What is Love?

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A photo posted by @jason_kinggggg on Jul 14, 2016 at 2:34pm PDT

I follow a poet on Facebook and Instagram.  I like him a lot, he's amusing, he's real, he writes with raw passion, and it usually all fits in a little square picture on Instagram.

Jason King

On Facebook this morning, (Jason King Facebook) he asked "In a few words of your own, what do you think love should be like?"

Much of his work stops me, and gets me thinking... but this one really stopped me.

What do I think love should be like?

I don't know.  I'm in so much pain lately, that my first instinct is to say, "To not hurt."  But, I wonder, if I didn't love as much, then it wouldn't hurt as much.  I would rather have the love and hurt, than nothing?

But one of the other thoughts that ran through my head almost immediately was a trip I took to the Grand Canyon.  I was with a group, and we entered the park gates.  The road past the gates was tree lined, and seemed to go on and on.  We were all like, "Where is the canyon?"

 And then there it was.  Almost out of nowhere, there it was.

We got out, and everyone was silent.  I walked towards the rim, and for the first time in my life, I couldn't stand.  My knees went right out from under me, and I went down on them.  I couldn't move, I just sat there, on my knees, my chest felt heavy, the emotion was indescribable.

That feeling.  On my knees, on the rim of the Grand Canyon... That feeling... it's what love should be like.  When it first enters your life, when it hurts, when you miss them, when you're happy, when you're sad. When you say your vows, when you look into the eyes of your child for the first time.

When you say goodbye.

That is what it's like for me.  I've been brought to my knees again.

So What do I think love should be like?  I think it should bring you to your knees.

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.

I need a break

I need a break.

I have this incredible urge to get those first weeks out, to get them out now.

I already feel a little bit better about DD.  It's writing and releasing.  Writing and releasing...

I took a break from it yesterday.  I wanted to spend some time with my daughter and a few friends.  The rest of the family has been on a camping trip for the last week.

One thing I'm beginning to learn, is that I don't have to feel and deal with everything RIGHT THIS MINUTE.  It's alright to push it to the side for a minute and just be me for a while.

I went to bed the night I started this blog exhausted.  That was Thursday night.  I told myself I would let it go on Friday, relax, enjoy the day.   I told myself it would be a good day, and I would not allow myself to think about him, the affair, the OW.  (I really want the initials to be, 'OW', and for it to stand for Other Whore)   Or how about TW.  The Whore.  So much better.

But no.  Can't happen.  Because every other day, something new comes out, and it sends me spiraling back into Crazy Town.  I swore yesterday that I was leaving him.  I swore up and down that it was over.  I was packing his shit, and he was out. I can't take one more fucking discovery.  But they just keep happening.

So, I'm taking a break today.  We talked and argued over what sent me spiraling backwards, and it's sort of fixed.  I think.   They come home today, so I'm going to put this on the back burner for today.   I hope.

I know the months coming up in the story are burning in me to get out.  I've learned all kinds of new terms and acronyms:

DDay - Discovery Day  (for me.. there was 3...I'll explain)
OW - Other Woman (Other Whore, or The Whore, as I like to call her)

Hysterical Bonding. (my new favorite term)

Hysterical Bonding.  Google it.

The first three days after DDay, I was very confused why I wanted him so bad.  How I could let him anywhere near me?  How I could want to go anywhere near him?

I was confused and battling with myself, but I could not seem to say no, or stop myself.  I could not get enough of him.  It was all I could think about.  When we weren't talking, fighting, discussing, crying, yelling.... we were fucking.

 It was only a few weeks ago when I started looking for help, that that term came into my life.  I actually feel a little relief that I am not the only one, and it's quite common after discovering your spouse has had an affair.

The day I got aboard the Crazy Train

It's Wednesday now.  Only 3 days past DD.  It already feels like a lifetime at this point.

Just so you know, Crazy Train has come for me now, and there's really no holding back on the language.  If it offends, please move on to the next blog.


He's home from work, and went downstairs to his office.  I followed.  He sat in a chair far from me, I sat in his office chair, knees pulled up to my chest, my arms wrapped around my legs.

