Love me Tinder

When you end a relationship you are subject to lots of advice and sooner or later that advice seems to be 'go and get laid'. This is something that's easy to say from the comfort of a long term relationship where the prospect of casual dating may seem fun and even glamourous but the prospect of actually doing off the back of your life being wrenched apart is totally different. 

However, after a few months of separation I was coerced in to joining Tinder and my god it's a bloody cesspool. I have not used any kind of online dating in the past so I had no idea what to expect but nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to encounter. 

First of all are the guys who just put it straight out there by posting profile pics of their boners, or are just naked- clearly looking for deep and meaningful relationships there. Then there are the straight up misogynists who proudly state in their profiles they are only interested in women who 'take care of themselves' whilst making no statements about personality whatsoever. You also have the piss heads whose profile photos are a blurry mix of nights out with friends and you have no idea which one the guy is - ok that might make the first date kind of interesting, if he sobers up for long enough to actually make it. 

Men are also have no idea what they want.
'I'm not interested in girls who are materialistic' - has a picture of him next to a sports car which is clearly not his by the way he awkwardly posing next to it but not actually touching it. 
'I don't want anyone shallow and into their looks' - has pictures of himself topless in the gym mirror. 

So you trawl through a slew of pictures whilst seriously considering celibacy or becoming a lesbian when you decide you might as well swipe right. Oh you got a match - yeah don't be fooled- as it turns out you're not the only girl who's picky and guys have cottoned on to this fact and play the odds. They swipe right on mass and hope that one of those will swipe them and then decide if they like them or not. I had quite a few matches but didn't actually communicate with many of them and after one guy wanted to send me pics of his torso (yes I think that was euphemism) I pretty much stopped using it. 

I had actually started chatting to one guy and we did go on a date, which was terrifying, but it was ok and although I didn't see him again it was good to have gotten that one date under my belt. 

It wasn't until a few weeks later that the app got opened again whilst on a drunken night out with my friends. Much wine was had and apparently lots of swiping was done and I think don't most of the swiping was me - honestly married people have much lower standards than actual singles. So when I actually got up the next day with the mother of all hangovers and checked my phone I had a slew of Tinder activity and worryingly from guys as young as 25! Someone had been messing with my settings. I went in and sent a few apology messages to people saying that I couldn't in good conscience date someone who was born whilst I was in year nine at high school (shudder). However, the swiping did result in me connecting with someone from my past. It was totally freaky but we really clicked and I spent the rest of the day messaging them from my hangover pit. 

We met, we started dating, it was nice. We existed in a bubble and that was safe. 

The problem started when other people started to factor in to the relationship. Until that point I had been somewhat conscience of my motives for dating but I tried not to think about it too deeply. However, once that safe bubble that was just the two of us burst I couldn't help but get caught up in my head and all the doubts started to creep in. Why was I dating? Was I trying to prove something to my ex? Was I just delaying some deep seated emotions from the spilt? Were my feelings real or just transference?  Let me tell you when you suffer from anxiety this kind of stuff will make you ill - I mean physically sick. 

I knew it was me and my problems and it wasn't him. He was great, if I could Weird Science myself a guy he would pretty much be it, but I just wasn't in the right place. We mutually decided to call it a day as we are both dealing with the aftermath of separation and there is no timetable for recovery. It would be so much easier to bury the doubts and carry on but that's not fair on anyone and I would just be doing what I'm accusing my ex of, running away from my problems. My problems don't stem from any residual feelings for my ex but from my own beaten down sense of self that you get from years of being in a shitty relationship. I need to be absolutely sure of my feelings about me before I go looking for someone else again. 

So I'm giving myself time to just be me and find out who that is. Who knows where I'll be in 3,6,12 months time but I'm not going to rush it and risk losing someone great again. 

The Purge

I don't know what I expected the house to feel like after he left but there was a definate change. I'd never really liked the house we were living in I always felt uneasy there; like there was some bad feeling about the place. There was this sense of dread I'd always had since we moved in, I thought it was because it was such a bigger financial commitment than our old little house. However, I think it was becuase I was at a place in my life where I'd got everything I ever thought Iwanted. A family, a big house, a good job and that's a lot to loose if it all goes wrong and I felt like I had no control about whether it went wrong or not. I was always waiting for something to go wrong.Then it went wrong.

