Hi… I feel stuck. Stuck in a rut. Weighed down and heavy.

I know this feeling will pass but right now I’m wallowing and I don’t like it.

I need to change my language, the words I’m using with myself, be more kind. I wouldn’t talk to my friends the way I talk to myself *lol* I have not been blogging, I have been sporadic, again, with the changes I’m making in my lifestyle. I don’t feel proud when I look in the mirror. I feel cold and lethargic, so I’ve just been sitting outside in the sunshine for a bit, wrapped in a fluffy blanket like one of those daft old ladies in woolly coats on a hot summer’s day.

I’m not going to get in my bikini today.

I’ve not replaced the batteries in my scales so I don’t know what I weigh and I’ve not measured myself. I feel like a two year old having a tantrum.

I feel like I’m sat in a stagnant pool I’ve made.. the energy is blocked. I know what I need to do to get it flowing again but I have so many fears.. This is why I’m struggling with food at the moment. I knew eating more raw would be hard, that emotions would surface. And they are. And despite knowing how eating well will give me the insight and the energy to push through these and get my life sorted out I decide to eat stuff that dulls me instead… I’m feeling push/pull all the time and as a result am now standing still. Again.

What am I scared of?

I’m scared of all the debt I’ve accumulated since separating from husband, of how to handle it.

I’m scared of never being able to improve my life and touch other people’s – to make a difference.

I’m scared I won’t ever be succesful as I don’t stay focussed, don’t complete.

I’m scared that I STILL am not making any money.

I’m scared that I’ll never be rid of my old baby belly or have clear skin and baring myself on here will have been pointless.

I’m scared of loving someone and of being loved.

I’m scared of rejection.

I’m scared of being an awful parent.

I’m scared I’m not good enough.

I could probably go on. But I won’t (YAY I hear you say lmao). I’m not saying this stuff to hear people tell me different, I’m just offloading, giving my fears a voice so I can look at them and acknowledge them. From stuff I’ve read, I guess they are there as part of me wants to protect me. These fears are based on beliefs that helped me somehow at some point – whether for a moment, or a period of time. They don’t help me now. But they are still there so I guess I have to hear them and (this gets a bit woo woo) thank them for looking out for me but I’m ready to make new beliefs now that serve me, a 38 year old woman ffs, not a scared girl, teen, young mother, discarded lover.

I am feeling a strong urge to just bare everything about myself. My biggest secrets. My greatest fears. As what will follow will be my biggest dreams, and greatest achievements

My family will think I’m mad – I did this once before on a blog, when I was raw from hearing my husband finally confess his infidelity – a year after it had happened. I was persuaded to remove that post… I wish I hadn’t. It was real, it was me and the process was very cathartic and evoked strong reactions in several people. If anyone has a copy let me know – I’ll put it back up again

I keep getting asked why my marriage failed.. and as I am starting to think about dating again this issue is coming up more and more and so, well, I’m simply going to say it on here. Now.

The emotional charge is not there as it was back in my last post of 2006 – I have worked through a lot and feel almost whole again. Just need to move out of this rut to complete myself

In November 2005 I was living in Australia with my husband and two children. We’d gone out there from July 2004 – July 2006 as my ex had an exchange post with the Royal Australian Navy. During those two years, we worked out we only saw each other for about 4 months in total.. not great but not the end of the world either – my kids got to experience the joy of living in Perth and a whole other way of life that they will never forget and so did I.

However in November 2005, after my ex had been home on some leave, he had something ‘suspect’ and been to the navy doctor about it. I look back now and can’t believe what a daze I’d been in. I remember lying on him and looking him in the eye and just calmly asking him to tell me the truth – had he had sex with someone else?  He looked straight back at me and said no. Our relationship was based a lot on trust – had to be as we were apart so often. So I had to make a choice – to accept what he tells me or not. A week or so later I developed something myself – genital herpes – this is what he’d had and had passed on to me. I was later to discover that he also gave my Chlamydia.

He was back at work on board ship again and so I couldn’t talk to him. To say I was distressed would be an understatement. I had no-one to talk to and what was worse I was due to get on a plane and fly for gawd knows how many hours to New York to a T. Harv Eker, Millionaire Mind Seminar – no WAY was I missing that and the chance to have a hug off my sister, Nicola Cairncross.