"I'm done."  he said.  Those words caused my head to swim.  "No." I said. "It's over." He said.  "No." I said.   This was the beginning.  The first time he's ever said anything like this.  I'm swimming.  I can't seem to come up for air.  You don't end a marriage of 20 years, three children, by saying "I'm done."  What the hell?  I think of the past few days, we've been making love like rabbits, clinging to each other... what has changed??

We talk for hours.  I cry for hours.  He looks sad for hours.  I talk about the kids, I talk about why he did what he did.  I talk until I can't stand to hear my voice one more second.  I'm trying so hard to understand why he is doing this.  "Do you love her?"  "I don't know what is going on." he said.  "I can't talk to you."

"How can you even think you love this woman after only a little over a fucking week?"  I scream.  He hangs tight to, "I don't know what's going on."  I ask, "Are you still talking to her??"  "No, we are no longer talking." he said.

We go upstairs.  He sits next to me on the couch, picks up his phone to play that fucking game.  I see the ring on his finger flash in the lamplight.  I'm almost obsessed with looking at it.  I can't take my eyes off of it.  I ask him, "I hate that that ring was anywhere near her, or touched her."  He looked up from his game and said, "I took it off when I went to see her."

Annnd helloooo Crazy Train.  It stopped, picked me up, and off we went at a very high speed.  "What the fuck do you mean you took it off?!!"  He just looked at me, like he thought that by taking it off to go be with her was a good thing.  I think he actually thought he did something right.  I said, "You took your ring off, went to see her, and put it back on before you came home?!"  "Uhh.  yeah?"

I don't even remember what I said.  It was like a kick to the fucking stomach.  I remember looking around the room, I remember feeling crazy.  I remember throwing something into the kitchen, though I can't remember what.  It made a mess though, I remember cleaning it up later.

 I made it to the back porch, leaned over the railing, and threw up.  This has now happened like three times, over an emotional outbreak. This has never happened to me in my entire life.

"Do you love me?" I cry.  "Yes, I do.  You know I do."  He says.  What the hell does that mean, I wonder.  How is he doing this to us?  How is he doing this to his family?

We make love again when we go to bed.. but this time is different.  There's a roughness, an anger on his part, a very raw passion.  It's confusing.  I'm so confused.

I laid there that night, listening to him breathe.  I moved next to him, pressed my face into his back, breathed in his so familiar scent.  I could feel his body move with his heartbeat.  I loved him.  God, how I loved him.  I will not let this man go.  I will do whatever it takes to keep my family together.


My oldest told me earlier in the day, "There are 5 stages you will go through, Mom."  He tells me of the 5 stages of grief.

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.

I wondered... what stage was I at?  So far, I'm in denial that he's done with the marriage.  How can I take that serious when he keeps making love to me?  I haven't really gotten angry at him, not really.  I'm not depressed... Definitely not accepting... but I'm starting to wonder if I'm bargaining.  I will not say no to him.  Am I bargaining with my body?  I can't help but wonder.  Are there rules to this '5 stages of grief'?  Do they go in order?

And I can't help but remember that it's only been three days at this point.  I'm on the train ride now.  I can't get off.

The days after DDay

DD was on a Sunday night going into Monday morning.  

I went to work that Monday morning, and sat at my desk, dazed.  I had not slept.  I'm way to old to be pulling an all nighter. I can't believe I've gone to work.

I'm sitting at my desk, and a co-worker comes in and sits down and talks about her weekend.  At one point, I looked over at her, and I remember her gasp.  She said, "Oh, what is wrong?"  I said, "I didn't sleep last night.  I need to find some coffee."  She asked why I had not slept.  I just looked at her, I felt like I was standing next to myself, I didn't feel real.  It didn't sound like my voice when I answered her.  "My husband has a girlfriend."  She was shocked.  She asked what was going on.  I told her what I knew.  I showed her the text between the OW {Other Woman} and I just minutes before.  

It's so fresh at this point.  I'm in some kind of weird shock.  I don't even remember driving to work.  But I looked at her as I was talking about the discovery.  I looked at her, and I said, "This is horrible.  I'm in shock, but I KNOW why it happened.  I can see it, I can feel it.  I even understand why."

