The Highlight Reel

This is the second part in my five part series on the stupidity of pain shopping. You can read the first part here. Let me serve as a lesson to you! Don’t do it!

I embarked on some “research”. First up was a new picture of her kids on vacation. It might have been Tennessee but it could have easily been somewhere else as well.

They looked like they were having fun. I don’t know if CF came along or if good ol’ Harley is finally learning the joys of life with him. In my mind he came along, because this is Life 2.0. He’s new and improved. He’s the doting husband and the beloved daddy, always ready for adventures with this new version of his family. Naturally, in my narrative he’s telling Harley how much he loves going on vacation and how I would never let him accompany us, how he missed out on so many of these adventures with his own children because of me.

Of course, I also notice the missing fourth child. I guess he wouldn’t play happy family or accept CF as his brand new daddy so he needed to be eradicated. Not even a mention of missing him.

I go back and forth between hoping he has a damn anxiety attack on the way back (or while there) that she needs to deal with and wondering if there was some magic formula I didn’t know existed that would have made him enjoy vacationing with his kids and me. Why does he do this with her and her kids when he would never do it with his own kids?

I see the pictures once again of the happy couple on their wedding day and honeymoon, I suppose. Everyone congratulating them and telling them how happy they are for them. I roll my eyes at the stupidity. It’s laughable. Two cheaters promising to love, honor and forsake all others. Yes, they’ve both got a real good grasp on how marriage is supposed to work.

I so badly want to comment and ask those people if they’re aware of the price her husband, her one son, my kids, and I all had to pay for their happiness. Do you think she’s entitled to happiness at my expense? At my kids’ expense?

I sleep on a couch. My daughter has spent two years basically with her head down just doing her damnedest to graduate and get the hell out of here, to start all over in college. My son, instead of hanging out with friends, stays locked in his room playing video games. We live on a busy street, not a neighborhood. There are no kids around he could hang out with.

But they’re happy and they deserve it because apparently I was a horrible, evil, mean person who tried to shit all over their happiness. No one cares what their happiness did to anybody else’s life.

She wants everyone to know that lazy days spent on the couch in front of the fire with her beloved are her favorite kind of Sunday. He’s got the remote in his hand so he hasn’t changed that much.

I see her incessantly calling him out, mentioning him, tagging him. “I love my veteran!”, “Waiting to watch the fight!” (from their home, on the couch, with him), and letting everyone know how they’re “getting their Halloween on”. Wow- you managed to get him to watch something other than Ice Road Truckers or Mountain Men? Congratulations! You didn’t get him out from under the television altogether but at least you’re watching together.

Again I wonder: Why not with me? Why can he suddenly do all these family and couple oriented things with her that he never could with me? Their life seems to be like a cozy, warm sweater. They carve pumpkins, sip hot apple cider, and watch Halloween movies together. I’m sure Christmas is now magical as well for him.

I see all their happy couple pictures and people cooing all over them. “Beautiful!” “Such a happy couple!” “So nice to finally see you happy!” My former in-laws are the worst offenders. And so incredibly stupid.

My late former mother-in-law shouts out to all on Facebook that, “That’s my baby boy and he’s going to make them my family, too!” Really? Aren’t they already your family? I could have sworn you told me that day you sat in my kitchen that you couldn’t cut her off because she was family. She might be a whore, but gosh darn it, Sam, she’s family, too! I see my evil ex sister-in-law gush that she loves them.

Funny side note: Maybe it’s a woman thing but I definitely noticed how Harley was always commenting on their pages once CF broke things off with her. She didn’t comment much at all before her affair with him but she was all over it once she got dumped. Imagine my surprise when I saw that she’s not falling all over herself to comment on every insipid post and each picture. Curious.

Always there are the obligatory compliments: You are so beautiful. Pretty. Great picture of you, whore.

I freely admit it has always been a sore spot that my former in-laws never missed a chance to tell her how wonderful she looked, while ignoring me.

I posted a new profile picture (obviously this was back when we were still married). Keep in mind I am not the type of person who changes profile pictures every week. That would be Harley. I think this was the first change in two years. Two years! On top of that I had just got my hair cut. I had kept my hair styled basically the same way for years! This was a major change and the most I got from any of them was, “That hairstyle looks nice on you.”

Maybe the former in-laws always thought I was very ugly and wondered what on earth their beloved prince was doing with such an unsuitable specimen. Maybe they like the Hillbilly Whore look. Who knows?

I do my best to shake my head and continue on.

I see all of the pictures of her adorable animals. Most of them purchased by my then-husband. Couldn’t give me money for a homecoming dress for his daughter but he could buy them new animals.

To inject just a brief moment of sanity in this I will note that I don’t see the pets she used to pose with. I wonder if she discarded them like she discarded her son and husband. Much like her new husband discarded his family and pets. Oh well, everything is replaceable, right?

I see her update on moving into their new home. That’s nice, bitch. I live with my mom. My kids don’t have a home of their own. It’s nice that thanks to my husband’s money (and he was my husband at this point in time) your kids are able to move into the nicest home they’ve ever lived in. It’s fantastic that things are going so swell for your kids. Well, except the one you abandoned.

