Tag: disclosure

Thinking about betrayal (and driving myself nuts)

I try mightily to be fair(ish) to Handsome when I write here. Yes, I often vent, but I aim for rigorous honesty and if it looks bad for him, that’s on him. I don’t need to portray his actions in a negative light because they were horrific enough all on their own. When good things happen, I try to recognize that too. For example, Handsome finally got a sponsor. He’ll have six months of sexual sobriety and three months of sobriety from alcohol this week. This coming weekend we are going to the couples intensive he arranged for us a few months ago and he’s doing the pre-session homework. He’s keeping up with the after-care from his intensive with Dr. M including journaling every day (which I never thought he’d do, but he actually says he likes it).  All good things.

Occasionally though, things come up that I just have no idea how to process. Perhaps they are too overwhelming, or create too much confusion, or are too triggering. Or maybe they just make me ask myself, “What the actual fuck am I dealing with?” One example: during his intensive with Dr. M, Handsome was incredibly raw and overwhelmed. We were talking one night about his cheating in broad terms and I asked him out of the blue whether he had ever cheated on me during the 27 months I lived and worked on the other side of our state, when we were commuting back and forth to see each other. I had never had occasion to ask him that before, because it never occurred to me (before DDay #2) that he would have cheated all the way back then. Keep in mind, we were either married or engaged for 21 of those 27 months.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when someone asks me if I’ve done something awful and I haven’t, I answer immediately, emphatically, and without hesitation. When Handsome’s answer was “Welllllllll… (crickets chirping during long pause)… not exactly.” I knew the answer was just “yes.” His story is that we had a big fight, he didn’t think we could recover, we didn’t talk for “weeks” and he went to a local bar and he met a girl and he later took her out to dinner. During dinner he says he realized it was just absurd and not what he wanted, so he finished dinner, took her home, and that was the end of it.  I didn’t want to sound like Ross and Rachel, but I grilled him on whether he was under the impression we were on a break or that we had broken up. No, he wasn’t. He acknowledged we had never broken up.

What do I make of this revelation now, years of marriage and two kids later? His story simply isn’t plausible for a variety of reasons. First, we have never, ever gone weeks without speaking. In fact, we’ve never gone more than 48 hours without speaking. Memories can be faulty, so I actually went back and reviewed my cell phone records from back then (I swear I’m not a hoarder…I have them only because at the time the phone was a plausible work expense, so they’re in my tax files). There are only a handful of times we didn’t speak each and every day. Next, I simply have zero recollection of this allegedly big fight. I went back through my calendars to see when this might have happened, and over the 6 months I lived there before we got engaged we saw each other regularly every two weeks if not weekly. We talked daily, sometimes several times a day. We took trips and vacations together. It just doesn’t add up. Plus, this was not a hook up. By his own admission, he chatted her up at the bar, got the girl’s number, called her, set up a date, and then took her on that date. That takes a few days, and we’d have been in touch in that time. In short, my conclusion is simply that he cheated. We hadn’t broken up and he took someone else out on a date. That’s cheating.

By my best guess, this occurred sometime in late January 2004. We had seen each other over the New Year holiday and then again over the long holiday weekend mid-month. Then we didn’t see each other again for three weeks (we spoke daily) until we took a long-planned vacation together to Punta Cana the week of Valentine’s Day. Why do I suspect that window? When we got to Punta Cana, Handsome was an asshole. I mean a miserable jerk face. He snapped at me so badly before we checked in that I thought about turning around and flying home alone. The vacation improved greatly over the week, but those initial few days were incredibly difficult. At the time, I attributed it to a dozen things: his hatred of flying, exhaustion from work, maybe I really was a bitch? Now, post DDay, it’s the same behavior I saw throughout his acting out… picking fights and blaming me to “justify” to himself whatever crap he was up to.

So, then I start to wonder… now that I know, what exactly do I do with the information?  To me, this ties to my post a few weeks ago on betrayal and whether our choices would have been different if we, the betrayed, had the whole truth (click here for that). Would I have kept dating him if I knew he did this? Hard to say. Maybe not. Yes, I was in love with him, but I was also living hours away and had plenty of other non-cheating, educated, employed, single guy options at hand. I’m not entirely sure what I would have done. Would I have agreed to marry him? Even more doubtful, and certainly not so soon afterwards. I most definitely would have wanted him to do some serious work on himself first.

Just like now, he had choices then. He could have actually had the balls to break up with me before dipping his toe (or anything else) back into the dating pool. He could have admitted what he did at the time he did it. Or, better yet, he could have chosen to work through whatever disagreement he claims we had and stay faithful to his devoted girlfriend of three years that he kept talking to about marriage.

Many of my decisions that have flowed forth since then have been based on my ignorance. I used to confidently tell people that I actually thought our long-distance romance was helpful to us early on because we had to learn to communicate really well with each other. Unbeknownst to me, it also seems to have been when Handsome started honing his compartmentalization and deception skills. I had no idea.

So, what am I going to do? Likely nothing, other than ruminate on how long he has actually been betraying me. That’s the sad fact of it. I don’t see a point in driving myself more nuts over something that happened 14 years ago. I can dissociate myself from that. Compare and contrast that though with driving myself nuts over whether he’s been keeping secrets throughout our entire marriage, as opposed to just the last five years. (I say “just” now as if that number of years is de minimus, but it isn’t. It’s a hair  under 40% of our marriage, to be precise.)

Does it matter?  I don’t believe the answer makes his cheating better or worse depending on the answer.  It’s all bad either way. Nonetheless, the more time passes the more I reconsider previous events that I thought I had processed and moved beyond. I’m not suggesting that Handsome is still overtly lying (of course, he very well might be). He is, however, a master at lies of omission. I am left to wonder what secrets he may still be holding on to for dear life… the tightly held mysteries of our marriage and the vestiges of his addiction.

Our weekly check-in follows a format from his intensive program, and one of the  questions is “What is a lie or secret that you are keeping?” No matter how much thought or effort Handsome puts into the rest of the check-in, and it’s usually considerable, he inevitably glosses over this question. He has, on occasion, tried to skip it entirely. When he does address it, either the “secret” will be something hardly secret or the lie will be something along the lines of a white lie. (“Daughter asked if I liked her haircut and I said yes, but I really don’t care for it.”) It’s maddening. I’ve started to call him out on it, to hold him somewhat accountable for half-assing that part of the exercise. You would think that 5+ years of acting out would give him fodder to come up with legitimate, meaningful answers to that question, but he can’t (or won’t) as of yet.

I know he’s an addict. I know that secret keeping is as much a part of his addiction as what those secrets are about. There is probably very little more he could disclose that would shock me. We’ve been through a polygraph that he passed with flying colors. Certainly, what I can imagine in my head is likely worse than anything else that may have happened. (As I commented on another blog, I’ve told Handsome in all seriousness that if someone called me tomorrow and said “Hey, BW, I just saw Handsome fucking a monkey,” I would politely thank them for calling, hang up, and then start Googling intensive treatment programs for monkey fuckers.) That’s the tragic part here. I just want to know the totality of what I’m dealing with, process it, forgive, and move on. He wants to keep his secrets to save his pride and to protect himself from further shame. The two are fairly mutually exclusive, and so I continue to drive myself a little nuts over things that are totally outside my control.

 

Loss of Privacy

In spite of the fact that I blog about my husband’s infidelity and sex addiction, I am actually a reasonably private person. I have maintained some degree of anonymity here, other than for those who have reached out to me privately with questions or those who I have reached out to on my own. I was taught early on in life that you don’t air your dirty laundry in public and that there are things you keep within your family circle. I was taught that this is true for both possibly good things (money, for example) or bad things (illness or scandal). I was taught that generally nobody cares to know your business and that those people who do generally have ulterior motives.

Handsome and I sat down today for our weekly check-in. I understand that there are schools of thought that the spouse shouldn’t ask much during these check-ins, but my personal opinion is that failing to do so defeats the purpose.  My husband should not be talking at me, he should be talking with me about his addiction, its effect on me and on our family, and his recovery. I let him go through his check-in list, and then I ask a few questions.

Lying – more specifically, not lying (overtly or by omission) – is something that Handsome has to work on each day. He has spent the last several years lying to me daily. I have read that sex addicts are “relentless liars” and that was certainly true of Handsome. In the present, however, if Handsome is doing his recovery work properly he needs to (1) not lie, and (2) acknowledge any lies that are told. This means that some of our conversations are now more substantive than they were in the past. The “I don’t know/ remember” spiels are slowly getting replaced by answers.