The day after he left I stepped into my house and that feeling had gone. It felt like the place had been exorcised or something, the whole house felt different. The sense of dread I had always had had been replaced with a feeling of opportunity. I could take back control of my life, my future. I felt like a massive weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

I still had a week before I was back at work so I took the time to put my own stamp on the house. I emptied the house of any last remnants of my husand's and took a cathartic trip to the tip. I then went out and bought some new paint and wallpaper. It felt so empowering to make these decisions without seeking anyone elses approval. It had never occured to me how much I had let my husband control my decisions. I couldn't remember the last time I had made a decision on my own, even one as mundane the shade of paint for a room. 

I wanted to create spaces for me and my son. I was going to use the second reception room downstairs as a play room for my son and convert the man cave into a sewing room for me. I cannot tell you how good it felt to make these changes, it made me feel like the house was becoming a home for the first time. Somewhere I could feel safe.

As I was painting the playroom the doorbell rang and there was two jehovah's witnesses at the door. Their opening gambit 'Do you ever wonder why the world is such a terrible place'? I replied 'I really don't think it is and my husband has just left me'. They didn't have much to say to that and I went back to my painting, but I think it pretty much sums up my mood. You can go around looking for the bad in the world but never let that stop you seeing the good. I've been going through the toughest time but people have been so kind and supportive that even in the worst moments I know that if I'm brave enough to ask for help it will be there; but asking for help can sometimes be the hardest thing in the world.

In three days I had redecorated the two rooms and decided to put my sanity to the test by taking a trip to Ikea. Do you know what? It was lovely, a quiet Thursday morning no whinging child or husband, all the time I wanted to look around and no one hurrying me. I never knew it could be such a pleasant experience. I got home and put the furniture together all by myself, this is a job my husband would usually have done and made a right song and dance about. But it's not actually that hard and I'm sure he only ever used to do it to get out of parenting duties for a few hours.

It's funny that the place that used to make me feel so vulnerable had actually started to feel like a home for first time. It goes to how that home isn't a place its a feeling. My defintion of what home and family looked like had changed so fast but I was the one with the power to shape that going foward and that gave me so much strength. Strength I'm pretty fucking sure I'm going to need. 

The Worst Part

As hard as the last few weeks have been I knew it would be nothing compared to the pain of having to tell my son that me and his Dad were getting divorced. I've only really lost it twice with my soon to be ex during this whole process and the first was when we were talking about how we were going to break it to our son. 

His bright idea was to say that the reason he was leaving was because he doesn't love Mummy anymore. I just looked at him with incredulity and walked out of the door and grabbed my laptop and pulled up every article that said you never tell you child that you have fallen out of love with your spouse because your child may worry that you will fall out of love with them. I already knew this because I'm a human being with emotions and the ability to empathise. However, as usual he didn't think what I said could possible have any merit so I had to show him what some stranger had said on the internet as my opinion has no validity whatsoever. I just rolled my eyes so hard I saw my brain. 

We decided to tell him two weeks before my husband was due to leave so he had time to talk to both of us about his feelings before he left. We settled on Saturday morning (after he'd been to the gym obvs, cant let a little thing like your child's welfare come between you and body attack). 

Now, all the sites tell you to show a united front in front of your child and that would be fine if your emotions weren't a dangling raw mess. I told my husband he had to lead the conversation and I would be there to support our boy. 

We sat him down and he told him that we were splitting up. He burst into tears, I've never seen him cry like that before. My mum instincts took over and I grabbed him up and pulled him into me and just let him cry whilst holding as close as I could. I could feel my heart breaking in my chest. I look over my shoulder and silently mouthed to my husband 'I hate you so much right now'. 

Then came the second blow when he asked about the Christmas holiday and we had to tell him we weren't going and the tears flowed once again. I was broken, I didn't know what to do or what to say to make hime feel better but I needn't worry because my husband flew to the rescue by offering to by him a Nintendo Switch. I could have punched him, but that's his solution to everything throw money at it. 

As any 6 year old would he instantly brightened up at this promise and they trotted off to go and buy his 'guilt be gone' gift. 

