Trying for Thankful

It’s Thanksgiving. One thing I am absolutely thankful for is this community of insight, support and mutual journeys. You all are a beautiful group of people…I am unabashedly grateful and thankful for you. But on other fronts, on the relationship with my husband front, there are so many things running through my head…so many thoughts.

Thanksgiving, 2013, was magical for me. I actually posted on social media…”everyone I love is right here in this room!” with a picture attached of the hustle and bustle in the kitchen. HUSBAND was prominent in the photo…having just taken the huge bird out of the oven…and all four of our children were in various stages of food prep assistance, along with some of the grandparents and a visiting friend from France. It was a year I went all out with decorating, with food, with goodwill. My heart was FULL…so full…it felt like it just might burst with love and thankfulness. It would end up being my father’s last Thanksgiving…the last year he would sit at the seat he’d occupied on special occasions for 27 years. He had mustered up strength that day, and joined in the conversation and laughter. We ended the day with a series of pictures outside…all of our children…HUSBAND and me…I was happy, content and thankful.

How different, Thanksgiving, 2014. That day, I recalled the images of the year prior, going back on FB and IG and trying to remember the love, the trust, the naive belief that I had a husband who, despite his emotional distance, loved me and loved our family and loved us. It was a shattering experience trying to figure out how he could have smiled for the camera, and prayed for our meal, and acted like a part of a system of commitment and love when between moments he was texting SW and negotiating when and how he could make a call to her.

I wrote, last year in 2014, in my journal about the difficulty trying to integrate the two realities…the reality that I lived and believed and the reality that was happening despite my lack of knowing. The words are piercing, painful. But here they are, from my journal:

Oh, my aching soul. It has dulled some, but it is aching so badly. I can’t believe that the last Thanksgiving I will ever have on this earth with my dad, and all my babies here, is now tainted with the reality that HUSBAND was in love with another woman. He was here, but not HERE. He was sitting in his chair, cutting the turkey, helping serve, saying the prayer. But he was not present. He was thinking of HER. Of SW, the woman who had niggled her way into our lives again and again and again. The woman that I did not even know about.

How is that? How is it that he could be so involved with her, spending hours every day in communication or pursuit of communication with her and I did not know? How could he have sent hundreds of pictures and videos to someone and I was absolutely CLUELESS? Am I just so stupid? And he never mentioned her? Accidentally, whether he wanted to or not? So as he had these regular, constant intense conversations with her and they discussed things…vacations…marinas…next steps in life…personal faith…weather in respective cities…work…old high school friends…health…suicide…ancestry… HOW DID HE NOT SLIP UP AND MENTION HER? Or things related to her? That is one of the things that puzzles me most, and worries me most. He was so incredibly good at deception and hiding.

So what the hell makes me think he can’t do it again? Or isn’t right now?

I sat around my dining room table last Thanksgiving looking at my family and thinking that my problems were few, and only financial pressure. That otherwise, we had love. We had unity. We had peace. Mom. Dad (no longer with us). Sister. Brother. Niece. Nephew. HUSBAND. Me. Son1. Daughter. Son2. Son3. Friends. And yet, SW was sitting right there at the table with us and I DID NOT KNOW. How can that be? How can it be that HUSBAND was anxious to speak with her, to connect with her and I did not know?

I see the pictures of myself from Thanksgiving 2013 – from the whole time period of his affair with SW, and know I was completely and utterly unaware that my husband was figuring out times and ways to meet with that slut-whore and get his penis hard and stick it in her. I picture the act between them – her grasping at him, him kissing her breasts, the entry and the motion. The aftermath. Did they cuddle? Did he say comforting and nice things to her? Was it all sexual…and what is that like? Do you say things like you do me like no one else? Your body is so hot and makes me hotter than anything? How do you edify the filth? How do you come home, or inside the house, or from a tryst and talk normally? Ask about my day? Meet me at a soccer game? Cook dinner, or sit at the table?

HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW

I just don’t know if I can keep on keeping on.

HUSBAND is so tender, and so kind now. But this all still exists, and is still present. And I don’t know how to make it go away.

Trying to figure out how to have a Happy Thanksgiving, but am not there yet.

I made sure that HUSBAND and I are making new and very distinct memories now. This year, we are 800 miles away from home, traveling in the mountains with two of our four kids…and I am trying hard to pretend that those nasty thoughts are far away. But truth is, there are triggers everywhere. Triggers in the names of places that now have double-meanings. Triggers in a book displayed at a bookstore. Triggers in a type of cup. So, 800 miles and a year and seven months later, I’m still trying to figure out how to have a Happy Thanksgiving. But I am not there. Yet.

Comparing Moments of Betrayeds and Betrayers

What He Said Before the affair was uncovered:

Yes, I spoke with another woman. About us. About me. About being miserable and wanting more. I did NOT have an affair. I did NOT sleep with her. I did think about it, but I couldn’t do that. I was going to tell you I wanted a divorce, one morning, drinking coffee with you, after our son graduates in a few weeks.

What He Said Between the mini DDay (as affair partners call partial DDays) and real Discovery:

Yes, I will go to counseling. I want to figure out how I got to this place. I’m not committed to you, or to our marriage. I don’t think I want to go forward. But I am committed to a process of figuring things out. You are the better part of this marriage. You would be better off without me.

(MY THOUGHTS: Such a lie…I had spent more than half my existence with HUSBAND, had 27 years of shared life with him and our children. I was caring for a dying father, had a mountain of debt, little savings and a job that depended on government funding that could go away at a moment’s notice. BE VERY CLEAR: I would not be better off without him, and if he left me, it would be abandonment plain & simple. He would be walking out on me at a time when things were very precarious – a time when we could begin to enjoy some freedom together and pay attention again to ourselves, and to US. I would be devastated in every way. There was no part of my life that would be better without him – maybe HIS life would be better, and if so, he should be honest with himself).

