woman.....not succumb to the propaganda she was being fed.......but to stand in the truth of the woman that lived inside of her all along.......If you are reading and feeling any of this, know you are worthy and you don't need to put up with any of it.......you really don't......and do it for YOU, not for anybody else:) Happy Tuesday:)