The timeline is killing me - When he started sleeping with her.

The timeline.  What difference does it make, really?  It's not like I don't know, sitting here today, that they fucked each other, but for some reason, I've needed to know WHEN it started... and it DOES make a difference...possible life changing difference.

It's killing me.  I'm warning you now, I get pretty vulgar as I go on with this story.  There's the warning.  I sort of turn into a crazy cussing maniac.

I'ts been almost two weeks since we talked.  I am still feeling like I'm standing in quicksand.

I still can't stop shaking my head and trying to wrap my head around what he's told me.

I don't know if I ever will, and I don't know if I will ever be able to get the answers I need.  I think that's what I have to come to terms with now, that I will never understand, and that I need to come to terms with it, or make a decision if I can live with it.

I'm fighting with myself very hard, and it's an internal battle of madness.

The timeline.

Sept. 10 - He goes and takes her to lunch.
Sept. 11 - He goes and eats lunch in her office with her.
Sept. 15 - He goes to her house that night, tells me he's going to band practice.
Sept. 18 - He leaves for a trip with our boys, they text all weekend.
Sept. 20 - I ask to see pics of the trip, he refuses to hand me phone.  I know.   7 hours of fighting, he still tries to deny there is anyone else, picks me up out of our yard and makes love to me all night.
Sept. 21 - I check phone records, and take a look at his old iPhone that is still connected to his account...it's filled with their texts.  I contact HER before I confront him, she promises she had no idea and will back off.  He comes home from work, takes me to bed.

 And so it goes, on and on.  Repeat....fight, tear down marriage, finger point at each other why this happened. Tear each other down, begin seeing what was going wrong, start slowly rebuilding.  And of course, drag each other off to bed... it's crazy, heartbreaking, and insanely passionate.  It's exhausting.

We have been together 25 years at this point, and I am realizing that I am no longer that 18 year old girl I was when we started, we have never been like this in our relationship, and it's amazing.

I believed him as he tells me they are not talking at all.  Even though I can see his confusion, I don't see him pulling fully away from us, because we can't seem to keep our hands off each other.

I have asked him since I found out about them at the end of April 2016... "When did you start sleeping with her?"

He has refused to answer.  Just says, "I don't know."

I have always felt like it was that Tuesday night he went to her house.  I've asked, he has repeatedly told me no, they did not.  In my heart... it makes more sense to me that he slept with her that night, and caught some feelings...some excitement... some danger.  So that when I find out a week later?  He is not ready to let go, and that's what led to the 8 month affair with her.

So two weeks ago, I ask again.  After all, he's understanding and witnessing that when he sets something at ease in my head, I can put it to rest.  And I usually do.  So, I ask again.  We are in the barn, getting ready to mow.  This is something we weekly do together, and I have his attention.  I asked him, "When did it start?" He says, "I don't know."

This makes NO sense to me.  How can you not know?  It's a pretty game changing thing to do!  When?  "I don't know"

Yes you do!

He says, "When did you find out?"  I told  him, "Sept. 20th, did it happen before then?" He says, "No, it didn't happen before that."

Ugh.

I say, "Did it happen before your birthday?"  His birthday is Sept. 28.  I'm wondering if it happened that week, right after I found out.

This man actually says at this point, "When is my birthday?" I roll my eyes at him, he's clearly nervous.  I tell him when his birthday is.  He says, "No."

"So it happened AFTER your birthday?"  "Yes"

But in my head, I'm like... no... how?  He was with me almost EVERY SINGLE DAY at the end of Sept, till middle of December when I had a surgery done, and was out of commission in that department for a week or so.   No... in my head, I'm screaming, NO!

So he holds strong to "I don't know" for quite a while.  We start mowing.  I can't even look at him as we pass each other.  I'm furious.  But I have to keep it together.

We stop, park the tractors, and I walk away.

Never mind, I turn and head back.  I walk around the barn and say, "When."

He pulls out his phone.  Loads the calendar.  Asks me a couple questions about things that happened that fall.  He narrows it down.

"Sometime the first two weeks of October."

I'm numb.  I can't figure it out in my head.  I'm arguing internally with myself that it had to be that Tuesday, that it made more sense that he CHEATED BEFORE I FOUND OUT ABOUT THEM..... NOT AFTER!!!  That doesn't fucking compute in my head!

"Huh?"  I muttered.  "First couple weeks of October??"  "Yes"

I don't understand.

I make it through to Monday...but I'm reeling.  Dizzy is the only way to describe it.  I have a program that I can plug my iPhone into, and it will save all texts.  I go to that and pull up our texts to each other during that time... The end of Sept, and all through October.... I'm especially interested in those first two weeks of October... when sometime in those two weeks, he decided I wasn't enough, and fucked another woman.

Our texts during that time are so x-rated, it's crazy.  We would talk about what we had done the night before, or even that morning...he would tell me things he wanted to do that night, I would tell him things I wanted to do, or wanted from him....   I DON'T GET IT.


How can  he do that?  And why am I so upset it didn't happen when I thought it did?

Though no matter WHEN it happened, it fucking sucks, but it still made more sense to me that he fancied himself with another woman before I knew!  But NO.  He decides to have sex with me almost EVERY SINGLE NIGHT and DAY, and sometime in there decides it's time to stick his dick in another woman too??

WHAT THE FUCK.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

My friend tells me I can't wrap my head around it,  because it's not something I would do.  She's right.

But I'm crushed.

I FEEL USED.  I feel dirty!!  I'm disgusted!!

Here's a little back story... I ended up in a foster situation when I was 14.  Without that family, I would not be here.  My mother would have killed me. She was an abusive alcoholic hot mess.  When I was 13, she decided to start hanging out at a truck stop bar near Baltimore.  She brought home a different trucker every other night... they never knew about each other, because they were never in town on the same days. She really liked one of them, and she decided he would help her with me.  Me being a wild out of control teen girl that was angry at the world.  She valued the way he said I should be raised.  Whatever.