What I DID Between mini DDAY and real Discovery:

I beat myself up for how hard I had been on HUSBAND. He had floundered a couple times, professionally, and my career continued to soar. While I did not throw it in his face in obvious ways, there were moments and decisions and directions and ways that I communicated my disappointment. I had told him I was lonely in our marriage…his walled up self would respond “I’ll do better…” As he wanted me less and less physically and I died a little more inside, I responded in anger with bitter words. Yes…I was to blame. SIGH.

Along with self-blame, I began to dig…he had given me access to his computer and to his phone, and I looked several times. I found some subtle things that began to cast doubt about whether he’d told me the whole truth about the dinner incident…that his find-a-phone had been turned off the night she came to town. That he’d “spent the night at the ranch” and not told me, but called my mom at the last minute to let her know so she didn’t worry. Since my mom was at the hospital with my dad all night, that left our son home ALONE…something we had never done through four children. NEVER. But when I questioned him, he met every question with a (sort of) consistent response. I had niggles of doubt, but no way. This man was always upfront, I could tell if he was lying, he wasn’t clever enough to make this stuff up.

And I RESEARCHED. I began the research with the impact of divorce on adult children, and was astounded to find heartfelt blogs and articles and quotes from children of later divorce who were still struggling five, seven…ten years after their parents’ divorce. My heart broke as I read words from these wounded people who spoke of “not knowing if their entire life was a façade…” I yearned to tell our kids, to gather them in my mommy arms and let them know that for me, it WAS NEVER A LIE. That I loved being their Dad’s wife, and their mom. I loved hanging out in our rental condo at the beach, watching movies on the king-size bed. I loved going to soccer games and ballet recitals. I loved college trips and going to our dear friends’ beach house and learning to play Mexican Train dominoes and having two Christmas trees some years. I loved going to our ranch and building a fire in the pit. I loved having the Party Ponies and the Snake Man and a crazy big ‘ole train for birthday parties at our first house and our second house. I loved Easter egg hunts in our yard, pictures in the park and Church and family nights with our closest friends. I loved going on boat rides on any boat with HUSBAND at the helm and our kiddos on deck. I loved watching them play on their riding toys on our big driveway and DAUGHTER singing in her loudest voice as she swung to MARS! I loved our first house and I loved our second house…loved chipping paint off and repainting and hanging cabinets and tearing down walls and building new walls and putting up trim and making it a home. Our Home. For me-it was ALL REAL.

What HE DID Between mini DDAY and real Discovery:

What I knew – HUSBAND was gentle. He answered questions when asked. Over and over he said he’d not had an affair and that he was just approaching middle-age and thought there should be more. He told me gently that I was a great mother, and had always been supportive. He reached for me, at night, and by day was thoughtful in small ways that he had not been in years. But he was guarded, and distant in a way I could not pinpoint.

Later, I would find out that he was mourning…he was in a fog…THE fog. He was searching for his affair partner on social media, hoping she would be getting messages to him, hoping she decided to come to town as she had mentioned. They were in contact some, carefully, as he carried out their plan: NO CONTACT (which turned out to be low contact) while he got me off the trail, went to counseling where we would discover there was nothing left for us to try and MUTUALLY agree to part. And that months after we were in the divorce process, he would “run into” SW. They’d hit it off…you know…old friends and all that…and that way our kids would not blame her for our divorce…nor his family…nor our friends…

Why This Matters:

As I floundered through this process, I wanted to know what it should look like, what it should feel like. I wanted to know the “STANDARD” for how to deal with affairs, for what my actions and words should be and what his should be. I found many sources that talk about one side, or the other, but little that dealt with both – their journey – and gave insight into the heart, mind and actions of both the betrayed and the betrayer.

If it helps one betrayed spouse to hear my story, our story, then that’s why this matters. If one woman whose heart is now ripped in little pieces and strewn across years and memories can get an ounce of sanity or hope from my words, that’s why it matters.

I am NOT pretending to have any insight into illicit affairs other than that of my own marriage. But I can, with honesty and authority, share my story. Gratefully, as you may have noticed when HUSBAND commented on my last entry, I am sharing OUR STORY. He may choose, from time to time, to write on this blog. We are devoted to healing, we are on a journey of wholeness and we are not ashamed to share it – the filthy and ugly and scary and disgusting and deceiving – and then, the baby steps and small gestures and breakthroughs and stitching and healing – if there is ANY WAY it can help even one person. That is why it matters.

Early Days of New Marriage History

Those first days…so painful, so instinctual, so desperate, so surreal. I vacillated between sadness and anger, between commitment and fleeing, between love and hate, between blame and self-blame. I read voraciously, printed out pages and pages of articles, spent hours and hours talking. I spent much time in my room, in my bed, but eventually HUSBAND made me get up, get dressed, get out. I felt like I was an actor in a play – nothing was real.

HUSBAND and I had an appointment scheduled together with our counselor the day after D-Day. On the way there, I asked him not to tell. Not to tell our counselor that he had LIED to him and to me and was a cheater. I was just too raw, too blown away at that point to let anyone else in. I’m not sure how we got through that hour and 1/2, but I guess we are both good liars.

I did reach out to one person. My dearest friend, the one who knows me to the point that she sees through me at hello. She was amazing. Steady. Careful. Pained but not judgemental. I’m grateful for her heart, her response, her support. The first time she saw HUSBAND after she knew, I said, “Ok…just so we all know that we all know…” And she said, “I love you, both of you, and I’m fighting for you.” She also made it very clear that she would support me in whatever decision I made in and for the future – a decision I was not ready to make. I could only see the next moment in front of me.