The first attack of herpes – basically coldsores on your genitals – was excruciating but I think what was worse was feeling such shame – so much so that I couldn’t even tell Nicola about it. I was full of hurt and anger and feeling that my life was ruined. My marriage was ruined.  Being at that event was one of the best and one of the hardest things I’d ever done in my life. I remember just crying – hugging was compulsory – and my new lovely friend Paul Fuggle, just holding me and asking me what was up but I couldn’t talk about it. I felt so dirty.

This is one of the reasons why I’m talking about it now. To share my experience and to let you know, if this happens to you, that things do get better.

On my return home to Australia, my ex. came home and we talked and talked and talked. The upshot of which was that the herpes virus can be carried in your system for many years before, if ever, it manifests itself visibly. He basically persuaded me that maybe I had been carrying this virus around from someone I had had sex with before I met him.. I had met him when I was 19 – I was then 35… Incredulous that this could be possible, I looked at article after article on the subject on the internet and unfortunately found a couple of instances where some ‘expert’ said something similar.

I should have trusted my instinct. I knew he was lying but I desperately didn’t want to believe myself. I didn’t want to believe he was capable of lying to me as well as he did – I could have gotten past the infidelity maybe, maybe even past the fact that he had not given a thought for my health when he had sex with another woman without protection, but that fact that he was capable of looking me in the eye and denying my question and THEN tried to make me think I was responsible for this STD was too much.

I cried when the children were at school. I thought about just booking flights and taking them back to England leaving him there to sort it all out. But I didn’t – fear held me back again.

In the end I chose to just ‘carry on as normal’ and this I managed to do until we returned to the UK in July 2006. My sister knew something was wrong though.. and eventually the whole story came tumbling out of me. And hearing myself tell her everything I finally woke up to myself. I still remember that moment clearly. lol – I smacked my forehead and said to her – omg – if this was a friend of mine telling me all this I’d be saying ‘Wake the fuck up girlfriend! He has screwed someone else’ She just held me while I cried and then I went home and I emailed him – he was working up in London.

I told him that I did not believe him and he had to tell me the truth. Now.

He did, via email. And that is when I wrote my last blog posting entitled something like ‘My husband and an air hostess in Dubai’ in November 2006. I also changed my name via deed poll back to my maiden one and started living separately, although within the same property from that time.

I talk about my fears but his must have been really bad. He didn’t even phone me – he was too scared. He didn’t tell his boss, I have to go home, my marriage has just fallen apart. No, he eventually turned up at the end of the week as normal. He never saw the complete and total mess I had been in – to this day I don’t know how I held it together when the kids came home from school after crying all day, every day, that week.

I am lucky that I have two amazing sisters who really looked after me. I eventually took the number from one for a lady who has helped me enormously, and had gone on to help other friends of mine. Talking to counsellor, someone objective who had this amazing ability to hold a mirror up to me so I could see things clearly and work through the hate and anger, resentment and loss – for it was grieving – was the best thing I ever did for myself. We went to see someone else, together, to see how to move forward and at the fateful Beach Dreams in the summer of 2007 we finally called a halt to it all.

It has been a slow path for me to recover from this. Telling people I have herpes was something that I thought I would never, ever be able to do. I had resigned myself to never being intimate with anyone ever again. I felt dirty and untouchable and unloveable. It’s hard to explain this.

In the past couple of years or so though, I have come to realise that this does not have to be true. I am very healthy and on the whole, very happy. Symptoms are practically non existent now – like coldsores, I guess it will appear when my immune is low so eating more healthily will also make sure I don’t ever feel that rundown and get susceptible.

Speaking about it so openly like this makes me feel lighter – free.

I am grateful for the experience as I have learned a lot from it – about me as well as others. Opening myself allows people in to my heart and they in turn share theirs with me. I have such beautiful friends and family and my heart feels so full as I write this, I feel tearful – thank you – all of you. I love you so much.

And yes, I do count my ex. as a friend still. We shared so much – almost half our lives at the time and made two gorgeous children. It’s not easy to move on but we have, and there is still caring there which is wonderful.

I’m not quite sure where all this came from, or why it came out now. But if it touched you, or you have any questions, please write a comment

Love Sarah x