A few background facts:

1.  I own a restaurant with my soon to be ex (stbx).  My savings and good credit partially funded it, I helped open it, I did the books for years, and I showed up when it was understaffed and waited tables.
2. My stbx cheated on me repeatedly during out marriage.
3. He was seeing his current GF during our marriage, a fact he initially denied, but admitted when I found proof.
4. He introduced my children to her about 45 days after he told the boys we were divorcing. Since that time she has been with them 24/7.  He moved out of our home on 4/13 and took her to his families annual 4th of July party, at which she was apparently readily accepted as his new mate.  This was 2.5 months after he announced our divorce, and 1.5 months after what would have been our 23rd anniversary.
5. He now lives with her.
6. While he was never able to take off from work when living with me, he is now able to come and go at will.   He is currently on his 4th vacation this year.  (that I know of; there could be more)
7. He goes out with the GF most Saturday nights instead of working
8. He goes out with the GF every Sunday night, without his 14 year old son who he has over-night visitation with on that day.
9. We live in a small community and everyone knows me, him and her.  We share many of the same FB friends.
10. She has had numerous other boyfriends in our community, and at least 1 of them lived with her and her children for years.

 

Let’s talk FaceBook.  If you are a user of FB you know that there are two types of posts you can make.  1 is a public post.  Anyone can see that post, even if they are not your friend.  The other is a friends only post.  If someone, say I, goes to your page, I will not see your friends only posts.   Also, you can tag people in your posts.  If you tag them (i.e. reference their name) anyone who is friends with the tagged person will see that they have been tagged by you.

My stbx and this GF are currently on vacation at the shore town right next to the one my family owns houses in; the one he and I vacationed in for 25 years.  On Sunday I woke, checked my mail and a few other sites, then went to my FB page.  Lo and behold, there was a picture of the GF, with her son, one of my sons, and several other people.  According to her post they were celebrating her “pre-birthday”.     I was fascinated by this post for several reasons, including:

1. Who celebrates a “pre-birthday”?   My guess is a narcissist, but what do I know?
2. Who celebrates a “pre-birthday” and makes a public post about it?
3. Who does the above two things AND tags My Son?  Not her son, My Son.
4. Who are the 130 people that liked this?

I mulled this over for a bit.  I was upset, but I knew that my son had nothing to do with being tagged, he should spend time with his father, and I am not in the least bit envious of her spending time with my stbx, so why would it bother me?  Yet it did.

A few days later I was walking through town with my niece and sis-in-law and I think I saw her peering at the menu of a restaurant my stbx and I went to several times.  The woman had on a bike helmet, so it was hard to tell, but it seems like exactly the type of thing she would do,  not necessarily of her own volition, but most certainly with his prompting.  He has taken all of the things he and I did together, or the things I wanted to do but he never did, and is systematically doing them with her, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he suggested they go to this restaurant, even though it is not in the town they are vacationing in.

I drove home later that day pondering all of this.  More precisely, getting worked up about all of this.  When I got home I went to FB and opened her page.  Despite the fact that she and I are not friends I was able to see all of her posts.  Among her posts, which show off all of the things she is doing with my stbx when he should be working, she has a post of her clan (and 1 of my sons) outside of our restaurant (the one I mentioned in the beginning, of which I am a part owner/establisher).  In the post she gushes about how proud she is to be celebrating  her son’s graduation at the restaurant.  There was a fairly large group in the picture, so naturally I went to the books to see what the revenue had been for this party and much to my surprise (that is sarcasm, for which there should be a font) there was no revenue.  Apparently, I am going to pay for her son’s graduation party.   Gosh.  Mighty generous of me, don’t you think?

Let’s put all of that aside.  Let’s suppose that I don’t care if she tags my son, I don’t care that she brags about all the dates and vacations she is taking with my stbx, and that I am perfectly happy to subsidize her son’s graduation party.  Even if all of that is true, I am still left wondering who the 130 people are who think this is ok.  130 people know who she is, who I am and who he is.  I will grant those people the excuse that they are unaware of the details.  They don’t know how much of a cheater he is, they don’t know I’m a part owner of the restaurant, they don’t know how little he’s paying for of my & my children’s expenses while carrying on with her, and they certainly don’t know my side of the story because I don’t blab about all of this in our community.  So they don’t have all of the facts.  Does that make it ok for them to “like” this?  Who in their right mind “likes” this woman bragging about her relationship with a married man and his children?  What type of people think it’s ok for her to tag my son but not hers?  Who are the 130 people who think “aww….isn’t that cute that she’s celebrating her son’s graduation at the restaurant her boyfriends wife help build”?

As a survivor of late stage ovarian cancer I am at risk for colon and breast cancer, along with the insanely high risk of a recurrence of the ovarian cancer.  A recent pet scan showed activity in my colon, so I had a colonoscopy two weeks ago.  My mother was taking me, so she happened to be at my (and my stbx) house when he showed up to mow the lawn.  As she and I were preparing to leave he was walking up the driveway to his new Cadillac.  I drive a 2008 Nissan Rogue that has been hit so many times I don’t even notice new dents or scratches.  My mother is not know for her subtlety, and she said “that’s a great new car”.  He said thank you, to which she replied “your wife drives a piece of shit.  I guess that’s because you’re a piece of shit”.    She immediately regretted it and apologized (to me, not him).  She didn’t apologize because it isn’t true, she apologized because she’s worried he’ll tell our children and they will think less of her as a result.  I feel very confident that won’t happen.  It won’t happen because he doesn’t care what she thinks.  He has such an inflated ego he will chalk her comment up to her ignorance.  In his mind he is a victim of me.  I victimized him by not loving him enough.  I questioned him, I argued with him, I made demands of him and I demeaned him in ways I can’t begin to imagine, because it is all so ludicrous.  The thought that after giving him my money, my work, my career, and my health, along with 3 awesome children, that he is the victim is too outrageous for words.

So now I wait.  I wait for the day the new girl begins to victimize him.  I wait for the day she no longer loves him enough.  I wait for the day that he complains that she never looks at him, even though it is he that never looks at her.  I wait for the day that he is “lonely” and has to screw one of his waitresses, because she no longer makes him feel manly enough.  I wait for the day the she “rains on his parade”, the day when she suddenly realizes he is leading her into bankruptcy – financially, emotionally and morally.  I wait for the day that her health goes awry, the day that she finds herself sick for the 1st time in her entire life.  I wait for the day that she needs something from him that he doesn’t want to give, the day she is met with his cold, calculated, condensation; the day he blames her for all that is not exactly how he wants it to be.

I wonder – will she post about those things?  And if she does, will she tag my children?  And, who of the 130 people who like her now will like her then?

If only she knew what the future will bring.