“If you don’t want anyone to find out, don’t do it.” – Chinese proverb.
Definition of silence
1: forbearance from speech or noise: MUTENESS—often used interjectionally
Walked through the weekend with more determination and more drive than ever.
I will continue to use this platform to help others. This is for you and for me. I am determined.
You are healing, and that terrifies them. Do not be silent.
They are terrified because you have found your voice. You have found your courage. Please hear this; they are scared. You were once weak, and now you are not.
Could they have ever expected you to break so many times yet put yourself back together? I promise you they did not. Trauma silences you.
Life is not about who you “once were.”
It’s about recognizing the potential you can be.
We suffer more in the imagination and fantasy rather than reality.
You can overcome everything that was meant to destroy you; I promise you can. Maybe not today, next month, or even next year. But you will.
I am thankful for the heavy words thrown at me for using my voice. Frankly, I expected them.
The woman and my then-husband are beyond reproach. They broke me. And they broke me knowingly and with no remorse.
So the words received to “silence” me, well, they empowered me.
This is my reality, not my imagination. What was done to me was a nightmare; everyone involved knows that. And now, having a platform to help others is something I do not take for granted.
I have proven to myself just how strong I am.
I have never felt so beautifully strong as I do now.
This is gloriously intense. I hope you love yourself enough to recognize the things about your life, relationships, and job that do not serve you.
Then I pray you find the courage to change them. You are strong.
I will leave you with this: “The truth doesn’t cost you anything, but a lie can cost you everything.”
I must admit, this Country Life, well it doesn’t suck. I’m used to being rammed by Oreo’s big ol head when he’s mad at me, typically when I stop the forehead rubs.
I am very cognizant of not using this platform to discuss AW, for now at least. Keeping our life private is sacred to me. I do however love all the new experiences I’m having and he 100% supports me sharing them with you.
I never thought I could ever be more than 5 miles away from my family, I suppose Covid has brought me a few new lenses. And truth be told it was my hang-up, not theirs. But a quick jaunt down Hwy 50 and I am back to the Motherland.
The first time I came up to the property it was covered in bright purple thistle. I was nervous as hell though we had been speaking for weeks, hours and hours at a time. (Finding a man who can talk as much as I do, blessing or a curse?) I don’t even really know what the butterflies were about, but I knew I was truly, truly ready to see where this relationship could go.
We had gotten to know each other pretty quickly. I mean let us be frank, do you want to waste your time at my age? Say what you mean, mean what you say. And for the love of God another first responder, what was I thinking?
Dating in your late 40’s? My attention span wasn’t so great, or maybe I should just call it my radar. Been through too much. Throw in my new home in the U.K, no children to raise, ready to explore the world, that takes a secure man. Would he REALLY understand I’m a flight risk? Both figuratively and literally?
I digress, let me go back to that incredible day.
As I made my way through his private gate, I saw more than gorgeous scenery. The National Flag of Scotland, our American Flag and a Don’t Tread proudly waving on his massive fireman’s flag pole at the top of his 600 ft driveway.
I mean COME ON, I thought I was being punked. And don’t get me started with all the instruments he plays, INCLUDING BAGPIPES.
A handful of months later he was playing The Braes of Lochiel. Romance is not dead.
a: capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture
b: tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
“Aliee you are so strong.”
“How do you do it?”
“I wouldn’t be able to survive as you have.”
Are these compliments?
I have no doubt that was the intention but unfortunately, all the loving supportive words did was push me deeper into myself. Gotta keep that face on, the one of a “strong woman.”
For the longest time I really thought all of the crap life has thrown at me was just normal.
From the trauma (it’s not a dirty word fyi) of my parents 15 + years of “on and off,” to hearing my grandmother’s gut-wrenching sobs and denials down the hallway learning my cousin David was dead, he was 18, I was 16.
I would need an Excel Spreadsheet to truly articulate my life from 10 yrs old.
I will never deny that a therapist in my life has served their purpose. Some actually caused more damage than good; accepting my handwritten check and then rotating to their next “client.”
But then 3.5 yrs ago I found a $180/hr box of Kleenex and a leather couch whom rivals my F-Bombs; he threw a bucket of verbal ice-cold water on me.
I knew that first appointment I had found my therapist. “Alison, why do you think your life has been ‘normal’?”
Me: (insert smart-ass deflecting response that I will keep to myself)
Him: “No.”
I have always believed that I was resilient.
Married then divorced and a single mother of 2 babies by 21 years old. Desperately trying to navigate a chronically ill daughter, a son with mental illness, at the time a broken tumultuous relationship with both of my parents. I mean we all have chaos, right?
I was not resilient.
And let’s be frank, I haven’t even gotten into mid-90s to the present!