Today, for example, in response to a question about what precisely he communicated with the Flame about every day for 3+ years, instead of feeding me the usual “nothing big, just day-to-day stuff” response, he said “Everything. Everything in our lives.” It turns out that he did indeed share every blasted detail with her. That includes everything our kids were doing, each of their illnesses, attitudes and academic highs and lows, as well as his health, my health, his job, my job (mostly how it impacted him), our travel planning and intimate details of that travel, and – of course – all about our married life. Mind you, he conveniently forgot to mention the Whore, Angel Baby, the woman he tried to date last summer, the porn, masturbation, Seeking Arrangements, or anything that might make him look bad to her, but everything else was fair game.

In sum, for the last 3+ years, my kids and I have had absolutely ZERO privacy. We didn’t know that we might as well have lived our lives on the front lawn of our house because every single thing we did or felt or experienced was being communicated to at least one person outside our family. I did not consent to giving up my privacy. It was taken from me and it was taken from each of my two children.

Things that should have never left the confines of our house were fodder for conversation with someone who is a stranger to me and a threat to my marriage. Arguments that I had with Handsome – if not prompted by her – were shaped, in part, from feedback he got from her. I wasn’t just dealing with his criticisms, I was unknowingly fending off hers as well. Our vacation plans weren’t just filtered through me for suitability, they were always run by her too, as were the kids’ extracurricular activities and decisions about their upbringing. Mind you, I have never met this woman. She has never met my kids (thank heavens) and she has never seen us together as a family. According to Handsome, he has only seen her in person three times in the last 30 years. In spite of that, she was apparently allowed and encouraged by Handsome to have opinions about us all, and he gave those opinions credence and sought her counsel…  every.single.day. In the betrayal recovery world there is much discussion of walls and windows. The Flame did not only have windows into our life, there simply were no walls.

To be fair, I have a few friends and acquaintances, and I occasionally talk to those people about different aspects of my life, but never about anything that would be construed as a violation of trust if discovered and nothing that would cause embarrassment. The only person who has ever had that level of comprehensive detail about me or Handsome or our family is Handsome himself. Maybe the odd reason my marriage feels somehow more full and rich these days, in spite of the shit storm that has transpired, is that for the first time in forever it’s just the two of us. No interlopers, ghosts in the room, or extra people in the marriage. Together with our kids, we are a tribe, just trying to make it through the storm. We are a small tribe, for sure, but perhaps we can work together to build our family’s walls back up and regain our precious privacy.

Pic collecting and eye stalking – what next?

(Apologies if this has posted twice… somehow it reverted to draft form…)

I’ve been gone from the blog for a bit as Handsome spent a chunk of the last two weeks in an intensive program in LA and I took the opportunity to try to have a few days where his SA was not the focus of my world. He’s back home now and I had my debriefing with the doctor who ran the intensive.

On the bright side, he said that Handsome was fully engaged in the intensive, put a lot of thought and effort into the homework, showed up every day on time and ready to participate, and he feels like Handsome’s prognosis is good if he continues to do his recovery work. Terrific, right? That’s what I had hoped to hear. No complaints there. I’m truly proud of Handsome for that because I know it was incredibly difficult for him and yet he went “all in” with the program.

The doctor ran me through a lot of information that Handsome had shared during the intensive and although there were a few childhood things I wasn’t aware of, the acting out and affair activity was essentially exactly as Handsome had disclosed to me… with two exceptions.  The doctor was running through the list of Handsome’s acting out behaviors and I was almost tuning out because the list is long and hurtful, and then I heard “…pic collecting, blah blah blah, eye stalking, blah blah blah… .” Wait, what? I had to ask him to go back and read those two to me again. And then, because I am apparently the world’s most ill-informed spouse of a sex addict, I had to ask him to explain to me what those two things are.

Per Urban Dictionary:

Pic collector – A leery anonymous person who replies to your personal ad for the sole purpose of collecting your pics to inflate his or her poor ego. An encounter with a pic collector is always short and obnoxiously one-sided.

Eye stalking – The act of stalking with one’s eyes. [duh]

The eye stalking was not particularly surprising and, in the scheme of things, kind of low down on Handsome’s acting out totem pole. Troubling (and sad and pathetic) for sure, but I didn’t consider the omission of it from prior disclosures to be a crisis.

The “pic collecting” though is a bit of another story. Whose pics?  Where were they from? Was he talking about the pics from the Whore? Those I knew about for sure, but were there others? I learned that this is one of those situations where Handsome didn’t overtly lie to me, but rather he left out a part of the story that makes him look bad.

Knowing that he had signed up for Seeking Arrangements and failed at that endeavor, I grilled him about his use of Craigslist and Backpage. He admitted to visiting both intermittently but insisted that it was for work (prostitution stings and the like). He and his colleagues would reply to ads from women and try to determine if they were hooking out of houses in town and, if so, they’d try to shut them down. That may be true – or not, time will tell – but what he failed to mention is that he would keep the pictures that he was sent in communicating with those women. I can guess what he did with them.

So, I went there… against my better judgment, I asked why he did this. His reply, which I think was honest, was “Because I wanted to look at real women.” That crushed me. Forced the air from my lungs. He said what he said, but what I hear in my head is “Because I wanted to look at real women other than you.” It’s not as if I was absent, gone away, missing. Nope. I was there in our house virtually every single day of our marriage, including the times when Handsome was indulging his addiction while I was struggling with a full-time job, two kids, an aging parent suffering from complex grief, and a checked out husband. Clothed, naked, whatever… he could have looked at me, but he made repeated decisions to look elsewhere.

Would I have been more real if I posted titty photos online? If I had time to troll for men on sites like Craigslist and Backpage? If anonymous sex was my thing? I don’t think so. I certainly feel pretty real each day when my alarm clock goes off and I get the kids clothed and fed and off to school and I head for my job, to return home ten or eleven hours later to wrap up the day and return the kids to bed, ensure our bills are paid, and check that my mom is okay. To me, that’s the definition of reality.

Therein lies the rub… as I’m discovering more and more, my sex addict husband’s reality is very different from what I consider to be actual reality. I don’t (or didn’t) exist in any real way in his land of pornography, masturbation, physical affairs, emotional affairs, voyeurism, sexting, pic collecting, eye stalking, etc. etc. There, I’m not his Wife who loves him and finds him handsome and sexy and who supports him no matter what and is just waiting for him to get through his midlife crisis, or get his head out of his ass, and be a good husband and father again. No. In that land, I’m simply the “Boss Lady”  or the uncaring wife who denies him sex that he’s entitled to gosh darn it. (Because he’s such a great catch, of course… once you ignore the drinking, screaming, and cheating… whose panties wouldn’t just fall to the floor?) Forget that he was never, ever denied sex… that fact doesn’t fit his story.

I would love a break from reality. It would be glorious to stick my head in the sand or put on my noise cancelling headphones and drown out all the SA chatter around me with white noise. I can’t do that, however, and neither can Handsome if this marriage is going to work. He’s had at least a five-year break from reality. It’s time for him to join me in this delightful mess we call married life, both in the highs and lows of it, the fun and the sad, exciting and boring, but above all things, real. Hopefully he can gain (or re-gain) an interest in collecting pictures from our family’s happy life instead of those of random sad, broken strangers online.

Four months of sobriety for him – eye opening for me

Handsome and I are almost four months past DDay #1, but since that disclosure only revealed a portion of the story, it is more relevant to say that Handsome has been sexually sober for four months and he has been actively participating in SA for a little over a month. He has struggled to find a sponsor, but is hopeful that he’ll have one after his next meeting. I admit to some frustration at how long Handsome is taking to find a sponsor, but I recognize that – given the extraordinary difficulty he has opening up to people – he wants to find someone he feels comfortable with, who will challenge him when he needs it, who remains married, and who has similar views about his spouse. Those things are important to him and thus they are important to me, because I think Handsome can really do well in recovery with the right people on his team.

