Wednesday, January 29, 2014

The Summer from Hell

I haven't blogged much recently.  It has seemed more cathartic to me to read other's blogs and comment there, where I am sure to receive comments, care, and concern.  But I feel like I have to finish my story.

I last left off the night I discovered the affair when I woke my husband from a dead sleep and told him to get out.  He jumped up, looked at the photo on the computer screen and said "I will go if you want me to, but please let me explain."  He started by saying to me that it was only oral sex, that they did not have intercourse.  I asked him how fucking stupid he thought I was.  Finally, he sat down on our bedroom floor with his head in his hands and let everything start spilling out.  The truth was, she had gone out with a group he went out with when he was at a conference in New Orleans.  They drank too much, danced too close, flirted a little too fiercely, and ended up in bed together that night.  I think that had she not been from our town, it would probably have ended there - a one night stand - but it didn't.  It continued after they came home.  Despite a few times that one or both of them thought they shouldn't continue, he claimed they just couldn't stop.  (She was living with a boyfriend at the time - of note, yet another guy she had stolen from his wife) He had coaxed his hospital to hire her so that they could be together more often.  He had never told her that he didn't love me, only that our spark was gone - that I was a wonderful friend, partner, and mother, but that we had no passion left.  He thought that he might love her.  But he would end it.  Our marriage was more important to him.  He would go to her at work the next day and end things with her.  We stayed up all night, crying, talking, holding each other.  It seems crazy now - I should have raged at him - screamed at him, hit him, thrown something.

There I sat, a month out from having given birth, with leaky breasts, healing from a C-section, with an obvious baby induced muffin top, and my husband is telling me he thinks he may love this little 25 year old thing he has been screwing for the last year and a half? In any case, we agreed that he would go to work and end it with her, and we would try to rebuild our marriage. The next morning, he went to work, and I started texting her - she said she loved him, she promised that if we were going to try to work things out, she would be respectful ( A HUGE LIE!), she revealed to me that they had unprotected sex (while I was pregnant, mind you), and that they had this amazing connection that they had both said they had never experienced before.  (I just threw up in my mouth a little while typing this).

I told her that he loved me and wanted to be with me, and she said that was not quite what he said when he broke things off with her - she said that he told her he couldn't be with her because he had to give his marriage a fair shot. (The beginning of months of him tiptoeing around her feelings and trying to protect her).  That was Friday.  On Saturday night, she kept texting him asking why he was doing this.  Finally, he and I agreed that he should call her, so he called her on speaker phone, and I had to listen to two full hours of her crying, him apologizing for hurting her, her saying but you said you wanted to be with me, but you said you loved me, blah, blah, blah.  We started counseling immediately.  Honestly, we were both talking to each other so much and being so open and honest, we felt we were getting more out of our communication together than the therapy sessions.  But we continued.

The next month was absolute hell.  We tried to trudge on.  We talked more than we had in years, did quite a bit of hysterical bonding, and tried to have fun together, while wading through the shit that my husband had created for us.  One night, we went out with friends from the hospital, and she showed up at the same bar.  She saw us and started flirting shamelessly with other guys, which made my husband visibly upset and uncomfortable, and he couldn't take his eyes off her, so I insisted we leave right away.  I literally wanted to beat him up on our way home.  In the middle of the night, after we got home, she called him again, and again, I listened to a two hour conversation where he proceeded to try and "end things nicely" AGAIN.  Fuck nice!  By this point, I was pretty much up to the gills with the shit that I was being put through.  Another week passes by, and he confesses to me that the Monday following the 2 hour conversation, she told him that she fucked some other guy, and basically reeled him back in.  Come to find out, they had done quite a bit of personal talking and fighting about her having sex with this other guy during the week.  He had been crazy with jealousy, and he was super hurt, and he claimed to be confessing to me because he felt he finally had some closure.  I said I was leaving, and the next day, when he went to work, I packed up, took the kids, and basically stayed gone all day.  I pulled up at three different hotels, but could never bring myself to go in.  He had been texting me and calling me, begging me not to leave him all day, and the truth was, I didn't want to leave.  I wanted to keep our family together, so I went home.  The next day we went away on vacation for 4th of July, and I thought everything was fine.  Well, the aftermath of an affair is never really fine, but I thought all was as well as could be, and we were trying to move on without her in our life. 