He picked me up in his truck one day, minus the trailer.  He said it goes faster.  He took me to lunch at that truck stop, and talked to me about respecting my Mom and doing my school work.  We walked back out to the truck, and when I went to put my seat belt on, he told me not to.  The truck had that sleeper bed thing in it, and he straight up told me he needed to teach me about the real world, and then proceeded to rape me right there in that nasty truck, in that horrible parking lot of that disgusting bar.  When I got home, I told my Mom.  She said I was a liar, and it was not long after I wound up in foster care.

THAT'S WHAT I FEEL LIKE NOW!  Dirty, used, humiliated.  How could my HUSBAND do that?  He was the ONE PERSON IN MY LIFE THAT WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO HURT ME.  How could he shake the shit out of our marriage, then proceed to take me to bed every day, and then think... Oh, well... I need to have another woman too, and decide to sleep with her?    ASSHOLE.

My husband, father of my kids, the man I look up to, the provider of our family...has made me feel like that 13 year old girl again.  Dirty, used, humiliated, disgusting.

I'm trying so hard to separate the two, they are not the same, but strangely, the hurt is.  The hurt and humiliation feels the same.

He used me.  I ask him, "How?  How could you be OK with yourself knowing you were using me?"  he said, "I didn't think of it that way."

Back in June, during a session with my therapist, I told him about the trucker. I told my story and then curiously asked him, "Why is that time on my mind?  I have not thought about that man in many many years.  But it's on my mind a lot lately.  Almost like I'm pissed that this affair of my husbands has me more fucked up than what happened to me as a girl.  That should be more traumatic."

He looked at me and said, "Both of these instances are extremely traumatic, and you are now associating with a time that you survived.  Your survival instincts are showing you can make it through this one too."

It made sense.  Sorta.  I don't know.

I was surprised I told him.  I have only told my Mom about that day.  She didn't believe me, so I never spoke of it again.

So here I am.  Almost two weeks past him telling me this.  Am I mad it didn't happen like I thought it did?  Am I throwing a huge bitch fit because his affair didn't happen the way I THINK it should have?  That's almost funny.

But I'm lost.  I'm so lost.  I can't think.

I'm sitting here pounding on this keyboard, angry.  Hurt.  I usually feel better after writing and releasing...but I'm so angry that this isn't helping at all.

I'm so lost.

I just can't stop shaking my head about the timeline.  But the fact that he decided that I wasn't enough, and fucked her too?   I can't comprehend.

Part of me feels sorry for her, too.  He used us both.
But then that feeling passes quickly.  She KNEW HE WAS MARRIED.  

 I never thought I could feel hate for my husband... but I do now.  A small sliver of hate has slipped in, and I'm not sure right now what to do with that.

I trusted him.  I trusted him.

It's been a year

It's been a little over a year since that night.

It has not been easy.  There have been some amazing days, weeks.  There have been the lowest of the lows.

There has not been a single day that I have not thought of them together.  I've watched as many videos as I can,  I've read articles,  I've bought and read a million books.  I vent anonymously on Twitter.

But I feel like I'm still just laying in the grass by the creek.

Summer of '16 rolled in, and it found us going to a marriage counselor.  Our first visit, he asked the guy, "So, can she come alone?"

wtf?

He thinks only I need the counseling.  I went alone for 6 visits.  Counselor decided that I have 'abandonment issues' from my past.  From that stemmed how I actually loved my husband, and allowed him to love me.  He was right.  I did spend the past 27 years with this man, behind a protective wall.  I think I was always waiting for him to leave me.  Well, he did.

The 7th visit found him coming with me.  We ended up in a HUGE fight on that couch, and the counselor never returned my calls or texts after that.  Abandonment..  at the pushing of my husband, I found another one about 2 month ago, and I'm still not sure about this whole counseling thing.

I had an appointment this past Monday.  I was seeing him just once a month, but after what I dumped on him this past session, he's trying to see me once a week.  No.  Too much.

I wonder if I could write about what I dumped on him.  I AM anonymous here... I wonder it it would help to write it out...

I feel like HE needs counseling, too.  But he says he's fine, and doesn't need to talk to anyone.

One thing I know, is I need disclosure from him.  I need some details... and he's not willing to do so.  I've given him every article, every video, every blog post I can find, showing him the importance of disclosure. I've given him my reasons that I need them... nothing.

Crickets.  Or, sometimes he will grab me and we'll have sex.  I've noticed that he uses that a lot.  He used that during his affair, too.  Is it deflection? Take my mind somewhere else?

I feel like no matter what I read, or spend on counseling, or watch on youtube, that if he doesn't disclose, I will not begin healing. So how long do I stay in this limbo?

Some don't need details.  I am not one of those people.  I need information.

I have a good friend that has been by my side the whole journey. But she has not been through this.  She will ask me at times, "Why do you need to know?"  Another friend says, "What good will it do you to know now?"  Again, neither have been through it.

I need to know, because it feels like he is still keeping secrets, living that double life, still lying.  Like I am not worth knowing anything of his secret love affair.  But I am supposed to stay with him, because he chose me.  He chose me, but did he?  Or did she dump him and now I'm just the fall back second choice?

Actually... I have gotten a couple details.  I guess I should be lucky?  I wanted to know where they went out to dinner.  I DID NOT WANT TO GO TO THE SAME PLACES.

He told me. (It took him 3 months to tell me)  I processed it.  I had my moments of envisioning them there.  I had my anger.  I imagined he had a wonderful time watching her eat meat. (I don't) I imagined him telling her that he loved that she did.  I had my moments with the disclosure of the restaurants.   I'm processed, I'm through it.  I no longer obsess about where they went.  I know.  I wish he could see that, that talking to me and answering my questions calms my imagination and helps me process.