It is also true that Handsome has not had a drop of alcohol to drink in a month. He and I agree to disagree for now about the significance of this. He admits that he drank way too much, but insists he was not an alcoholic. To me, there’s a lot of denial in that belief, but I admit that he did quit drinking cold turkey without much of a glance back at it.  At worst, I get some grumbling when he’s having a meal that would have historically been accompanied by a beer (or four).  Yet alcohol played a role in almost every single physical encounter he had with his affair partners, whether it was “pre-gaming” to drown out his conscience ahead of time, or pounding beers afterwards to dull the guilt and shame. Alcohol certainly didn’t help his mood swings or anger issues either, and his health had suffered as well. I also find it to be no coincidence that there have been zero (nada! zilch!) issues with ED since he stopped drinking. (Hallelujah!!) I feel entitled to this version of my husband. We had agreed to reevaluate his abstinence from alcohol in June, but at this point I’m sticking to my guns on the “no drinking” thing for the foreseeable future. The thought of adding alcohol back into the picture seems incredibly premature, and fills me with dread. Could he have a (singular) craft beer with a burger or pizza in 6 months? A year? Maybe.  But he has a lot of damage to repair first before I’d even be willing to consider it.

I know that I’m still a newbie in this process – both as a betrayed spouse and as the wife of a sex addict.  Nonetheless, most days I feel like I’m making progress addressing both of these new, painful, and unwanted aspects of my life. There are days when I absolutely resent and abhor what Handsome has wrought upon me and our kids. Strike that – I  resent and abhor what Handsome has wrought upon me and our kids EVERY day, but some days I’m much better at dealing with it than others.  And there are issues that plague me. Those are fodder for other posts, but I can now function throughout an entire day at work, actually be productive, and not collapse at home afterwards.  I still cry often, but it’s less than it used to be. I’m gaining my sense of peace back at home. (Physically disposing of the bed that Handsome slept on with Angel Baby did wonders for that.) My appetite is returning as is my sense of humor. These are small things, and they aren’t exactly all consistent yet, but it’s a big improvement after where I was following DDay #1.

I’m learning… both things I never thought I’d need to know, and things I never wanted to know. I can articulate the difference between the co-addict model and the trauma model in a few sentences. I’ve explored with Handsome what it means to lust and what exactly he lusts after. I’ve familiarized myself with the 12 steps and have read more betrayal recovery and SA literature than I would have thought imaginable. My detective skills are honed to near Sherlock Holmes-like perfection and my spider senses are on high alert. As my young son would say, my game is tight.

Most importantly, my eyes are open. I do not think that Handsome and I have an easy road ahead of us. To the contrary, I know it’s going to be a bumpy ride. I want him to be honest with me, but honesty can hurt. I want him to change, but even change for the better can be difficult, especially if I am changing too. That said, four months in I can see some hope and sunlight in our future and that alone seemed too much to hope for immediately after DDay #1.  I booked a Thanksgiving trip today for our family. I’m planning ahead – months out. My eyes are open, but I have hope.

Polygraph details – you asked for them

A few people reached out offline to ask some polygraph-specific questions. Since the questions were mostly the same, and since they were questions that I had initially too, I thought I’d write a brief post to address them. I do this though with a caveat that some US states restrict the kids of questions that can be asked during a polygraph (Maine, I’m lookin’ at you), and in many states polygraph testing is inadmissible in court. What I spell out here is based on my experience, so do your homework in your state/ country before you pay for a test that might not satisfy you or meet your needs.

How many questions can you ask?  This is a big issue. Handsome was juggling 4 women in addition to me.  I could ask questions for days, but that’s a problem. A polygraph should focus on no more than four (yep, only 4) tested questions, and the questions must be answerable by yes/ no and should be on related topics. If you are using an accredited/ licensed examiner, they will not pose pages of questions. The accuracy of the test drops precipitously when more than 4 test questions are asked.

It is my belief that the exam will do you little good unless you are essentially trying to confirm that you have been told all of the major elements of the story, or if you are trying to confirm or refute a small number of very specific issues. In my case, Handsome insisted after DDay #2 that he had told me about all of the women he was involved with and broadly what transpired with each of them. Thus, I could confirm that with a test question. (“Have you disclosed all of your physical and emotional affair partners to your wife and disclosed to her all of your material affair activity with each of them?”)  We spent time before the test defining “material” so he wasn’t confused and so the question was answered in a way that addressed what I actually wanted to know. To clarify, using one example, I care whether he truly only kissed the woman he took out on a date last July, but I care not whether they spoke by phone once or 40 times. I wanted to focus on the former (the scope of their sexual contact is material to me), not the latter (the frequency of their communication is immaterial to me). With that clarification, Handsome could readily answer the question.

We also covered much more specific questions like whether or not he still has his burner phone or whether he acquired a new burner phone, and we pinned down a bit more of the timeline. Those were all essential questions that I needed to have definitive answers to.

How long did it take? Start to finish for us was about two hours. I had given the examiner a list of questions which – after interviewing us together – he helped to pare down to the questions that were ultimately covered. If you use a licensed/ accredited examiner, the questions will be known to the person being tested. There are no surprises during the test, and Handsome was asked multiple times if he was okay to proceed with the test (in other words, he was given plenty of opportunity to bail if he didn’t believe he could answer the test questions truthfully).

You said something in your blog post about a written statement. What’s that about? Even after the examiner helped to combine and winnow down my questions, I had five. (I know, I know… I don’t follow instructions or I’m contrary, or whatever… .) Five questions, none of which I was willing to give up. Unfortunately, we hit a wall in terms of combining them too. To address this, the examiner had Handsome write a statement that included answers to all five questions. For example: “I do not have my burner phone any longer nor am I maintaining any other phone that my wife doesn’t know about.” Then, the examiner tested him on the veracity of the entire statement, collectively. It worked for us, but if Handsome had failed the test I wouldn’t have known which question/ statement caused him to fail without additional testing on each of the components of the statement. So the strategy had some risk involved, but the examiner assured us that he’d do the additional testing for free if it was necessary. I didn’t see a down side to handling it this way – especially because all five of my key questions were addressed.

What does this all cost? Depending on where you live, and whether you have the exam at the examiner’s office or if you want them to travel to you, likely between $400 and $700. We are in a small Mid-Atlantic city and there is some competition between examiners, so Handsome’s test was $450 at the examiner’s office. In my research I saw a number of examiners well over $600, and also a large number of unlicensed or unaccredited examiners. You really have to do your homework.

Was it worth it? For me, yes, but I can also see how it might not turn out so well. I am relieved that the information that I was told appears to be truthful. I have confirmation of the scope of Handsome’s wrongdoing. That is helpful to me. If Handsome’s test had indicated deception, however, what would I have done? Would it have just deepened the wounds? Was I ready to walk away if he had lied or what was I prepared to do? I’m not sure of the answers, but I think those questions should be considered before testing takes place.

I hope this is helpful. I will add this: in the days following the test Handsome told several people (his therapist, Dr. M, his best friend, and likely his 12 step buddies) that he took and passed the test. He seemed proud of that fact. I am truly grateful that he took the test and greatly relieved that he passed, but at the end of the day it confirmed that my husband had indeed had physical or emotional affairs with four other women during our marriage and that I have been actively lied to and deceived since March of 2015, with his first physical affair starting roughly two months later. I am glad I know the truth, but the truth.still.hurts.

To tell the truth – the polygraph

In light of all of the new revelations from DDay #2, and my uncertainty over the veracity of his insistence that he had told me everything (because, let’s be honest, I’d heard that no less than a dozen times before), I scheduled Handsome for a polygraph test.  I wrote out about 25 yes/ no questions that I wanted answers to, and, together with the polygraph examiner, we winnowed those down to 5 comprehensive questions that I considered to be fundamental to moving forward with the marriage. Handsome wrote out a statement based on those questions and answered each of them head on. Then he was tested based on the truthfulness of the statement.  The test was this morning.

I expected – if Handsome was telling me the truth – that the whole process would make me feel better. Initially, I do feel relieved, but in the moment of the test I found myself questioning what I had done.  I probably shouldn’t feel that way, but I did. For all his manly bluster, Handsome is a newly diagnosed SA. His shame and guilt and torment are, at the moment, overwhelming and profound. And yet there he sat, patiently waiting for someone to truss him up to the polygraph machine. Shaming and humiliating him further was never the goal.

Handsome answered all of the questions multiple times. After the test the examiner (who was very professional and non-judgmental and kind) advised me that the responses appeared to be truthful, both according to his own observation of the results and based on a separate algorithm that he runs on the results. In fact, according to the algorithm there was a less than 1% chance of falsehood. Thank heaven. I do feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders or a shadow has passed over me. Both are good things and I got the answers I desperately needed; however, if I am honest, I’m likely to be a bit haunted by the fact that my comfort came at the expense of more of Handsome’s dignity. (Mind you, I completely understand and agree that my dignity was never a consideration for him throughout two and a half of the last three years, but the whole point of this is to move beyond that.)