I can tell you now kids, this is not the way to handle this. All it did was stop the real conversation that needed to happen. My husband managed to get out everything he wanted to say, like - I'm leaving and you need to get a new house too. But he had no time to give our son the time and space to process and talk about the bomb we had just dropped on him. 

I felt like the whole thing was more for my benefit, to yet again give me the message that he was leaving me and that was that. (Apparently he was being so horrible to me so that I didn't get the wrong idea; I told him in no uncertain terms that I wouldn't have him back. Ever). 

In the days that followed my mental health to a huge nose dive; I was a weeping mess on the kitchen floor. I felt like I had let my boy down. All I ever wanted was to be a proper family for him but I had failed. I was facing two more weeks of living under the same roof as my husband, and it was like torture. Everytime I saw him I just felt so angry, I desperately wanted to lash out and hurt him but I knew that he didn't care. I hated the person I was around him, I felt so bitter that he was moving on and leaving me to deal with a child that was struggling to process what was happening. My husband was hardly around for the next two weeks whch made me even madder as he only had a short amount to time to spend with his son but his new girlfriend was apparently a more exciting prospect. 

I felt suffocated by everything I wanted to run away and even considered going on holiday to get away from it all but I knew that wouldn't be fair on my son as I had no childcare in place. But the urge to run wasn't going away and then my Dad offered for me and my son to go and stay with him the weekend that my husband moved out. I jumped at the chance. I knew it would be good for me to get away and good for my boy not to see his Dad move out of his home. 

It was the best decision. I finally felt like I had the space I had been craving. I ate, I drank, I talked and I slept. I was ready for whatever came next. 

Rock bottom, 50 feet of crap, me

It was the week after I'd found out that my husband had been seeing someone else and he wasn't exactly handling it well. By which I mean, he tried to tell me about the movie he had seen with her on their date the night before. I shit you not. 

Most normal people would probably have lost their rag at that point and screamed at him for his extraordinary levels of insensitivity but I just walked out of the room. I knew there was no point in shouting as he didn't really care about my feelings at that point anyway. Plus I have a singing performance in a few weeks and I needed to save my voice. 

The problem was I was bottling it all up and it was going to come out somewhere, unfortunately 'where' was my office the next morning in front of about 100 people. I walked to my desk (after almost crashing my car) and just broke down into tears. Two of my colleagues rushed me off into a meeting room and asked me what had happened. I showed them my now naked left hand and they gave me the biggest hug. They sat with me for the next hour and rearranged their days so they could take me the 40 mile journey home. I was so grateful for their kindness but I also felt so ashamed of myself for breaking down like that. I haven't yet been back to the office and I'm sort of dreading it, although I do feel stronger now so less likelihood of histrionics.  

I was so tired, I couldn't sleep even when taking medication and I felt like a zombie. My eyes were so sore from crying and lack of sleep and I think if someone had handed me a gun I would have probably blown my brains out. It didn't help that my husand was pushing me about descisions around finances and custody that I just wasn't emotionally ready to make. He had arranged for an estate agent to come and value the house without consulting me and started texting me links to divorce websites. I couldn't handle this, it was all piling up on top of me and I knew the worst was still yet to come (telling my son). 

I told my husband to back off. He'd had months to come to terms with this decision and I'd had days. I couldn't and wouldn't be rushed into anything and if that caused him a financial burden, well that was his cross to bear. He'd made his bed and he had to lie in it. Interesting side bar; he suggested we take it in turns to sleep on the spare (single) bed; I laughed and told him to sod off. 

This was the first time I had felt empowered in this whole sodding process. I had let him push me around for so long but if I didn't stand up for myself now I never would. I would set the timetable when I was I ready and not before. This was a turning point for my mental health and I started to feel clamer and more in control. 

The problem with divorce is you can feel powerless, you just have to go along with a decision because that's what you do. You're self esteem is probably as low as it can get and you're easy prey for someone willing to exploit that. But you do have power, this isn't a one sided process and you get a say. I'm not used to sticking up for myself but I'm learning fast. 
I realised I needed to make him think about me and it that was ok for me to have some power. For me to say 'no this isn't right and I deserve to be treated better'. 

