Category Archives: Florida

adultery, affair, Betrayal, cheating, children, divorce, Florida, marriage, other woman, travel

My Nosy Ex

My girls and I were at our last stop in Calgary, Alberta before catching our final flight back to Victoria.  It was a long travel day and we were enjoying an excellent dinner at the Calgary airport. My daughter was legal drinking age in Alberta, 18 years old, so I was able to buy her a pomegranate mango passion fruit sangria (her choice) in a giant mason jar glass as her first legal drink.

My phone buzzed during our dinner and it was a text from my ex.  He said,  “btw… say hi to (friend’s name) for me.”  Some how he found out who I was staying with in Florida during our trip.  It is a guy that grew up on the same street as me in London, Ontario. He is 5 years older but my sister went to school with his sister, he knew my parents and me, we went to some of the same parties in high school and we reconnected in Toronto after university as we both worked in the insurance industry.

He was always very kind to me treating me to dinners, concerts and golf tournaments as his client when he was a marketing rep for a company that I used often for business purposes.  When Dave and I were travelling on a road trip down to Baltimore and then up the east coast he generously gave us restaurant gift certificates and baseball tickets at stops along the way.  He did the same thing after I won a trip to Las Vegas during a golf tournament he took me to as his guest.  Dave and I went to Vegas and then stayed an extra week renting a car to travel around California.

My older daughter had lunch with her dad today before I drove her to the ferry to head back to school. Her dad mentioned my friend and said that he knew him and didn’t know why we kept it a secret that we were staying with him.  It wasn’t a secret. Why would my ex think that me or my children should share any details of my life with him? My children didn’t find out about the trip until Christmas Day and we left at 3:45 a.m. the next day to go to the airport.  Their dad chose to see the girls for lunch on Christmas Eve so they didn’t even see him after finding out about the trip.  I told Dave in advance that we were going away and for how long so he was aware I was taking our daughters out of the country. He was fine with that, wrote me a letter for customs just in case, and didn’t ask where I was going let alone if I was going with anyone.

My older daughter asked him 3 times at lunch today how he knew that we were staying with my friend in Florida.  She said that each time she asked he changed the subject and never responded to her question.

Hmm, I wonder if he knows who slept over at my house the night before we left on our trip and who drove us to the airport and then picked us up the night we returned. 🙂

 

 

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Florida, loss, separation, single parent, vacation

Life of Pi

Before my husband and I separated, we had a family vacation planned to go to Florida. We were staying with my husband’s parents for 2 weeks in Englewood and then 1 week in Orlando at Disneyworld.

When I discovered my husband’s affair he sent me an email that read, “Cancel my flight.” The trip was planned for 7 days later. The girls and I still went. My older daughter’s friend ended up coming too. It was certainly not a vacation I would have purposely planned being a single parent taking along my two children and one of their friends. I had to get a rental vehicle on my own and we drove from Fort Meyers to Englewood; to Naples to visit some of my family; to Sarasota to visit my girlfriend and then to Orlando. I bought a GPS but it was an exhausting and stressful undertaking and I spent a lot of time lost.

I still hadn’t had any time to grieve the end of my marriage. There was so much to do to get ready for the trip and I had things to do in relation to my separation. I was very grateful for the time away with my kids and we did create some great memories. Two of my closest friends from Ontario even came down to see me while I was there to offer their support and I got to spend time with one of my best friends who lives in Sarasota.

On the plane ride home I watched the movie ‘Life of Pi’. I remember the words and the scene that left me sobbing uncontrollably. Yann Martel writes, “I’ve never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart.”

Nothing sums out how I feel any better than this. This was my exact experience.

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