Let’s recap: as per Webster’s Dictionary: “capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture.” I mean sounds lovely to say you’re resilient, but life check, that’s bullshit.
Everything in life is permanent. It’s massive. It’s powerful. The power (also not a dirty word) is recognizing it. I am resilient in my convictions. I am resilient in my drive to do better, be better and not intentionally inflict pain on anyone and that includes myself. I am resilient in my conviction that I will never be taken advantage of again via friends, family, and men…the list is vast and wide.
I, to this day, say to my dearest friends constantly:
“Be kind to yourself!”
“Love yourself above everyone.”
“Sit in grace and breathe.”
I say this to myself now. I practice what I preach. I don’t accept anything in life that doesn’t serve my happiness. Selfish? Maybe. But I will never apologize for it.
Keep climbing. Keep pushing. Get uncomfortable with yourself; that means asking those you truly trust to put you in check. Or do what I do. Take a walk.
{Weeks after my then-husband left, I packed a bag and headed to Edinburgh, Scotland}
The year was 2017, and the year my life came to a screeching halt.
I hope my vulnerability helps you feel even a little less alone.
I pray you feel less invalidated but, most importantly, less humiliated.
March 2018, the year I took over 20 years of handwritten journals to my new home in the UK.
Packed in a carry-on, my journals were decisively chosen for a specific timeline.
The years 2000- 2017, when I met my then soon-to-be ex-husband at the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Academy.
I was looking for answers on those pages. What had I missed? Surely there would be clues, right?
I’ve been documenting my days on pen and paper since I was a little girl. It’s my therapy.
As I sat on my couch, I laughed and cried, sometimes uncontrollably.
Three, yes, three days later, when I came upon the last two years of my life, I froze.
I sat in debilitating humiliation.
I said to myself, ‘What in the actual fuck!’
Who is this woman vomiting on these pages? Tears fell onto my 2017 journal like a Montana stream.
You see, at this time, the ink was still not dry on my divorce.
All I knew was that I desperately needed to leave California. I needed to think. I needed to breathe. I needed not to feel like I was insane.
I believed 6000 miles away would do the trick.
While Back home in California, I was just willing myself to get out of bed.
I was in the middle of opening up an excruciatingly enormous business project with my father. Barely sleeping. Barely eating. Avoiding friends with the excuse of being so busy.
If I could get out of bed, make it to the shower, then into my car and proceed to make it to my office, I knew I would be busy enough to get through ANOTHER day.
And when I got there, I could bury myself in 12-16-hour workdays.
“One day at a time, Alison. Dad needs you, and the kids need you, just get through the day.”
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Putting on “that face” we do as women, so no one asks questions, having to conduct media interviews, smile for the cameras, and bury the internal hell I was living in.
I was on repeat for months.
I was telling everyone around me that I was fine, “Everything happens for a reason.”
But in truth, at my core, I was still intensely suffering the loss of my marriage.
I was humiliated and embarrassed.
You see, he had made a lethal choice. A decision that nearly killed me.
My husband had turned to another woman, and that woman was my best friend.
Daily I wondered.
I wondered if he knew what “this” would do to the kids he raised. Most importantly to Alex, the daughter who so proudly called him “step-daddy.”
Though the kids were adults and out of the house, their pain was so fucking hard to watch.
They wanted answers as much as I did.
I will never forget our daughter, always so calm, yelling at me in my kitchen, “Why is he doing this, Mom? He is supposed to walk me down the aisle! What the hell is happening?”
But I had no answers.
Did they even have that conversation? I doubt it.
I was angry at him for being so weak.
I was angry at her for infiltrating my marriage when we were at our most vulnerable.
I was angry. I trusted her with details of our marriage struggles.
I was angry she sat on my couch while I physically shook with anxiety because I couldn’t find my husband.
I remember the last time I saw her when she came to my house:
“Where IS HE Brennda!? What the hell is going on? I don’t believe he is at his parents house.” I said.
“He treats you like shit! – You should be put on a pedestal, just leave him already!” she passionately said that night.
She cried with me, held me. And yet, he was down the road. In her house.
I never heard from her again after that night; my best friend and confidant literally disappeared.
A few weeks later we returned to marriage counseling, and I knew he was lying.
I know him better than he knows himself.
Still being told he was living with his parents, I came to the realization the lies would never stop.
Then it happened again.
They had been seen together again, with my in-laws at what appeared to be an intimate dinner.
2017, Thanksgiving weekend, we had agreed to “start over” and try again.
Beginning with a movie date.
He walked into “our” home to pick me up.
Then I asked again.
“Were you with her on Wednesday? With Mom and Bill? STOP lying to me, PLEASE!”