It's easy to be railroaded when you're so low but you have to take that anger and grief and chuck it right back at them. Right in their stupid faces. 

The poison pen

I had made it through my birthday relatively unscathed considering and I was going back to work. Life seemed to be returning to something like looked like routine even if normality was out of the question. 

On Tuesday everything was normal until he came home; he said I'd had a letter arrive and handed it to me. I never check the post as it's usually junk but this was a hand written envelope so I just thought it was a late birthday card. He was stood behind me while I opened it and seemed to see it for what it was before I did. He began to protest as the words of the letter sank in. 

The letter told me that my husband was suspected of having an affair with someone at the gym, someone who had been involved with married men before. It named her and told me that they had been seen together on a number of occasions in a manner that you wouldn't expect of a married man. At that moment the bottom fell out of my world; all his assurances about the reasons for leaving were totally shattered, as was my faith. 

Some stranger had found out my name and my address and sent this letter for reasons I can only imagine were to stir up shit. I felt totally violated. My home and privacy had been invaded; I felt sick to my stomach. I felt humilated that strangers knew more about my life than I did and I was incandescent that I had been lied to. 

He denied that anything had happened although he said he had wanted it to. I didn't and still don't believe this as from the following day they have been in an relationship (yes whilst still living under the same roof as me). I know this as he told me so, this was good of him as far as he was concerned because he was being honest. I wonder if I told him of my intention to kick him in the balls prior to doing so would somehow lessen the pain? Maybe we could try that theory out and I'll let you know. 

I was broken, totally and completely broken. He told me that he didn't consider himself to be married anymore and he would behave as such. I had no say in this matter because of the afore mentioned honesty. 

I had to tell someone so I told my best friends. They rallied around and offered me comfort and quite frankly saved me that night. However, something inside me had changed. I felt rejected and more devastatingly, easily replaced. I had been cast aside for someone else and lied to to appease his conscience. 

I had no support at home, he was more interested in how the other woman was affected by the letter. I said she needn't know about the letter and it wouldn't affect her at all, but no he had to make an even bigger drama out of it without any regard for my feelings. This person seems to have drama in her wake and now I was being drawn into it and I wanted no part of it. I wanted to get out of this with some dignity but that had fallen away and I was exposed and very lonely. I can't describe the hurt you feel when someone who is supposed to care about you more than anyone else in the world shows a complete disregard for your feelings over some relative stranger. 

All of the plans to try and stay a family until after Christmas had been shot to pieces, I couldn't stand to look at him or talk to him. We were going to devastate our son's life to an even greater extent because he cared more about satisfying his pecker.

I had to tell him he needed to be discreet about his new relationship as he didn't seem to think there was a problem with him carrying on under my nose. To be honest I'm not sure how I managed not to kill him, it was probably the thought of the mess it would make. 

I didn't know what was going to happen from here but the one thing I was sure of was that it was going to be harder than I had ever imagined. 

Abigail's Party

In the few days after my husband had dropped the bomb that he wanted to leave I took some time for myself to deal with the shock, however I took a small amount of comfort from the fact he had been honest (when backed into a corner so I'm not sure if it really counts). I had my birthday to get through and I wanted to put on a brave face for my son. 

The previous weekend I'd tried to arrange for us to go out for a family meal to celebrate but my husband was being difficult as he's on some stupid diet where he won't eat any sugar or carbs. He said he would come but not eat anything which to me sounded stupid and in hindsight was probably just a way to avoid going out. Also the diet never seemed to be an issue when going out with his gym buddies.

I finally managed to get him to agree to go out when I suggested going to a new smokehouse. This is probably a good time to mention that I'm vegetarian and as you may know a smokehouse is all about meat. Had I known later that day he was about to drop the leave bomb on me I would have told him to shove it in his smokehouse. However, it was booked and my son was excited about it as we had hardly spent any quality time together as a family because 'Daddy's always at the gym'. I felt I couldn't back out but I made it very clear that he was on responsible parent duty and I was on cocktail duty. 

