My amazing ah ha moment

For 23 years I waited for him to be home, move home on a "normal day to day" basis.  Now I understand that when you are career military, you don't always have that, you have time away from home and very erratic schedules.  If you are stationed 5 hours away from home, visits are in between.  I accepted that and at the time understood...regardless of whether I was happy about it or not.  I made the best of a situation I had no control over.

I was a good mate. I went to work and came home, that was the extent of my life.  Rarely went out, avoiding situations I had no business being in.  I raised our 4 children basically by myself.  I did not drink nor smoke nor do drugs.  I did not party.  On the rare occasion that I did go out with a group of employees, I never drank.  I never thought of another man, yet alone ever cheating on him.  I was beyond faithful and beyond committed even without a marriage license.

I was robbed of time, other than the 18 years of deceit.  I was robbed of all the precious time he spent with that woman.  Time that should have been spent with me and our children.  Lets face it, when this started the kids were 4, 6, 8 and 13.  This is time that they needed him the most and he should have been there.

I put up a front but I was so unhappy because I longed for him to be home and all I did was wait.  18 years of waiting and being miserable and for what.  The ah ha part is that, there was a big part of me that died from the betrayal among other intricate things.  Also the part of me that died was the unhappy mate waiting for her man to come home.  She no longer waits but now she  has now started to live  her life as though tomorrow will never come.  For that reason, Willie I will always be eternally grateful that you made the choice you did.  I guess it is true that with pain...new beginnings are born.