Over the next days, I asked so many questions. I was desperate to understand the HOW IT COULD HAPPEN. This woman, the OTHER WOMAN, the Slut-Whore/SW…she was invited to our wedding twenty seven years prior. I had written her an invitation to my WEDDING, and she attended. I searched out my wedding book and found the gift she had given and destroyed it.

I investigated every aspect I could of her life, was appalled at so much, sick at some others and in shock at her audacity and intrusion. She was a bit older than me, HUSBAND’s age, had never married, no children. How DARE SHE invade the life of a family…four children…a marriage…and try to make what I had built, what we had built, and make it her own. THIEF.

HUSBAND answered my questions about the trip to the nearby town with her – told me they’d walked on the beach together. I had a desire to walk on the beach. Walk on the beach with my husband and establish that we belong there together. Not SW on the beach, holding HUSBAND‘s hands and kissing his face. ME. It is MY PLACE. We planned to drive out to the beach to do just that…but it rained. Instead, we went to a tiny wine bar and talked. Talked about our lives past, our lives future. What we want. A vision. We talked about sex. He told me things he’d never told me before. And that night, we had an intimate night and SW was nowhere in the room. She was not on his body, or his ears, or his feet, or his penis. She was gone. I was there. It was love, faith, covenant, commitment. It was experimentation and soft touches and mutuality and love. Oh, so special. All through the night – all night – there were touches, and responses. And morning came, and we both knew a certain level of healing had taken place.

I would come to find out that this was a fleeting sense. We, I, had a long way to go.

New Marriage History

In the first 24 hour darkness of Discovery, I searched out articles and help between tears and journaling and begging for answers and digging for information.

Somewhere, someone said that no matter what happened after infidelity was discovered, the story of your marriage was irrevocably changed. That you would forever have a new history, regardless of whether your marriage survived or not. That day, my journal became Day 1 – New Marriage History.

So on Day 1 of New Marriage History I asked HUSBAND to write an email to SW telling her I KNEW, and that IT WAS OVER. As I look back, it was hard for him to write that email. Hard to get the wording just right…that struggle was so difficult as my gut told me he was trying not to hurt her – NOT. TO. HURT. HER. I was buried in a mound of pain and he did not want to hurt this WHORE – oh, the bleeding just didn’t stop. I had written her a letter in the wee hours of the morning…after reading and re-reading and re-reading and then speaking from memory the letter I had found from her…I wrote a response. HUSBAND attached it to the NO CONTACT email and I felt better as he pressed send. But not really.

Here is the email, followed by my letter to SW:

From: HUSBAND/HUSBANDS EMAIL
Date: Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 8:01 AM
Subject: finality
To: SW/Slut-Whore (her name and email)

SW,

I’m sitting here with MY NAME-WIFE, our affair is in the open. I’m attaching a letter which we felt was important to deliver to you. I have realized through this painful process how wrong I was to go down this path with you. I have realized how precious my marriage is and I am dedicated to restoring it.

I am sorry, this is a terrible situation for all of us. Please honor this decision and there will be no contact in the future.

HUSBAND

Next is the letter- the attachment to the email above – which I wrote to the whore eleven hours after discovering my husband was a liar. A cheater. A deceiver and had ripped out every fiber of my heart and soul. It is a direct response to SW’s letter to HUSBAND which I had found, and had been the beginning of the truth. Reading this now, it is obvious I was in utter shock, and I have no idea how I found these words.

April 30, 2014

Dear SW,

It’s 2:20 am and I’m wondering if you are sitting up unable to sleep and thinking of HUSBAND. My husband. That’s what I’m doing.

You see today I got some information sent to me and the details of your affair were relayed. I know about the trip to Palatka and FB messages and FB message calls. I know about talking about divorce and talking about marriage and deciding to stop and starting again. And I know about the trip to Fernandina and the sex you two shared. I know about more texting and calls, and an email HUSBAND received from Sid Breeze. And I know your affair with my husband continued, and then I know that you know I got an email from Sid Breeze and HUSBAND shared with you that he was going to go to counseling and work on our marriage. And that you two needed to stop, but you still didn’t for 3 more weeks. And then I know you sent him a letter with your thoughts, so now I want to tell you some things you probably don’t know.

When you came to our wedding on October XX, 19XX, HUSBAND and I were very in love. The kind of love you describe in your letter to HUSBAND regarding the wedding you attended that brought you to tears so many times. The kind of love that (to quote you) “obviously and boundlessly in love with each other, and no doubt, they will be together for eternity…” That was us, and that was what we believed. Life happens, and families happen, and job loss happens, and sickness happens, and school plays happen and soccer trips happen and caretaking happens and economic hardship happens and holidays happen and…the love doesn’t die. It doesn’t stop. Sometimes it gets a bit hidden under the heap of life-stuff, but it is there. And in some bizarre way, I thank you for your affair with my husband, because it slowed us down and got us to really look deeply into each other’s eyes and to see the incredible bond, the covenant, the love, the commitment, the forever.

Now about a few other things in your letter. First, I pledge to not trash you on facebook, linkedin or any other electronic means. I won’t go to your employer. Frankly, I don’t care about you, and if you are prone to this behavior, at some point some very nasty woman won’t deal with you with the same class and deference that I will. I do ask that you never contact my husband again. In any manner, for any reason.

Next, you mention a little piece about God and him knowing what you have done. This is true. I hope you find God’s forgiveness and healing, and I hope you show your love for God in the future by honoring commitments that He is also a part of. That is what the covenant of marriage is, SW. God is part of the whole deal. Your affair with my husband was sin against God, not me or the rest of my family although we are devastated and certainly affected. If you think you believe in God, please spend some time getting to know him, and next time you are faced with the temptation to get in the midst of someone’s relationship, flee as far and as fast as you can.