He said tearfully, “I am not having an affair, but yes, I am renting a room from her. That is all I promise you, Aliee!”
I stared at him.
I looked longingly for the man I committed my life to in a chapel on Hanalei Bay.
I looked for the man who wrote vows to my kids.
Then it hit me. He is gone.
6 or so months later, he finally admitted it, “We’re together.”
Within weeks, she was gloating on social media.
Watching the woman who I loved and trusted with every fiber of my being live a life I had built, I was still angry. She did so with pride, with no remorse, with no accountability for the marriage she helped destroy.
All I could think was, ‘Is this really happening?’
Only a fucking insane person would post that she is in love with (who was) her BEST FRIENDS HUSBAND, right?
With the hashtag “thinbluelinefamily,” “airopsfamily” wearing glitter ball-caps with the Thin Blue Line logo.
WHAT. THE. FUCK?
As I sat on my couch in Edinburgh, the combination of sadness, anger, and humiliation was overwhelming.
But I knew it was mine and mine alone to overcome.
I had two adult kids out of the house and desperately trying to live a very intentional committed relationship with myself.
I had to get my shit together.
I had this beautiful new home I had just bought in Scotland at the time.
And there I sat, reading that entry on Page 192 of my 2017 journal.
I put it down, stared out my window, and told myself, ‘It’s time.’
Time to finally pull out a blank canvas and start painting what I, Alison, wanted for my life.
I said to myself on repeat, “I can’t be that woman to anyone, ever again.”
I’d been everything to my husband, to everyone except myself, and that needed to change.
Reading those pages from early 2017, when I was so close to leaving the marriage, was so eye-opening. Why didn’t I just leave?
“Don’t leave me, Alison. I promise it will get better. We are so close to all of our goals!” He would say.
In the meantime, I’m hiding my anxiety, and I’m hiding my stress behind a bottle of wine, anti-depressants, and a treadmill.
I’m shouldering it all, keeping our marriage together and not upset him.
This is what I signed up for, I would tell myself. I cried myself to sleep almost nightly, lying next to him.
We’ve been through so much. I said vows, you cannot leave him.
Again, him before me. His goals are my goals.
Every journal entry from the last 3 years of my marriage reminded me that the only person I failed was myself.
I failed Alison.
I was his “Wifey,” a mother, sister, Tia, and friend to anyone who needed me. I was accessible all the time to everyone but myself.
But when I’m finished with this first post and hit that “publish” button, know this: I am so grateful, yes, GRATEFUL, to be sitting where I am today.
To be able to sit on this computer sharing parts of my past, remembering that hellacious pain, well, I embrace it.
I am no longer that woman. I am the warrior version of who she used to be.
So, protect your peace, and cleanse your space of toxicity.
That is not selfish. That is self-love. If you believe repressing emotions is a strength, I’m here to tell you it’s not.
I have done it my entire life. Let it hurt, then let it heal.
I wore this gown for a photo shoot just last year in my boardroom.
I needed to make new memories in it. Why is this the photo I’m choosing for my first post? This dress defined a big moment for me in my marriage and a reminder I will never doubt my intuition again.
Ms. Insecurity and Ms. Intuition were side by side, working in tandem the first few months of 2017, the year we separated.
I told them daily to “shut the fuck up!”
But still, their whispers in my ear proceeded.
So unbeknownst to my then-husband, I hired a personal trainer then proceeded to get into the best shape of my life. I wanted to be absolute perfection for him. I wanted him to want me again.
We were going to a black-tie gala, and we desperately needed this night together.
At the time, I hadn’t received a compliment for probably 6 months, and he was usually overflowing with them. Clearly, Ms. Insecurity was winning this battle, and I was not used to that.
I remember the exact moment when I finally put the dress on and walked into our living room with my head held so proudly high. As he sat on the couch, looking insanely handsome in the blue and black tuxedo we had just bought, he looked up from his phone and said in a flat voice, “You look nice. Is BC on her way?”
This is also the moment I should have left him.
Instead, I walked to my vanity, sat down, and with shaking hands, reapplied the mascara that he had just ruined.
The 3 of us went to the Gala together. Her on one arm, me on the other.
This gown is now my cape.
I am not sure I will share more stories like this, maybe if they serve a purpose to a lesson. But the trash has been taken out both figuratively and literally from my home.
I’m excited, nervous, and a bit anxious to share how and what I did right, but more importantly, what I did wrong, and of course, what still needs to be done.
Have I still spoken to him? At the time of this writing, indeed have.
Why? I honestly do not know.
What I do know is I did not allow him to make me his mistress after making me his wife.
Celebrating my offer being accepted, which also happened to be on my birthday! 
