Day Eleven

Daddys home.  The day was long and tiring.  I emotionally prepared for his arrival, knowing that I had to pretend to be much more excited than I was (for the kids' sake) yet I actually felt a little excited.  The future is so unclear, he doesn’t even know if he wants to be with me, but at least he is home.  Not with her.  I left for the evening so he could be with the kids and not feel awkward, for them.  I returned to find him asleep on the couch and wanted so badly to curl up next to him. He woke up for a bit and hung out with my sister and I, we were drunk and he enjoyed our silliness.  He went to bed with his phone, which I thought was strange.  No, I am being crazy.  He couldn’t possibly be hiding any more from me.  My sister reassured me that he was probably just a little "gun shy" with it being his first night home.  This whole thing has made me question everything...

Day Ten

Today he will pick his mother up from the airport and tell her everything… well, at least I think he will tell her everything.  After that, we will go out to dinner again before he returns home tomorrow night.  I want him to call me or text me or email me or do SOMETHING to show that he is in this.  That he wants this.  I feel powerless and maybe the sexual activity last night was my trying to win him back.  Show him that I can give him what he needs.  I feel slightly dirty, like a one night stand just took place with my best friend and I don’t know how to face it.  At least he is not talking to her anymore.  She hasn’t made any contact with him and hopefully will be gone forever…

Dinner was great. We had the same chemistry as last night, except this time we went back to his hotel room for a bit before I headed home to relieve my sister of her babysitting duties.  What happened in the car on the way to the hotel was wild.  We did and said things that I would have never thought would happen.  Illegal things that could have gotten us into a car accident, except they all felt so good that we couldn’t stop.  At the end, while still laying in bed naked and he inside my body I burst into tears at the thought of the two of them together.  Did he touch her the same way?  Did he tell her how good it all felt?  I left in a daze, barely able to handle the terrible thunderstorm storm that awaited me.  As I drove home, I was pummeled by hail and cried relentlessly in my car.  I called him to be my savior, to talk me through the drive and I realized at that point that he was the only person I ever wanted to call to save me, but I didn’t trust him to follow through with it.

Day Nine

He comes home tonight, has been gone for 10 days and staying in a hotel for the next two nights so that we can figure out how to be around each other before he sees the kids.  I am picking him up from the airport and anxious about how he will be when he sees me.  Will he realize how much he loves me?  Will he realize how much he doesn’t, how much he loves her instead?  Has he missed her these past 10 days that he has not talked to her?  I have decided to my make first, of many, efforts in healing our relationship… I will park and be inside the airport when he gets off the plane (as opposed to sitting curbside waiting for him).  I worry that this decision sends a “doormat” message, that he will think he can get away with what he has done because I will be there.  I want him to see how strong I can be, how I feel that we can get through this, if he chooses me.

If he chooses me… How terrible does that sound?  I am the one who was betrayed, I am the one who feels lost and powerless, I am the one who is stuck with images of the two of them together, yet I am waiting to see if he chooses me.  That is not what I signed up for when I married him.  I signed up for a life of love and support, a life of honesty, a life of obstacles that we overcome together, not ones that bring him into the bed of another woman.  BUT, I signed up for better or worse… I have got to give this everything I have.  For me, for my kids, for my future relationships (should there be any).  THAT is what I am doing.  I am bettering myself for my own future, regardless of who chooses to share that with me.

We had dinner and drinks at a restaurant by the airport and at first the conversation was strained, talking about the whole situation, then it took a turn I never expected.  We flirted and fooled around.  I felt powerful, amazing.  I looked great and felt on top of the world, in a weird, insecure way.  I know that we have never had the sexual relationship that we each deserve and I decided, in an instant, to change that.  We made out like teenagers at the restaurant then finished up in the car before we went our separate ways, me to my home and him his hotel room.  I went to bed feeling renewed, sexually satisfied and hopeful.

Day Eight

My four year olds first dentist appt today.  She is strong willed and incredibly anxious about everything… afraid of everything.  I had to dig deep and muster the strength to get her through this visit.  We had been talking for weeks about it and I promised to get her a book on dentists from the library, but completely forgot to in the midst of the affair aftermath.  She, very unpolitely, reminded me of this on our way there and I knew it was going to be a disaster.  Yet another casualty in this horrible thing… my daughter now HATES the dentist.  Once she was in the chair, I tried to reason with her and bribe her to get her to let them brush her teeth.  She was not having it.  Out of frustration and emotional exhaustion, I burst into tears asking, no begging, her to just let them brush her teeth!  The dentist politely informed me that this was not going to help the situation and that from what he could tell her teeth were fine and that we should leave and try again in 6 months so she is not traumatized.  Too late.  She already thinks the dentist made me cry.

After a good public breakdown and massive guilt over what this is doing to my kids, I found an inner strength that I had no idea existed and went on with the rest of the day with my fake smile and loved the crap out of my babies. 

The evening brought on the extreme sadness, magnified that feeling in the pit of my stomach that wont go away and the fear of the moment that I had to go to bed.  Going to bed was the hardest part of my day anymore.  That is when my mind raced with realizations of the last few months since he began talking to her regularly.  Every night that he seemed quiet and distant I wondered if they had sex that day and if he was distant because he preferred her.  Was he withdrawn because he missed her?  Why wasnt I enough?  I remember one evening where he was constantly texting someone on the other end of the couch, it was probably her.  While I sat next to him, he was professing his feelings towards her, sending dirty messages and maybe even planning their future together.  While I sat next to him, I was begging him to pay attention to me, pleading for quality time together and wondering what I was doing so wrong that he was so withdrawn.  I was hurting and he didnt even notice, I was trying everything in my power to reconnect with him and he wasnt paying attention... he was thinking about and contacting her.