You mention that the bride and groom were “meant to be together.” For a woman your age, you seem to have a misguided understanding of love. I knew a couple once who were “meant to be together” as they stood up at the altar and declared for better or for worse. Two days later, on their honeymoon, a car crash resulted in the groom becoming a quadriplegic for life. The kind of love that stays the course in a situation like that is not the “we are meant to be together” kind. It is the I CHOOSE LOVE kind. And when YOU CHOOSE LOVE what happens is that despite the bad or the hard or the messy or the dirty or the painful you find each other all over again. That is real love. That is enduring love. That is the love that HUSBAND and I share.

A few general comments on pieces of your letter:

You won’t be marrying my husband in Montana and riding away on horses wearing jeans into the sunset. We hope you can do that with a single man you discover.
The things HUSBAND told you ten and six and even one month ago were momentary and not true. That’s what happens sometimes when we get caught up in something. We find ourselves acting and saying and doing things that are out of sync for us and for our dreams and visions. The assurances that you heard were those of a man doing something that he was not proud of and that he now regrets.
Please do not cling to hope of a life with my husband. He is a fantastic man, a great lover, a terrific dad, and wonderful person and we are so thrilled he loves us. Be very clear, SW – there is a whole family system involved and you can’t pull away one little piece without damaging the whole, and we are all committed to the wellbeing of each other.
In terms of your saying, “I don’t want to be that person.” Well, you are that person. You are the woman who had an affair with a married man, with my husband, with the father of my children. It’s pretty fantastic that you would even say this from where I’m sitting.
While you thank HUSBAND for “awakening love in you,” I’m pretty confident it isn’t the kind of love that will take you where you want to go.
HUSBAND and I have been to some far away places, and plan to go to more. We also love hanging around watching futbol and football and will visit our son at college games this coming fall. We often watch movies…together and with all the kids or whoever else happens to be around piled in together. HUSBAND and I have been to some of the best restaurants in the world but I’m with you…anything cooked by HUSBAND is fantastic and I am thankful for his skill. HUSBAND and I have laid on a boat, looking at the stars, in St Augustine and Daytona and the Keys and the Bahamas. And we will not invite you to share in the starwatching in OUR backyard. We, too, love the simple things, including our family.
I’m pretty thankful you never met our kids. I don’t think it would have been a happy occasion.
I hope you will make a real effort to stop thinking about HUSBAND’s eyes, his voice, his touch, his kisses…all of him.
HUSBAND is thinking of you, and is not proud of what he did. I’m hoping both the memory and the cloud fades quickly.

In closing, SW, I love my husband with an undying love. I’m committed to him and together, we will do the hard work to not only have a good marriage, but to have a relationship that is tender, mutual, loving, strong, vital, real, honest, and honors God. We won’t be conversing in conversations that are erased daily and meeting in secret when we can get away with it, because we are married, we are love, and we are forever. Please honor this, and do not ever contact HUSBAND in any manner again. It would be best if you found someone else to be your Sunny Day.

My Name-WIFE

Hidden Threads

Once we got home on April 29, I immediately retreated to the bedroom. Fell onto the bed, cried deeply from places so buried I didn’t know they existed. I rejected touch…curled up tightly…sobbed. The night ran into the next day. Curled up, unable to sleep even a moment, but unable to go anywhere except in the cocoon of my bedroom. So many things were instinctual, guttural, unscripted reactions, yet through the next weeks as I found the sister-hood of betrayed spouses and read their words…their responses to this pain…I realized how very alike we move. I journaled, wrote SW a letter in the wee hours with HUSBAND sleeping next to me some, holding me close when I would let him. When he woke up, I asked him to let her know that he would never speak with her again (now I know this is called “no contact”) and he agreed…and then he listened to the words I wrote to her and his eyes filled with tears. And yes…he agreed to attach my letter to his NC email. At one point, he played my favorite movie ever…Life As A House…and we laid in each other’s arms remembering a happier time we had watched it…and we cried together and then, unbelievably, made love. I felt raped – I felt like SHE was there – but somehow I had to do this and I shuddered as my body betrayed my heart.

By afternoon, my eyes were blurry. I’d eaten a piece of toast and had one cup of coffee in two days. I was sick to my stomach. I had chest pain. I was distracted, couldn’t get any work done. I wept, then I began to get angry, then I began to get self-angry. How could I be so stupid? Now that I look at the phone bills, how did I not see? (In reality, I didn’t see because I didn’t look-completely trusted HUSBAND, never even occurred to me to check our phone bill). Beginning three days after the reunion, for the next several months before they started using FB message phone, there were 25, 35, 45, 55 minute calls nearly every day. Nearly every day. There are numerous at 7:00 pm or 7:00 am; there are some even as late as 9:30 pm. How was he making these calls? Where was he making these calls? And why did I not see this incredible pattern? Why am I so incredibly stupid?

Much of the day we went over various steps in their relationship, and the words they used to each other. SW told HUSBAND that he “deserved love and happiness, and that they were soul-mates.” She told him that they were “meant for each other” (echoed in her “parting” email—which was anything but parting). She had the audacity to post on FB in response to an article about a thief caught stealing that “he should be thrown to the sharks.” Seriously? This whore thinks she has moral authority to make a judgment on stealing? She was stealing my husband. She was stealing my children’s father. She stole our son’s senior year. She stole she stole she stole she stole she stole and I hate her. She is a liar. She filled HUSBAND with lies and empty promises that were urging him down a path of pain. AND HE WAS GOING TO GO. It was just unfathomable. I had many very angry moments…I felt so incredibly deceived and betrayed. Our intimacy had been astounding but today, I felt nothing. We fucked. I felt dirty. I felt used. I felt – actually I didn’t feel. I was so confused.

