The next two weeks I felt like overall things were getting better. I even bounded down the stairs one morning straight into his arms and told him we were going to be alright. I couldn’t have been more wrong. We had our moments, but it felt like we were doing ok, making improvements. He was sullen and unapproachable at times, but I just tried to brush it off.
We visited one of the kids at college. He was silent in the car despite my trying to talk to him. It did not go unnoticed by the child still left at home. They had been watching silently the transgression of his behavior over the last 2 months. How poorly he behaved toward me at times. The drive to and from the college was painful; to be on display, to know we were being watched all that time and to know how l he was treating me. The same thing that had happened on vacation happened then, where I would be fine and just be overcome with anxiety but I couldn’t ask for help because we had one of the children with us. I had to poke at him to get him to hold my hand or talk to me when those moments threatened to overtake me.
While we were at the college he acted almost normal. We got to meet college child’s significant other. He engaged normally. He didn’t want anyone on the outside to know. When we were back to the car, on the way home, he returned to his sullen, sulky attitude.
The day before I was told to leave the house, was Halloween. I spent the day making a candy shoot to give out candy to trick or treaters, not knowing how many we would get. After spending all day doing it, I realized it looked like a plinko board. The kids loved it. My husband seemed impressed. He even sent pictures of it to his mother.
The next morning we took down the Halloween stuff. I was washing the floor downstairs when he came down and told me he was leaving. I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to react or act. I don’t remember much of the day. I know I begged and pleaded. I couldn’t let him leave. I took his suitcase. I kept telling him I would leave but then I wouldn’t go.
I told him then, I had told him over those two months, if he had told me it wasn’t working and there wasn’t someone else I would have been willing to listen. It was the fact that he was just running to someone else. I knew what he would be saying to her. I knew what he had been saying. Or I had a feeling I knew. He said he wouldn’t talk to her for 3 days. I doubt he made it that long. This all seemed very calculated. I was weak. I would have rather he done anything else to me. He had now given me the best and the worst days of my life. Still, my heart wept for him.
I knew if he left me alone there I would kill myself. He would go to a hotel and call her. My replacement. I couldn’t handle that. I had a whole plan of what to do. I’ll spare you the details but I knew what I would do. I couldn’t bear being in that house alone while he left me for another woman. I couldn’t be that bad of a wife. Not while my heart was so broken from being so full of love for this man. That I have given myself to so willingly, without reservation. I now felt no will to live without. My life was over. He was taking it all from me.
I blamed myself. I still blame myself. I know this is on him. I play events over in mind over and over. I saw no signs of his unhappiness up until I found about about affair. Even then, it wasn’t that he was unhappy. Something in him shifted. I guess it was his attitude. That part of him that deserved the happiness? When it became about him instead of us? Or just that he had to distance himself then because he was blaming the big escape. He knew what was coming and I didn’t. He just continued to blindside me. My dear and loving husband. Killing me. One heartbeat at a time.
He stood at our bedroom window at one point during the afternoon and said something to me that day. He said to me “ I am weak and you are strong,” he couldn’t be more wrong. He broke me that day. I had just been acting strong. I’m shattered into a million pieces and I can’t be put back together.
For what? The right price is his happiness. That’s what it all came down to. That’s what it still comes down to. He has placed his happiness higher than everyone else’s needs. I have never put myself first for anything. I don’t even think I rank most of the time. I forget about myself. I thought the point of marriage was I take care of you and you take care of me. I’m making sure everyone else has what they need. I’m listening, watching, paying attention to what’s going on. I thought he was doing that for me. I was so wrong.
Never had a white picket fence 