I also got Valentines day.  This took him literally 7 months to tell me.  Valentines day '16.  "Did you see her?  I woke up that morning, and you had left for work, I didn't see you all day."

He swore up until the night he told the truth that he didn't see her at all.  But he finally came clean, (sort of, I know he's still lying)   "Yes, after work I stopped by and gave her flowers."  7 months of asking, and lying to my face up to the moment of telling me the truth??

Damaging to rebuilding trust, let me tell you.

Valentines Day '17 found me in a complete meltdown from the triggers and contacting the other woman.  Upcoming post. My twitter friends really let me have it for contacting her!  lol!  I'm sorry! #WeakMoment

Have I processed through that tidbit of disclosure?  A little.  I think it's hard, because I know he's still lying about it.  Do I care?  I'm getting over it.   Some of my friends advice is starting to sink in a little, "What good does that do you now?"

And that's it.   That's all I've gotten in a year.  Flowers on Valentines day and the restaurants they went to.

I want to know when it started.  I want to know when it ended.  He has tried to tell me the end, but it changes EVERY SINGLE TIME I ask.  It's like he is still so caught up in his own web of lies, that he is forgetting what he told me.

I don't ask that a lot.  I can count on one hand how many times I've asked.  But I do feel like knowing how and when it ended is important...after all...did it end?  I don't really know.

But during my February meltdown when I contacted her, she volunteered some of the ending information, without me asking AT ALL...and IT DOESN'T MATCH HIS STORY ONE BIT.  I tell him that, and he says, "She's a liar, and is telling you these lies so I will contact her and say something to her."

Maybe?  I don't know.

So here I am, a year later, and still lost, and still confused.  Every day finds me getting angrier at him, for I see him as the one who can release me from this pain by disclosing, and he doesn't.

I think he's ashamed.  I know that when I do ask, his breathing changes, he looks down, he says, "This is not the time or place to do this" even though we may be sitting in the house completely alone or in the car together with no kids around.

How much longer do I do this?  How much longer CAN I do this?

I don't know.

I'm tired.  I'm finding that more and more, all I do is sleep when I come home.  I just want to sleep.

Can I move forward with my marriage, and healing, without him opening up to me?

I don't think so.

He hands me the burner phone

This one is the most insane entry I will do.  Might as well be truthful, it's life.  It's dealing with infidelity.  It's my definite DDay.  There have been other days of discovery, but this is the one.  And pretty much the last one.  This one will have sex, cussing, insanity, screenshots and madness.  If that's not your thing, just move on. :)

It might just be why he does not open up and talk to me now.  More than a year later, there has been no disclosure, and I think it's my fault. I did not handle this night well, and I think it scared him.  It scared me, too.  I've never  been this out of control in my life.  Something inside me flipped.

It was a tough day at work, the day before still running through my brain, little to no sleep the night before, adrenaline has not stopped pumping through my system.  When I got home, I was bottoming out.  I made a cup of coffee and sat on the couch, trying to breathe, trying to function.  He had a meeting that night with our sons, and was getting ready for that.  I laid back and closed my eyes for a second.  I heard him near, and opened my eyes.

He sat down on the coffee table and looked at me.  He looked at me for what felt like years, there was true fear in his eyes.  His voice shook a little when he spoke.

"You've been asking me what app I used to communicate with her.  I just wanted to come clean, it wasn't an app."

He reached into his pocket and handed me a phone.

"I used that."

I held it.  I held it.  I held in my hand the piece of shit phone that held them together.  I tried to hold myself together.  Here he is, trying.  He's trying to communicate and talk to me.  Somewhere in my brain, I realize he is trying. But there is a loud pounding of my heartbeat in my ears, and I also can see he is still talking.  But I don't hear anything he says over the roar in my ears. I don't say anything but, "Ok."

I held it together for maybe 3 minutes.  I stood up, slipped the whore phone in my back pocket and picked up my coffee cup, and walked out the door.

I walk up a hill, I'm crying?  I'm not sure what I was doing.  4 million things are hitting me at once.  The whore phone. He's trying to talk to me. The whore phone cost money, that we didn't really have. He spent money on her by using that phone.  Why would he have that?  Apps can be used?  Why?  Are they sleeping together?  Did they? The only thing that made sense was that they were definitely in a physical relationship for him to be hiding and harboring that whore phone.

I can't breathe as I'm heading up that hill.  I dropped to my knees, hyperventilating, about to throw up.  I see him coming up the hill.  I saw red.  It's not just a saying, it's true, I saw red.  I stood up, threw my cup over the hill, (I miss that cup, I should go find it) and charged at him.  I charged down the hill like a madwoman, screaming "Did you fuck her??!!"  I hit him in the chest with both hands.  He grabbed my hands and tried to hug me.  "No" he said.  "No, we didn't"

We head towards the house, me yelling and repeating "Did you fuck her?!"  With him repeatedly saying, "No!"

But it caused a rush of questions.  I questioned every single thing I've asked before:
Did you fuck her?  No
Did you spend time with her over Christmas?  No
DID YOU SPEND NEW YEARS EVE WITH HER?  NO
Did you fuck her? No! I didn't!

It went on for a while.  He said he needed a shower before he had to go to the meeting.

I was there when he stepped out, hitting him with more questions.  I've lost it.

But before he walked out the door for the meeting, he was promising and swearing that all he had told me for the past month since he came back to me was true.  That they only texted and talked on the phone.  They never met in person, they never had sex, they never took it to that level.

I watched him leave and picked up my phone.  I texted her a meme that I found to be appropriate.  Looks like she was wondering what I was up to today.  Also, notice I asked her NOTHING, she just started spilling information without being asked.

I felt crazy.  She spilled enough that my mind just slipped.  I took to social media - FB, Instagram, Twitter... Calling her out and trashing her.  