From my journal: God, I hope you are all over this. I need the groanings of the Holy Spirit right now. I need you to intercede and pray for me because I don’t even know what to pray, what to say. I don’t know what I want, I don’t know how to heal, if I can heal. I partly want to confront SW and I partly hope she dies. I hope she feels betrayed. I hope she knows that everything they “built” was just a bunch of bull shit. I want her to hurt. And I want HUSBAND to somehow make it all up to me. This is so hard. So hard. I’m not sure I can make it. I can’t breathe again. I can’t seem to find my way to the surface. My head is a jumble of nothingness and everythingness. I just want to curl up in a corner and go to sleep and never wake up. I’ve been so cheated…my last baby’s last year and this was ever-present. This was the distracting issue that was boiling beneath the surface at all times. HUSBAND was texting her at 5:30 in the morning when he woke up while sitting in the bathroom. He would text her with me sitting right next to him (FB text of course – no trace). He was texting her when sitting with his children. He texted her on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve and Christmas and New Years. He sent her flowers for her birthday. And do you know what else is insanity? SW has been with her live-in lover for 16 years. HE KNEW. Her Lover Knew. He was fighting to keep his relationship together with SW…and he knew that SW was dating a married man. MY HUSBAND. Oh this is all so incredibly sick. It is overwhelming and I’m just not sure what to do. Please God. Please God. Please God. Please God. Please God. Please God. Please God. Please God. Help.

Mixed Threads

HUSBAND had been having a fully-engaged, big time affair. For a while. With slut-whore (SW). I did not have any idea what I should do. Whether I should scream from the mountaintop, or crawl into a hole and die, or tell him to take his lying self out of the house. At that moment, HUSBAND was with his dad at their vacation house helping repair a window, planning to head straight to his alone counseling session at 5:30. I had no idea what to do, no resources, no tools, a dying father in the room next to me and then mom walked in and asked me if I could read over the Hospice stuff she had just received. I told her no. I told her I was in a crisis, I could not breathe, and I did not want to be hugged. She was so dear…said its okay…and I continued in my confusion, in my horror and shock and humiliation and hurt and sadness and shame. My husband. An affair. Where they were talking about naming boats and staring at the stars from “their” house and marriage. My husband. My children’s Dad. I did not know what to do. I could not think. I could not move. I could not breathe. I began to look at all our phone records…and searched her on facebook…she had deleted her facebook…I had the flash memory of a comment or two she had made.

I did not know what to do, so I would not react. That’s right, not react. I would wait and see and pray. There was no way I could be in the house with my parents and our son who would be home from school soon, so I mustered up the strength to call HUSBAND with my best voice giving no hint of devastation and suggested we meet after his counseling session at a store to exchange something we’d bought. He agreed – telling me he would call at 7 when he left the session so to find out where to meet.

I could not sit there, so immediately left the house and drove to the Town Center praying praying praying praying praying praying praying praying. Praying that God would cover the counseling session. Praying that HUSBAND would decide he wanted to be committed to our marriage and not be strategizing about how to exit our marriage and smoothly transition to SW. Praying for guidance. Praying. Crying. Praying. I walked in the store, paced, pulled the printed copy of the LETTER out of my purse, read it, put it back, paced the store, went outside, back inside, read the LETTER again and again and again. I’m certain any security was monitoring me closely thinking I looked like a loose cannon.

And at 7:01 I began to wait for HUSBAND’s call…7:05…7:10….7:13…7:25…7:33…OMG he is done! My mind SCREAMED that he had dumped the truth on our counselor and they were figuring out the best way to let me know! Finally he called at 7:34 and said he was on the way. Right before getting off the phone, he said, “Hey – I just want to let you know – I think our marriage can make it.”

WHAT? HUSBAND, liar, cheater…he thinks our marriage can make it? This man who has been lying to me for the past ten months is now telling me he thinks our marriage can make it?

Somehow, I kept from SCREAMING INTO THE PHONE HOW DARE YOU and just said, “Really? Why is that?” And he said that he realized during his session that we both loved each other and if so, it might take some work, but we could do this.

In an odd way, this one statement shifted things so much. Now it was him talking of saving our marriage, the man who had been fucking another woman and lying to me and everyone else; the man who had the audacity to look at me THAT VERY MORNING and say he was committed to the process, but not our marriage, was now saying he wanted to save our marriage.

BREATHE. BREATHE. BREATHE. He got to the store, we walked through, looking for the item needed. I was sweating…my heart was pounding. I said nothing, was kind, even-keeled. He was clueless, CLUELESS and I was there dying. I suggested we go eat…I had no idea what I was going to do…no real plan…but KNEW I had to do something and going home to parents and son was not an option.

We sat down across from each other, ordered beers and looked at the menu. HUSBAND was almost jovial, big menu covering his face. I told HUSBAND I wasn’t too hungry and probably would just order another beer – very unusual for me. Then, with his head still buried in the menu, I asked HUSBAND if he had been honest with me. He said YES! I said, “Be careful, HUSBAND. There are some things I know.” He did not say anything. He lowered the menu. He looked me in the eyes. Then he said, “Things about what?” And I softly answered, “SW.” His face was dumbfounded. There was a long long silence, he looked down and back up. And I said, “Please tell me the truth.” And he did.

