Day Twenty Eight

He’s back at work and I am back to my daily grind of parenting, errand running and managing the house.  It’s a cold rainy day and I have an important volunteer meeting to prepare for, which allows me to get my mind off of the affair and the fact that he is back at work, with a telephone I cant monitor in one of the places he used to have sex with her.  I still have so many questions… what was she going to tell her mother about?  Why has he ever seen her house when this supposedly only took place at work?  Has he ever done this before her?  What about those weeks after our first child was born when he withdrew just like he did when he started seeing her?   Was there someone else?  I couldnt help but dissect our entire relationship. 

We settled down after we put the kids to bed and he took his work computer out.  I noticed that an opened window that had been minimized was title “Deleted Messages” and I panicked.  What was he deleting?  What was he hiding?  Were they in contact?  My heart raced and I, instead of asking in anger, waited a moment to compose myself. I asked and he explained that he had had to delete a bunch of large sent emails to free up space on his work email.  What I wanted was for him to open the window and show me, without my having to look like the crazy one and open it for him.  He didn’t. His email filling up has been an issue with his work email account for years, and while I didn’t believe him I decided to take his word for it.  He cant possibly want to hurt me anymore than he has.  He is not the same man who did this, I just have to keep reminding myself of that.

Day Twenty Seven

We woke up cuddling and loving eachother.  We had breakfast as a family and went to church, for the first non-holiday service we have ever attended.  At church, I prayed for strength and the ability to keep my mouth shut for one whole day.  I swore to God that I would not bring up the affair, not ask any of the questions that had weighed on my mind and enjoy my family as much as I could.  I was successful!  We spent the entire day together, a trip to the library, lunch at a restaurant, watched last nights movie while the kids napped then ran some errands, had dinner and went out for ice cream.  It was one of the greatest days we have had, with only a few moments of silent sadness on my part.  I quietly worked through the rushes of doubt and depression that I felt throughout the day and powered through the images.  I only hope that every day in our future will be this way, minus the moments of silence I had to take to get through my emotions. 

I realize that he must heal as well.  He feels terrible about it and I cant continue to make him feel worse.  I wish he could feel the way I do, for just a moment, to see how badly I hurt and how horribly I feel about myself.  He cant.  He will never know this because I will never do this to him.  But, I cant berate him with my sadness, I need to find out a new way to deal with this that no  longer effects him.  I checked out books from the library on how to deal with infidelity and I will read them and learn from them.  I must allow him to heal, no matter how hard that is. 

Day Twenty Six

His homecoming day!  In the morning I felt excited about it and that’s good… right?  I wanted him home, back in our bed and not because I wanted to know where he was but because I just wanted to be with him.  I am trying to come up with ways that we can have a weekend away together, but our kids are so young that its hard to find an overnight sitter.  I want to start activities together, like couples personal training (we both love to work out) or bowling or something that he and I can do without the kids.  I am looking forward for the first time. 

We picked him up from the airport and enjoyed an ice cream treat on our way home, then put the kids to bed and sat to watch a movie.  We were both so exhausted from the last few days that we fell asleep in eachothers arms on the couch within twenty minutes of the movie starting. 

Day Twenty Five

A new day of realizations… I reach for a cup out of the cabinet and grab the one he brought me from the zoo as my “souvenir” from his trip to St Louis, the trip to the zoo he took with her.  How can this man stand to hand me a cup from the zoo trip with HER?!?!  I also realize that when he took MY son to her yogurt shop, they had already been sleeping together.  He brought an innocent child into his dirty, disgusting relationship.  MY innocent child.  OUR child.

I cant stop being angry and hurt.  I cant stand the sight of him at times, but I don’t want him out of my sight.  I can no longer control anything and I feel lost and worthless.  My body is depleted, I have lost  over 10 lbs on my already small frame in the last 25 days and I lack energy and motivation.  I am officially “unhealthy” in terms of my weight and I cant even imagine eating enough to bring myself back to the 117 pounds I am regularly. How do I do this?  Today is a whole new day of pain and frustration.  I don’t know how to go on living with this, I don’t know how to forget and I definitely don’t know how to forgive.

The afternoon took a positive turn… I decided NOT to berate him with my newfound realizations, but just try to work them out in my head.  Who he is today is not the same man he was when this was happening, he was withdrawn during their entire relationship and was “caught up” in all of it.  It wasn’t a reality to him, it was a fantasy life with a rich girl whose life he was attracted to more than her.  I just wish he hadn’t taken it all as far as he did.  No matter how filthy this girl is, he should have been up front with her.  He should never have told her he loved her and should never have allowed any of this to happen, no matter how strong her advances where.  She definitely deserves some pain in this, but not the way it happened.  I have been a girl who loved someone, only to have them leave for someone else and had that man drug it out the way he did, I would have been even more destroyed.  But, I did not bring it on myself like she did.  I did not ask a married man to leave his family. 

After a nice day of playful texts back and forth, he called me to say goodnight.  About three minutes into the conversation I became cold and distant and he called me on it.  I don’t even know what happened, the sound of his voice made all the feelings and realizations start running through my brain.  I attacked him with it all… and he was not happy.  He said he had been excited to talk to me, then wanted off the phone because he was tired of talking about it.  He’s right.  I hate to admit it but he is.  If we are going to get through this, I need to let go of my anger and stop attacking him.  I need to allow him the chance to forgive himself for what he has done, and that cannot be accomplished by my constant badgering.  How do I do that?  How do I let go?  I wish I knew what he had to do to help make it happen because, regardless of what has happened, I do not want to punish him any longer.

