The New Year

New Year’s Eve was quickly approaching. So what does a family in a life-altering crisis do? They invite friends over to celebrate the dawn of a new year, of course. Clearly this idea was as screwed up as my emotions because the night was a disaster from the get-go.

Our friends fast and furiously hit on the topic of infidelity. Yippee!!! Yay!!! Hooray! Fist Pump!! What a fabulous topic that I would just love to discuss. Mr. “My Penis Makes me Stupid” looked as if he actually swallowed a cow. Excellent. And they wouldn’t let up. About the foolish wives who were too dumb to see what was going on… To the husbands who clearly have no love for their wives if they cheat… To the poor, poor kids. How did I get through? Wine, of course. And lots of it. Too much in fact. An obnoxious amount, in fact. Long before midnight I ended up on my daughter’s step stool in my laundry room, my face planted in my hands. To say it was a bad night would be an understatement.

The entire next day, with the Hangover of the Century, I kept thinking, It’s not supposed to be this hard. Why is it so hard? Why does everything feel so upended? Why am I swimming upstream? Why am I trying to right something that was wronged by someone else? Why am I not simply walking away? Why am I putting myself through this misery? This constant tug-of-war that was going on inside me.

And the answer was always the same… My girls.

I trudged through the next few months. He bought me a ring (thanks Kobe Bryant!), arranged for our first family trip to Disney World, and we tried to finish furnishing our home that we had, oh by the way, just freakin’ built!!! I went through the motions… Wanting to be happy, wanting to trust him again, wanting life to go back to normal.

There were good days, and bad. And the bad days were very, very bad. “I can’t imagine how you could have lied to your family for the last 7 months? Taking time away from your children to extend your already excruciatingly long trips so you could live in your fantasy world. Affairs are made of fantasy. It’s not real. It’s not the real world.” Sometimes the frustration of it all would get to be too much, and my mind would go into the darkest of places. Sometimes I just needed answers, longing to make sense of it all. Answers I knew he could never give me.

Months went by. I never confided in anyone. I was just too humiliated. When your husband cheats on you, it’s a hard thing to talk about with family and friends. For me, at least. I was embarrassed, ashamed. So we carried on as a normal, happy family. He kept saying he wanted his affair to make us stronger, better, closer. I guess that’s what I wanted too… But deep down I wasn’t sure I could ever truly love him again.

If only this is where my story ended…

The Decision

What to do after your husband cheats…
I struggle with the idea that I have to let go of the marriage we had pre-affair.  In 4 short years we’ve had two children, lost jobs, celebrated weddings with friends, lost relatives and built our dream home… and now it’s all part of a past life. How do I let go of the times I carry so closely in my heart? The moments I held my newborn babies with my husband by my side. The vacations where we brought happiness to not just our own faces but pure joy to the kids. Was it all for nothing?  Was it all a facade?  And what about me? I thought he vowed to be there for me? I thought he vowed to keep my happiness and our love sacred. Why did our marriage vows become secondary to making her happy? A woman he doesn’t even care to see again. These questions and thoughts keep haunting me. Paralyzing me.

Last week, a newly betrayed wife posted a comment on my blog. She discovered her husband’s affair the night before and Googling brought her to my blog. I remember so clearly lying in my bed in Aruba, typing the words “my husband cheated on me” into Google.  I wanted someone to tell me what to do. I was completely unprepared for an affair. I always assumed if he cheated our marriage would be over. Maybe it’s what I was taught or maybe I just haven’t known any happily married people that have dealt with infidelity. The fact is I didn’t have a clue as to what to do. I was broken and defeated. I was alone and scared. I wanted someone to tell me how to navigate this mess because this wasn’t supposed to happen to me. I joined web groups and read countless articles and blogs. And still, no one could tell me succinctly what to do. Honestly, I wanted and needed someone to tell me if my marriage was over.

The thought of being apart from my kids is a pain that is indescribable. Overwhelming, in fact. It’s a pain that literally drops me to my knees. And because of that, and only that, I decided to allow myself time to decide if I could remain in the marriage or not.  I told myself I could leave at anytime. This decision may be not right for everyone, but it felt right for me.

This is what I know I know for sure (Thanks, Oprah!)…

What to do when your husband cheats…? Take care of yourself. Eat. Sleep. Don’t spend every moment thinking about the affair. I wonder what advice you wish you heard after your own version of the Midnight Call? Write it below and hopefully it can help someone. It WILL help someone!
Finish this thought: 
My husband cheated on me, now what?

The Prelude

So really, I guess I should have seen this coming.

Let me digress…

My father-in-law cheated on my mother-in-law. The apple truly does not fall far from the tree. My husband and his siblings all knew about it and swept it under the rug. So clearly this was acceptable behavior in my husband’s eyes. And all five of his siblings, for that matter. To rip the heart out of the person they claim to love is I guess just how they roll. Sweet! What an admirable family.

I also ‘suspected’ something had been going on before the infamous Midnight Call. Women’s intuition, I suppose. 7 months prior, while spreading mulch on Memorial Day, Mr. ‘My Penis Makes me Stupid’ told me that he was assigned to a new project and would be traveling weekly for the next several months. I worked at ESPN prior to having kids… I know how the travel game works. Married men aren’t faithful. Bottom line. Sure there may be exceptions, but I had witnessed the debauchery for years with my very own eyes. I’ve seen what the drinking leads to, what the schmoozing of clients leads to. A naive fool, I am not. And even those with the best intentions fall victim to trouble while traveling on business.

I expressed my concerns… And how this wasn’t what I wanted for our family, to have an absentee father/husband. I wanted us to be united and whole.

“You’re not being supportive”, I was told. “Don’t be stupid”, I was told. “I would NEVER do anything. This is about work, that’s it”, I was told.

And so, the travel began. And slowly I started to feel the disconnect. Even when he was physically home, he was thousands of miles away. Distant. Always. I spent that entire summer trying to reach him, to connect. And that is what hurts the most… I worked my ass off trying to connect with him. I wasn’t blind to his disconnect, I wasn’t too busy with my own life or my babies (the excuse you so often hear) to not see what was right in front of me. I remember weeks of crying myself to sleep at night, because my husband had suddenly ‘vanished’. I’d call his cell phone at night when he was traveling and it would be turned off. Who does that when you have an infant and toddler at home?!

I asked him point blank… “Is there someone else?”, begging him to be honest with me. In response was a resounding “NO!”.

(Note to the good guys: This much I know for sure; 99% of cheaters will deny, deny, deny and turn the tables on to you, making you feel like the crazy one, until you smack them over the head with hardcore proof. They will get defensive, place the blame on you, and do all they can to make you feel like you are losing your mind. Know this to be true.)

So my suspicions were just that… Suspicions. Impossible to prove.

And then there was a Friday night “work” call he took at home. I was sitting on the couch watching tv, and up on the screen came a name and number. It was a Nashville number. He was at the kitchen table and I just remember the conversation being odd. A bit too personal for work colleagues. Inappropriate giggling. A seemingly too close for comfort level of friendship. Nothing overtly obvious, but again, something in my gut was screaming out to me “Watch out for this Bitch!”.

So that infamous night, when the shit hit the fan… I knew instantly who the Hussy was. I remembered her name from seeing it on my caller ID, and that was how I was able to threaten to call her husband unless he, the coward, came clean.

If only this is where my story ended…