The meal was better than I anticipated and I made the best of it for my son's sake even though my husband was sat there looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. I had made a promise to myself that I was going to make this work until the New Year and if it took some compromise and cocktails to get there I was prepared to do the work. I just tried to ignore the sour face next to me and put my energy into making sure me and my son had a good time and we did, even getting a free milkshake (it was called a Slim Shady because it had M&Ms in, it took an emabarrassingly long time for the penny to drop on that one). 

We got home and I put my son to bed as my husband got ready to go back out. I gently reminded him not to get in too much of a state as he had to drive us to London to go to the Harry Potter Studio tour we had booked months ago. 

I'm a huge Harry Potter fan and I had wanted to go for years but we wanted to wait until our son was old enough so we could go as a family and this was finally the weekend I had been waiting for. I shovelled on some make-up and smile and headed out determined to enjoy it. He once again had a face like a slapped arse but I wasn't going to let him bring me down, if he wanted out then that was up to him I was going to have fun on my birthday with my son. I had a pool of strength that I was drawing from because I knew that I just had to keep going for a while before we could start moving forward in what ever shape that might take. I wanted to be brave so that we could be amicable at the end of all this and continue to have a good relationship with our son with as little bad feeling as possible. 

At this point it was only my Mum who knew what was going on and he said he didn't want to tell his family. I was feeling very alone and in the difficult position that I couldn't tell anyone else in case it got back to his family. I suppose it was making it feel quite unreal and I was in a little bubble able to protect myself from the reality that was about to bear down on me. However, my bubble was about to burst. 

The beginning of the end

Five days before my 39th birthday my husband told me he wanted to seperate. I remember the room spinning a bit and I felt like I'd been lit on fire. I thought I was going to be sick and I just wanted to run away.

I'm not going to pretend that this was a bolt out of the blue, things had not been right for a long time. We had been spending more and more time apart, I'm a home bird but he was staying out until the early hours and coming home drunk more and more frequently.  I put it down to a mid-life crisis as he has a big birthday coming and I wanted to give him the space to work through it but I couldn't help sense there was some more going on. 

I had confronted him a number of times about it but he just brushed it off even when his behaviour was becoming quite extreme. He was living life like an 18 year old, ignoring his family responsibilities, leaving the house in a state as his drifted in and out and spending most weekends out and leaving me at home with our child. 

I now know he was trying to push me into leaving him as he was too cowardly (his words) to talk to me about it. If he treated me badly enough I'd walk away and he could move on with his hands clean, does this sound familiar at all? 

I knew deep down this was the case and my anxiety had been getting worse over the last few months as I was waiting for hammer to drop. I tried to ignore it but it was just getting worse. I was isolating myself from friends, family and work so I didn't have to face fact that my marriage was heading down the crapper. But I can tell you now ignorance is not bliss. 

It finally happened when I cornered him about our problems and he dropped the news that he didn't want to be with me anymore. He admitted he'd felt like this for a long time but was to weak to admit it. I asked him if there was someone else but he said there wasn't and it was just about him. He wanted to live his life for him, without the responsibilities of a grown-up (well wouldn't we all but we have to live in the real world). He had been living a selfish life for months, leaving me to do the lions share of the housework and childcare, and this was the life he has now chosen for himself. 

I asked him to go and see a counseller with me and he agreed. I thought it best that we try and deal with whatever happens next in the most healthy way possible and that would probably best be achieved with some impartial help. We have a family holiday booked to go to Lapland at Christmas and I didn't want to add to my son's inevitable heartbreak by telling him that as well as his parents splitting up he would also not get the holiday he'd had been looking forward to for a year. We both agreed that what ever happened he had to be at the heart of any decisions we made and that he would always come first. 

I left the room in a state of shock, I hadn't really processed what had happened. I didn't sleep much and got up in the middle of the night as I didn't want to spend the night staring at the ceiling. I watch TV until it was time to get the family up and I got my son ready for school. I opened up my laptop ready for work and I just broke down. I called my boss and explained what happened and she was very understanding and told me to take a few days. I called my Mum and she came over and comforted me. I felt totally lost, I didn't know what to think or feel or say. I think I sat in silence for most of time my Mum was here, now I know I was in shock. I'd had the rug pulled out from under my life and everyting was about to change but at that time I didn't know that was worst was yet to come.