Denver-girl was never in the picture. She was a decoy that he put me on to take me off any trail of SW. He immediately told me he was so sorry. He told me that he loved me. I asked him if he had slept with her and he said yes. That one night. When I was in Washington on business. He was so sorry. He loved me. No idea how I got through that meal – did not eat and did drink another beer – and then got in my car, with him trailing me so closely I thought he might hit the back of my car. As we drove over one of the bridges required to get home, I had a moment of thinking it would make sense to drive off the bridge…let my car plunge into the river…get scratched up and bloody and broken on the outside so it would match the ripped up heart on the inside…

For the next four hours, he answered any question I asked and gave me details. Details of how they got together. Details of how they were communicating without being detected. Details about it getting too intense and slowing down but starting back up. Details about talking about a future together but then saying STOP. Details of one in-person encounter with NO SEX, and details of their overnight in a nearby beach town WITH SEX and life just went on. HUSBAND picked me up at the airport a couple hours after he dropped off SW at the same airport after their tryst. I was clueless. I sat in the car in the seat that only hours before his slut-whore occupied. We came home together. He came into our house with a penis that had been in another woman, with her caresses on his body, with her words in his ears. And I knew nothing. I washed the clothes that he had worn when that woman had her hands and lips and legs and breasts against HUSBAND. And the AFFAIR went on and on. I was sick to my stomach. He gave me details that she’d told him she loved him. And he told her he loved her too.

What can I say? Where do I go from here? I’m so overwhelmed. I still can’t breathe. I don’t think I will ever eat again. I feel so utterly stupid. I feel so dreadfully humiliated. I feel so shockingly naïve. I feel so deeply sad.

HUSBAND asked me to forgive him. I just couldn’t yet. It was too raw and fresh and painful. He told me it was over and would never happen again. He told me he loved me and wanted me to be his girl forever. He agreed to any and all counseling. He promised to be truthful. He said he understood that I have a HUGE process to work through. He told me that he did not realize how very much he loves me…and how much he was in love with me.

So at 2:20 am I sat in bed, completely unable to sleep at all. I knew that we had mountains of work to get through. Knew that I was overwhelmed. And I still couldn’t breathe. And I just pictured him in the hotel room with his arms entwined with another woman, that woman, slut-whore, SW. I pictured kisses and caresses and whispered words and moans and orgasms. I heard I love you. And then I threw up.

But I felt, deep inside in a little space in my soul that somehow, someway we were going to get through this. Then I curled back up in a ball and cried again.

About

Just a wife and mom, living life completely unaware that there was another life going on for over 25 years in which I was a prime character. I have worked hard to understand how it happened, discover where truth stops and lies begin, how to integrate the real life with the other real life and to move forward, whole…healthy…with hope… I want this to be a place where back-stories and tough times can be painfully but beautifully unpeeled, and people with courage can find the potential for changing their future. No mean people allowed…but honest people and real feelings are WELCOME.

Source: About

The Strand Lengthens…

Still April 29, 2014 – about 3:30 pm:

I’m transported back to that moment. Sitting at the desk, reading the words of a poem that my gut said was written by my husband. Reading words that were desperate, intimate, hurting. Reading words that were from a deep place in the heart. And not written to me. Expressing emotions that I thought husband was not capable of.

But were they from him? Were they to him? Who wrote them and when and why and how and what and…there was no frame of reference in my entire experience of life for me to begin to know how to feel or react or think or do. I was simultaneously deeply, immediately knowing that husband was involved with another woman yet completely denying any possibility of that. In literally millionths of a second my mind was giving and receiving alternate messages…he is not capable…he is fucking someone…he is not deep…he is in love with another…he could never write something like this…he wrote this… I could not breathe, I could not move, but I could not stay still – all within a mere flash of a moment. I continued to scroll down the page…and this is what I saw:

Husbands name,

Such an emotional weekend, I barely know where to begin. I’ll apologize beforehand for rambling and jumping around.

I wanted to let you know that I’m getting rid of Messenger and FB so no need to reply since I won’t see it. To have both readily accessible is too tempting to connect with you. Un-friending you would only raise red flags with ME-WIFE if she sees I’ve disappeared from your friend list. Maybe deactivating will too, but honestly, at this point, I don’t care. If she somehow figures it out, she can humiliate me to my friends, relatives, employer, etc. What she can’t do is embarrass me to ultimately the only one that matters and that’s God. He already knows what I’ve done.

Lying in bed the other night, replaying the most beautiful wedding I have ever seen…beautiful in the setting, the weather, the families, the animals, the nature, the festivities afterwards but mostly because of the couple that were so obviously and boundlessly in love with each other, and no doubt, they will be for eternity…I know I want a love story like they have.

On the way to the venue, I couldn’t help but notice the small wooden sign that said “Happily Ever After Starts Here”. Poignant and made the first of many tears for the evening, well up. The wedding could not have been more perfect in every way. But again, it was ultimately the couple head over heels for each other that made it so perfect.

I watched her ride up to the venue in a horse and carriage, looking like a princess. I listened to them exchange the most personal vows and devote the rest of their lives to each other because they couldn’t wait to start their lives together. They waited 45 years to find their soul mate and it was well worth the wait. To watch them ride off in the horse and carriage, took my breath away. Not because it was dramatic but because they were meant to be together. It made me yearn for exactly the same thing. I have the same feeling, just not the reality. More tears.

I won’t go into everything but it was also one of the worst nights and I literally cried myself to sleep that night. It became clear to me that I had been excluded from portions of her wedding because of the way I have trivialized the sanctity of marriage. I felt like the most horrible person on the planet. Her husband never spoke to me Friday night or at the wedding. I know I have no one but myself to blame.

But, just as my friend finally found her happily ever after, it’s time I seek the start of my own love story. Hopefully it will end just as happy.

As elaborate as her wedding was, I still think a wedding in the mountains of Montana with us wearing jeans and us riding off into the sunset on a couple of horses would’ve been perfect. That would’ve made me feel like a princess. As much as I would love it to be and hoped it would be, I know it can’t be with you.

The things that you used to say to me ten months ago, six months ago and as recently as just a month ago have now changed. It shouldn’t be a surprise to me, as things have begun to unravel and have forced you to face eminent and hard decisions, your position has changed. The assurances you used to give me so readily and easily, you no longer can. I understand. I have to.

