One of the things that this pandemic and lockdown has done is made me realise how important it is to express and put your story out there. The media stories and alternative theories have shown me that it is important to let the people see both sides of the story and let them pick and choose what they think is right and what resonates with them. If the media went on and on about a person A being the victim, then that becomes the reality in the minds of everyone until someone tells the other side of the story. My beliefs and trust have switched sides several times after reading both sides of the story.
This also created a discomfort inside me about my journey, my life. The hatred and trauma that has ensued ever since I got in a relationship with this man has been unbelievable. It has shaken the models of many peoples worlds. Till date I receive hate messages and people wanting to make me feel guilty for what I did. Wow!! It surprises me that people do manage to find so much time for other peoples personal business.
With time and experience I have gathered that not everyone will love me and not everyone will hate the people who hate me. The people who hate me are good friends to their friends and good parents and maybe decent human beings too. So I cannot put them in the evil/hateful box. There is some aspect of their beliefs that me and my behaviour has challenged and the best way they have found to cope with that is by either labelling my actions evil/wrong, hateful, calling me a whore, home-wrecker, witch or gossiping to prove themselves right and me wrong.
So I am choosing to respond to some of the questions and sharing my side of the story or the story that I know to be true. I have asked myself several times why I want to do this. Am I seeking approval? Am I justifying? And I feel while there are certainly elements of that, my most important reason is freedom. I feel like my story is trapped inside and I want to set it free. I want to breathe and not feel suffocated with it inside me. I see healing coming from it to myself. And maybe I am mistaken. Maybe it won’t do any of that. I don’t know. I feel it would be better out than in. I am not perfect. This is not an attempt to prove that I am or that I was right. What I do know is that between right and wrong are shades of grey and not everything in life can be black or white. Here are my 50 shades of grey:
Q1. How could you date a married man?
A – Well, I didn’t intend to date him. When he started sharing how miserable his relationship was and how much he needed a friend to listen to and share things with, I gave him a listening ear. It is hard to not empathise when someone shares that their wife does not accept them for who they are, hates all the aspects of them that are integral to them and is ashamed of them. That she won’t let them swim in the pool where her friends went due to the embarrassment she felt. That she told him he would never go to heaven. That they hadn’t been intimate for 7 years and they were already on the verge of getting separated. For a year before they got separated, they had been discussing how the relationship was broken and the only way was out. So I gave this man a listening ear and some care and support. Eventually I was being bombarded with hatred from 3-4 people who thought we were in a relationship, even though we were not. Also, no one asked him why he was dating a married woman.
He only asked me to test if our relationship could work at all, given the weird non-vanilla friendship/relationship we had, 12 days after the ex-wife asked to be separated.
This question usually comes from religious people, especially christians. It goes against their religious beliefs. My question to you is, does a couple need to stick to their relationship and vows even when they are miserable? What happens if one of them wants to stick to the relationship and the other feels stuck and can’t find a way to get out? What if there are kids involved? Do the parents have to sacrifice their lives for the so-called imagined wellbeing of the child? Will the child learn honesty if parents keep living a lie? Are we supposed to be in integrity with what the society/religion thinks is right or live in integrity with ourselves? Jesus teaches love and if you hate me, you are already not in alignment with your religion. So imposing your christian philosophy on others is kind of a hypocrisy I think.
Q2. How could you walk away from your beautiful relationship ?
A – With a heavy heart, lots of tears and over a decade of amazing memories. The few months after the separation were depressing and I didn’t want to live. The pain was too much to bear. But when you realise that your heart has moved on and the season of that relationship is over, then there is no point in holding on to something that is dead. We bury the dead or cremate them. We don’t carry them around. As beautiful and lovely as the past was, it needed to be left in the past. The moment I realised I couldn’t choose him if given a choice, I realised I had to walk away. And yes it was bloody painful.
Q3. Do you regret what you did?
A – We both shed a lot of tears in the aftermath. We both followed our hearts and in the process our exes were hurt, although hurt is an understatement. If we had a choice to do it again, we would still make the same choices but find a way to not hurt the people in our lives who felt betrayed. Yes, we both knelt in Sacre-de-Coeur and shed tears and asked for forgiveness from our exes and each others exes. It was not how we intended things to turn out to be. We still wonder how we ended up with each other and it still surprises us.
Q4. Can you imagine how you would have felt if your husband would have walked away from you with another woman? Can you put yourself in the shoes of your mans ex?
A – Oooohhhh.. that would be very painful I think. I don’t know what I would have done if I were in that position. I am not in that position and so I can only hypothesise. I don’t think I would send emails to the other woman asking her to leave my man alone. I did receive them. That was ridiculous. I don’t think I would threaten the other woman like I was. I think I would talk to my man and want to resolve things between us first.
Even though on one hand I feel sorry for the ex-wife, on the other it is hard to empathise when the man gets drunk and tells you that he was only an ATM machine to her, when her best friend admits to you that in that household the child came first, dogs second, her car third and the man came last in the order of priorities in her life, when you are told that the image of the relationship was always more important than the relationship itself because the woman who otherwise won’t touch the man would happily kiss him for a Christmas photoshoot to portray the image of a happy complete family.