Would I do it again if I had to do it all over?  Yes, but I might have waited till Handsome had a few more SA meetings under his belt.  Or maybe that wouldn’t make a difference. I just keep thinking of how very sad it is when the facts of a marriage are so in doubt that a polygraph is needed to affirm or to refute the story. In my case, the story was affirmed, but I’m sure in many others it is not.

She’s like gum on my shoe

The Flame. Recently my world seems to revolve around the Flame. (read about her here: https://betrayedwife.net/2018/02/05/dday-deceit-as-a-lifestyle-choice/ ) I thought that I was done with her in 2012, only to find out that after Handsome bought his burner phone – allegedly in the Spring of 2015 – he immediately looked her up and reconnected with her. Again. They talked “often,” texted, met in person for lunch and, based on 2012, likely commiserated with one another about their spouses. Handsome admitted this during DDay #2. Like gum on my shoe, she just keeps sticking around. A problematic annoyance and disrupter in our marriage.

Handsome acted out with (at least) three other women since 2015, but each of those individuals was/ is deeply broken and unsavory. They are the dregs of society. They are not women he normally would give the time of day to, and he cast them off without a second thought once his actions and deceit were brought to light.

The Flame, however, is a different story. Knowing what I know now, I believe that Handsome was about a decade into his addiction at the time he met her in roughly 1988. He was a 27 year old divorcee, she was a 17 year old high school student. Evidently neither of them had any guidance from a responsible adult, and there was no one to put a foot down and say “no” to such an inappropriate relationship. I am sure that she was the very embodiment of an addictive hit for him. Young, tall, not entirely unattractive, and – most importantly – willing and available. He loved her. She may have loved him as well, but ultimately she dumped him.

Fast forward to 2012. Handsome reaches out to her and rekindles their contact. It starts platonically enough, until it turned flirty and I called them out on it. Contact ceases, but not before Handsome calls her to apologize for my behavior (for “over-reacting” to the emotional affair); a fact that eats at me for years.

When he disclosed that she was back, yet again and this time in touch with him for years in total secrecy, the pain was searing. Unlike the other three acting out partners, this one is different. She matters to him. I’m well aware that affair recovery cannot occur if the affair continues (even if it is just emotional). I cannot move on with the marriage, and Handsome cannot address his addiction, if this woman is waiting in the wings to reappear in a later act. No way. I told him very plainly that one of the things I need him to do to advance our recovery is to decisively and unequivocally end things with the Flame.  Seeing her in person or speaking to her by phone are not viable options. I asked that he write her a letter, which I will mail, ending it once and for all. He agreed.

Today is his regular therapy day which is always fraught with anxiety for me. Having lied to his therapist for months, and disclosing things to the therapist long before he told me, I’m gun shy. I want therapy to work, but I’m not convinced that Handsome isn’t aping what an obedient addict would tell his doctor. He occasionally asks me what I think they should talk about in the session. Today I asked him how the letter was coming and suggested that perhaps the therapist could offer some guidance with that.  Handsome proceeded to tell me that he hadn’t worked through the “amends” portion of the letter yet. Wait, what???? My reaction -after an initial in-person blow up – was captured in a text message later in the morning:

 

 

The lame apology to me, and my angry but honest response.

Let me add, if the intent of the apology was to say something like “I am sorry that I misused my authority as an adult all those years ago to take advantage of you when you were just 17,” or some such thing, that would be understandable.  But no, that wasn’t it. He was going to apologize to her for their mutual, multiple year affair.  What is it about this woman? He didn’t say anything about apologizing to her husband or to her kids, the innocent bystanders and collateral damage to the affairs. Why is she somehow blameless and deserving of an apology for carrying on a lengthy emotional affair with him?

Perhaps I am wrong to think this way, but I do believe that she is different than the other three women. The others were sold a story of an unhappy marriage and an unloving wife and, as wrong as they were to do so, I’m sure they justified their actions on the basis of the lies they were told. This woman, however, knew differently. She knew he had a loving wife and a great family and a full and rich life, and she knew – because I told her so myself – that she jeopardized all of that for him before. She didn’t care. What about that is worthy of an apology?

And how did the task – to write her a letter breaking it off and ending all contact – shift to an apology in the first place? How are the two remotely related? He just started SA two weeks ago.  He isn’t on Step 9… he hasn’t even found a sponsor yet. He’s barely on Step 1!

Trying to explain my anger and frustration to Handsome was akin to explaining it to a toddler. He wasn’t getting it. I drew upon an imperfect analogy: I asked him if she shot me with a gun to get me out of the picture, would he still apologize to her for the affair? His response was an immediate and adamant “No, of course not.” But, I explained, she knowingly and actively participated in the reduction of my marriage to ruins and emotionally destroyed me. She harmed me knowing full well what she was doing and what the result would be. A small, night-light-sized light bulb went off in Handsome’s selfish head. “Oh.  I didn’t think of it that way. I didn’t think of your side of it.”

Therein lies the problem. All too often he still doesn’t think of me at all.

What comes next?

The harbor near our Summer home (aka. my Happy Place)

DDay #2 was one week ago today. I cannot begin to articulate the feeling of finding out that my husband was juggling as many as four other women at once. In addition to me, of course… the ever present, always faithful, committed and supportive wife. Where else would I be, right? I honored my vows even as they were being torn apart.

There were a few severe comments to my last post that I did not – just could not – approve. More than one suggested that I “must have known.” I did not. I had absolutely no idea prior to DDay#1 that Handsome was in the midst of a three-year affair, let alone that there were multiple other women. He carried on the vast majority of his deceit away from me, our house, and our kids (thank heavens for the latter). His other life and my life intersected in only two ways that I know of over the last few years: he brought Angel Baby to our home last Summer when I was away, and he used his work weekends at our Summer home in Massachusetts to call, text, and sext these other women, defiling it in the process. Of course, I recognize all too well that time and money spent on the skanks means less for me and the kids. But I only know of those things now. We got the leftovers after he satisfied himself. I did not know that at the time.

Addicts are world class liars, and Handsome is no different. For the most part, I was on the receiving end of lies of omission. He didn’t tell me that he had a second phone or that Angel Baby was in our house or that he was in touch with the Flame, among other things. Those are material omissions, to be sure. But he also convinced himself that I wasn’t really in love with him and that he was isolated from the kids and from me. Even when he was with us, he has said he felt terribly alone and without worth.  My previous three years were lived in relative bliss, whereas he lived in torment, even when he was surrounded by people who really loved him. Every day was a crisis that was soothed and released through this inappropriate contact with these worthless women. He shut us out, and told himself Oscar-worthy lies to justify his wrongdoing.

Handsome’s self-professed sobriety date for SA is December 7, 2017. He passed three months of sobriety a few days ago.  I am glad for him and relieved that he is taking affirmative steps to fix his brokenness. He is attending 12 step meetings and going to therapy. Dr. Minwalla’s 8 day intensive for men is next on the horizon if we can get it scheduled. Handsome agreed to a polygraph which will take place in about a week. He is supposed to write a letter to the Flame and officially, formally end that contact. All steps forward, all on the horizon.

And yet as I stand in the background cheering on Team Handsome, being the ever dutiful wife, I’m wondering when it’s my turn to heal. I’m wondering when attention will be paid to the harm caused to me. Handsome texted me earlier and said “I have no idea how to apologize sufficiently.” That’s for sure, but it’s because words cannot undo actions.  They just can’t. I’m tired of hearing “I’m sorry” because the words mean little to nothing in comparison to the gravity of Handsome’s conduct and the devastation wrought. I appreciate that he’s sorry and that he is willing to try to say so. It just seems rather pointless at the moment, just one week after DDay #2.

The Plot Twist – he’s not just a cheater

With this blog post I fully recognize that I may drive some folks away, anger others, and generally disappoint a few folks. I’m sorry/ not sorry. For the second time (at least) in three months, my reality was completely upended AGAIN just days ago. I knew full well that during our big talk last week Handsome had only told me the truth that he was capable of telling me at that moment. I felt that he tried, but did not overly stretch himself. I figured that there was more to come, but based on the prior trickle truth I guessed that additional disclosures would be about the number of times various sexual acts occurred or the duration of the affair with the Whore or things along those lines. I was wrong. Boy was I wrong.

It just so happens that on the day of the big talk I had pulled together all of Handsome’s credit card and bank statements going back to January 2015. I had not had time to go through them prior to our talk. Once I did, I found three things:

  1. several charges of not insignificant amounts at a very nice restaurant I have never been to;
  2. several charges at a nearby casual chain that the kids and I have been to exactly once with Handsome (at which time he plainly stated he had never visited before);
  3. a charge to a website in the Netherlands for a small but suspicious amount of money.