Reading back on that?  I called her a twat....um... I don't think I've ever said that word in my life until that night.  Not even sure where that came from.

Anyway, I realized I was slipping... I realized I needed some help.  I called my best friend, and told her I needed her.  I've never asked for help in my life, and haven't since that night.  She knew me enough that that was very unusual for me, told me to get over there asap.

I pulled up into her driveway, and got out.  I feel like my eyes were huge, heart racing, hair wild, shaking... I must've looked like a nut.  I was holding MY phone, not the whore phone, and said to her, "Stop me!  I'm doing stupid shit!"

She sat me down around her fire pit, poured me some wine, and listened while I filled her in.  She told me to take the social media posts down immediately.  That it was beneath me and to cut that shit out.  That I'm giving her power to post the things I did.  

(I did.  I took it all down except one... that will come later.) 

She definitely calmed me down.  She told me to be glad he had tried to share with me, by giving me the phone.  

I had my Find Friends off while I was there.  I'm not sure why I turned it off, but I did.  He texted me, "Where are you."  I didn't answer.  I spent some time there. I didn't want to come home quite yet.  Talking was good.  Wine was good.

After a while,  I drove home and sat in my car.  He's still texting me, and he actually thinks I went to visit his whore.  He thinks we sat around that evening having bash session about him.  I didn't correct him.  So he thinks I was with her, talking to her.

(He should know me... I wouldn't be talking to her, I would be punching her in the throat)

I used that.  I put together what I thought happened, and used the fact that he thought I was with her.

I told him she told me they had sex.  After he admits it, I let him know she didn't.

Oh, the games that are played.  Straight up truth would've been nice.

I got out of my car, and went in the house.  I kicked the door, I stared at him.  I grabbed something, I can't remember, and I left.  I walked.  I walked to the creek and laid down in the grass.  What the hell?  I don't know, but I laid there.  It was chilly, the sky was clear with millions of stars.  I just laid there.

I just laid there.  Do you know there are lightening bugs -fire flies- in the grass at that time?  I watched some slowly glowing, coming to life, and then slowly blinking out.  I couldn't move.

I just laid there.

Falling in love and car accidents

April was amazing.

That first week after him coming to the skating rink was strange.  He was never far from me, and texts and calls all throughout the day.  He was sweet and attentive.  I did not know what had changed in him, but I was happy.  I also kept one eye on him, and I found myself not really letting any walls down as I did not trust that it would turn again.

The weekend of April 9th found me wanting to get out of the house.  I told him I had found a new antique mall about an hour away, and that I was heading out.  He asked if he could come with me.  Antique malls for me are heaven.  I've nick named them "My Happy Place". Just to spend an hour or two wandering around in the past is my idea of a little slice of heaven.  

Let's just say, he has gone with me before, but he has never asked to come along.  

I said, "sure?"  And he jumped up, went into the kitchen and pulled my wedding rings out of an old milk jar I had stashed them in back in January.  He put them back on my finger, and told me he hopes I never have to take them off again.

We had an amazing day.  He held my hand the whole way there, he held my hand through the mall, he took me to dinner before we headed home.  It was such a nice day.  

We went out, just the two of us, many many times over the next few weeks.  He held my hand, he opened doors, he made me feel incredible. I was falling in love with him all over again.  Dare I say that I may not have fallen in the beginning of our relationship like I was falling now?   I can only describe it as desperate.  Something had shaken us, we almost lost each other, and we were now desperately holding on.  It wasn't hard to do.

My life was wrapped around my kids.  His life was wrapped around our company, his band, and his own life.  We had long ago lost each other.  For the first time in almost 18 years, we were paying attention to US.  Taking time for us.  We talked, we laughed, we went out constantly, we texted, we flirted, we pushed some boundaries that we had not even thought of crossing in the past.

It was amazing.   I fell in love with him. It was easy, it was fun.  It was incredible.  I was seeing this man in a whole new light.  We could not get enough of each other.  I do think though, that we were both taken by surprise by the intensity of what was happening.

April 23rd.   My youngest son was out of state, a weekend training session for scouts.  I was cleaning the kitchen and doing some household chores.  The husband was working on one of the vehicles, and he realized he needed something from the auto parts store.  He let me know he was heading out, and asked our oldest son if he wanted to go.  He told his dad he did, and asked if they could stop by one of his friends house on the way there to pick up a video game. He said yes, and then handed him the keys so he could drive.  He has his learners, and still needs an adult driving with him.

We all said goodbye to each other, and they left.

I finished cleaning and sat down for a bit.  My phone rang.  

"Can you come and pick us up by Advanced Auto?"  I'm registering what he is saying slowly... He took our Suburban, and I'm not picturing that particular vehicle breaking down.  "Why?" I asked.  "The suburban is totaled" he said.  "Come get us, he's OK, I'm OK, just drive carefully and come pick us up"

I don't remember driving there.  When I came on the scene, full of cops and emergency vehicles, all I could think about was finding my son and husband.  I ran through policemen that were standing around, one tried to hold me back, but I kept yelling my son was just in the accident.  My eyes took in the condition of the two vehicles involved, our suburban, almost beyond recognition, and a black Honda Civic, completely demolished.  My eyes took it in, but my mind couldn't comprehend what I was seeing.  No one could survive what these vehicles looked like.

I heard someone yelling out, and I realized that had to be the other person involved.  I had beaten the ambulance to the scene!  Somewhere in my mind, I could hear more sirens heading our way.  He looked alright to me, but his pants were torn, and nose was bleeding.  

I finally realized my son was sitting next to the other young man that was involved. I saw my husband a few feet away talking with police.  

