I'm so lost

He left Sunday, Dec. 20th.

I picked myself up out of the driveway, and told the kids to get ready to go out, we are going for lunch.

I stayed out with them as long as I could, to come home to the empty house was an excruciating thought.  But we did, eventually, and I survived it.  For them.

I went to bed, but did not sleep.  I curled around his pillow, breathing in his scent, trying to comprehend what had happened.

I sent him a text, "Doors are locked, kids are OK, wood stove stocked for the night."  He replied, "Thanks."

Monday, I had to work.  I don't remember much.  He came to pick up the boys for scouts.  I just hugged him and didn't say much to him.  Tuesday, our daughter had a instrumental concert.  He came, he sat with me and our son, and he gave me a twizzler.  He had his ring on.   Just a side note... I never saw him without his wedding band on.

Tuesday night, it was unusually warm.  Our region is crazy.  Below freezing one day, warm and barefoot the next.  After the concert, my daughter and I sat on our porch with a lighted frosty the snowman, and just made small talk and joked around.  I did everything I could to lighten the mood.

I also realized I had not shopped for the kids.  What a mess I am.

Wednesday, I went shopping.  I remember screaming in the truck till I was hoarse.  How can I do this?  How can I put this together for the kids?  How can I shop for the very first time for my children without my husband?    But I did.  I was so lost.  So fucking lost.

Thursday, Christmas eve.  I needed to clean.  I cleaned until my muscles hurt.  We had to turn on the air conditioner, it was muggy and warm.  What a strange Christmas eve... I wrapped the gifts, shopped for food.   He texted me, "I have to stop by and drop off something for the kids, and what time do you want me to come over tomorrow."  I told him not to come over that night, that he can come over Christmas.   I didn't want to see him.  I'm holding it together, and I don't want to lose it.

My daughter and I packed up the dog, he's big, and took him to the local dog-wash... a brilliant invention I must say, it sits next to the local car wash, and it's just so convenient!   When her and I returned, he was at the house.

I came in, looked at him like he was crazy, and yet was secretly happy to see him.  So happy to see him.

He spent some time with our daughter, and the boys.  I pulled him into our room to talk, and he laid on the bed with his arm over his eyes.  I asked him how he was.  Small talk.  At one point, he mumbled, "Is this where you rape me?"  I had no intention, but at that point, I did ask..."Are you two seeing each other?"  "No." he said.  "I haven't spoken to her or seen her since you found out."  I believed him.  We started flirting a little, and he was grinning and actually laughing a little.  He told me to text him later, to send him a picture.

He left, and I waited a bit.  Sent him a text, and then sent him a picture that I knew he would like.  We texted a while back and forth.  He told me he would be coming over very early, before the kids woke up for Christmas morning.  I knew what he meant.

And he did.  I heard him around 5am.. he came up the stairs as quiet as can be, and came into our room and locked the door behind him.

Christmas day was nice.  Weird, but nice.  We did presents, we were sort of normal.  But then he left again.  It rained that day.  I stood in the driveway, in the rain, watching him drive away.  He didn't want to stay for dinner.  I couldn't cook.  I stumbled into the house, fell on the couch.  I apologized to the kids, I was so sorry I couldn't seem to cook.  What a loser I am. They were OK, we ate light, and stuck to each others side.  

9pm rolls around, and I get a text from him.  It says, "I don't know how you can out do the picture you sent last night."  So, I did.  I out-did it.  But my heart was not in it, I was playing the game and trying to get him to come home.  We had an interesting texting, facetime, phone conversation for a few hours... it ended with him telling me to make sure my bedroom door was unlocked for the next morning.   He stopped by again, early.  5am.  Came in, locked the door behind him.

He spent the rest of the day at the house.  He worked on his work van, I cooked for him and brought it to him.  He enjoyed every bite, told me that I was an amazing cook, and that was the best lunch he had ever had.  He dropped little lines here and there, about the possibility of him coming home soon, he missed me, he missed the kids, he missed our animals.  I didn't push.  I just went on about my day.  Around 3, he left again.   We didn't text that night...not the way we had been.  We did talk a little, but not much.  Sunday found me looking at the Christmas tree and decorations around the house like they were my enemy.  They needed to go.