So, four days after the big talk we are again at our kitchen table.  First up: the restaurants. Deny, deny, deny. Fine, but his anxiety level was clearly increasing. He got up and started pacing, finding little tasks to do, stretching, sighing loudly, etc. I knew something was up.

Contrary to what you see on TV, under questioning by a lawyer (think cross examination of a witness or defendant) people rarely fess up. So rarely, in fact, that in the real world most lawyers rarely try to get that broken down confession on the stand. There are too many things that can go wrong, and it almost never turns out the way you’d hope. But Handsome was going to make me work for every sliver of concession (or confession as the case may be), so I put on my lawyer hat and we started talking about the credit card charge – to an entity called 2buysafe dot com. Their website looks ridiculous, but when you use Google reasonably well it’s easy to find out that they serve as a third party billing service for Seeking Arrangements and sites of similar ilk. I had done my homework. I knew this.  I had proof printed out, in hand.

When confronted, originally Handsome denied knowing what the charge was, said it must have been a mistake, all the usual.  Then he took a deep breath, stretched, and blurted out “okay, yes, I signed up… I signed up on that site.” Amen. That was the beginning of hours of discussion and additional disclosures. As to the site itself, he says he signed up, created a profile, and received emails from women all over the world but that it was just “too freaky” for him (plus he doesn’t have enough money of his own to function as a sugar daddy) so he let the account expire. I believe that could be true, but I also believe that taking that step, and failing, is what led to the next step for him – starting the affair with the Whore.

But, because nothing is ever that simple in Crazytown, there was more. Much more. In short:

  • He admitted that he occasionally took a young girl from the town he works in to dinner and to lunches. He had mentioned this girl to me often in the past, back to when she was a young teenager. At the time, I warned him to keep his distance because I feared she had an unhealthy crush on him and could make accusations against him. (Note: I was not afraid of what he would do – as I had no reason to fear that at the time- but rather I feared her.) I think he did keep his distance then, but years have passed and she has since gotten older (I believe she is now 24) and needier. We will call her Angel Baby.
  • He said Angel Baby came to our house and drove him to the airport once when he was flying to meet up with me and the kids “because she needed the money” and he wanted to give her the money rather than a taxi. He never mentioned this to me.
  • He admitted that this past July, before he flew up to meet the kids and me on vacation, he brought Angel Baby to our home. He says he found her crying on the street in the rain and that she had nowhere to stay. (Boo fucking hoo, right??) She spent two nights there. On both nights, they shared a bed. In my house. There are five other beds in my house, all of which were free, but for some reason he just had to sleep with her. Go figure. Handsome insists “nothing happened” and that there was no sexual contact at all. (I call complete bullshit on this, by the way. I assume he fucked her. In fact, I’m pretty much going to assume he fucked everyone from here on out.)
  • He also admitted that he has been in contact with the old girlfriend again for several years, ever since he bought his burner phone. (I mention her briefly here https://betrayedwife.net/2018/02/05/dday-deceit-as-a-lifestyle-choice/ .)  We will call her the Flame. According to him, he took her to lunch once since he resumed contact with her. They called and texted “often” until, he still claims, he tossed the burner phone in the river back in November. (I have never fully believed that he doesn’t have the phone. I believe he may not be actively using it, but Handsome is a keeper of things. I doubt very strongly that he tossed it.) This burns me. I thought seriously about separating from him over her back in 2012, but didn’t. He assured me it was nothing and it was over. And here she is again, years down the pike.

If you are keeping score, that means that in July 2017, Handsome was involved outside our marriage (emotionally, physically, or both) with the Whore, Angel Baby, and the Flame. But, of course, there is still more.

  • On July 26th, he took a woman from the town he works in to dinner. Handsome had A FUCKING DATE. He drove 7 miles to pick her up, drove about 10 miles back to the lovely restaurant, paid for dinner, and then drove her home. He says he kissed her but nothing more. (Again, I assume he fucked her too.) Contact with her started a few weeks before the date  – probably around the same time Angel Baby was shacking up in my home and right before our summer vacation – and allegedly ended about 4-6 weeks after the date.

Final tally for July 2017: four other women, plus me.

When it was simply the Whore, I thought I was just dealing with a cheater. Even if you added in the Flame and what I knew from 2012.  A common, garden variety philanderer, but nothing special.  That was brutal and devastating and awful and horrendous.  However, when you add all of this insane escalating behavior together, the result is clear to me. My husband, my dear darling, still beloved Handsome is a sex addict. He is a broken, deeply troubled man. It is real. It is unquestionable. And now we have to deal with it. He found and attended his first SA meeting the following morning, of his own volition. Two days later he met with his therapist and admitted that he has been lying to him all along. I am grateful he finally admitted all of this to me and that he took those steps, and I have told him so, but still…

This is not what I signed up for. Looking ahead, it doesn’t even vaguely resemble the future that I had hoped and worked for every day since we got married. My life – even if we manage to stay together through this which is far from certain – will never, ever be what I thought it was before. And I liked most of my life before. I didn’t step forward and volunteer for a new life, but now I’m damned if I do (a future of 12 step meetings and therapy and triggers and the fear of relapses), and damned if I don’t (breaking up my family, moving my kids, closing the door on a future with the man I adore and had planned to spend the rest of my life with).

How did I feel as I looked at him these last few days? I pity him. That’s a terrible feeling when you are looking at your life partner and someone you love and had respected. I am angry, furious even. How dare he? How dare he do this to our family? When did he get so phenomenally fucked up, and why?  And, of course, I am hurt. I have been hurt by the person I love most in this world to the point that it is difficult to feel pain. I am not certain whether Handsome has hit rock bottom. I thought he had been there before. (Wrong again!) I know for certain that I’m there now. I feel like I am at the absolute bottom of a deep, dark pit, staring up, not into light, but infinite darkness.

 

The Big Talk – A cheating husband tells (some of) his story

Several weeks ago, after another fairly frustrating conversation about the “who, what, where, when, why, how” details of his affair, I was nearing the end of my rope with Handsome. Simply stated, he just wasn’t telling me much of anything.  Upon reflection, I realized that almost everything I knew about the affair, save for a few small details, came from either the Whore’s burner phone or from Fire Dude or my own digging. While Handsome is great under pressure at his job, he positively wilts under scrutiny at home. I thought that in order to put an end to trickle truth and to have any chance at getting coherent information from him, he needed to take some time to pull his story together. I asked him to take a few weeks, talk to his therapist, and prepare to tell me the “story” of the affair, from start to finish. He agreed.

As days passed I’d occasionally check in and say “hey, how is that coming?” or “when do you think we might be able to talk through your story?” and while I believe he was trying, he wasn’t making much headway. He had about five lines written down, four of which were about what a stupid fool he was. Agreed, but that wasn’t the point of the exercise.

I asked him if it would help for me to outline for him the questions that I had so that he would have a framework on which to base his story. (Truth be told, I was pissed that I had to do that, but between staying pissed or getting answers I desperately wanted and needed, I opted to deal with being pissed.) He eagerly agreed, so I set to work. I had five major areas I wanted him to cover: addressing some lingering issues from before the affair (outreach to the old girlfriend and the porn); the beginning of the affair; the hotel through the end of the physical affair; the sexting and voyeurism phase; and the aftermath.  By the time I was done laying out my questions across that timeline, it was twelve pages long. I can only imagine what Handsome thought when I handed it to him and he felt the heft of the document in his hand.

A week and two therapy sessions passed. On Monday we sat down at 10:00pm and talked till about 3:00am. No breaks. It was painful for both of us, but clearly gut wrenching for him. It was obvious and evident to me that he is as horrified by his behavior as I am. Of all the facts I gathered from the answers to my questions, perhaps that was the most important one of all: Handsome is remorseful and deeply ashamed. (A not-so-small voice inside my head follows that with “Good. He should be.”)

He had made an effort to answer every single question. While much of the information was not new, hearing his perspective  – his own version of events – was helpful. It gave me some insight into exactly what he was thinking or not thinking throughout the various phases of the affair. There are still open issues, with a clearer sense of the timeline being the biggest one and, of course, a better sense of the “why.” I think we’ll make progress on that the longer Handsome continues his therapy.

