So much was unearthed that night. So many questions answered, but so many questions still left unanswered. Could I believe everything I was told? I had no reason not to. The boyfriend seemed sincere enough. He seemed genuinely heartbroken and confused, as I was. He was full of all the information as to why my marriage failed. How did he know all of this?
She had been using my husband too. She found him odd, and a challenge. She wanted to break down his walls to get him to talk to her. However, it appeared he took this as she liked him. He took her on as his relationship coach for our non ailing marriage. All the non awful things that he had to make up to talk to her about how I was the worst wife.
My husband is painfully awkward. I have never seen it; or if I did, I found it endearing. I too, am awkward, but gregariously so. Snorting when I laugh, talking too loud, having slightly outlandish opinions, making up words to songs.
Reasons why we failed as a married couple according to him: drumroll please: we have little in common. I didn’t want to do activities together. I didn’t get along with one of his kids. We will get back to this.
Reasons they get along so well. They both like to read. They both like current events. They both like to cook. Oh, and his love of God. I find all of this so amusing because every single one of these things about him is a lie. He is selling himself to make himself he more appealing to her. I know we have discussed this before, but he is NOT a reader. He enjoys murder mysteries, and actually much prefers books on tape. His idea of being up on current events is watching sports center in the morning while he eats cereal. He used to listen to NPR on the way into work everyday, but that time has been cut into because he talks to her now, so I don’t know how he ever knows what is going on in the world. He gets The Skim in his email daily, so some news highlights. The economist weekly. He rarely cooked anything in-depth prior to her existence. He’s an atheist. See a trend? Lie. Lie. Lie. Lie.
Back to ours. Also bold faced lies. Last I checked we had things in common. I’m not running out to the basketball court with him, but I’ll watch games. I don’t like sports, but he can watch them all he wants. We love to travel together, plan trips. We love to plan projects on the house, in the yard. We kayak together. We do nothing together. What he was doing was looking for things to tell her for how awful I was. For anytime I ever said no, I guess that means I didn’t want to do activities with him. We won’t discuss how many he would say no to me. Or why he would say to me. His reasons for saying no would include because he was having another affair, if we are keeping count. My reasons might be, I’m tired. Sometimes I’ve been known to be bad at having a work/life balance. I get along fine with both of his kids. This is something in his head he made an issue. As a stepmother, I’m supposed to be the enemy. I’m not supposed to be their best friend. There was never, and still isn’t a doubt in their mind that I love them unconditionally.
The day was still Christmas Eve, now well into Christmas morning. I was talking with a stranger details about my marriage and details of their relationship. Our lives were crossed because the ones we loved were spending the night together 1/8 of a mile away from me in my bed, in my house. I was sick about this. I was furious about this. I was heartbroken about this. I had all my Christmas presents to still wrap. Yet, I wanted to keep talking to this stranger. I felt like he understood what I was going through.
I had “attended” Christmas Eve mass that night and I wasn’t the only one. I had gone virtually to a 5pm mass to the church we went to every year on Christmas Eve. They also went to church that night, apparently, to a midnight mass somewhere in person. They then were spending their first night together in my house. Her boyfriend was waiting for her to come home. He had put up a table tree with a few presents under it while he thought she was at work. Turns out she was in bed with my husband. Very ungodly of them.
Two big things that came up, that to this day have not been solved. she drove 2 other cars, that she said were my husband’s. He swore up and down that we owned these two other cars. We bickered about them. We finally had to agree to disagree. I started thinking, maybe he has a secret apartment somewhere? Or parks them somewhere? Or she’s lying and there’s a whole other man. I drove around the next night and looked for them. In every parking garage I could find. Those cars did not exist anywhere that I could find.
I found some peace in finding the other “half” to the puzzle, but also was some disturbed. Why if they knew, had no one told me? Everyone else knew about each other, but I was left out to know nothing. I had done nothing but love my husband, and I was finding out more from a stranger than I had heard from my husband as to why my marriage had gone belly up.
One of the things I had loved about Christmas’s past was sitting downstairs in our living room with my husband in the twinkle of the tree lights. If I was double lucky, he would make a fire and we could snuggle. Have his kiss me in the light of the fire and the tree. This season, every house I saw with lights I had to resist the urge of crashing into their house. I loved Christmas lights. Now they filled me with a rage and sadness I could barely contain.
My husband had stabbed me in the back while pushing me down the stairs, figuratively speaking. The knife bounced while I tumbled down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, I’m sure he would step over me to go find her. But still, still, I love him. Still, I want to be with him. Go home to his arms. That Christmas morning, I didn’t wake up to him. I woke up to the same emptiness that my life has become. The biggest void in my life. The one that can’t be filled or fixed. That knife in my back. I keep wondering if he’s gonna take it out or plunge it deeper in.
Never had a white picket fence 