I have been clinging to the hope of a life with you, but it’s an unrealistic expectation. Now that I can say I have finally fallen in love, even though it didn’t work out, I know what I want and hopefully I’ll be better equipped to find it again someday.

I am deeply sorry I disrupted your marriage. I rationalized that I wouldn’t be interfering if you were truly happy but it was wrong nonetheless. I don’t want to be that person and I’m truly ashamed.

There are a million things I want to thank you for. But I’ll stick with just a few…

For always making me feel beautiful and desirable. I always felt like we could walk into a room full of a hundred beautiful women who were all tens and you’d still make me feel like an eleven.
You picked on me and made fun of me quite a bit, too. But, it never failed to make me laugh at myself.
You always seemed to know how I was feeling without me even typing the first message of the morning and knew just what to say to get me out of a funk or make me feel less anxious.
You also knew when to just sit back and listen to me babble when I needed to. You’re a great listener. Of course, I also get that you can’t hear well so that may account for your great listening skills. 😉
You made me want to quit smoking.
You made me laugh so much. I love your wit.
Mostly, I want to thank you for awakening love in me. I didn’t realize I needed it and now I crave it.

We talked about going to far away places but I would’ve been just as happy hanging out in your lap watching futball and football. Even the occasional fantasy movie or scify.
We talked about going to The French Laundry some day, but I wouldn’t enjoy any meal cooked by a five-star chef more than I would a meal cooked by you.
We fantasized about laying under the stars on a boat, but I would’ve been just as happy laying under the stars in our own backyard.
It was always the simple things in life that I looked forward to doing with you more than anything.

I’ll have regrets, for sure.

You never made it to the cabin.
We never got to try to out-cook each other.
You never got to show me how to cast properly.
You never got to see me dock the pontoon. It’s not pretty.
I never got to meet your kids.
You never got to meet DOG’s NAME.

Things I’ll miss…
Your beautiful brown eyes.
Your voice that never fails to make me melt.
Your touch.
Your amazing kisses. Amazing!
I’ll miss everything about you.

I don’t know where life’s path will lead you. If you can repair your relationship and rekindle what you guys had 27 years ago. Or, if your path takes you in another direction, I know you’ll find the love that is perfect for you. You have so much love to give, you’ll receive it back, ten-fold.

Whoever you end up with, she’ll be the luckiest girl in the world.

Now, just a few things and I’ll be on my way…
If you don’t do JOB full-time, find a job you really enjoy.
Buy a boat. Name it Eat a Peach like you always wanted to. I’ll name the pontoon Buck Wonder.
Always drive safely when you’re in your car. Don’t be distracted.
Never give up on love.
Think of me every now and then.

You’ll always be my Sunny Day. You’ll always be my dear friend. Always. ❤️

HER NAME

A loud noise rushed up from my feet to my head overtaking me. I was drowning in a swoosh of pain, drowning, and suffocating. No oxygen, no breath, frozen. Vomit welled up in my throat, tears pooled in my eyes, sweat gathered on my skin and I could not move.

HUSBAND was having an affair. In love with another woman. He wanted a divorce. And he was headed to meet with our counselor alone. But this could not be. Not my loyal, kind husband who would do anything for anyone. In mass confusion, I cut and pasted the words into a word doc, used his email to send it to my email and deleted any evidence of my actions from his computer (although now I wonder why I cared at all-this is such an odd response from betrayed spouses…we feel as if we are violating our violators when we dig for information? Part of the whole sick scenario).

Next steps. Next steps. Next steps. What could they be? What should they be? Who am I? Who is he? I now know who SHE is. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe, I can’t breathe, where is the oxygen, can I walk? I can’t talk. I can’t think IT CAN’T BE, WHO AM I WHO IS HE THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE.

A section of the tapestry is destroyed…

A Tapestry of Lies

The next moments and days are seriously burned into my brain like no other time period in my life. My brain struggled to catch up to what my heart was hearing. I had no basis to receive the information, no baseline of response or action or reaction. The only way I can try to understand how I processed is to go through the moments – so I apologize if this is tedious – but it is real.

When he looked at me and said It Was True, I didn’t know what he meant. As the hustle and bustle of my full household went on around me, I could only see my husband and quietly I asked him What Was True? I think I remember him saying that he had dinner with a woman – did you sleep with her – NO! What woman? Where? Let’s go sit in the living room…

We sat on the couch-him, facing outward staring ahead, and me facing him, curled up with my feet under me. I watched his face carefully and he carefully watched anything but my face. I asked him who she was – an acquaintance from a former business a couple years prior – and if he kept in touch – not really, but for awhile, just a few emails and a call or two – why did you have dinner with her – she had come to town for a conference – are you having an affair – NO! Why did you meet with her and what did you talk about – we talked about our marriages and…

And then he told me that he was miserable, and wanted a divorce. That he was going to tell me a few weeks later after our son’s high school graduation, while we shared our early-morning-coffee at the breakfast bar-

I told him I had been pretty miserable lately too. That I understood how he felt, but as I thought about our beautiful children, it was important to me that I could learn how I, how we, had gotten to this place. I told him I was stunned and saddened that he would tell another woman that he was miserable, yet never tell me, and that was pretty unfair. I asked him if he would agree to get some counseling so we could figure things out – no matter the outcome – and that I loved him. He continued to look straight ahead and my pulse pounded in my throat.

He agreed, sort of, and I went on to the shower. The shower, where I sat in a sea of my friends who had walked alongside me all 27 years of my marriage. Friends who had shared birthdays and anniversaries and child births and parent deaths and ER visits and marriage seminars and parenting classes and summer nights and vacations and fireworks and THEY HAD NO IDEA MY HUSBAND WAS MISERABLE AND WANTED A DIVORCE, AND HAD TOLD ANOTHER WOMAN. Tears welled up and trickled down my cheeks, and I was alone. In the midst of all these precious friends, I was so very alone.