Do I think I got the whole truth?  No.  Not at all. I’m no longer that naive. I do believe that other things – most likely some additional awful, painful things – will come to light.  It seems inevitable; however, I think he told me as much of his truth as he is presently able to handle. I hope that as he feels more secure in himself and in our affair recovery that he’ll grow comfortable (or at least be able to handle) disclosing things instead of waiting for me to dig them up. If he ever manages to do that it will be a monumental step forward.

 

Trickle truth returns with a vengeance

If you’ve read through my posts thus far you know that until now the general timeline of Handsome’s affair was that it all started by texting in very early 2016, that sometime in the late Spring of 2016 he and the Whore had their one and only hotel tryst (although he struggled with remembering exactly when the hotel occurred, but insisted the affair didn’t start in 2015), and that from June 2016 through late November 2017, it was purely sexting and voyeurism. We worked hard together to pin down those broad dates over numerous conversations. Call it a 2-year affair, start to finish, 17 months of which was not physical. I was slowly coming to grips with that. It sucked and it was wretchedly painful, but I was getting by, willing my damaged self through each day. Wait… not so fast.

A few posts ago I made reference to our finances. We do not share credit cards. My bills are an open book (often laying on the kitchen counter), but his seemed to disappear from the house immediately after arrival. After DDay he agreed to be more open and transparent about them – and everything else – and insisted that he had nothing to hide. I realized a few days ago that I was still not seeing those bills. I know he didn’t use online accounts for any of the cards, so I set them up myself for him last week.  In doing so, I accessed his statements from 1/2015 to the present. Amidst the gasoline charges and medical co-pays and the amusement park trips with the kids, there it was… the charge for the no-tell-motel… on July 1st of 2015. I found that four days ago and I don’t think that I’ve caught my breath since.

What real difference does it make? It matters to me in two ways. First, it means that the affair started pretty close to a year (a YEAR) before he said it did. It didn’t start with the hotel.  It started months before then.  In turn that means it was well underway at the time of our 10th wedding anniversary, and was ongoing throughout another year of milestones and vacations and experiences, all of which are now tainted too. Second, he previously admitted to being at the Whore’s house as late as May 2016. That means that the physical portion of their affair was probably more like 12-16 months, not six months. To me, both of those are real and material differences.

Handsome’s reaction to this newfound information? “Well, I told you that I really couldn’t remember when that was.”

How does an otherwise intelligent man not remember what YEAR he started an affair? Is that a legitimate subject for confusion? How does he not remember screwing his whore in a fleabag motel just days before his  summer vacation with his family? If he felt as guilty as he says he did, why wasn’t that on his mind throughout the entire trip (thus burning it into his brain)?  How can someone “forget” that?

Thinking this mess went on for two years is bad enough, but another year on top of that? Our youngest was in preschool then, which seems like a lifetime ago when I look at him now. He was still enough of a baby to sleep with his butt up in the air back then, and now – three years later – he’s my super cool surfer dude/ Minecraft expert. His growth is a painful, heartrending illustration of how very, very long the lies and deceit went on. I feel suffocated by the duration of this deceit.

Why did he cheat?

A commenter recently asked – in relation to a different post – why, from my perspective, Handsome cheated. I thought it might be helpful to post my answer here. I  am certain my answer to this question will evolve, but two+ months out from DDay, this is what I think as I stated in my reply (edited slightly):

We are working on the “why” and trying to figure out how we got to a place where the affair happened. He says it’s because he was a selfish, narcissistic asshole, which is certainly true but not the root of the issue. Handsome has been in individual counseling for a month. (At 55, for the first time ever talking to someone about his innermost feelings.) I have my own theories though on what led him to seek attention elsewhere. I cannot, however, explain how he picked this wretched person to seek that attention from or why he wasn’t repulsed by her (which would be his normal reaction).

Handsome comes from a very patriarchal family. His dad is king. His mom had a good professional job at a time when many women didn’t, but his dad still dictated everything. I earn about 3x as much as Handsome. His job pays for utilities and, thankfully, provides our very necessary health insurance, and he pays for his car and his credit cards. He also makes a modest monthly payment on my student loan. I pay for everything else (two mortgages, everything related to the kids, all groceries, my car and my credit cards, vacations, dining out, entertainment, and all of the expenses for our second house). While I think he likes the trappings of our lifestyle, I know the shifted power dynamic gets to him. (I say “power” but I don’t control his finances or anything…. it’s more the lack of control he has over me or mine.) I think perhaps he wanted to feel more needed, more in charge.

I also think the dynamics of our intimate life played a role. Several years ago he developed E.D. issues. I never got upset in front of him or did anything other than try to reassure him I loved him and it would be okay. But a cycle started. We’d try to have sex, it wouldn’t work, and so rather than trying and failing he just about quit trying. In retrospect, I thought I was handling that okay by stepping back and giving him some space to work through that frustration. I didn’t think I should try to force the issue (he already had a Viagra prescription that barely helped). I was actually proud of how understanding I thought I was being. Whereas I saw “helpful, supportive space” I think he saw “disinterest” and “she must not care.”

To me, there are still a bunch of steps between “she must not care” and “seems like a good idea to have an affair.” I’m haunted by how many fairly simple conversations we could have had that might have made a big difference in where we are today. If he had ever asked “Are you still in love with me” I would have moved heaven and Earth to assure him I was. I was certain he loved me, but I didn’t realize that might not be enough.

My post DDay frantic internet searches were the first time I stumbled upon the phrase “cognitive dissonance.” I do think it played role for us. It helped him justify or come to terms with his otherwise deplorable conduct. He firmly believed that cheating was bad, but yet he skewed his perceptions of our marriage to make it okay (“she doesn’t care” “she doesn’t want me”). He doesn’t admit this yet, but I do think it’s coming. It would also tie to the porn and masturbation in lieu of actual intimacy. His belief being both that he could quit any time – I don’t think he could – and that it wasn’t hurting our marriage because I didn’t want him (utterly untrue). It’s as if he compartmentalized his life and created an alternate reality where he convinced himself he had an unattentive wife and was justified in his conduct. Outside of that compartment he still acted as if our marriage was great, save for the small issues everyone experiences.

I remembered today that we had an argument about a year and a half ago. Truth is, while we occasionally bickered we rarely out-and-out fought. In this particular instance, I don’t recall what it was about, but I remember that I said something to Handsome about him “checking out” of the marriage. I vividly recall him looking at me as if I had slapped him. He appeared sincerely hurt, confused.  He said he didn’t feel that way about the marriage and that he thought we were in a good place and he was happy. Even today, as doubtful as I am about almost everything, I’m convinced he was sincere. I felt so badly at the time that I think I backtracked on my comment and apologized. Here’s my point – on that very day he was in the midst of the affair  and likely in the 6+ months where it was physical. How could he say – and apparently believe – that our marriage was good, while he was cheating? I cannot get my head around that.

I don’t think I’m alone in my confusion on this issue either.  Handsome tells me that it has been the subject of many discussions in therapy.  The “why” someone cheats is generally understood in a bad marriage. When it happens in a “good” marriage, it’s difficult to reconcile how the cheater could truly love the betrayed spouse and yet do something so clearly bound to gravely injure them. When we get to the bottom of that “why” – or even part way down that rabbit hole – I’ll feel like we’re making progress.

On a side note, I made it through Valentine’s Day relatively unscathed and just focused on my kids. Our trip to New England was okay 98% of the time. We actually had some fun together. Best of all, our first affair recovery session with Brian from Beyond Affairs went well. Handsome was practically doing jumping jacks trying to reduce his stress level throughout that session, and I found myself largely unable to look at him during much of it, but we managed it and have good, helpful homework to do over the next few weeks before our second session.

Two months post DDay – a long, strange trip

Some days, I truly wonder if I’m losing my mind. If I manage to sleep, which is no sure thing, I might actually awake and have a brief, fleeting moment where I forget. I forget for a nanosecond what Handsome did. In that moment my life is like it was pre-DDay, and it feels safe and comforting. Then reality flashes in and I wonder if I had a bad dream. A split second later I realize it’s all too real and the feeling of profound loss washes over me and consumes me in an instant.

Two months ago, I was a certifiable wreck. I have no idea how I made it through a two week family vacation or Christmas. Sadly, the good times with my mom and kids among those days are such a blur they are lost to me…one more casualty of Handsome’s infidelity.