Day Twenty Four

Today I sent him off on another business trip, back to St Louis where the affair traveled with him.  They stayed in a hotel together, spent a night in each others arms and I am left with the visions of it all.  Dinner out together, waking up with each other, a little action before the workday started, a trip to the zoo together while I was visiting family in Washington. My dead fathers birthday and he wasn’t even thinking about me.  A huge fight with my mother and he was with her when I needed him to be there for me.  He chose her over me.  He chose her over our children.  How do I sleep tonight knowing he is in the hotel where they spent such enchanted fucking evenings together?!?! She slept in the same bed as the pillow he travels with, the pillow that lives in our bed.  I realized that he had, for the first time, asked for a new pillowcase before the trip he took her on.  Gross.  He was preparing to be with her, to share a bed with her while we were standing in our bedroom with our children.  Now, he is in a city where I have never been, where there are only memories of her all around him.  I realized that, at a time when they were probably in bed together, I was singing his praises to my girlfriends about him and our life together.  What a fool I am.

So, I took this opportunity to search his car.  I looked at every piece of paper, every little piece of trash to search for clues that he is still talking to her.  I found a tshirt from the yogurt shop she owns, which I threw away, and that was it.  While it was anticlimactic, it was also a little bit of reassurance.  Either he is done or he is much better at hiding it. 

The day went on in a blur… I tried so hard to not think about any of this and concentrate on our children.  My poor kids have no idea whats going on, but they sense the tension and my absence and are acting out as a result.  They did not deserve this.

When they talked about spending their lives together, did they even consider the kids?  Does this girl know how hard it is to have TWO kids, let alone three (adding in her young son)?  Were they going to get custody then hire a fancy nanny to care for my kids while I was stuck in an apartment somewhere pining for my children?  Do they even know what to do with my daughters incredibly curly hair?  How about my sons excema… were bleach baths or oatmeal creams in their future too?  She told her mom about him.  He was excited that she did, wondered what she said.  This was a few days before he chose me. 

A late night phone conversation brought on more tears and anger.  I realized that several weeks ago when I called him from WA while she was visiting him in St Louis, I was crying and upset that he had the entire day off and never contacted me.  During this, he just sat on the other end of the phone, not saying much.  I was begging and pleading with him that I needed him and I loved him and I wanted to get through what we were referring to as our “disconnect” and he said very little, quietly.  She was there, with him.  I poured my heart out that day and she was sitting there, in my relationship, damaging my family and my soul and nobody showed any signs of guilt.  He said to me, in our conversation tonight, that he is sick of talking about it all the time.  Doesn’t he realize that I am much more sick of LIVING it?!?!?

Day Twenty Three

Not a horrible day, I actually accomplished quite a bit.  I had a few good meals and even went most of the day without feeling sick.  The evening was a different story, more conversations about the horrible thing he did.  I am constantly playing a timeline back in my head and have concluded that every time I thought he was distant, it was because he didn’t want to be with me.  He preferred her.  He would text on the couch, with his body turned away from me.  It was probably her.  He rarely sat next to me, he never kissed me when he came home from work and seemed hardly interested in sex, turning down my advancements on more than one occasion.  I cant stop berating him with my anger.  I cant stop trying to make him feel horrible, its not even intentional… I just want somebody to hurt as bad as I do. 

We went off to bed and tried to fool around, while his fingers were inside me I wretched.  I couldn’t stop playing back in my head pictures of him in her body.  How did she taste?  What did she do for him?  What did they say in throws of passion?  He stopped and asked if I was ok, I said no.  We lay there for a bit and talked, I tried to push the awful images out of my head but they just kept rushing back.  Finally, we kissed a little, then a lot.  He said “We can just kiss, its ok” and with that, those few words, I felt safe with him for a moment.  I felt aroused at that and we had great sex, close sex, the kind where your bodies are so close that you feel like one person.  But, as soon as we were finished, I wondered if they had ever had that, had they ever made love like that?

Day Twenty Two

His first day back at work since he professed his love for me and his willingness to work it out.  I try to be positive and remind myself that he has never bullshitted me when it came to his feelings, he had been telling me for a few months that he wasn’t “in love” with me, that something was missing… but he also told me he wanted to work on it and try to rekindle what we had lost.  He was great today, sent me text after text, letting me know that I was on his mind.  He even got a little flirty and actually got me in the mood for a little afternoon self-pleasuring which I hadn’t been in the mood to do in months. It worked out in both of our favors because we had the most amazing sex that night.  We tried positions we had never tried, did and said things that one would see in a dirty movie  that I have always been too embarrassed to admit to being aroused by.  I suppose my newfound fearlessness in the bedroom comes from the fact that he is not the first man to cheat on me nor is he the first to get a little bored with the sex AND he couldn’t possible hurt me any more than he has by telling me “no” or thinking I was too freaky.  I have always wanted to be the nice girl, not the slutty one.  I wanted him, especially, to see me in an angelic way, as the mother of his children and the woman he loves.  Unfortunately, he also needed me to get a little dirty in the bedroom and I refused to consider it.  RefusED.  Past tense.  We are moving forward and I actually touched myself while he was inside me.  I only recently admitted to him that I have ever masturbated.  I would like to know what he thinks of me now.  If this fearlessness was part of the reason he finally decided he was in love with me.  I cant even begin to think that he chose me purely for the sex, even he cant be that cruel… but I have thought it.