I started struggling to get the tree out of the house.  At the same time, I found myself bawling... I felt bad for the tree, I felt bad for our ruined holiday, I felt bad for my kids, I just felt bad.  While crying and dragging the tree out, he called.  He wanted to know if he could do laundry at the house.  I said, "Doesn't your place have a washer and dryer?"  "Yes" he said, "But I would like to eat lunch, watch the game while my clothes wash."  At this time, I was in the backyard, with a phone in one hand, a tree in the other, and trying to stop crying.  I can see the road from here, and I saw his van coming.  I said, "It doesn't matter what I say, I see you're almost here anyway."   He came in... I came in, crying.  He knows I cry over the tree every year, and he gathered me up in his arms, smiling a little at my ridiculousness, and hugged me tight.  Kissed me.  Told me it will be alright.

He washed his clothes.  I cooked lunch.  We watched the football game.  We made love all afternoon.    He left again around 7.  But everything was really starting to feel right.  Like we were going to be OK.

Monday, he was coming over after work to get the boys for scouts.  I made dinner, and texted him that I had dinner waiting if he wanted something before the meeting.  He said he did.  He came late though.  Freshly showered, looking amazing.  He ate real quick, gathered up the boys and left.  He was distant.  I didn't understand.  But I didn't say anything.  He came back after the meeting and asked if it was alright if he went up to see our daughter.  I waited in the living room, he brought her down with him.  He kept putting her around us, and would not be alone with me.  He refused to look at me in the eye.  I asked him what was going on, he said he didn't know what I was talking about.  I followed him out when he went to leave, and tried to engage him, he pushed me away, and drove away.

What is going on??  We had just had three amazing days, with some intensely wild intimacy, there was a good connection going on, and now he's back to keeping me at arms length, and pushing me away.   What the hell??

He left.  I sat in the living room lost.  Screw this... I picked up my keys and got in the truck.  I called him.  He wouldn't answer.  I texted him, he didn't respond.  It just said, delivered.  He wasn't reading them.  I called again.  Nothing.

I start losing it... I think he might be with her.  I go by her house.  Lights are all off, no one looks home.  I call him again.  Nothing.  I'm really losing it now... I feel used and stupid for the things I've done over the past three days, I feel lost and confused.  I don't even know where I am at this point, I've taken turns that have gotten me a little lost.  It's raining.  I'm calling, I'm texting, nothing.  I'm losing it.

I'm hyperventilating, I'm crying, I'm driving, I'm calling, I'm texting... none of this is smart.  But I think I can't do this, I can't do this pain.  Why is he doing this?  How much more can I take?  I drive past a tree... I think how easy it would be to accelerate into it.  Would I survive?  I don't want to.  I just don't want to.  I've failed at the marriage, I've failed my kids, I can't keep their family together, I don't know what the hell to do.  I can't take the pain one second longer.  The trees that are passing me start to look more inviting.

My kids, I think about them.  I can't do this.  As I start to get myself under control, I realize I could go by where he is staying.  I go... his van is there, it looks like he is there.  There are no other vehicles.  I'm just losing it.

I go home, and lay in bed.  I can't sleep.  I can't sleep at all.  I toss and turn all night, I'm so hurt, I'm destroyed, I'm pissed that I'm destroyed.  I'm pissed that I am hurt.  I'm pissed that I thought it would be easier to put my truck into a tree than to deal with what life is handing me.  I'm pissed.

I know what I'm going to do.  I have to take care of myself, and my kids.

They get up the next day, Tuesday, and I tell them they have 45 minutes to pack, we are leaving and going to go sit on a beach in Florida.

And that's what we do.

The hardest thing I've ever had to face... December

I think I've been avoiding my blog because I know December is the next part to the story.

December will never be the same for me again.  I read other blogs, and I know I will have years and years of flashbacks and triggers whenever the weather turns chilly, snow starts to fall, and the holidays become a focus.

December.

It started out OK.  I was having surgery on the 8th.  I would be put under, and it was a three hour procedure.

In November, he texted me at work.  He said, "Call your GYN.  Get on the pill, and let her know what's going on with you."   What was going on was that I was bleeding every month like a stuck pig.  It was like helter skelter.  So, I went, and turns out I had some large fibroids.  She recommended that I have them removed, and then to burn the inside of my uterus.  I asked if I could still get pregnant?  She said, "Yes, so if you want, while I'm in there, I will do a tubal ligation."  So, I agreed.  That's better than the pill, and what the heck.  Just get it all done.

So, the 8th rolls around, and in I go.  He has to take me, but I can tell he does not want to be there.  I'm scared the morning we go.  He doesn't talk to me the whole way there.  He sits next to me before I'm taken back, and he doesn't hug me, or tell me he loves me before I go.  He held out his finger, and I was allowed to just touch the tip of it.