The ambulance came, and took the other driver.  We got our police report, watched a bit of the clean up, and left the scene.  It was horrifying.  It's been 9 months since the accident, and I still have nightmares.   All I can say is that engineering is amazing.  Those two vehicles were completely totaled and everyone walked away.  They did what they needed to do in the accident, and that was protect those inside.  The other driver was fine, my guys were fine.  Just shaken the core.  Our Suburban was towed to a lot, and when we went to get our things out of it, I was just blown away by how many airbags had deployed, and was strangely grateful to whomever designed it to keep my guys safe inside.

That Honda hit them going around 60.  Spun it completely around, knocking it into oncoming opposite traffic.  Both drivers and passengers survived.  Amazing.

Needless to say?  It was a somber evening at our house.  Quiet.  Still.

We went to bed that night not saying much.  He laid down, and I next to him.  I had my hand on his chest, my head on his shoulder.  

To this day?  I can't remember what was said in the next few moments after we laid down.  I've been trying to remember, but can't seem to grasp it.  It seems to dance just right outside of my memory, and I can't grab it.

But I guess it doesn't matter.  Whatever he said, brought HER back into our lives.  Whatever he said that night, laying in the silent dark, I realized that he had just ended with them.  It had just ended with them recently, not January 1st like he had been telling me.  It had just recently ended.

Man... I wish I could remember!!  

I remember shaking my head, and asking about it.  His voice sounded hoarse and shaky as he answered me, saying, "Please.  Not tonight, I can't do this tonight.  I'm sore, stiff from head to toe, and can't do this tonight."

I gave him that.  I let him rest.  I did not.   My head was full of visions of the accident and the two of them together.  I tried to piece together the past 8 months.  I tried to push away the thoughts of the accident, instead trying to focus on the fact that everyone was alive and alright.  I was stuck that night. I was in hell.

The next morning, after he woke up, the madness went into full fledged insanity.  We had to go pick up our son from training that afternoon.  This will be one of my craziest days.  The next few weeks will come close, but this day starts it all.

March...and he left us AGAIN

March 2016

It's been a while.   But I remember this month like it was yesterday.

The end of February brought the knowledge that he was still talking to her through December.  He admitted they talked, only talked, through the end of December.  He said she was very angry with him when he came back home after leaving us right before Christmas.

He swore on everything he could that they didn't have a physical relationship.  He swore that it ended on Jan. 1st, when he came home.

I believed him.

But we fought.  We fought a lot.  He kept doing things that were painful, he kept me at arms length... Except in the bedroom.  We were not lacking there, and connecting like we have never before.   This was hard on me.  I loved our physical connection, but I could also tell he was still wanting to end it.

March 8th... We got into a fight in the yard.   I was so angry.  I picked up a plastic bucket and threw it at his work truck.  I wasn't thinking... It broke his windshield.  March 9th... I had made an appt. with a lawyer.  At this point, I was done.  I had been asking him to go, and he refused.  Even though I feel us parting, and separating... He will just not go.   We have begun having nights with the kids.  Even though under the same roof, Thursday's were his, Tuesday's mine... It was sad.  

I wanted advice from a lawyer, how do I proceed with separating, and how do I get him out of our house?   

I was heartbroken the day I went to see the lawyer.  The building had been sold, and it was now a law firm, but 11 years earlier, it was a real estate office, and I sat in the same room with the lawyer discussing how to divorce my husband, that I sat in 11 years before signing the papers on our first house.  

Bought a house in that room, and looking at a divorce in the same room a decade later.   I could barely breathe.

March 11th.. He asked me to go to dinner.  I went.    Remarkably?  He was sweet.  He changed almost over night.  He gave me his jacket, he held a door open for me for the first time in 25 years.   He laughed.  He held my hand.  

What was going on?  In my head, I was convinced he was just scared... If we split?  His child support and alimony was going to be significant.  Was that why he was being nice?

I didn't know... And honestly, I didn't care.  I welcomed the night, the change, the kindness.  He even told me he loved me.  It didn't last.

2 days later, he moved out again.  He left.  Again.  He packed his stuff and walked out the door.  He said that it was just a separation, a break.  He said we needed it, the fighting at this point was as bad as it could get.  I actually welcomed his absence.  I felt like I could breathe.    But he came back home a week later.  I actually wasn't ready for him to come back this time.  I was able to breathe a little.

March 25th, his band plays.  I go.  I ask him on the way there how they talked.  I didn't understand, I saw nothing on the phone bills, and I saw nothing on his phone.  I wanted to understand what app he was using to talk to her.  He refused to tell me.  We got to the venue he was playing at, and by this time, we are fighting.  He threw his phone at me, we scuffled, and he told me walk the fuck home.  We were literally in another state, but I headed out.    I made it about 7 miles away, and he got me.  The next day... Oh the next day....

I had what can only be described as a break down.  I literally felt it, something in me broke, I felt like my mind split and went crooked... There is no other way to explain it.   I cried.  I cried like I've never cried before.  I couldn't control it, I couldn't control the thoughts, the anger, the pain.  It had been almost relentless since September.  I literally could not take it any longer.   

When I came back, again, that's the only way to describe it, I felt drained and lost.  I felt physically weak.  I felt scared for myself, and my kids.  I had been all out bawling for hours.  I even picked up some broken glass that was in our barn, I had visions of just dragging it across my wrists... I wanted out.  I did not know how to hold it together.

He took the glass from me. I had lost my mind.  

I went to my family's house for Easter.  He didn't go.

April 2nd rolls around.  We are calm.  We spend that Saturday sitting on the couch in the living room discussing how we can separate.  We talk about how the kids' schedule could dictate who gets them and when.  We want to be open, friendly... We don't want to play games with the kids.   On this day, too, a friend of ours messaged him and told him she was sorry that we had separated.  I had long changed my Facebook status to separated... Lol... You know it's official when you change your status.   

He was actually a little shocked about that.  He didn't know, and I could tell as the day progressed, and the conversation about how we could separate continued, that he and I both were coming to the conclusion that it was over. 

He still swore up and down though that it had nothing to do with her, and that he had not spoked a word to her since New Year's Day.

