On Dec 28, 2008, I reached 16 years since the first time I met my husband at a mutual friend’s wedding. I also reached 100 days since I had found out that he had been cheating on me for 7 months prior. D-day was one of the worst in my life because it was so surreal that I felt I was trapped in a fictional world. I had to keep reminding myself that I was not watching a show or a movie or even reading a book. It was my true reality. I felt my foundation rock had been removed and my house was no longer safe.
He broke the faith I had in us, the faith I thought he also had in us. The faith that I thought kept us strong during 8 years of dating long distance, and 8 years of marriage. The faith that no matter how much resentment, anger, sadness, loneliness, etc built up would carry us through thick and thin still as one couple with the believe in us together.
I knew we had been in trouble for at least 2 years and I tried several times to do something about it. But essentially I felt I was working alone because he was working very hard to support our family in one of the most expensive places in the country, California. I kept so much bottled up for the sake of easing his worries. It took a toll on me and I suffered depression on my own in secret for over a year while still doing my best to function as a stay at home mom of our now 4 year old daughter and a part care-taker of his ailing grandmother and spirited and spry grandfather, both of whom 97 years old now. I was sacrificing my sanity so I could ease his at-home worries so he could focus better at his work. This past year it got worse. I finally broke down and sought psychiatric help and got on medication after struggling to keep it together internally. It took me realizing I was taking out my emotions on our daughter to finally accept it. The meds helped and I could think again without the excessive anger and sadness. That’s when I began to work on myself so I could then start working on our relationship. I wanted to be a better wife and partner. I wrote him an honest email, since he wasn’t around enough to have a face to face conversation, and told him I would let him go without a fight if he wanted to leave and remake his life without me. He chose to stay and fight for us. I was so happy and relieved because I still love him. We began biweekly lunch dates without our daughter and even went to a baseball game together. But little did I know, he was not only lying to me, he was lying to everyone, including himself. He had been already seeing someone else 5 months when I suggested that fresh start. And for 2 months he continued to live a double life while giving me hope about rekindling our marriage. Sure there were signs, but as it usually goes, I didn’t want to see them. I had faith in us. No, his second phone didn’t mean anything. No, his lack of communication while away on very frequent work trips didn’t mean anything. No, his newly began routine of more meticulous self grooming didn’t mean anything. No, his new wardrobe out of the blues didn’t mean anything. No, his more frequent gym visits and care about his diet didn’t mean anything. No, the lack of paperwork trail to and from the “work” trips didn’t mean anything. None of that meant anything individually. And I didn’t want to think of it all collectively. I had faith in us. That’s until a single hard fact hit me straight on. Unexplainable credit card charges caused me to dig until I found Pandora’s box in his backpack. All the secrets came out on Sept 20th at 1:30 am. As I sat alone in the garage pouring over all the plane ticket stubs and passport stamps to Mexico City and Tijuana, nightclub passes, six flags trip bracelets, jewelry receipts, dinner for 2 receipts, and a love note written in Spanish by what had to be a young female based on its round and bubbly shaped printed lettering and overly corny expressed emotions.
I woke him up at 3:30 am that day and confronted him about it and he was so out of it that he simply admitted it. He was also callous by asking me if we could talk about it later after he slept, to which of course I declined. But he offered no explanation nor even a fake “I’m sorry you found out” apology. He simply said that we needed “to be civil to each other now and not make things worse by being hateful”. I was enraged inside but kept a calm composure outside. He wasted 2 hours avoiding my gaze and “thinking” what to say as I sat there staring at him just waiting for him to talk. I said nothing. I was done telling him my thoughts and emotions. It was his turn to talk, I said. I finally got fed up after he indicated he needed to get ready for work and told him to leave and not return until he was prepared to talk to me about everything. He decided to leave behind his clothes and his wedding band. I was crushed when I found it. He had been busy looking for his passport and his birth certificate to care about anything else. He needed a way to get back to her. I assumed she lived in Mexico City, and I had hidden both documents to not make it easy for him to just go see her right away. He demanded it back but I feigned ignorance. He had no ground to stand on to force me to return them. I knew it was just a temporary hold, since he could easily get a copy of his birth certificate rushed to any address and then visit the consulate office near his work to get a replacement passport. Which is exactly what he did. He left and didn’t try to return for 2 whole days. I changed the keys to the house locks because the uncertainty of his return caused me severe anxiety and I felt unsafe. But I left a note on the door indicating I was open to hear him out when he was ready and I would reopen our home to him. He didn’t contact me for 4 weeks. He said that