Look Your Past in the Face

and Build Trust for Your Future

No one can share your story better than you. You have it within you to heal from the hurt and the pain. Many times I’ve thought about divulging my story, to get even for all the wrongs. But it doesn’t change the past. I’ve come to terms with it and I’m happy. How will rehashing it change anything?

It won’t for me, but maybe sharing my story could help another.

After I split from my ex-husband I said screw it and just put the fully decorated Christmas tree in the master bedroom and closed the door. It was April before I finally took it down and put it away.

I couldn’t stand to go into that room anymore, so I moved into the spare bedroom. Many times I slept on the couch watching the Late Show. And then the Late Late show.

History, especially family history is really a passion of mine. So why hide my own history? Just because you ignore it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

My ex-husband read my diary and changed my life forever.

It’s taken me years to trust again. It wasn’t only the invasion of my privacy, but the beginning of the verbal abuse that followed throughout the marriage.

Not only did he read my diary, because “he didn’t know what I was thinking” he put a program on my computer. In the days of chat rooms and ICQ (one of the first instant messaging programs), I felt free to share my thoughts.

You could hide behind a username and it felt great. In the infancy of the internet, men outnumbered women online. It was great, I’m not going to lie. I was popular for the first time instead of the shy overweight introvert that I was.

Everything I thought and shared with another — he spied on. He dumped printed pages of what I had written on my lap. He had a program, which was a macro that copied every keystroke.

I’m not proud of those days, I was cyber cheating. I tried counseling before, and couples counseling as well. You can imagine how that went.

An introvert in counseling — “how does that make you feel?”

“I don’t know.”

In my head, I thought “I can’t express my feelings verbally, with you or right…

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