I believed him.

October and November after DDay

End of September:

His birthday falls at the end of September.  He did not want to celebrate it.  But I didn't think that was fair to the kids, after all, I think that the older we get, the more our birthdays become about the family around us.

I made him a cake.  I made him his favorite dinner.  We gave him some gifts.  It was quiet, and there was a sadness in the air, he is pulling away.  He is pulling away in every single way but the bedroom.  Our sex life has become insane.  It's all I can think about.  His texts to me throughout the days are erotic.  

But he will no longer say, "I love you."

"Are you talking to her?"  No.

"Did she contact you for your birthday?"  No.

There is a community event we always go to at this time of year.  We have always looked forward to it.  He wouldn't sit near me, and seemed agitated with me during the event.  All of our friends noticed.  I shrugged, I didn't understand.

"When is the last time you spoke with her?"  "The day you found out was the last time we talked."

October:

Our sons birthday is in this month.  We celebrated it much better than I would've thought.  We shopped together, we made it as special for him as we could.

We spent this month crying, talking, yelling, tearing the marriage down to the bear bones.  We spent this month analyzing everything that I've ever done wrong in this marriage.  We never talk about what he has done, or didn't do.  I'm still to be blamed.  I still know on some level that he is completely justifying what he has done.  But, yet... he maintains that he had done nothing but talk to her for 11 days in September.  That it was over the moment I contacted her.  But that the whole situation, and the fact that he spoke with her at all leads him to understand he has been unhappy in our marriage, and he is done.

But not done in the bedroom.  It's almost every single day.  It's become almost desperate between us, I can not say no.  What is wrong with me???

Halloween comes, and he actually goes out with me and our daughter.  Our boys are too old to go, but she still goes.  I tagged him on facebook as being together and trick-or-treating with our daughter.  I post a picture of our daughters silly costume.  I post it global, so it can be seen by anyone.  I probably did this on purpose...  

Even though the The Whore has blocked me on facebook, I can still see her main picture and cover picture.  We get back from trick-or-treating, and I was curious.  I looked up The Whore, and she had changed her profile picture.  She was looking off to the side, as always, and really fucking sad looking.  I wondered if she had stalked my page, seen we were all out together as a family.  I know she did.  Just as I'm watching her, I know she's watching me.  

I showed him her sad, pathetic, give-me-attention picture.  He shrugged.  I asked again, "Are you guys talking at all?"  "No.  Not since the day you found out."

I'm starting to believe him.  There is NO evidence on our records that they are talking, he lets me look at his facebook, he gives me his phone whenever I ask.  I'm starting to really believe him.  He is never home late, he is always home when he's supposed to be... I think he's telling me the truth.

I'm starting to think we have hit a time in our marriage that we need to step back and look at it.  We had been so busy with our own lives, the kids, our jobs, our families, that we had really forgotten how to be together.

November:

We have really good days in November, and we have really bad days.   By this time, I'm almost glad that it happened.  It's hard to admit that, but without him going to her, without this huge shake-up, we wouldn't be in this super analyzing of our relationship.  We have now spent more time from September to November talking about US, spending more time together, making love, fucking, whatever, than we have done in YEARS.  Probably never as much as we have been these past few months.

There are tears.  There is anger.  But I'm beginning to even forget about her.  She is not in my head as much as she was.  

He tells me what has bothered him in our marriage, and I've been fixing it.  I've realized that these were all things I wanted to for myself anyway.  Repairing family connections that had been lost.  I had a tendency to be negative, and I began to change the way I looked at things and situations, and realized I was happier.   I lost a lot of weight... hard to eat when your stomach is wrecked.  I was like a pitbull when it came to our kids, and I realized I needed to sometimes back away and let them live a little, without so much hovering from me.   

He told me, I worked on myself.   

But, he was still not happy.  He's still not saying, "I love you"  well.. sometimes he would.  Usually after having sex, or when he would leave for work.  I did not stop telling him, but it was getting harder to do, because 95% of the time he would not say it back, and it hurt like hell.  25 years, he always said it back.

Our middle child, our son, his birthday is in November.  It was good, and we pulled it together to give him a great day.  We went to dinner, gifts, cake.  Time together as a family.

Thanksgiving was horrible.  I told him that I had a feeling it was our last.  He didn't say anything.  I told him, "When we sit down as a family, I want you to look around and see what you will never have again, your children and your wife sitting around you as your family."   He didn't say anything.    We ate, we laughed, I tried to hold it together.  He caught my eye at one point, and looked at me so sad.  I looked away.  I didn't want to cry in front of the kids.  When dinner was over, he stood up and helped clear the table.  He kissed me, told me that it was delicious.  He seemed very distant, and very sad.

My birthday is at the end of November.  He took me for a bike ride, but it began to rain, so we had to cut it short.  We came home and spent the whole day wrapped up in each other, we had sex all day long, and into the night.  No talking really, no tears, just laughing, joking here and there, and being together.  He made it a good day. 

By the beginning  of December... The Whore is hardly even talked about.  I do ask periodically, "Have you spoken to her?  Seen her?"  "No."  

She's almost completely out of my mind.  She was an 11 day mistake in September... I can deal with that.  It's caused us to look at US.  Will we make it?  I don't know.  He thinks I'll never get over those 11 days, and that I will constantly throw it up in his face.  He is still telling me he is done with the marriage, but he is still taking me to bed almost every day.  I don't believe he is done.  I'm fighting harder than I've ever fought for something in my life.  My husband, my marriage, my family.

It was an overwhelming sad fall.  Christmas is coming... I have to hold it together for the kids.

Furious...at her AND him

I hate her, I do.  It's over 9 months since Dday, and shit is STILL coming at me from their affair.  4th of July weekend was a disaster.  I'm fucking losing my mind.

