Rituals for New Lives?

He saved hundreds of notes and cards from me. When everything is finalized, I’m planning to burn them. I’ve been no contact, but am considering making an exception and letting him see them burn if there’s any way I can call him that he can’t record. Does anyone know if a duo call can be recorded? Or any alternative I could use?

Two things:
1. It was the Halloween after our split. and I needed a costume. So I tore rips in my wedding dress, splashed it with fake blood, used makeup to put wounds on my body, and took myself to our annual small town party. Everyone loved my zombie bride getup. Very cathartic!

2. I had a binder full of infidelity evidence, and I would occasionally flip through it to remind myself that he sucks. I finally burned the “reminder binder” in a bonfire, one page at a time, surrounded by my closest friends. Again, very cathartic!

We had one of those pictures at our wedding where guests sign the mat that surrounds it… that went to the curb for trash night the first night he was coming for “visitation” with our son.

Then, about three months later, I sold my engagement ring to sign-up for a trip to Hawaii with my son.

Later, after I packed up his shit and moved it all to the garage (he was refusing it until the divorce was final because “his name was on the deed”), I got rid of our bedroom furniture, repainted the entire room and bought a new set (interest free financing was very helpful!).

Finally, I burned sage in every room… it may sound silly, but it felt great 🙂

My walls sing thanks to CL and CN… Rock on Chump Nation, you’ve got this!

About a week after I left him I burned all 14 of the cards and letters he had sent to me over a 33 year marriage and a 35 year relationship. That is right, 14! LTC Fuckface managed through great personal effort to give me less than one card or letter every other year. He was all in. I burned all 14 and threw in the Irish Linen handkerchief I carried when we were married. It didn’t even make a big fire.

This reminded me after he returned from 18 months tour in the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia discovering he didn’t open the letters I had written him. We had two babies at the time and I had very little time yet still managed to write him weekly. He showed his appreciation by not even opening those letters filled with photographs and sketches of our children. He was too busy.

Fuck him. He sucks.

Switching the side of the bed I slept on. This one thing singlehandedly changed my relationship to a space I had previously felt trapped in.

I redecorated my house; it looks completely different from when he lived here. Getting rid of the marital bed was a huge part of this effort.

I’m considering replacing my dishes and flatware, even though I still really like both. I want nothing that was in his mouth in this house. Bad enough I have to live with the fact that his mouth was on me, after coming home from being with prostitutes.

I sold my wedding rings and bought myself a beautiful diamond right-hand ring. (Although it fits better on my left middle finger. The irony of that is not lost on me.) While I was buying that ring, I found out that he’d bought his massage parlor whore Schmoopie her wedding ring at the same store. The same store where we bought my upgraded wedding set five years ago, and where he bought me multiple pieces as gifts over the years. The Fuckwit has no shame! The sales woman felt embarrassed for me, I think, and apologized for letting that info slip. No need for that, I told her. I was certain the ring I was buying for myself was nicer than anything he could afford to buy her. She didn’t disagree.

Living well is the best revenge.

One year after my sister’s divorce, we were at the beach and had a “jump the broom — backwards” ceremony (but we used an oar). Just a few friends and champagne.

In the roughly four and a half years I spent with the Lying Cheating Loser, the D-days were almost constant. Two years in, I knew I had to leave him. But as all chumps know, trauma bonding is real, and I was very attached to my cherished outcomes.
Eventually I started lining up my ducks. Made a plan with my landlord who promised me one of his smaller units. About two weeks before moving day, LCL still did not believe I would ever leave him, despite having clearly communicated to him that things had to change or I refused to go on. One particular morning, we had our last fruitless circular discussion about the state of our relationship. Driving to work, I called my landlord and gave him the green light to put the for lease sign in our yard. And that’s how the Lying Cheating Loser found out that the jig was up.
I moved into the other rental, and he moved in with his parents 5 hours away (in his mid 30s, abandoning his two teenagers who lived with their mom near us).
About 6 months later, I started looking for an auction property to buy. I wanted to get away from all the bad memories that still echoed through the town where I had lived with the LCL. Even before I closed on my dream cottage in a different town 100 miles away (a 1930 brick Tudor Revival) I started collecting and making furnishings and art for it. I painted a sign that reads, “your walls will sing” and I remade a large piece of salvage wood that had hung in our master bedroom with LOVE in mismatched letters affixed to it.
I handpainted the poem below on it, and it hangs in my pretty little cottage to this day.

Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell

leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house he’s never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. don’t wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses.
you make him call before
he visits, you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
don’t lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four-poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.

I believe cleaning and moving, and throwing away old faux memories is all cathartic. I did not have a formal ritual, but it felt right to leave old places, even those I loved once upon a time, and start new. My boys went through a lot, because of their dad, and then the love bomber, but they proved resilient. That was my goal as a sane parent, to raise strong, independent, resilient children to adulthood. That was probably my hardest and most worthy accomplishment.

The other night my youngest and I were talking about life and changes. He asked me how I was possibly mature enough in my 20’s to marry and buy 2 homes. He is 31, and does not feel ready for either commitment. I told him it was not a choice, so much, for me, but a necessity, and a response to my FOO programing. My Dad virtually abandoned me emotionally, long ago. At 18, he cut off all financial support after my first semester of college, even though I had made straight A’s and was fitting into college life quite well. He thought I would fall apart, and have to come begging back to him for support. Unfortunately for him, he was one of the first men who underestimated me in my life.

Oldest of five children, raised 2 of my own, survivor of bad relationships, and academically I completed my B.A. and M.A. plus. I worked and supported myself for 50 years so far (I’m now retired}. Never an apology, no remorse from any of the men in my life who underestimated me. I feel like I was forged in a fire of disrespect, and expected to be a weak woman dependent upon the whims and directions men gave me. I’m not Wonder Woman, but I’ve survived more than my share of battles designed to defeat me and make me submit to their expectations.

Dream your own dreams. Do not depend on those who want to use you to support you. Practice for the marathon you will have to run to get through life if you are young. When you approach the last part of the race, you will be able to look back at a life lived with integrity.

My youngest son told me the thing he admired about me the most was that he never, ever doubted he was loved, or worthy, and he knew I had always provided the best I could for him and his brother. He told me he was grateful I had not demonized his father, but let him figure out how to deal with him on his own terms. He said he would really like to ask his dad “why did you cheat on my mother.” I advised against asking. I told him he would only get some weak lie, or blame shift, that his father would not take responsibility for his choices. He told me he did not want to make the same choices his father did, and it worried him that he would make that error. I explained to him that just by worrying about that very thing, he showed more character and introspection than his dad had ever been capable of.

I think living an authentic life, and teaching your children, family, and friends what real love and support look like is the best thing you will ever do for yourself, and for them. If you do this, you win.

I am writing a new book called FUCK YOU (Mr. Chumpersons). It’s a sequel to a very beautiful, art and poetry filled pick me book (that I wrote before I understood that pick me was a thang). Writing in Fuck You Mr. Chumpersons is my alternative for times I want to call up Mr. C and and tell him which orifice to shove his latest bullshit. As a hard core “nice girl” who feared FW reprisal from for 2 decades, it’s been cathartic to express stuff that still eats at me in a safe place. Anything goes and I feel a wee bit better with every page.

Plus, it’s a hilarious read when I am tempted to stray from no contact. Just looking at the title is enough to snap me back to reality. “Chumpy – he is a unapolgetic fucktard and here the SPECIFICS in case you forgot them (again)”