We had just gone through a foreclosure.  It was an extremely long process, and it was terrifying to go through.   He had always provided well, made very good money, ran his own business.  We bought at the height of the market, and when the recession hit about 6 years ago, it hit us very hard.  We went from 6 figures a year to almost nothing.  It hit him hard.  We both carried the weight of uncertainty, and fear of being homeless with three children, but he carried it harder.  He held the most weight.  

That was one of our problems there, we were both under so much stress, but we didn't talk to each other about it.

Not only were we facing this foreclosure, but in knowing that it was going to happen, we rented a small, very old, farm house.  It needed a lot of work, so much work that it was a year of working on it to make it livable before we moved in.  When we foreclosed, we moved into the farm, and right around that time, his brother had a massive heart attack.  He was his partner at work, his brother, his friend.  His brother pulled through, but it's a miracle that he did.  

He wasn't the same after that.  I watched him shutting down.  I did not know how to reach him.  I watched him shrink under the weight of all that was going on around him.  I did not even know how to talk to him.  My life was insanely busy with the kids.  I was running them everywhere, they are all involved in so much activities.  Between work, and the kids, and my husband who was disappearing before my eyes, I was lost.  I saw it.  I tried to talk to him, but I'm sure it came out to him as bitching and nagging.   I felt like I was raising the kids alone, running everywhere, every day, and he was literally sitting on the couch playing an iPhone game.  

Hours he played that game.  On weekends?  He played that game 15+ hrs a day. Past midnight or later on weeknights.  I went to bed by myself every single night.  He started sinking money into the game.  I was annoyed, and honestly, confused.  I wouldn't do that, so I couldn't comprehend him doing it.  If I was sitting at one of the kids events, I would be cheering them on, and he would have his face in that game.

He picked that game up around the same time his brother had a heart attack... So as pissed off as it made me?  I sort of understood.

I definitely got bitchy.  I got bitchy, and I got lonely.  I started resenting.  But I didn't voice it all the time.  I would go about my life, and it would build internally.  It would get let out about once a month.  I would bitch about the game, I would bitch about yard work, or that we didn't do anything as a family anymore.  I would bitch, but I would bitch nicely.  I knew he was going through something, so my bitch would be not as raging as I felt inside.

He felt like I was a nagging, bitch of a wife.  I could not see at the time that his world had taken a serious hit.  His EGO had taken a hit.  He's never relied on anyone for anything. He rarely talks. I think he felt like he lost our home, and I think he felt some kind of awareness at the near death of his brother.  It's not usual for someone in our age range to have that type of heart attack.   

So, I told her.  My co-worker... I told her.  "I KNOW why it happened.  I can see it, I can feel it.  I even understand why."  I tell her everything that he had been going through, that I think led up to this.

I told her, "This woman?  This other woman?  She has no children.  She represents relief to him.  There's no responsibility to her.  He doesn't have to provide for her, shelter her, take care of her.  I think he thinks he has failed me and the kids.   I have never, ever told him he failed us, I believe that feeling is inside of him.   I have held on to him during the last couple of years, trying to make him understand that I don't care about losing the house, we could live in a goddamn box for all I care, as long as we are all together.  A house doesn't make a family, the people do."

She asked me, "How long has it been going on?"  I said, "I don't know.  We were up all night, and he kept denying there was anyone else."  I told her how I found out he lied that morning, with the other phone, and him admitting it once he saw I messaged her.   I said, "I know nothing else right now."  So I picked up my phone and texted him.  I asked, how long?  He didn't want to talk to me at work.  I said, "Fine, I'll just text her and ask."  He replied right away.  "A week."  he said.

I was dumbfounded.  What?!  A week?  I pulled up the info I could on that phone, and damn, he was telling the truth.  They exchanged phone numbers around the 10th of September.  11 days.   I started replaying every single second of the past 11 days.  Every second, every moment, every single word we spoke to each other replayed through my head.

Is that normal?  I don't know.  Someone please tell me if that's normal, or if I'm the only one.

I have since nicknamed it, "The Timeline"  I replayed the timeline a million times.  I realized that the previous Tuesday, he had gone out that night, and was supposed to be with friends.  I knew he was with her.   

