A PHONE CALL CHANGES EVERYHING

A few months ago, I received a call I never thought I would. It was the Lobster's ex-wife. She wanted to know if I would tell her why I had broken up with the Lobster.

It's been three years since I broke up with Lobster. It was an almost six year relationship full of high highs and humiliating low lows. After almost six years of extremes and hollow promises of marriage and a future family, I had had enough, and I stopped the nonsense. So when his ex-wife called me, I was actually happy about it. I had wanted to speak to her for years, but Lobster had pretty much villianized her, and had me believing she didn't even want to speak to me. Okay, so we began to talk, and I told her EVERYTHING I could remember, anything I could think of and I asked her a few questions myself. And in one flash, it all came together. Boom. Bam. Pow. I felt like I was watching 20/20 with Barbara Walters or Diane Sawyer. I could imagine the female voice over in my head: "...They were together almost six years. They met, they fell in love. There was talk of marriage, and then a sudden move and she was excluded from it all. But why?...and in one phone call it all made sense." The Lobster's ex-wife and I were able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, and we discovered together that almost the entire duration of my relationship with the Lobster, he was with her. And that's when the female voice over says: "...and he was leading a successful double life."

Although I broke up with him three years ago, and although I had been over him for a long time, I always KNEW there was someting WRONG in my gut about him. I recall he had gone with me to a counseling session, where I had told the therapist, I KNOW there's a big secret he's holding onto because nothing makes sense. Nothing. He swore on his life he had no secrets, and I was just insecure. Take this as a lesson: when your gut tells you something is "off", you don't need further proof. You need no proof. Your gut just knows. Period.

And so, she and I had a very long overdue conversation. We learned that we were both taken for fools, both used, both good women who simply believed in someone we loved. We wished each other well...and I hung up, feeling relieved, feeling like I finally got the closure I was looking for, and feeling f#$ng pissed off!! And then my chest began hurting...and it hurt every single time I had an "Oh, so that's why he..." moment. So I did what I thought I needed to do. If I was having a chest pain, I figured it made sense that I needed to get something off my chest. And so I picked up the phone and called him. "Lobster (I wanted to call him all sorts of names but I held my tongue) by now you know that I've spoken with your ex. All I can say is that karma is a REAL BITCH and I hope you know what you're doing, because it will all come back to you. So, God bless you when that time comes. In the meantime, I thought you were the love of my life, but you were the LIE of my life." And I hung up. I could do no more, because the truth is you cannot vent to someone like that. It would be wasted breath to say everything, when I knew he would deep down have a smug smirk on his face. He's just not worth it. Really, and truly.

I'm so glad I moved on. I told the Quiet One all about it, and he surprisingly was VERY supportive. He listened to me bitch, cry, question, and the whole time, he held me, and told me it would be alright. He actually told me somethings that made me feel healed from it all. Any man would easily say, "That's your past, forget about him. It's us now." And any man would be right to do that. But the Quiet One, I believe, understood this incomplete issue in my life, and he was kind enough to entertain it for amoment, but he wouldn't allow me to feel sorry for myself. He showed me how all these events happened for a reason. And the best thing was that he said, "I'm glad it didn't work out, otherwise, I wouldn't have met you now. I'm so happy he's in my life. I'm happy. I feel that God has rewarded me for no longer tolerating crap in my life....The Quiet One is also the Noble One, the Good One, the Honest One! He's quickly become the love and light of my life.

Fast forward to last week. I have had to see a cardiologist because the chest pains have never left. They happen now for no reason at all. I shouldn't say it's pain as much as it feels like someone is sitting on me and won't get up. I've had an xray, an ekg, an echo-cardiogram, and a stress test..all normal. My doctor says anxiety is a diagnosis of exclusion. In other words, before he says the chest thing is due to anxiety, he has to rule out everything else first. Now the chest discomfort comes for no reason at all. I could be sitting, resting, thinking about nothing at all, and it comes on suddenly. Sometimes it sits with me for days, sometimes it drives me crazy. I was talking to a friend and I told her that I don't think it's unfinished business because I forgave him a long time ago. I won't allow the jerk to rule my life like that...no power to him, hell no. And then she said the most profound thing. She said, "Judy, I know that you forgave him already. But have you forgiven yourself?" And wow. I was stoppped in my tracks. I could't refute it, I couldn't argue, debate...she was right. I haven't forgiven myself. I haven't forgiven myself for having been so stupid to believe his lies, to not pick up on the clues, for allowing myself to be mistreated, neglected, to be second...ugh. How do I do that? I have forgiven EVERYONE for EVERYTHING that has ever been done to me...but how do I do that when I wasn't even aware that I was mad at myself? It's a great thought. I have to chew on that for a while...Oh, by the way, if you ever find the Lobster, you have my blessing to throw him back in the ocean, or just simply broil it.