What wroth is brought to bear?

In a continuation from the last post...

The silence has brought about a pain that I didn't see coming.

Not mine.  No - I'm more or less at a milestone in the bumpy road I share with my ex.

My son.

He was fine...for a while.  Until he realized that this woman referred to herself as "wife to be" four months ago.  That would be May.  This is September.  In between was Summer and a two week vacation my son and his dad  took together.

You know...the trip where two people reconnect?  Where two people learn about one another?  Yep.  That trip.  The one where his father failed to mention he was getting remarried.

To a woman with two children.

The trip where my son's father failed to mention his family would be expanding.  That my son would have a stepmother and two step brothers.

Fail.

Epic Fail.

Whatever trust his father was attempting to rebuild disappeared in that whooshing sound you heard last night.  Gone in a flash.

That's what happens with trust.

It can be there - be strong and unwavering.  It can be given without a second thought.  It goes hand-in-hand with love.  But be the one who whittles away at it?  Be the person who pulls that last peg out from the Jenga game and watch all the pieces fall everywhere?  It can suck.  Plain and simple.

If you're lucky - you can rebuild that tower of trust.  But you can only tear it down so many times before your partner is done playing.

The sad part is - you never know how many times you can remove pegs from the fragile tower.  And each peg removed cannot be automatically replaced because you changed your mind.

No.  Trust was destroyed years ago.  The sad part is that the trust originally there was the innocent trust of a child - the trust that comes from being born into a loving home.  There's no reason to doubt as long as there is love.

But watch out for those promises.

They'll get you everytime.

Without a drawn out reason for the past breaches of trust - suffice it to say, it has been a long three year rebuild that was enjoying a wonderful success.  It was a mature trust.  A once bitten, twice shy trust - but it was there.  Eyes were wide open.  Mistakes were expected and forgiven.

And sadly, excuses were made.  The mature trust was disguised and ... as it turns out ... was simply a facade for a hurriedly recreation of that innocent childhood crush from long ago.

For all my ex did through his years of self-destruction, I had thought his sobriety and rediscovered self had taught him that omission of truth can be just as damning as lies.

I was wrong.

And now he is paying the price for a debt he isn't even aware he owes.

Over my son's lifetime I have taught him the value of trust and faith in another human being.  I've taught him that these strengths must start within ourselves.  He has seen firsthand the damage that can be done when trust is lost in another person.  And he has seen what happens when that trust - rebuilt several times - looks like when it is completely destroyed.

My ex destroyed my trust in him.  It was the final straw and the catalyst for divorce.  It doesn't matter how it was destroyed.  My son was a witness to the rollercoaster that was the final years of an incredibly wonderful marriage gone terribly bad.

By not volunteering his involvement with a new woman allowed the black hole of speculation to open up and swallow our son.

The fragile trust is gone, and the pain that had been a lingering memory has reignited into a festering sore threatening to infect any future attempts at family.

And his father has no idea.