Put Down the Mop Ladies and Listen Up! Part One

As I sit here in my 52 years-old body, (and boy howdy does it feel 52 sometimes) – Spiritually, I feel like a toddler just hearing my own voice for the first time.

I’ve went through my entire life trying to please others and in the process I lost myself along the way. That is until (metaphorically and literally speaking) I put the mop down and stopped worrying about what others thought of me especially what my husband thought of me.

My husband and I met late in life, neither of us coming into the relationship with any previous baggage – no ex-spouses, kids, etc. He was thirty-three and I was twenty-nine; both of us being the oldest in the sibling birth order. I was rather outgoing and social – in a loud obnoxious sort of way.
He was more reserved and calculated. We seldom disagreed as long as he was getting sex and I was doing everything he expected otherwise, nothing else really seemed to matter.

What I worried the most about in our relationship wasn’t actually what he would say directly to me – it was the daily conversation we use to have whereas he would harshly judge others for their imperfections. 

However, what I had failed to realize is that I was unconsciously hanging onto every judgmental word he spoke. I was desperately trying not to be that person he was judging by perfecting in myself – what he saw as failure in others. In the process, I lost sight of my own course and found that I was and had been living his dreams while sitting mine aside or maybe I had just lost my dreams altogether. 

You know what though, he might as well have been looking directly into my eyes and saying; you’re a lazy, fat, crazy, horrible mother, and a terrible housekeeper.
I quickly caught myself said, “Na, surely he doesn’t really think those things about me.”

At the time, in order to sooth my own ego – I asked myself, “Why would he think those things about me?” Then I thought, “NO WAY!” – as I began a checklist of positives about me in my head. “I’m pretty, physically fit, I take care of business promptly. I go along with everything he wants to do – even if I really don’t like tent camping in 30 degree weather. I do my best at helping him with his business. Our son is as bright as a brand new 1000 watt light bulb. Our daughter is reading Dr. Seuss books at 3 years old. If my kids were any cleaner their skin would peal off. I am totally immersed in everything my children do especially their education. ANYONE could walk into my house on any day at any hour and seriously not find one thing out of place or a dirty bathroom or even a laundry basket full of dirty clothes… nothing. There is always a hot breakfast, and dinner on the table every day and night, and I actually MOP my floors once a week sometimes twice.”

Weeks had past since I had that crazy idea of my husband truly thinking that I wasn’t doing a good job as a wife and mother and I had sincerely forgotten about the silly notion of him disapproving or him not appreciating my efforts.

Unknowingly however, the Universe has a funny way of not forgetting these things. One day I was magically handed a significant tool for which would guide me to the unveiling of his true feelings about me and for me. It was like when the “Little Wizard” found a mysterious Cloak in the middle of the forest… I didn’t understand it at first so I simply just accepted it put it on and kept walking until…

One day while sifting through the mail on my husbands desk, as I often did, I noticed a thank you card from a previous customer, a woman who had moved from California to Boulder. She actually bought her car over the phone from him weeks before. The car lot had been her first stop on the way to her new house in Boulder. I knew a little bit about her, such as, she was single, she was a physiologist, and she really didn’t know many people in Colorado; she was pleasant to look at but far from resembling a Barbie Doll.

While walking back to my office all of a sudden the thought of him not appreciating my efforts, once again popped into my head, as though they had never really left. Quiet frankly, it was very scary how quickly things began to unfold after that.

Before I knew it, like some kind of crazed person I started designing a new gmail account to sit the bait for this anonymous online affair. I just so happened that this particular woman from California fit the profile of someone for whom he would trust and assume to be the anonymous female stalker emailing him (all the while it would be me).

She was perfect – and after all, all he needed was someone who he could trust to build his confidence in confiding his true feelings. But I really didn’t think that he would ever fall for something so outrageous as this and neither did I think that he would ever suspect me of such an outlandish scheme. However, that didn’t stop me from feeling like this was a really bad idea.

Where in the hell were these thoughts even coming from and WHY, I asked myself. My gut was telling me to “Just go for it” and see what happened – so I did.  

It actually worked! What NOW?

to be continued…in part two…