That night, in the oddest of responses, he reached for me. I responded. I wanted him, I wanted to feel him on me and in me and around me, and it was completely amazing, yet painful. My head knew nothing yet about hysterical bonding, but my instincts did.

The next day, we asked our church for a referral to a counselor. And I began a quest of research…investigating the impact of divorce on older children…reading about infidelity…researching emotional affairs and learning a whole new language that included affair partners and other woman and D-Day and HEA and betrayed spouses and wayward spouses and I printed articles and created a notebook and searched his facebook and linkedin. I asked him questions, and he answered, telling me they had met in a bar in Denver, shared a meal – NOTHING ELSE – then kept in touch for a few months in a flirty kind of way – and that was it. Until February when she reached out again because she was coming to town. He admitted they considered sleeping together, but just couldn’t go through with it – shared a kiss in the parking lot (which is certainly what the author of the anonymous email must have witnessed) and then parted ways. I asked her name, showing him articles that discussed how important transparency was, but then I remembered he WANTED A DIVORCE.

We continued to make love, tenderly, passionately, beautifully, and in the light of day, he would stroke my face and say I Am Committed To The Process…Not The Marriage. He was clear that he wanted out, but wanted to understand why he had gotten to this place.

Ten days after Sid Breeze (the email), we were at a counselor’s office. Husband was hostile, but present. Counselor asked if he was having an affair – NO! Counselor asked if he had ever had an affair – NO! And recommended that we work through his brand of Emotionally Focused Therapy to discover if we could connect and have a marriage. He asked to see me alone the next day, and husband the next week. Those days were long…lonely…filled with research…learning…seeking…things were beginning not to add up so well…husband’s answers were beginning to subtly contradict themselves…more hysterical bonding…

The Tapestry Begins to Unravel…

April 29, 2014

We woke up together, treating each other with the careful kindness that characterized the days since Sid Breeze. Getting ready to leave for my office, husband looked me in the eyes and said, “I know you want me to tell you I’m committed to the marriage, but I can’t give you that. I’m committed to the process.”

I left, and remembered that later that day, husband would have his “alone session” with our counselor.

A little later, husband called me. My parents had moved in several months prior – my father had a terminal illness. Husband told me he was concerned about my dad, and I should come home. The only time that ever happened.

I did, within an hour. Husband was gone to work on a project, then to his appointment. I got the crisis with my dad settled down, and had an unbelievable urge to check husband’s computer. Husband had given me access to his phone and his computer several days prior, and I had searched deeply…found nothing…so when the urge came, I fought it. But it was overwhelming, and eventually, I gave in. I went to our room, opened his laptop which was hooked to a large monitor, and began to search, again. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And then a little 2 by the NOTES section of his email. I remembered when I looked a few days prior, there was only a 1, and it was a benign work note. So I clicked on NOTES.

My eyes saw this:

——-Forwarded message ——-
From: Husbands Name and Email
Date: Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 5:48 AM
Subject: Empty
To:

Empty
Sad
Choices made
Price unpaid

Barriers not broken
Words not spoken
Obligation
Responsibility

Irony everywhere
Do I even care?
Sowing pain
I can’t explain

Mountains
Oceans
In front of the fire
Liar
Can it really be through?
Is it true?

I Could Not Breathe. The unraveling began.

First Post Is The Hardest

It has been a year and 1/2 since I began to uncover the reality that the life I’d lived for twenty-seven years wasn’t really the whole story of my life. My life – MY LIFE – had a sub-story going on, and I was (not-so-blissfully) unaware of the other story the entire time.

It was a SHATTERING experience. An experience that left me curled up in a fetal position for a time. An experience that caused me to want to be damaged and bleeding on the outside so it would match what was going on in the inside. An experience that ripped the very soul of my being, that left me flayed and exposed and RAW.

As I slowly began to lift my head, and crawl out of a darker space than I ever imagined, I began to see light. Filtered through the jagged shards of my shattered life, I began to see new images and colors and beauty. The process has been deeply painful, unbelievably frightening, daringly challenging and ultimately, the most incredible journey for me, and those crazies who have stood nearby, or in my face, or with their arms around me.

Healing from the devastation of betrayal is possible. Real, deep, amazing healing that brings with it the precious, tender softness of a healed wound that never stops being slightly sensitive, but carries its own kind of lovely. I am compelled to share but only from a place of utter honesty that will not always look pretty, and continues to challenge me as I commit to wholeness for myself and those I love so dearly. If you have been betrayed, or want to understand betrayal from my perspective, please come visit from time-to-time.

So my story begins…

April 12, 2014

Beautiful north Florida morning…an early workout with my daughter…getting ready to head out with her to share the joy of a dear friend’s wedding shower…with a few minutes to spare decided to check emails…

I found this:

From: Sid Breeze
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2014 8:54 AM
To: undisclosed recipients:
Subject: My Husband’s Name

Hello My Name,

CONFIDENTIAL!

I am an acquaintance of Husband‘s and would like to remain anonymous. This may be inconsequential, but I wanted to inform you that on February 3rd, my wife and I encountered husband and another woman in what appeared as a very close relationship. We are aware that an extended amount of time that has passed. My wife has become unyielding about us not notifying you earlier and we agonized over the decision to send you this email. Do not mention this email, but I would suggest that you perform discreet research (phone, credit card) on your own.

Be Watchful,

A Friend in City

Let marriage be held in honor among all…

Hebrews 13:4

Thinking it was a joke, a spam email, I did NOT follow the advice of the writer, and immediately printed the email, chuckling, and handed it to my husband when he walked in the room. He read it, looked down at me and said, “It’s true.”

My story begins.

savingshards

Journey to Healing and Freedom

Month: November 2015