Cherry on top is the fact that she asked him to have a relationship with me if he needed to but keep me outside the US so US can still be their home and their image of a happy family was not destroyed in society. Wow. I would fail on all those accounts if I was in her shoes. So no, I probably can’t put myself in her shoes. Because she was ok with the betrayal as long as reputation in society wasn’t affected. It only became an issue when the reputation was at stake.
Q5. You don’t understand how difficult it is to be a single mother. You don’t have kids. You will never understand.
A – True. I don’t have kids. I will probably never understand that side of her. I am told she is a very good mother. I am glad that she is. Good for her and good for the child too. As far as being a single mother is concerned, I have seen a few in my life and I know how tough it is to have a 9-5 job, sometimes 2 jobs and to find time to spend with kids, cook and clean and save money and struggle to make ends meet, not have enough downtime and always be exhausted and broke.
What I will also never understand is that this woman chose to threaten the man that if he got into a relationship with me, his half, if not entire UK and US business would be destroyed. That the SINGLE MAMA card was played so well, despite the fact that she had his debit card to spend for over a year with no limitations and no approval needed. The man was kind enough and manipulated into guilt enough to cut down his budget to meet her needs. Everything was paid for. When the card was requested to be cut up, she demanded that her rent, utilities, and every other bill needed to be paid including the childs schools fees, childcare, toys, gifts, all year round camps all the way upto the garbage bill. So the empathisers who have had their husbands cheat on them, fathers walk away from them and had a tough life to deal with might want to re think that their definition of single mama and her definition of single mama is very different. When the divorce agreement was being made she demanded 4 times the money that courts would have agreed on and only settled for twice the amount because she was leaving California and going to stay with her mother on the east coast. This monthly amount covered her rent and everything else in California. She had enough money to buy a new car and enough guts to ask her ex-husband to reduce his travels to pay her. The divorce agreement mentions 50-50 split of the childs medical bills. But it was easy to back off and say I wont pay it after the child had a surgery and we received an invoice in the post for almost $5-6k. So, NO!! I don’t understand how a woman can feel so entitled that all she can see is her needs and comfort at the cost of… who cares.. whatever cost the ex has to pay.
Do I agree that raising a child as a single parent can be a nightmare? Yes, I do. And yet do I agree if it is justified to play the sympathy single mama card when all your bills are being paid for and more, to destroy our clientele by playing the victim, to guilt the man into paying full medical bills because he is not the one taking care of the child? No, I don’t.
Q6. Why can’t you keep out of their relationship? They have a child and it will be a relationship for life.
A – I married this man and so his finances and his business and his mental state and emotional well being all kind of tie to my life and affect my life too. I had no issues with the man spending time with his kid, but the ex’s insistence that they go out together for dinners and movies and bowling was a little too much to handle after the separation and especially after me moving in with him. The child did not need to live with the lie that you are a happy family.
I am involved because I have to watch the man in despair and support him through it when she says, ‘I am going to take myself out from between you and your son and you can contact him directly.’ This happens immediately after our wedding is announced. Knowing that the son does not respond to emails or texts or calls on his phone. And the best way has been calling on her phone to get to him. Then when her emotions settle down, it’s ok to call him through her again. There was a huge need to control the strings to have some sense of control over him even if it is around the son.
I’m glad she is in a happy relationship and doesn’t feel the need to constantly have her teeth sunk in him to not let him forget what he did to her and the child and how much he owes because of it.
Q7. Does he call his son often?
A – I am not sure why some people are worried about him calling his son, being in touch with his son or spending time with his son. I mean really, ask yourself why you are wanting to know that? Is that because you pity his ex-wife taking all the load, want to make sure he is being a good father, or just wanting to hold him accountable to something you have no reason to hold him accountable to except its your baggage. Some people just want to judge him for being an irresponsible father. He made a choice. He chose his life’s purpose. He knew that would call for sacrifices and he knew family was going to be one of them. It hurts him all the time and it is something he lives with and regrets more often that people will ever know. He does his best to keep in touch with his son and if that is not good enough for you, so be it. You don’t need to burden him with your expectations of him as a father. More so, judge him because his behaviour reminds you of your exes or fathers or someone you know. Your stuff!!
Q8. Do you see any relationship building with her in the future?
A – Well, I think she is a beautiful woman and a good mother. I know my man would love to have her friendship despite what has happened between them in the past. I sent a few messages to her and asked for forgiveness and that I would like us to be on talking terms and civil. That’s the least we could do. But have had no response. Everytime I watch Stepmom, I feel we could all be a nice extended family and spend Christmases together. But then again, I am a dreamer. I have initiated a few requests via my man of having dinners together which were rejected. Am I open to it? Ofcourse. Will it ever happen? I hope so but looks unlikely as of now. There is a lot of hatred and hurt that needs to heal at her end. It would have been easier to accept a guy as my mans life partner rather than losing him to another woman. And yet, I am hopeful!!