Good morning:
As we head towards the end of July (it will be here in a minute), I have a lot to think about. The last Saturday in July 2020 was the day I found out about
my husband's affair in 2018.
Recap: Cliches and the wisdom on this forum abound as my story is so familiar: very happy in my marriage, felt fortunate, grateful, believed in separate interests, never felt jealous etc...then all the behavior started. He left out of the blue in August 2018 and was gone 5 months. All the while absolutely swearing up and down he was just depressed and needed space to think. I was truly a wreck. Side note, the book Runaway Husbands by Vikki Stark saved my life. I did not know about this forum.
He came home and I was so so happy. Please know I did everything wrong because I believed there was no other woman: I pick me danced 'til dawn, I worried about if he was happy and getting everything he needed. He was a smug, arrogant prick but a little more like "old him."
Fast forward, that was all a false R because I didn't know what I was reconciling for. There was another woman in Atlanta (a widow no less) and they had been having an EA for over a year and a PA for a solid 6 months before he left. He had invented guy's trips, business trips (he legit does travel for work). As soon as he was "free" that sure fizzled out fast. I have posted before that she has pics of him on FB. She knew who I was the whole time. We live 3plus hours from ATL by plane. My FB had all the normal family pics and couple pics.
Ok. Today. I feel better than I ever thought I would a year ago. R has been hard. Really hard. But my WH is working on owning who he is and has been. So much to unpack for him and it's painful. His reckoning with what he risked for so little, his core values, his sense that he is special and deserves more (when he knows he had a lot). He has talked with me for hours and days. In the first 3 months, I needed to talk every day for hours. Phone records, ultimately a poly (which he passed).
1 year out is just the beginning of R and I know that. One of my realizations is that for the very first time, even though we are together, I know I would never fall apart if he did something else. It's a him thing and not a me thing. I would know that was my time to be done. It doesn't make me scared and fragile. But I don't feel like an Amazon either. It makes me feel quietly strong.
I have moments of real happiness. We can go days and I don't want to talk about anything A related.
So my story is a hopeful one. I would never have believed the level of pain I have lived through.
I also now know that when a man or woman suddenly leaves a marriage there is always always always another person. I wish I had operated with that in mind from the jump. My romanticism is gone. I hope someone gets something from my story.