When we returned from our trip, he unpacked the car and told me that he wasn't sure he could do this.  He thought he had damaged our relationship beyond repair, and he wasn't sure he was up for the hell that would be rebuilding our marriage.  He said it had nothing to do with her.  He left for 5 hours, and I could not reach him, text him, or locate his phone on GPS.  When he came home, he said he had been driving around aimlessly trying to decide what he wanted.  (As I am sure you could guess, he went to her that night to talk about everything). He told me he was going to move upstairs to one of our guestrooms until he figured everything out.  The next month was harder than anything I have been through up to this point.  He lived upstairs, would not touch me, acted like he was in love with me some nights, like he wasn't others, told me countless times he really wanted to leave, told me at other times he wasn't sure what he wanted, and basically confused the hell out of me.  I acted like a pathetic crazy lunatic, begging him not to leave me and his family.  I meant wtf do you mean, you're not sure if you want this?  Too late for that, we have three beautiful children who didn't ask for any of it!

We went religiously to our counseling sessions, and in my individual sessions, my counselor said that she really thought my husband just needed some time and space, and that she believed it di not have anything to do with Kelli.  I told her I didn't know how much longer I could stay in limbo - I literally felt like I was dying a slow miserable death - I had lost over 60 pounds in two months - granted, I had just had a baby, but I had only gained 30 pounds with him and wasn't heavy to begin with.  I was slowly withering away, physically and emotionally.  During this time, lots of things happened.  One night, my husband went out with friends.  He was posting all this stuff on FB about where he was, how much he was drinking, etc.  This was very unlike him, so I hired a PI to follow him all night.  He bought some nurse from the hospital a bunch of drinks, told her he had moved out of the house because of marital problems (a lie), but ultimately left alone.  He followed him to the hospital, but he had turned off his phone, and I couldn't reach him.  I asked my mother to come over at 3 am (mind you, I had managed to keep the affair a secret from my parents, who I am very close to), and I went to the hospital to his office and found him, very drunk, very upset, and telling me that I should leave him.  Again, I took on my totally pathetic persona, and begged him to give us a chance.  I sat on the ground in the middle of the hospital parking lot at 3 am, and begged him not to leave his family!  Man, I should have read about the 180 before then!  He agreed to try our relationship for three months, and I went home.  The next day, he came home, and I confessed about the PI (another stupid decision).  The PI had said that he had been outside the bar for over a half hour on the phone, but no calls showed up on our cell phone bill.  I demanded to know who he was talking to.  He confessed that he had called the white trash homewrecker because the guy she fucked was the bartender at the bar that night.  Ultimately he changed his mind about giving us three months to try things, and he moved back upstairs. 

The following Monday night, my 6 year old daughter had her first spend the night guest - her best friend of the past three years was moving away the next day, and it was their last night together.  My daughter had several special things planned that only Daddy could do with them.  He had a very late night at the hospital that night, and he never made it home before they went to bed.  I later found out that he chose to drive two hours to the airport to pick up Kelli from the airport (she had been back to visit her hometown up north), rather than spending that special night with my daughter and her friend.  Unforgivable!  I didn't find this out of course until almost a month later, when all the shit really hit the fan.  I was, however, reaching a breaking point.  I took our three children to Atlanta to get away, and I spent three nights in a hotel room alone with three children under the age of 6.  I was trying to breathe a little, keep myself busy, and I was trying to give him space.  I would later find out that he visited her for booty calls while I was gone with our children. That weekend, I talked him into going to visit one of our closest friends in Tampa, so that he could get away and also in the hopes that our friend (his best friend of the last 20 years) could talk some sense into him.  Everything seemed fine while he was gone, and then on Sunday, he called me to tell me he wasn't coming home.  He said that I had manipulated him and that I was using our friend to try and manipulate him.  He didn't come home until about 2 am, but he did come home.  I didn't know it at the time, but again, he had gone to her. 

Shortly after that, he came downstairs one Friday morning in early August and said he was packing a bag and thought he would drive down to the beach to get away, read our self help books and do some thinking.  Friday afternoon, he called me and said that he was in Destin.  I felt at the time like I had to walk on eggshells, like any questioning on my part would make him leave me, so I didn't even ask where he was staying.  However, that night, our children wanted to facetime with him, and when they asked (like they always do) to see where he was staying, he turned his phone around to show them the view out of his window onto the parking lot and road.  I quickly snapped a screenshot on my phone.  After the children were asleep, I looked at the screenshot, and looked on google earth for the shop that was visible in the background.  I found it, although it was not in Destin.  It was in Panama City, and I even knew where he was staying.  I asked my parents to watch the kids (obviously, I had to tell them about the affair, after having kept it from them for over two months), and I drove to the beach the next morning.  I followed them around and watched them together all day, waiting for the perfect opportunity to confront them.