Guess what? She later reveals she loves their new home. There’s so much for her kids to do! I’m so happy for them.

There’s the post about her youngest banging his head in the pool and needing stitches. Don’t worry, though, because New Daddy was on the job keeping him calm, happy, and stuffed with candy!

Awww… that’s so sweet. I’m glad he can act like a father for your kids. Too bad he’s done nothing for his own. To be fair he did manage to make a few ER trips with us (hey- my kid was a gymnast; she got hurt a lot!) but that pales in comparison to what he’s done to them the last 2 years. Maybe we should start calling her youngest, “Mulligan” since he seems to be CF’s do-over.

There were the pictures of the family outing to the zoo- two whole hours away to boot! I guess that PTSD must be in remission, huh? I suppose since he’s no longer trying to con me out of sufficient child and spousal support he can fully enjoy life as the asshole he is.

Oh, there it is! Yet another new profile picture of the whore so that everyone can compliment her and tell her how pretty she is. There’s CF chiming in, “Gorgeous!”  Really? I was married to that sonofabitch for twenty fucking years. Granted, he was not on Facebook long while we were married and most of the time I imagine he spent trying to fuck other women, but not once did he bother to compliment me.

It bothered me when I was married to him. It bothered me when we were wreck-onciling. He knew it bothered me. I told him it bothered me. His excuse? “I see you everyday! Why would I bother to comment on Facebook when I can tell you in person?”

That’s a good question. Why is he bothering to comment on Facebook when he could just go home and tell her?  Better question: If he really wants to let everyone know how special she is why doesn’t he tell her that she’s worth the thousands of dollars he has to pay out every month? I would think that would be a huge compliment! “Your pussy is so fantastic I don’t mind paying out thousands of dollars a month for it!” or maybe, “You were worth abandoning my children!” Hmmm… perhaps that does not convey the message they want to convey…

I see more pictures of the happy couple posing in front of scenery that does not resemble Kentucky. Maybe they travel a lot now. How convenient. It’s nice to know he spent twenty years wasting my life and making me do everything solo because he got such anxiety anytime he ventured outside of his house. I think the mobster is right and Harley very much is his seeing eye dog. With her by his side as his faithful companion he can go places he once only dreamed of.

One last new snapshot- one of her daughter and her two smiling sons. They’re all going out to celebrate her birthday. I think it’s wonderful that he can finally go out for birthday dinners once again. The last year he lived in the house, the last birthday each of my kids had before finding out that their family was going to be shattered and their lives torn apart, he was simply too upset and anxious to go out and celebrate. He stayed behind, probably texting the whore, while I took the two of them out. Who cares if he fucked over his own kids, right? The important part is that he’s doing right by her kids.

Once again I see the picture of CF with Mulligan at Show and Tell. It was Veteran’s Day. This year she improved upon the picture with a cutesy frame that told everyone who cared to listen that she loved her veteran. The year before though it was simply about how pleased Mulligan was that New Daddy/Cousin Daddy (Caddy?) could be there.

You know what I thought about? I thought about the time he snapped at Picasso because he wanted his dad to drop him off at school. Good ol’ Daddy was anxious and didn’t know how to navigate the carpool lane. The man can fight a fucking war and blow shit up, but a line of cars whipping through the horseshoe drive in front of the school just wipes him out.

I thought about the time he got pissy with me because I needed him to run to Target and grab a gift out of the dollar bin and bring it back up to the school for Rock Star so she could participate in her classroom Christmas party. As always, shooting people and blowing shit up is easy; a quick trip to Target is life threatening. He will probably need psychological counseling for the rest of his life because of it.

Once again I see them posing the day of her daughter’s cheerleading competition- him posing in a t-shirt with her high school name and mascot on it. Both of them gushing about how important it was to be there for her. “He must love her so much to wear that t-shirt!” “Oh, it was painful to put that Cardinals t-shirt on but I wanted to support her.”

He never saw his daughter cheer or compete as a cheerleader one single time. He never went to a single high school gymnastics meet. At the time he was saying this he had moved out of the state without saying a word to either of his kids and he hadn’t seen them in over eighteen months. Yes, it was so important that he support the daughter of the whore he’s fucking.

And always there are the comments. Comments from people I used to call family. Comments from people who still try to act like they care about me and my kids while they support that fucking whore and her kids. Comments from people who used to be family shouting out how happy they are with the jolly new couple, how much they love them, how much they love Everything. About. Them. They are so proud and this is their family. Tammy Faye cooing over the newest grandchildren. She loves them so much! Doesn’t seem to give a shit about her actual grandchildren but the whore’s kids? She was on that shit quick!

As tempting as it may be, don’t do it! Don’t pain shop. Maintain no contact (and that includes social media). You may think you can handle it, that it will be no big deal, but feelings will come. I promise you this. Even if the majority of those feelings are rage and anger it is still a lot to deal with. It can still mess with your head. Even knowing they are masters at image management, even knowing that truly happy people don’t have to make a huge show of their relationship every day and every hour on social media, even knowing he is the problem and she is a whore, it can still make you doubt yourself.