I fucking hate her.  I have friends in my life that tell me, "Stop.  To have ANY feelings towards her what-so-ever gives her power in your head."  Let it go, they say.  She's nothing, they tell me.

They say, "HE'S the one that did this.  HE'S the one that broke your vows, your trust, your heart, your family.  Be angry at HIM."

Oh.  I am.  Trust me.

Furious.  My anger towards him, at times, is immeasurable.  I physically shake, clench jaws and fists, I throw things, I've verbally ripped him apart for what he's done to our family.

But I love him.  As angry as I can get at times, it fades quickly.   There's been 25 years of my life loving this man.  There's been decades of memories, decades of love, building our family, raising our children, our trips, our hobbies, our life together.  He's my partner no matter what he has done.  So as angry as I get, as furious as I can be, the bottom line is, he's my husband.  He's the father of our children.  He's been my best friend, my lover, my sanctuary, my other half.

But her??  Fuck her.  FUCK.  HER.  To be honest?  I felt bad for her.  At one point in this whole fucked up mess, I felt bad for her.  This man, my husband, who I thought I knew like the back of my hand, went to this whore with a bucket of lies in his hand.  He went to her and told her his marriage was over.  He went to her with no ring on his finger.  He went to her and lied.

There was a time in November that he and I got into a huge fight.  He's on the couch, and I'm screaming at him.  I knew this woman had lost a husband in January of '15.  He went to her the first time in September.  This woman was about to face the holidays without her husband, and here's my fucking husband handing her a bunch of lies.  Deceit, lies, betrayal.. not only to me,  but to her too.  (Now, I can't believe I felt bad for her at all)

When I found out about them, 10 days into their "affair" I went right to her.  She told me she would not contact him.  That she would not fight for him.  I told her he was married, I told her she and him were destroying a marriage and a family.

So the bitch knew.  In the days after DDay, in the months after... THIS BITCH KNEW.   Every text she would send, every time she put her hands on him, every time they spoke on the phone, SHE KNEW he was married.   Whore.  What kind of fucking woman is she?  A pathetic one.

I think some of my hatred towards her is because it's easy.  I love him, I don't know her.  It's even because I feel some kind of betrayal from her... as a woman, a fellow female, I am dumbfounded that she would do this.  That she would KNOWINGLY help destroy a marriage and a family.  WHY?  What the fuck could she get out of this???

There was several more contacts between her and I in the upcoming months.  I learned the definition of narcissism from dealing with her.  I didn't even know the word until recently.

I read a lot of blogs, and haven't really found one yet that deals with the hatred of the other woman.. or at least it doesn't seem to match the anger I have for her.  I hate that she's in my head at all.  I hate that I look for her when I'm in town.  I hate that I fantasize about running into her, and what I would do.  (I probably wouldn't do a thing... but I think about it anyway)

I read about how other woman is forgiven by the betrayed wife.  I glance through the "homewreckers" on shesahomewrecker.com ... I read the comments.  Almost all of them say, "Blame the husband!!"  But... seriously... why is the mistress always a poor victim?  She's NOT.  

I hate her.  I hate her mother, who clearly didn't raise her well.  I hate her dogs, her cats, the town she lives in, the town she works in.  I hate her car, her sister, her brother.  I hate her dumbass name, I hate her fishponds.  I randomly just hate anything that surrounds her.

But I do have to say, that I'm hoping that in time, I learn to let go of any feelings at all towards her.  I do sort of realize that being this angry, is exhausting and not healthy.  I hope that in time, she becomes to me what she is....Nothing.  But that time is not today.  It's hard to begin to let go, when every other fucking day something new hits me in the gut.

I sometimes wonder if I project my anger and hatred towards her, because to do that to him, tears apart what we are trying to build.  I don't know.  I'm just fucking insane, and today?  Today I hate my life.  I can't take much more.

Confronting my husband about the affair

Fog.  Clouds.  That's all I could see around me.

It's 4 days since D-Day.  It's Thursday.  He just told me the night before that he was, "done."  That it had been over for years.  He felt no connection with me.  He can't talk to me.  He doesn't know what to say.  He swears on everything holy that they are no longer talking.  He thinks he did a good thing by taking off his ring when he went to see her.

I can't help but not only play back the timeline of the past 11 days of their affair, but when he continues to tell me how the marriage has been over for him for years?  I play that timeline too...

I think about family trips, the hobbies we have all gotten into.  I think about all the milestones the kids hit that we celebrated as a family.  I think about hiking together, geocaching, mountain climbing, the million miles of cycling him and I have done together.  I think about getting home from a long cycling trip with him, stripping off our cycling clothes, and just diving into the pool to cool off... and how each of those times we would end up fucking.  All those memories, happy I thought, crash in on me when he tells me he has been done for years. The memories we made with each other, the memories we made as a family of five.  I am not registering or comprehending at all that he has been done 'for years.'

But he and his whore?  I'm digging hard by now.  I want all details.  I want to know when, where, why.  At this point, I've dug into her as much as I can.  I have looked her up on facebook, I've googled her name.  I think I know as much as I need to.

She is already The Whore to me.  I will not say her name, and I'm when talking to him, she is referred to only as that.

I know by this time that he went to her place of business out of the blue for lunch on the 10th of September.  "Did you call her before showing up?"  "No." he says.  "So, you decide to just go visit her, take off your ring, go in, eat lunch?"  "Pretty much, I think we went to a place nearby her work to eat that first day."   I flipped out a little over that.  "YOU BOUGHT THE WHORE LUNCH?"  "No, I bought mine, she bought hers."

Then he goes again the next day, Friday, and he takes off his ring, takes in his lunch and they eat in her whore office.  He plays in a band, and that night they had a gig.  I asked if she went.  He said, "No.  She's never seen us play."  Good.  That's my man... I've been watching and listening to him play for 25 years.  Fuck her.