I’d love to write here that I’m getting better. Some days I feel as if I am. Not every day has been 100% awful. The affair is clearly over. Handsome started individual counseling, is working hard at it and has dialed back his drinking significantly. He is doing a good job controlling his angry outbursts. He tries in his own somewhat clumsy way to talk to me about what happened. We start marriage counseling next week. He tells me multiple times a day that he loves me. (I mostly believe he thinks he loves me, but I am very uncertain whether he is actually in love with me. How could he be if he did this awful thing?) We have had days where we laughed, had fun, had great sex (hysterical bonding!), and/ or talked about our future as if it was a certainty.

And yet on other days there is no light in the world and the very sight of him, or the sound of his voice, is both repulsive and hurtful to me. I spend days with tears dripping out of my eyes at work (it’s not exactly crying… tears just flow forth for hours on end… WTF?), and the waves of grief that wash over me seem never ending. I think of the deliberate deception (the burner phone), the duration of  his involvement with the Whore (years), how he made believe he was being a good husband and a good dad, and generally how he flitted around our home acting like nothing was going on when he was actively destroying our marriage and our family. It sickens me.

I’m tired of the emotional seesaw. I want to get off. I didn’t get on willingly or of my own volition. I was dragged onto it by the narcissism and selfishness of the person I love (loved?) most in the world. That realization alone is devastating. While I have good days and bad, every single day I’m aware of what Handsome did. It is in my head permanently. The mantra running through my mind is “He did this to me. To us.” It was intentional, disrespectful, disgusting, and dishonest. Two months in, I’m still not certain how to come to terms with that.

“I don’t remember.”

At this point it’s likely helpful to know a bit more about Handsome and our marriage. Handsome is in law enforcement, and he’s funny and outgoing at home, but can be shy and awkward in certain social settings or around new people. He has learned to schmooze with my clients at a hockey game, but if I take him to a cocktail party he’s likely to take refuge in a corner near the bar. I would say that he is confident at work, and at least somewhat insecure elsewhere. He has a quick temper, but a deep heart.

For as long as I’ve known him, Handsome’s preferred beverage has been a fancy, cold beer. We have mandatory recycling where we live so I thought I knew how much he was drinking. He loved a beer or two with dinner (rarely more) and one before bed. I thought that was a lot, but he was never intoxicated. So I stayed silent. Since DDay he has disclosed that he  concealed the extent of his drinking from me. Six to ten beers a day was apparently not unusual, most of which were consumed when I was out of the house or after I went to bed. The excess empties were apparently tossed elsewhere or hidden in the trash. One more thing I didn’t know. (Since we returned from our family vacation he is down to one beer or less a day, and not at my insistence. I’m pleasantly surprised and proud of him for that. It’s a bright spot in the otherwise dark depths of these days.)

Handsome works rotating shifts which means that we are often at complete opposite schedules. My job is a steady but long lawyer schedule, and he can work daylights, nights, or overnights.  It changes every week. So, some weeks we see each other a lot, other times we have to make the most out of seeing each other in passing. But that has always been true. I think (thought? believed? should it be past tense now?) it’s why we love to travel… we know we’ll be together and it gives us something to look forward to together. Whenever we’d have a stretch where he was on daylights – so we’d have all evening and night together – it was my favorite shift of his because we got to spend time together after we both finished work. I only learned recently that it was also his favorite shift with the Whore because they could text/ sext with impunity during the day since her husband was also at work.

In mid-January, Fire Dude called and asked to meet me. I told Handsome that I was going and while I think he was sad about it, he did not try to stop me. In short, Fire Dude handed me the Whore’s burner phone. He asked if I could somehow get the phone mirrored or copied for him and, if so, he was willing to lend it to me for that purpose and so I could read through it. (On DDay Handsome told me that when he found out Fire Dude had the Whore’s phone, he broke his burner phone into pieces and threw the pieces away in multiple places.)

I’d read all the blog posts and websites about the destructiveness of intrusive thoughts and knowing too many details, but my personality is such that I need to acknowledge and then move on.  My imagination is likely much worse than reality. Plus, Handsome had told me that he never took the burner phone on vacation with us, either on long or short trips. It was important to me to confirm that. So, over the course of a few evenings I read through all 12,000 plus text messages, and compared dates with our calendars. Handsome had told me the truth. He never took the phone when he traveled with us. He did, however, often start texting her the very minute he was alone outside our house after we got home. He also texted her hundreds of times during two weekends he traveled alone, including one weekend from our home in New England… a home where I had gotten dressed for our wedding and where our son was likely conceived. He sent the Whore dick pics from our bedroom there. And there were texts on my birthday and my kids’ birthdays and our anniversary. And Mother’s Day.

I tried really, really hard to be calm and rational. Or at least not completely irrational. But I had a lot of venom in my system after I was done reading the phone. So I started to ask more questions. We would sit at our kitchen table and I’d ask anything and everything I felt I needed to know. I didn’t want to know the color of her skanky panties or who was on top, but I did want to know exactly when it started and how long the physical affair lasted (it does not appear from the texts that they were together alone or physical from roughly August of 2016 forward… just rampant sexting). The answer: “I don’t remember.” There are not three more frustrating words in our language. If he doesn’t remember, how am I to know and get closure?

There are things that he can and did answer: how many times they had intercourse (once); where (a cheap hotel); how many times they had oral sex (likely 8+ – far more than the one time he admitted to on DDay); where (her house); was she ever in our house (no); did she ever meet me or the kids (no); did he love her (hell no). Those answers are helpful, but I’m haunted by what I do not know.

I do not know, as I write this, with any degree of specificity when the affair started or how long the physical affair lasted. I continually ask “How is the very day, or even the month if not the day, that you decided your marriage vows no longer applied not burned into your brain for eternity?” He has no answer.

Handsome does not respond well to ultimatums. He’s likely to do the opposite and take pictures just to prove it. But I need an end to the trickle truth and an end to my wondering.  I cannot spend the rest of my life with doubts about what occurred and when. So, I asked him to take some time – a few weeks if necessary – to put together his story, from beginning to end, what exactly happened and when (as near as he can recall). I told him to use all of the resources he has available, his calendar, his work schedules and overtime records, and anything else he can gather to help him tell me everything. I don’t want him to make things up just because he feels he has to… that’s not what I’m after.  He can talk through things with his therapist or with our cat, for all I care, but when he is done talking I want nothing to be left unsaid.  No other shoe to drop. No more trickle truth. I do not want to hear anything from Fire Dude or the Whore or anyone else that he could not have told me himself. I hope he takes this seriously, because I feel like my whole world is hanging on what he has to say.

Surviving Christmas

We returned home from our big trip late on Christmas Eve.  With two kids, ages 8 and 12, it was important not to delay Santa any longer than necessary so we slogged ahead with the celebration the following day.  I occasionally had to step away to cry. I was looking at my family around the tree and wondering if it could be the last holiday we’ll all be together.I wondered if my kids would have to shuttle between homes on holidays and weekends.

Do I want to make my marriage work?  Yes. Am I sure it will happen? Not at all. I wasn’t sure then, and these weeks later I am still not sure.

I know that I don’t need to decide right now. (And I don’t think that I could make a good decision if I had to.) If I need or want to leave, I can leave later, when I am ready. I don’t need to rush to do anything now.

For me, there’s normally a trailing off to post-vacation and holiday cheer. Not this year. December 26th I was back to work and trying to deal with my new reality – the wife of a cheater. The betrayed spouse.  What was he doing while I was at work? Was the affair that he assured me was over truly over? Was I paranoid? It was the first time he’d been out of my sight since DDay, and I was utterly unable to function. That was the first time I fully realized how every single day moving forward would be just a little bit harder for me, and how his disclosure had changed me by stripping away my trust.

While I have great relationships with a lot of colleagues and acquaintances, I have few close friends. Very few. Handsome was my best friend. Why “was”?  I’m still trying to fathom how one person in a supposedly loving, caring relationship can intentionally act in a way that will certainly, knowingly result in the complete devastation of the other person. I understand that I was never supposed to know, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t damaged while it was going on. Eight weeks post DDay I will tell you that my best friend isn’t who I thought he was. Maybe, hopefully, he’s still in there somewhere – the Handsome that I fell head over heels in love with those years ago – but the version that existed these last few years can screw himself. He is not my friend.

Taking a family vacation when your family is falling apart

The morning Handsome, our two kids, my 84 year old mother and I were to leave for our long awaited two week holiday trip to Europe, I logged into my work email from home.  There, in my in box, was the message from my secretary: “A gentleman named Fire Dude called for you. He asked for your voicemail.”  He had left a polite but agitated message stating that Handsome had been sleeping with his wife and that they had been sexting each other since at least some time in August of 2016.  He said there were over 10,000 texts between them, including photos and videos, in the 17 months of data on her burner phone.  Sexting? over 10,000? WTF? What happened to “keeping in touch?” Trickle truth.

