Trickle truth. Yes. I did. That is just a nice way of saying I lied, again. Partial truth vs. full truth - still a lie. I know this.
(This is VERY long)
I told him it only happened once. It wasn't. It was a few months, a couple times a week.
However, the harassment after I ended it did happen. I would love to right now report him to HR at the company, but I want that part of my life in the past - and that will just add to everything and I don't want that. My husband needs to be able to heal and that wouldn't help.
He gave me A LOT of opportunities to tell him.
He would ask, on the bad days, if there was anything else. That his gut said there was more to the story.
There was, and I wanted to tell him. I did.
But when? On a bad day and make it worse? Or on a good day and make it bad?
We talk a lot. We were 4 months out from the first D Day. We were doing pretty good, but my stomach was always in knots. I was terrified he would find out the truth and hate me and leave me.
He had said at one point throughout our talks, on a not so good day, that if he found out anymore, that he would walk out in front of a bus.
Now it was even harder. I know he is having a hard - hell, there is no word in any language to describe the terrible time he is having with this- and I had no idea how serious that comment really is. I still don't.
I know now that I have broken him. Not just his heart - but his spirit, his soul.
I am watching him now, losing weight - he weighed about 195 in May. He is at 184 now. He is 6'3. When I met him 25 years ago, right after his divorce from his first wife, he weighed 135 lbs. - I am so afraid he is heading back there.
He has no one to talk to, but me, and now he is afraid to do that, since I am the one responsible for all of this.
A friend asked him how does he know that I will not do it again? Is this how he wants to spend the rest of his life?
He has been asking me the same question. How do I know?
Sadly, the only answer I have had is you have to trust me. That's laughable, I know. I found another way to say that - HE is the reason I wont. WE are the reason I won't. I have so come close to losing MY SOUL MATE - because of something that I still can't believe I did. I believe with all of my heart, every cell of my body and every bit of my soul that we are supposed to be together. That God meant for us to meet - we met in a psychiatric hospital of all places. (This is nothing similar to anything either of us were there for).
I almost lost everything - not the material things - but the everything that matters - the only thing that matters. Still could. Every day I pray he keeps wanting to try to work it out. To reconcile. To spend the rest of our lives together, the way I- we - always wanted. Sounds cliche but I knew the second I saw him I was going to spend forever and a day with him. I have thrown that away.
We are working on a new us. I am falling in love with him all over again, we talk more in an afternoon now than we have in our total 20 years of marriage sometimes.
We were arguing the other day, and I shut down. That has always been my coping mechanism. I shut down. Empathy has never been something I do well. I am still having a hard time.
I know I shut down when confrontation or emotional things start. Always. I am the one when, for example, my father died. I cried for 5 minutes in the bathroom immediately after. Then, not once since. I took care of the business side of it all. There was no question I would. We have boys and I have taught them that crying is a sign of weakness. That they should be the strong one for their wives. Mistake to teach them that and now I realize it.
I didn't realize how quickly I did, or how easy it is for me, it until that night. I have always thought that was just me. My personality. I have been trying hard not to shut down through this entire 'thing'. It is hard. My mother told me I had a cold heart. I didn't realize I treated my husband this way. I want to change that.
I was really unsure of my timeline. I knew the weather, so I could figure out about the months or so, but it has been a while - I could not remember the year.
He found a letter that I had written the AP during the time that he had me transferred to another work location. We were having major disagreements over how the restaurant we both managed should be run.
I told him that when we had first begun hanging out - AS FRIENDS (is how I saw it) - that work was work and outside should never 'mingle'. He was making it that way. I told him that I knew after I put an end to the benefits that these sort of things would happen (the harassment, threats) and it was getting old. That I missed the friends we used to be.
My husband gave me an insight that had never occured to me, as I really thought that men and women can just be friends. Not strings attached. He pointed out that men do not think that way. Friends, sure, but they still think about sex - all of the time - and I put myself in a situation where I was with someone on a regular basis who, as a man, was thinking about having sex with me. I had never thought about it that way. He knew I was married, so I assumed (yup - ass - me) that would not ever cross his - or any of my male friends - minds. I now know different. I should never have put myself in this situation. I never will again. EVER.
While my husband told me he is not interested in the time line, he often asks questions that irritate me ( no need to lecture me - I know it doesn't matter if it irritates me or not). He and I have just begun, after DD-1 , doing things together. (one of the problems our marriage had) As we have, I point out places that I have talked about.
Last night as we were heading to our grandsons baseball game, that when someone says the Big VFW it was over there. He got quiet and asked if Ap and I ever went there. No. He asked where we went then.
After work, we would go with the group drinking - the decompression time - and then I would drive him home. Everytime saying to myself that I was not going to do it again. Sometimes I listened, sometimes I didn't.
I will not EVER go to that bar again. My husband and I did once, early in the evening one night - the place was empty as it is mainly industry supported, so when restaurants start closing is when they get busy.
I was so very uncomfortable. I did not want to tell him why. We left after one drink and I told him later - not that night.
There are three restaurants in addition to that bar that I will not go to because he is a regular.
He asks questions that make me uncomfortable. I take a deep breathe - sometimes sigh - and answer. Answer over the knot in my stomach. The same one he has.
He said yesterday, paraphrasing here, that the past is the past. We should put it behind us and work on the future.
Lord, I hope and pray he means that. I know it is going to be a very long, hard road, and it will be uphill most of the way, but I pray we can do it.
I have read here that couples DO make it. Even after a second D-Day. I hope we are one of them.