I type this now, and it angers me.  What I didn't know that day, the day I went in for surgery, the day he seemed so freaking annoyed at me for needing to go, that I know NOW...was that it was HER birthday.

Recovery took about a week.  I was in pain, and just kind of out of it.  Around this time, it's our anniversary.  Our 20th anniversary.  He does not even wish me a happy anniversary.  He looks sad, and says, "It would be hypocritical to wish you a happy anniversary, because I know it's not."

I went out to dinner with a friend.  I was so sad.  I had looked forward to the big 20 for a long time.

One weekend, 2 weeks before Christmas, we went Christmas tree shopping.  This is a tradition that we have had for several years.  It's fun, we all argue over the tree, the boys help him cut it, our daughter just looks cute, we drink hot chocolate, we just have a blast during this tradition of ours.  But not this year.

This year...after the tree was chosen, we sat at the picnic tables.  I was sad.  But trying to smile on for the kids.  He put his arm around me, and leaned his head against my shoulder.  "I'm sorry" he said.  We both knew that this was probably the last time we would do this as a family of 5.

It was so sad.  The tree came home, and our daughter decorated it.  She tried to hang on to some spirit for all of us.

But.... I need to put out there that I didn't know why.  He just kept telling me that he was not happy, not in love, it was over for him.  But he STILL kept taking me to bed.  I couldn't buy his, "It's over." when we were connecting in the bedroom like never before.  I would ask once in a while if they had spoken or seen each other and he SWORE that it had nothing to do with her, and they had not spoken since I found out in September.

December 18th.  2 days after our anniversary... I see a tweet from her and her sister.  It says, "20 years is nothing, WE know where his heart is, especially when he sends pictures like this."  And it was some stupid picture of a marquee that said, "Don't fall in love, fall off a bridge, it hurts less."   He was at work when I saw the tweet.  I texted him, he denied it was about them, or us, or had anything to do with him and I.

(I think this is gaslighting?  When someone tries to convince you you're crazy, and makes you second guess every single thing you know to be true?)

That was a Friday.  Saturday night, I was still trying to talk about it.  He kept saying, "Not everything in the world is about you!"  So, I picked up his phone, and said, "Then let me call her and we can straighten this out."  He FLIPPED out.  We ended up in a scuffle, and I ended up on the floor.  He ended up with his phone back.

Sunday, December 20th,  he leaves early in the morning to go pick up a Christmas gift for one of the kids.  When he gets back, I was making breakfast.  I asked him, "Are you hungry?"  He said nothing.

He got in the shower.  When he got out, he still said nothing.    There was something wrong.  I could feel it.  He went upstairs to our room to get dressed.

When he came back down, he had laundry baskets packed full of his clothes, and was heading into the bathroom to get his toiletries.  I was shocked.  I felt this coming, but not before Christmas!

I cried, I howled, I tried to hang on to him.  I was a mess.  I was a mess, and I was pathetic.  He had our oldest son hold me so he could leave.  He put his things in his vehicle, and as he drove away, I collapsed.  I had grabbed one of his pillows. and I just collapsed in the driveway.  It was cold that day, very cold.  I was still in my nightgown, and there I was, laying in the cold stones on the driveway, hugging that pillow that smelled like him.

I couldn't move.  I couldn't even feel the cold.  I was never going to get up.  I wasn't even crying.. I just laid there.  My son, he said, "Mom.  Please get up.  It's cold, I can't feel my feet."  I couldn't even answer him.  I couldn't move.    He just left us, 5 days before Christmas.  He.  Just.  Left.

My son started to cry.  He said, "Mom, please please get up, your legs are bare, it's so cold, you're going to get hypothermia."  I still couldn't move.  It sounded like his voice was coming from far away.  I remember wanting to move, but I just couldn't.

He leaned down next to me and told me he was going to get his sister, and that he didn't want her to see me like this, but he would do it.

That snapped me back a little.  I remember looking at him, and working my way up.  It was the hardest thing I've ever done.  Stand up, and walk back in the house.  My legs didn't work right, and I didn't know what to do.

Shock?  Was I in shock?  I don't know.

I knew him leaving was coming, but I didn't believe it until he actually left.

He left.  5 days before Christmas... he left.  He left me, he left his kids, he left our home.

What am I going to do?

What is Love?

#Poet #Poem #Poet #words#Love #PoetSociety #Poems #WordPorn #Storytelling #WritingCommunity#SpilledInk #PoetsofIg #instapoet#Passion#Art#Human#WordArt#Prose #WritersofInstagram#jasonking

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.