Then comes the Tuesday that I know he went to her house.  The Tuesday that I could see on her facebook page how excited she was to be going home early.  I wonder why she needed to go home early... fix herself up for a married man?

I remembered that night very well.  I remember that Tuesday now, 9 months later... I remember he showered, shaved.  I remember his clothes looked very nice.  I remember he smelled amazing walking through the living room.  I remember him putting his guitar down by the door, and going upstairs into the bedroom for something.  I remember when he came down, picked up his guitar, he stood there holding it for a second looking at me.  I told him "Bye. See you when you get home."  I reminded him that he had to pick up our son at his girlfriends house at 9.  It was 6pm when he walked out the door.  He did go to band practice, but not for long.  He left after only about 30 minutes and went to the whores house.

I remember making a mental note at the time, when he was leaving, about how he was dressed, showered and shaved to go band practice.  It wasn't usual behavior.  But I brushed it off, and just smiled at my crazy thoughts, and just enjoyed the scent of him still lingering in the living room, and the fact that I enjoyed looking at him looking so good.

Now here we are, just barely over a week later, and my world will never be the same.   Now here I am, 9 months later, and I've discovered the word, "trigger".  Band practice is a trigger to this day.  It pisses me off.  I would never tell him he had to stop the band, that's not where I'm going with this, it's just one of the many triggers that send me backwards.  I hate triggers, they make me feel weak, and they piss me off.   I love his band.  I love the guys, I love their music, and the pride I have for all of them, my husband most of all, is huge.  But... it's a trigger.  Getting easier, but still there all the same.

I asked him again, "Did you fuck her that night?"  "No, I swear."  "Did you kiss her??"  His face changed a little, and I knew the answer.  But he said, "No, I swear."   The conversation begins to change and switch to us.  We start heading to how I'm the worst wife on the planet.  The lack of sex. The lost connection.  The lost feeling of being in love.  The lost this, the lost that.  And how I'm the one that caused all the loss.  I look at him, and say, "But the kids?  My lost connection with you is a result of our children. My whole world is wrapped up in them and all their activities, and all their lives.  I can see how we have lost each other, but what would you have me do?"  We really tear this particular issue down to bare bones over the next few months.  We both realize how much our lives revolved around their schedules.

We both came from difficult childhoods.  I think, I KNOW, we are over compensating that with our children.

But I refuse to be put down because I made them first in my life.  I'm their mother, I don't think I'm the first woman in the history of the human race to put her kids first.

But he does.  He tears me to pieces.  He rips off a piece, shows me how horrible I was, and throws it to the ground.  He doesn't care.  He is tearing me apart on what a bad wife I am to him.  He says I don't support him, I don't have enough sex with him, I don't do this, I don't do that.  Just to put it out there... this same conversation goes on for months, almost daily.  About how bad I was in this relationship.  I had to take it.  I took it a lot.  I listened, I let him rant on about me.  I took it.  If I tried to defend anything I did, or give a reason to something he tore me apart about, he would throw his hands up and say, "See, you don't listen.  You never let me talk."  I would say, "But you are upset with something I did, I get the right to explain to you.."  He would just snap back with, "Whatever."

The lack of sex issue is big.  He throws that one at me constantly, and I throw it back in defense.  At this point, it's been about 7 months since it took a dive.  As I wrote in the days after D-Day, there were a lot of factors that led to the decline of our life in bed.  His depression over the foreclosure, the working on the farmhouse, the heart attack of his brother, and the biggest one... the fact that he would not put that fucking iPhone game down, and I went to bed every single night alone.

He would blame me for not connecting with him.  I would ask him, "What did YOU do to connect with ME?"  and he would tear me apart with answers like, "Nothing.  Because I was not inspired to do so."

I would say, "But remember the time I wanted to go away for the weekend, but I couldn't get you to say yes or no about it?"  he would reply, "Because if I didn't plan it, it wouldn't happen.  You never do anything."

He would throw that one at me a lot.  I was pretty dumbfounded at that, and still am.  Because I did not know he felt like that.  I would try to explain why I always went to him with ideas, or suggestions instead of just planning it and doing it.

To me, it's rejection.  I have an issue with it, it stems from my own fucked up childhood.  So when I would go to him, and ask if he wanted to go here, or there... I was in a state of mind of, "What if he doesn't want to go there, I want him to be happy when we go there, and if he hates my idea, he won't be happy, what if he becomes resentful that we are in a place he doesn't want to be, and starts being an ass because he hates where I picked..."  THIS is my fucked up train of thought, it's ridiculous, and it's always been the way I am, I'm not really sure how to fix it.

I just want the people around me to be happy.  No matter what we are doing, I look at it like THEY are the one that picked what we are doing, so therefore, they are happy, and now so am I.  I guess that makes me a people pleaser?  I don't know.. all I know is, I have this need to make sure people are happy around me.  I guess I screwed up by not making sure he was one of the people around me that should have been happy.

I try to explain this to him, and he just says, "You're fucked up and crazy."

He calls me crazy a lot.  He will spend the next 7 or so months from this point on saying I'm crazy, I'm psycho.  I'm a horrible wife.  He even puts my parenting down.  He puts down how I am with family friends...He puts down just about every single thing about me.

Somehow, through this tearing of me down, I'm still standing.  On some level, under that shock and pain of this whole fucking thing, I'm understanding that this man is tearing me to pieces to justify what he did.  He's justifying why he went to another woman.  He's putting the blame on me, because that makes what he did sit a little better in his own soul.

Somewhere, I know this.  But it's hard to reach and hold onto under the barrage of blaming ME for HIS actions.  I just know it's there.

At this point, and for the months ahead, I'm standing.. but barely.  I look forward, never down.  To look down is to see the shattered pieces of myself all around my feet.

He's completely torn me apart.

I do not know him.  I do not know this man who is hurting me, who is destroying me.  He is cruel, mean and not the man I have known for the past 25 years.