Day 1 – Part 2

“I tell myself too many times why don’t you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut
That’s why it hurts so bad to hear the words that keep on falling from your mouth
Falling from your mouth
Falling from your mouth
Tell me why?” – Annie Lennox, “Why”

Is there anything worse than waiting for the person whose betrayal feels like a knife to your heart to come home so you can confront them about it? The pain of intimate betrayal is so all-encompassing, your heart feels literally broken. Mine did, anyway.

It’s an unbearable wait, because nothing that transpires after he walks in the door is going to make you feel better. You know it’s going to be so much worse than what you’re imagining in your head, to hear the actual words come out of his mouth. And I’m so angry at him…crazy angry. I want to hurt him back. I am not really in a rational state of mind, so shattered and furious but at the same time I’m ice cold.  There is shit to be handled and it can’t happen until he gets home and we have it out.

So many things were going through my head as I waited for him. I remembered the pictures she’d been posting, over the last few months especially. I remember the New Year’s Eve selfie she posted, and thinking to myself “Why is she all the way down there for NYE? Is it a coincidence?”. Thinking of those fucking pictures now and how I even liked some of them at the time, pictures of my husband, who is an amazing performer that people take pictures of all the time, mostly women. I like almost everyone’s photos of him because they’re often great pictures and seriously, I’m not a jealous person. Now I’m scrolling through this overzealous side chick’s Facebook and fuming at the total lack of decorum and the nerve (that’s my husband, WTF is wrong with you?!?), but mostly my own obliviousness. All of the nights when I woke up alone at 3am or later, calling to see where he was and getting his voice mail, and a call back a few minutes later. The pictures. Where was my attention that I basically ignored the glaring signs that my husband was having an affair?

And now, nearly two years later, she still has pictures of my husband on her Facebook page. If you’re not even friends with her, you can view 91 photos from the time that they were involved, including some of the two of them. They are the vast majority of photos on her page, the most egregious of them posted a few days after he ended their affair as revenge. So vindictive and ugly. That’s a subject for another post, though.

He finally arrives home.  He has no idea what he’s walking into; I on the other hand have had hours to marinate in knowing what’s about to happen between us. In knowing that I don’t know what I don’t know, but that it’s undoubtedly as bad as I think it is, or worse. Because maybe he just doesn’t love me anymore, and I don’t know what to do if that’s true.

I don’t remember our exact words during the horrible conversation that took place. We went into the garage because we didn’t want our child to hear us. I do remember my first question.

Me: I asked you who this person was a few months ago (holding my phone in front of his face so he could see the picture of the two of them she’d posted a couple of hours before). You said she was just an acquaintance, a fan. I’m going to ask you again, who is this woman and what were you doing at dinner with her tonight?

I don’t remember his answer. He was caught off guard, of course. I asked him what his relationship was with her. I asked him if he’d been texting her, and he wouldn’t answer. My heart sank, and adrenaline rushed through me. I demanded that he give me his phone so I could look for myself, and he refused. Thank God for small favors, I really didn’t need to read those texts and have that in my mind for eternity. I say eternity because we’re almost two years past this day, and you don’t forget the things that shatter your life and your heart into a million pieces. Not even after the pieces have been put back together…you don’t forget.

I recall that he was very angry at me, which was shocking because who was the one crushed and betrayed here? At one point, he yelled “Why do you even care what I do?!?” and that hurt so bad because I knew it was my own fault that he felt that way. I knew how much of my disregard and inattention he’d endured over the last few years, that he would feel that way. We had talked about this a month or so prior. I had, for the first time in too long, listened to him with my whole heart. I’d apologized profusely and I still don’t think he believed me then, but I was determined to work on our marriage and myself. I am not saying that the affair was my fault, because it wasn’t. I was unhappy, too, but I didn’t choose to get involved with someone else. I chose therapy and trying to make things better between us. Just…maybe I waited too long.

I was enraged that he wouldn’t give me his phone. Impotently enraged, because I couldn’t shower him with all of the curses I wanted to heap on his head, I couldn’t raise my voice and risk our boy becoming aware of what was going on. So much emotion coursing through me but I couldn’t give vent to any of it at that moment.

And then, because I am one of the most resourceful people you will ever meet, I went to my computer and pulled up our cell phone bill. I reviewed the numbers he’d been calling and texting the most, and it was like a glowing neon sign. I punched her number into Google, and there she was. A prominent high-end real estate agent, so she was the first result, along with her cell phone number that was listed a ridiculous number of times on his text and call lists. People in affairs are ridiculous, that’s the truth.

I grabbed my phone and fired off a text to her that I didn’t appreciate her interference in my marriage. I don’t remember what that bitch responded with, something along the lines of “I’m so sorry, I never intended to hurt anyone and you will have to talk to your husband”. Standard “I’m fucking your husband and he loves ME ME ME!” response. If you think I’m being too harsh, you can stop reading, or you can have patience and eventually find out the reason (aside from messing around with  my husband, which I totally blame more on him than her even though she knew and was told by mutual friends) I have such disregard for this person.

I didn’t text her back. I think I probably got my son tucked into bed, and then I went to cry myself to sleep in the guest room. Actually just to cry, and cry, and cry. I was bereft at the thought that my husband could care about someone else, be intimately involved with someone else, maybe ready to divorce me.