I Am Lying: This Blog Is Filled With Deception

I’ll admit it.  I am a liar. This blog is filled with deception. I’ve lied about my name, my location, my career and my kids.

Maybe you’ll forgive me.  Maybe you’ll stop reading. Maybe you’ll point fingers and say that I just can’t be trusted with anything. Hey, it’s your prerogative to form your own opinion of me.

But it won’t really matter. I’ll continue to lie. Because I have people to protect and my lies enforce my anonymity.

My family also deserves their privacy – my kids, my friends, my sisters, my late father, even Husband #2. I write as a liar so I can be open about my feelings and still keep things quiet on the home front.

Yes, I am a mother.  I am going through my second divorce. I’ve been left now by two husbands. Those pieces are true. It’s also true that I imagined, for a very brief moment, killing my first husband as he confessed his affair. My telling you that I want sex is true. Indications that I’m healing and struggling at the same time? Also true.

My countdown to the end continues and it’s sadly true that I still miss Husband #2, even after 8 months of silence and knowing he’s not the right man for me. But what I really miss is the false personae he presented during our time together.  His words, not mine. I still believe in the guy who used to be here, but I understand now that guy didn’t really exist. And on the Divorce Day, I’ll raise my hand and honestly say that I don’t want to get divorced from Husband #2, and run the very real risk that he’ll call me needy, codependent, and whatever else is in his arsenal.

Without my secret identity, I wouldn’t be this open. How personally embarrassing would it be to let the public at large know that I was duped, blind, naïve, in denial? That I’m a smart cookie in everything except for love? I might as well put a want-ad on Craig’s List saying “Cheaters, Fakers, and Nigerian Princes Wanted”. I can weed out the jerks but I can’t weed out the pretenders.

So when asked how Husband #2 is doing, I’ll smile and answer, “He’s doing great,” because he probably is doing very well. And that’s another truth I’ll share here, I have no inflated visions of what I meant to him. It’s painful to say that out loud to my friends, but I can type it here because this is where I pour out my heart.

Yes, I miss him terribly. Yes, I’m happy he’s gone. Yes, I’m getting ready to date again. Yes, I wrestle with a pending divorce. Yes, I put down a boundary as to what being married meant to me. For all of you who wonder what’s real, I can tell you with a straight face, the feelings, the failures, the successes, the small steps, those things are absolutely true.

Because I am shrouded by my cloak of invisibility I let my heart hang out.

And that’s the truth.