I called Fire Dude back.  He was kind to me. He believed that some of the contact between Handsome and the Whore occurred while Handsome was working, so he told me that he had shown the phone to Handsome’s boss. Then I gave up any remaining dignity and I begged him, literally, to please not get Handsome fired as we would likely lose our home and we would certainly lose the health insurance we need so desperately for our kids. He agreed to stop pressing the issue with Handsome’s boss. I told him that we could speak again when I returned from the trip. I was physically ill when I hung up with him.

I do not think that I looked at Handsome throughout any of the flights to Europe.  I tried very hard to be excited, enthusiastic, and attentive to my kids and my mom.  Meanwhile, I felt like I was dying on the inside. As if at any moment I would stop breathing or fall over dead.  I’ve lost people in my life that I dearly, dearly loved.  I’ve experienced profound grief.  This was worse. Correction, it IS worse. As I write this I am 8 weeks removed from DDay and the damage has not diminished.

A day or two into the trip I had a small epiphany. Most betrayed spouses likely have to go on with business as usual after DDay. Work, kids, school, etc.  I made the choice to try to make the most of my extraordinarily crappy situation.  I did not have to worry about work. I did not have to do laundry or cook or clean. And, most importantly, Handsome didn’t either.  He was, literally, stuck with me. For two weeks. I decided that we would take the time after the kids went to bed each night and talk to each other… try to work through as much as we possibly could before we got home. And we did.

It was brutal and I was averaging 3 hours of restless dozing a night and barely eating. I swear like a sailor and there were f-bombs dropped all over 4 countries. I yelled occasionally and assailed him. I was often snarky and mean. He kept saying he was sorry. He kept saying all the things he’s supposed to say. That it was the biggest regret of his life.  That he’d go to individual counseling. That he’d go to marriage counseling. That he’d do anything to keep his family together (the fact that this did not include remaining faithful in the first place is not lost on me…). I cried. And cried. And cried.

While we were gone Fire Dude forwarded me about two dozen screen shots from the Whore’s burner phone. The texts were explicit. Handsome said many of the same things to her that he said to me routinely. He called her by my nickname. There were dick pics taken in our basement, masturbation videos from our master bath, and he told her she had the most beautiful pussy in the world and that no one excited him like she did. She reciprocated in every way imaginable. I was crushed. One night I made him sit and listen to me read those texts to him. He wept.

Much of our trip is a blur. I look at my photos and they’re very scattered and disorganized from my usual.  There are lots of pictures of my kids and my mom- and we posed together for them – but I have only one or two pictures from the entire trip of us in the same frame.

By the time we started our long journey home on Christmas Eve, I knew a few things that I didn’t two weeks earlier: that my inclination was to see if the marriage could be saved, that he was honestly remorseful, and that Handsome was not who I thought he was for a very long time.

The day after DDay – trickle truth

Less than 10 hours after disclosure, life had to go on.  Handsome got up and went to work.  I had kids to feed and a trip to pack for. (A trip… how on Earth was I going to be able to go on vacation with this man?) I feel like I was alternately shaking, crying, or just in a fog the entire day.

Handsome came home. We sent the kids off to their friends for a bit. I yelled and cried, and he just kept saying “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” like a broken record.

On this day I got my first dose of what is often referred to as “trickle truth.” I knew that I could not possibly have been told everything the night before. I started to ask question after question.  Some things Handsome could answer.  Other things, he could not or would not answer.  It was exhausting, and frustrating. I hadn’t read any affair related blogs or websites yet. I did not know that this was just the beginning. I did not know that facts and details would continue to drip, drip into my life, each one inflicting a new wound as it arrived.

My main take-away from the day though was what led to the disclosure in the first place. His affair partner (I’m going to call her “the Whore” here because, well, it’s my blog and I can…) is married.  With three kids. Her 12 year old son found her burner phone and told his father. That was on November 20th.  My DDay was December 9th.  Handsome knew for weeks that the cat was out of the bag, but he never willingly disclosed.  It was not until her husband accosted Handsome at his job on the 9th- after figuring out that he was her affair partner – and specifically told Handsome that he intended to call me, that Handsome realized that he had to tell me about the affair.

To hear Handsome tell the story, he says he didn’t disclose earlier because he didn’t want to ruin our big trip or the holidays but that he knew he’d need to tell me. Maybe, but I doubt it. I do not think a day after the holidays would have ever come where he would have just suddenly decided to confess. I owe the Whore’s husband (he’s going to be Fire Dude herein) a debt of gratitude. If it weren’t for him I’d still be living in a lie of a life. As painful and soul-shattering as the last several weeks have been, at least I know. I can take steps to protect my health, my finances, my children, and my future. I will not be caught off guard again.

I couldn’t sleep that night, or for many nights thereafter, and I had no idea whether I was actually going to be able to get on a plane with him the following day.  How could I even fly when I couldn’t stop crying and I felt like I couldn’t breathe?

D-Day – Deceit as a Lifestyle Choice

One thing that I have come to realize since my own Disclosure Day (DDay) – December 9, 2017 – is that all betrayed spouses have had to experience such an unfortunate day.  I’m not alone in that.

If you had asked me at 11:17pm on that night if my husband would ever have an affair, I’d have told you that you were out of your mind.  By 11:19pm, my life as I knew it was forever altered. It’s not that I thought it impossible for Handsome to behave inappropriately, but rather I thought he would never cross THE line…the line between monogamy and infidelity.

To give you some background, my husband – I’ll call him Handsome in this blog – and I met in 1997. We were colleagues first, as we were both in other relationships, and eventually we started dating in 2001.  We fell in love and, between then and our eventual marriage in 2005 we lived at various times both in the same city, as well as a long distance from one another, but our relationship was solid despite that disruption. After we married we settled down in a small house on a lovely quiet street in our borderline Mid-Western city. Two children followed – a daughter in 2006 and a son in 2009. Life was, I thought, good.

Flash forward slightly to 2012.  Handsome and I shared a single home email account.  On that account I started to notice a number of emails from a woman I did not know. He volunteered that she was an old girlfriend and that they had met for lunch and exchanged a few emails. Her husband was supposedly gravely ill.  The emails were, indeed, platonic.  Until they weren’t. After seeing two fairly flirtatious emails referencing the merits of his butt and her chest, I hit “reply all” and suggested that if she was lonely she should to talk to her own husband instead of mine. He wasn’t happy with me and called her to apologize for my over-reaction. She was never heard from again and he later (over a year later, in fact) apologized and said that he did not want to be shady or for me to ever think he was anything less than transparent.

Flash forward to the end of 2013.  I log into my cable account to put parental controls on our TVs and learn that Handsome has been secretly ordering and paying for porn a few times a month for a year (the cost of which we could ill afford at the time). I confronted him and he denied, denied, denied (“we were hacked!”).  It was not until I printed out all of the detailed cable invoices showing all of his purchases that he finally fessed up.  I figured that he felt ashamed, and I didn’t want to further embarrass him by pressing the issue. While there was no further porn ordered on our cable account, I always assumed that he switched to free online porn.

Between then and DDay life had ups and downs. We both lost parents. Our beloved pet died unexpectedly of cancer. Our daughter had multiple serious health issues. But we also became more prosperous as strategic job decisions began to pay off. We could travel, and we did. We closed on a long awaited purchase of a summer home in New England. We both worked really hard, but we seemed to live life to its fullest. In fact, we had a two week family trip to Europe planned for 2 days after DDay.  That trip was long awaited and several years in the making.

On DDay night, we took our kids and a group of my clients to an NHL game.  My kids had a ball, and Handsome is a huge hockey fan and he does a great job of chatting me up to my clients. It was a fun night. Later, with the kids tucked in and asleep, Handsome came into our bedroom, stood next to the bed and told me he had something he needed to tell me.  He went on to disclose that “roughly three years ago” he slept with a woman in the town he worked in and that he bought and used a burner phone and that they had “kept in touch” since then.  He might as well have taken a shotgun and shot me.  I felt absolutely shattered.  Obliterated.  After those words I have very little recollection about the specifics of the rest of the conversation. I do recall:

Burner phone

Hotel

Oral Sex (“just once!”)

and the word “years”… I just could not get that word out of my mind… this wasn’t an “accident” or a “mistake” or a “one time thing”.  No.  The life I had been living was a lie.