I wanted to write here about an incident that happened some time ago, but that I’ve been forced to revisit in the wake of DDay #1 and DDay #2. I have said that if you had told me before December 9, 2017 that my husband had a long-term physical affair, I would have thought you were crazy. That is true, but that’s not to say that I never had a period of doubt.
In the Fall of 2015, I had a work trip to LA for five days. It was a longer trip than usual by about two days, but it was across the country and I had two speaking engagements and a series of meetings and a few work events to attend. Handsome and the kids were at home. During those days, when Handsome was working, our kids were either in school or with our nanny at home. Our youngest was in kindergarten and our oldest was in 3rd grade. Handsome was home alone for several hours a day by himself while the kids were at school and the nanny was off at another job.
I got home late on a Sunday night and everyone was in asleep, so I just abandoned my luggage in our foyer and snuck into bed. The next morning was a jet-lagged blur of getting the kids dressed and off to school before I finally found myself with a few moments of peace in our bedroom. I was making the bed and I turned around and noticed… a packaged tampon resting on the window sill beside the bed. On my side of the bed. Aside from the fact that I haven’t needed a tampon in years (shout out to the Mirena inventor!! woot! woot!) it was neither my size nor my brand. It was unopened and appeared carefully placed there, at the edge of the window, closest to the head of the bed. It was, in fact, where you might put something if you wanted it close at hand but you didn’t want to put it on my very crowded nightstand.
This was post “Porngate” that I’ve written about here, and also post the first email incident with the Flame. I immediately assumed that Handsome had another woman in the house while I was gone. I took the tampon, found him in the basement watching ESPN, and flung it at his head while doing my best impersonation of a screaming banshee. I hurled accusations and he denied, denied, and denied. He seemed astounded, shocked. I wasn’t buying it. I did not believe him. I wanted to believe that he knew nothing about it, but he seemed to almost be trying too hard to convince me or, alternately, dismissive of the entire incident.
I later inquired of the nanny if the tampon might be hers (yep, that was an embarrassing conversation) since she was to have been the only other woman in the house in my absence. She was a lovely girl (completely and utterly unimpressed by Handsome so I wasn’t concerned that was an issue), but a bit of an airhead, and her response was along the lines of “I don’t think it’s mine, but I don’t know.” Now, the ladies out there likely understand that once you have a tampon you trust and rely on, that’s the one you are willing to go to three stores to find in your preferred brand/ size. It’s not something you switch up. I think she was trying to not get Handsome in trouble (even though I was the one paying her), but I was unconvinced.
Ultimately Handsome settled on the story that our cat, who likes to play with crinkly things, swiped it from the nanny’s bag and deposited the contraband neatly on my window sill. (Again, that pins ownership of said tampon on the nanny, and that is far from certain.) I never bought that story, although the cat was indeed in the midst of a streak of doing just those kinds of weird things. I would find the plastic wrap from a tissue box under our kitchen table, or a piece of foil on the stairs. The perfection of the placement though was always the nagging issue in my mind. It was tucked away on the sill, on a window the cat was rarely, if ever, on. Also, there were no teeth marks on it. None.
Handsome told me that he relayed the story to his buddies at work and lamented getting blamed for something he “didn’t do.” He laughed about it and acted as if I was crazy. The thing is, at that very moment I now know that he was in the midst of two emotional affairs and his physical affair with the Whore was in full swing. He may have been wrongly accused about the tampon (although I doubt it) but he was nonetheless guilty as sin at that moment. In retrospect I believe this was likely his best effort at gaslighting me.
Before my DDays I really wanted to believe that Handsome was truthful. I wanted to believe that my kleptomaniac cat just grabbed the wrong thing to play with and that it was all a big, bad coincidence. I never fully believed that – my logical brain wasn’t buying it – but I really wanted it to be true with all my heart.
Today, even after all of the disclosures and all of the therapy and the intensives, Handsome still insists that he has no idea how that tampon got there other than by way of the nanny or the cat. He says yes, he engaged in complete and utter shithead-fuckery, but that there was no other woman in our house while I was away on that trip. I want very much to believe that, but having been through what I’ve been through, I just don’t. I don’t think I will ever believe it.
I believe in my head and my heart, based on Handsome’s other behavior, that there was another woman in my house while I was away. I don’t know who it was, and I guess it doesn’t matter. In my mind, he slept with the Whore or some random anonymous skank in my house, in my bed, while I was off working. It’s basically the same thing he did last summer with Angel Baby (except they supposedly didn’t have intercourse, although I don’t believe that either). I’ve dealt with that to some degree, and I’m dealing with this by lumping it into the same pot. Do I wish that I could just believe him? Of course!!! He has 8 months of sexual sobriety under his belt. And for all I know he may very well be blameless as to this one instance and telling the truth about the tampon. But like the little boy who cried wolf he no longer gets the benefit of my blind faith and trust.
It’s his loss, but it sure seems like mine too.