I checked her facebook.  I looked at that Tuesday... She posted that she was leaving work early, and was excited.  By that time, it was only 5 days into them 'talking.'  I was so pissed.  

She had all this other stupid shit on her facebook page, too.  She had these dumbass pictures posted that said shit like, "Having a deep conversation with someone is the new making love"  "You're the one I couldn't forget even at the last breath I take.  You're the one my heart longs for because I found real joy in you."  "Date someone who gives you chills just by the way they look into your eyes"  I was sick to my stomach. 

When we got home from work, the questions started.  He refused to answer anything that night.  That was Monday, and like I said in the previous blog, we ended that night in each others arms, wrapped around each other all night.  

I slept, but not well. I felt like my heart rate was never going to slow down, and my stomach was in knots.  I hadn't eaten since Sunday morning.

When I woke up the next day, I was feeling a little frisky, so I woke him up with my hands.  We made love again, and once again, I battled internally, trying to figure out my actions.  I don't understand how or why I would want to touch him, or have him touch me.  What was going on?

But it wasn't long into the morning before I started in on the questions again.  Needing to know everything I could.  When did it start?  It's only been 11 days, how many times could you have possibly seen each other?  Have you talked since I found out who she is?... on and on.  

He's making coffee, looking at me sadly.  He answers.  "We've seen each other 3 times.  I went to her work twice, we had lunch both times."  "Yes, I went to her house that Tuesday night, we just talked, I promise."  "We have not spoken since yesterday when I called her and she was angry."   

I flew out of the house.  (I will spend a lot of time over the next 9 months flying out of the house like a crazy person)  I couldn't breathe.  I was crying like an idiot.  I know damn well he did not go to her house just to talk.  I started yelling, "You fucked her!  You fucked her!"  He grabbed me, holding on tight, he said, "Sometimes you need something from someone that's not sex, I did not have sex with her."  He held me tight for a long time, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

We went to work.  I just sat at my desk again.  Dazed, sick, tired.  Needing coffee.  My friend came in, I filled her in on the details that I had.  "No." She said, "I don't think they hooked up, he didn't do it.  You found out before it happened, I think.  You guys can work this out, you'll be OK."

My facebook posts by this time were bordering on some violence.  Not like me at all.  I'm usually pleasant on FB, and stay out of drama.  I definitely checked out her page, she had some dumbass post about wearing some ugly boots to work and kicking some ass around there.  I believe I sprained my left eye rolling it when I read that stupidity.

But, it was like 2 minutes later when she blocked me.  Oh well, there went my stalking ability.  

But MY posts were so not like me, that my best friend texted me and asked me if I was alright.  No.  I replied.  No.  So I filled her in as much as I could.  We had off the next day (Wednesday) so she asked me to come over, and talk.  

She's not only my friend, but she's his too.  Her and her husband, and me and mine did a lot of things together over the past decade.  She knew my husband, and was very shocked that this was happening, and that he did something like this.  

Tuesday night brought more questions, more tears, more love making.   Still not much sleep for me, and I still couldn't get any food down.  At that point I have not eaten since Sunday still.  Only about 5 total hours of sleep.

The next day, Wednesday, I'm off work, and I'm having trouble getting off the couch.  I start playing "Titanium" and I can't stop crying.  My oldest, who pretty much knows exactly what is going on at this point, walks by and leans down for a hug.  "You'll be alright, Mom.  You'll be alright."  Kisses my cheek and goes back to his room.   

My friend texts me, she says, "Where the hell are you, get over here."  I almost don't go.  I feel so weird... no sleep, no food, my heart rate is insane.  But I go.  We spend the afternoon talking about it, she's shocked it's only been a week for them, she also assures me that she doesn't think they slept together either.   I needed that time with her, I felt better.  She told me to go home and sleep and eat.  
I wanted to, but didn't.  He comes home from work.  He goes downstairs into his office.  He doesn't say anything to me really.  

I go downstairs to him.  This night is a blur now.  Very foggy, and I don't know much of what happened.  But this is the day, the night, the moment, that I boarded the train to Crazy Town.  It's 9 months later, and I'm pretty sure I'm not getting out.  I want off this train ride so bad.  I want my life back.