10/14 TFTD ~ Why Are They So Much Better Than Me?

An affair holds up a vanity mirror; it gives a rosy glow to the way you see yourself. By contrast, the marriage offers a makeup mirror; it magnifies every little flaw… ~ Shirley Glass

During the last months of my first marriage, the fighting had reached epic proportions. I could do nothing right. I tried and tried but was criticized at every turn.

By our phone was a slip of paper where CH (crazy husband) kept phone numbers. One phone number was next to a guy’s name that began with D. I noticed on our phone bill each month that he spent a lot of time on his days off talking to D. However he never mentioned D. I thought that odd.

I kept it in the back of my mind because my days and nights were consumed with arguing and defending myself. He was off during the week and I was off on the weekends. He usually waxed the floors during the week and complained every week about it. It was hard for me to wax the floors on the weekends because the kids were home and there was a lot of foot traffic.

However, I spent this one Saturday morning waxing the floors and cleaning before the kids got up and then hurried them out the door.

We had breakfast out and then went to the park for a few hours before returning home so that the floors could dry.

Normally when he came in on a Saturday if the house was clean (and in our world clean meant sparkling/spring cleaning clean like cleaning brass and washing windows) he would ask me if I took the kids out which, if I was to do a good job on our large house, was not possible). If the kids had been out he asked why I didn’t clean the house.

This particular afternoon I finished cleaning the house and was so proud of myself that day. I had jumped through hoops to get those floors waxed, the house clean and dinner on the table with all 3 kids running around my feet AND we had been out to breakfast and to the park. There was NOTHING he could complain about!

When CH came in, I was standing there like a proud puppy waiting for a bone and a pat on the head.

He took one look at the floors and said “What did you do? Purposely leave streaks so you’d never have to wax the floors again?”

I was beyond crushed. I immediately began defending myself and saying that was NOT the purpose of my waxing the floors. He waved it away with a “sure sure” and we ate dinner in stony silence. My insides were churning

About a week later I decided to give this D person a call and find out who the heck this was. I got one of the kids on the line and she said her mother J was home. I knew who J was. It was a co-worker of CH. D was her husband. Why in the world would he put D’s name next to the number if calling J was just innocent? I knew why. It did not take me long to connect the dots.

My ex had always been critical but the last few months of the marriage, when he was obviously carrying on with J (though he denies it, he married J so what does THAT tell you?), he was off-the-charts critical. And in defending myself, I had been critical in return. It was a nutty nutty time. The fights turned violent and were nonstop.

It took me a long time to understand that part of the issue was to make me as bad as possible so that he could justify his affair. It took me a long time to understand that there was no way to WIN. There was no way to GET CREDIT. There was no way to please someone who will not be pleased.

For many months I thought there a contest between me and her.

I didn’t realize that
a) I couldn’t win and
b) why would I want someone who was carrying on with someone else (and she hadn’t been the first)?

I got so locked into the contest until my therapist told me, “The only way to win is NOT to play the game.” Oh DUH.

It took me a long time to just STOP playing. It was hard and it felt PAINFUL at times, but eventually I did and the obsession with him and with her went away.

At some point, later on that summer after he tried to reconcile with me and I wasn’t playing along (I had changed in a very short period of time), he went back to her. At that point I took the attitude, “You can have him.” and figure out what he’s doing and who he’s doing it with. Over the past 20 years she has never let him out of her sight, probably knowing “what he does with you, he’ll do to you” if she doesn’t.

That’s terrific as he’s her problem now and has been for a very long time. I didn’t want to play Columbo anymore.

There is no sense in competing with anyone for the affections of a third person. It’s a losing game.

The minute there is a triangle, you have lost.

The minute someone has put one mirror up to you and a different mirror up to someone else, you have lost.

And if you want that person, are fighting for that person, the grand prize is no prize at all. You have to watch their every move and make sure they don’t do this again or with someone else.

These days I have better things to do and don’t want to spend my time making sure that someone else does or does not do things. I don’t want to compete and I wouldn’t. Not for a minute or a second.

The only way to win is not to play the game and

A waste is a terrible thing to mind.

Live your life. Compete with no one. Be at peace with yourself.