That evening, they got ready in their hotel room and went to dinner.  It was as they sat outside the restaurant, with the beach breeze blowing, holding hands, that I walked up to them both.  I asked my husband if he would like to do this in front of her, or if he would prefer to speak privately.  I told her that he called her Boston white trash, said that she is not marriage material, and I wished her the best of luck with a man who thinks that of her.  Then, he and I walked over to be alone and talk.  I told him I wanted a divorce, that I was not angry, that I wanted it to be as friendly and easy for the kids as we could possibly make it.  I told him the kids were all I cared about.  He told me that he had taken her to the beach to try and figure out what his feelings really were.  He said up until then, it was all brief moments, so he had no significant amount of time to determine how he really felt about her.  He said he had finally realized that it was all lust and infatuation, not love (which is what I had been saying all along), and that he wanted one last chance with me.  I told him there were no chances left for us, and I left and went home.  He then made her leave the beach and chase me back home, and when he arrived home, spent the next 24 hours begging me and swearing that it was over and he wanted to make things right with us.  He even went to my parents (I am an only child) and begged their forgiveness.  What can I say?  I love him, and I fell for it.  Again.

10 comments:

  1. Hi. I found your blog on the BetrayedWivesClub blog - pretty much my home these days. I've never posted there. I am one year out of d-day, and out of all the many awesome blogs out there, your story is one I relate to most. I am not ready to share my story with everyone yet. Do you have an alias email or anything - I created one just to deal with this kind of stuff. I would love to email you or comment privately. Hope I haven't freaked you out too much! I just can relate to some elements of your story. Thanks for this blog, it has helped me!

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  2. Hi Riptide,
    I'm so sorry that you've had to go through this, but glad we have all found each other to lean on in these difficult times. Feel free to email me anytime at achangedwoman6713@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

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  3. omg. what a fucking fool he is. please say he did a massive turnaround or that you divorced him.

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  4. Hi Nightshademary,
    Yes, he is a fool. And he has been a fool again since then. His massive turnaround is a work in progress, but we are trying to make things work. I will try to get more of my story written soon, but my three little ones and work keep me super busy. Thanks for reading!

    Jennifer

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  5. you know, reading your story has made me really angry on your behalf. Anyone can cry and beg and make promises, but has he done anything to deserve a second chance?
    Make a demand. As in: Get her 100% percent out of your life by xxx date. No working together, no talking, no seeing, no thinking about. She calls; you hang up. She approaches; you walk away. Get her gone or you are gone. This will show how far he is willing to go to fix what he ruined.
    And omg your poor DD...I was tearing up reading how he blew her off. What a prince of a dad. How selfish to put your FAMILY through hell while you decide what YOU want. Seriously.
    There's nothing wrong with trying to reconcile after infidelity, but I truly, deeply believe that the cheater has to want it 1000% more than the betrayed spouse. If he isn't showing that, 180 his ass off and take care of YOU and your babies.

    Gaaah! Sorry you are going through this.

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  6. Thank you for your kind and caring words. And you are so right. The situation you described is where we are now. No contact, no meetings together at work, absolutely no talking or communicating at all. We are about one week away from signing a contract with a new hospital and resigning at the old one thank god. She just will not leave us alone though, and I am terrified that she will follow him to the new hospital. We shall see. Right now, I feel like he does want it way more than me, and he is trying his damnedest to prove that to me. It's a process of course, and we have been through hell to get here, but finally I feel that the fog has lifted, and we are moving forward together. Only time will tell.

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  7. Two words: restraining order.
    GL with the change of scenery :)

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  8. Man oh man...I also read Shawn's blog A Year After the Affair...and saw you had another recent D Day. I am so sorry. I really wish your husband would get some therapy. He may really love you and you him, but there is something wrong with a man who won't stop encouraging OW. He needs to STOP. Talking. To. Her. You did nothing to cause this; he needs to figure out WTF is wrong with him that treating you like an option while indulging himself is ok.
    Crossing fingers he is able to change jobs, and then BLOCK HER from EVERYTHING.
    (oh, and WTF is wrong with her? Next time she gets arrested let her rot in jail, and laugh when she loses her license.)

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  9. Thanks for responding. I just sent my story to you. It's long...so hopefully you won't think I'm crazy. I just really appreciate this outlet...thank you!

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  10. Your story really affected me. I admire your strength. How did you ever manage to take care of your babies while youre life was literally upside down? What your husband did to you was unforgivable...

    I am waiting for the rest of your story. Regardless of the outcome, I make no judgements. I just hope that you were able to find some peace with time passing.

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