he waited that long because he needed to think about what he wanted and come up with reasons why he opted to do what he did. Yeah, it was all about him. Again. His needs. His actions. His motivation. He. He. He. He. Not once during those weeks did he ask about our daughter. Not once. He asked for a meeting to talk about us and the situation. I did meet him at a park and we talked for almost 3 hours. I realize now that he went to that meeting with less than zero intentions to fight for us. He just wanted answers to his questions and to see if I was “still the same angry bitter wife from before”. To my own surprised, I poured out my heart in that conversation and told him everything I had been bottling up. I cleanse my soul in that conversation. I finally had his attention and his time and I told him what my heart and my head needed him to know. His reaction was, “I need time to think about all this”. Not I. He. He needed time to think about what he wanted to do. He. Even then I told him I had been ready to take him back and forgive him if he had shown remorse and had indicated intention to fight for us. I was ready to be what I always despised, a wife who threw her own pride aside for an undeserving man’s love. But alas, he didn’t know what he wanted. In fact, he was still seeing his mistress, he inadvertently told me so. Much later I found out through international roaming charges on the cell phone bill that he had returned to see her the very next day after that meeting. I had waited and hoped for his answer after that meeting. It never came. I forced myself to text him and email him for the sake of our daughter who missed him terribly. Had it not been for her, I would had cut him off and began healing far away in Georgia or Virginia, where I had my friends and where I had built a life before moving to his home state to be near his family. But I couldn’t take off without thinking of her needs. She needed her dad. And she needed the only other male figure in her life, his grandfather, her great grand-dad. I had to be my daughter’s advocate and fight for what was best for her and that included her own father to see her. His lame excuse for not attempting to reach out to her was that he believed I would hold her from him. He didn’t know me at all. He didn’t think I had anything good left in me. He thought I hated him when in reality I missed him and loved him and longed for his time and his attention like a dog for his beloved owner. I felt like a dog in his life, waiting for scraps. He continued to be financially responsible for everything, including my biweekly allowance. But that was the extend of his conscience or guilt. I am still at his mercy financially as I no longer have any sources of income to tap into since I put everything into our new home and life in California. I went into massive credit card debt trying to help ease the loneliness and maintain an illusion of a happy marriage to everyone around, specially his grandparents. I am lucky, though. I have amazing supportive friends near and far who have been my saviors each day. I’m still on medication but I’m hoping that once I get into an individual or group counseling routine to talk about my everyday stuff, then I can start weaning off the antidepressants. That’s a 6 month goal. Wow, I’m elated I have a goal 6 months from now. If you asked me 50, 70, 80, 90, 100 days ago what my plans were, I couldn’t tell you past the end of the week. I could not see myself getting pass this. Panic and darkness was all I saw.
I am still afraid. I still love him. I am afraid that love will drag me back again. It’s a possibility because I am still longing for him. For he used to be. For who I thought he was. I long for my husband. The cheating lying bastard.
My daughter misses him tons and all I can do is be honest with her in as much as you can be honest with a 4 year old. I love you and papá loves you. He’s probably not going to come back home but he will see you soon and you will have great times together.
About 3 weeks ago I logged onto the cell phone account online and combed over the last 12 months of bills. It showed that roaming charges for Mexico began in February as I suspected that’s when his affair began based on the other evidence.
But I had not realized that he was still seeing her to this day, almost 2 months after he asked me for more time, a week, to think about what he wanted to do.
He ignored me and gave me only silence as his response to his decision. All the while I though he was a least trying to become a more “honest and empathetic person” as he indicated in a previous email.
He was still seeing her 2 month after I poured my soul into that fateful conversation.
He was still seeing her.
I don’t know if something clicked inside me. But I I know I stopped feeling a little less sad at that point.
A friend told me that there would be a point when I would just say that I had enough of him making me feel miserable. And it’s possible I’ve reached that point. I pray that I’ve reached that point. I don’t want to be miserable. I want to be happier.
It feels bad to say but my long term plan is to stay put where i am until both the grandparents are gone. Once that happens, I will cut all ties to California, a place I came to be miserable and alone. And I’ll return home. My home. Not my parents, not my fake home with my husband, but my home where I will have at least one more happy day than the total number of sad days.
This story, my story sounds detached because I am feeling better and I don’t want to become undone at the drop of hat anymore. This helps. Writing f to strangers about my ordeal. My heartbreak. My story of how my a hole was made on my soul.
Thank you for reading. Your comments are appreciate it.
