Saturday, January 30, 2010
Happy Family: Emotional Affair vs Sexual Affair (2),safe internet,parenting,marriage life
wwwmaggies-blog.blogspot
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Emotional Affairs Victim or Survivor?
This Blog is dedicated to my very best friend in the entire world without her love and support I would not be here as not just a victim but as a survivor. I know she is a Blessing from the LORD. He knew that I was not strong enough to do this alone and he blessed me with my BFF, Mal.
Hi, this is my first attempt at Blogging so please be patient. My reason for entering such uncharted territory is to create something positive out of the WORST part of my life, my husband betrayed me by having an EMOTIONAL AFFAIR.
I am a firm believer that it is not possible for two people (each in a committed relationship) of the opposite sex to be "friends". The transition from being "friends" to having an Emotional Affair" is all too easy. Perhaps they work together and have that in common. They start out innocently enough by chatting about work, the weather or whatever but all too soon they begin to talk about more personal issues such as their spouse (or Significant Other). First it may be just to blow off steam or to portray themselves as martyrs but it isn't long until they are talking about their intimate thoughts and feelings. This very quickly becomes almost like an addiction. Communication is far too easy with cell phones, texting, IM, emails and the list goes on. What starts out as a 15 or 20 minute talk at work soon becomes 15 calls a day plus emails and much much more.
I have been married to the same man for 31 years. The one absolute I had was not that he would never leave me but that he would never cheat on me. I had never heard of an Emotional Affair and how could a man who showed no emotion but anger be capable of having one? This man I thought I knew became a total stranger. She was a co-worker (not in the same department) he was in maintenance. She was also someone who lived not a mile from our home but we had never really met her just knew of her from school days.She was someone who was a no one. I am not just being mean but literally she was someone you could walk by 100 times and never really notice her. She is not attractive at all. Again I am not just trying to make myself feel better (actually that made it seem worse here was a scrawny, scraggly haired, decayed teeth woman who looked like she had "been rode hard and put away wet". For any of you who don't know that Horse related terminology it means she was ugly.) I am no Beauty Queen but standing next to her I looked damn good. I am outgoing, generally happy slightly overweight red head. I am a nurse and have always been a people person. I have plenty of faults but they don't outweigh the good. My husband had always lied to me about anything and everything from the day we met. This was a constant source of arguments. His favorite was "Lying by Omission" he just did not tell me things then when I found out he said "I didn't tell you because I knew you would get mad". I told him over and over that not only did the issue he hid upset me but the lying made it twice as bad. It never sank in.
I would like to tell you the one thing that I learned the hard way. It is that "You TEACH people how to TREAT you". I have always been a giver and he a taker. The more I gave the more he took and never gave anything in return. His expectations grew with every time I gave. I always backed away from arguments because I knew I couldn't win. He always used the
"I'm leaving" card and that became his weapon of choice. He got the suitcase out more times than I could count. I am not trying to make him sound horrible. I am just as guilty because I allowed him to treat me with total disdain and instead of taking a stand I "hid" from the ugly reality that he did not love me the way he should and sometimes I don't think he loved me at all.
Well let me get on to the actual affair. I spent 28 years of our marriage trying to get him to talk to me, to want to be with me and do things but it never happened. I got hurt at work and ended up with chronic low back pain from the injury. I know he did not believe that I had the amount of pain that I said I did and frankly he didn't care. As long as it did not cramp his style it was really not something he cared about. Working as a nurse requires constant lifting and bending and even the Neurologist who was treating my back pain said that I would never be without pain and he tried everything including therapy, rest, medication, Cortisone injections into the sacroiliac joint (if you have never had one trust me they hurt like hell) and surgery was not an options. So I had little option as to pain control. I became even more depressed at his lack of care and concern and eventually I did misuse the muscle relaxers not to get "high" but to sleep. As long as I was asleep I did not have to think about the fact that my marriage was on the decline and he did not care and would not see a Counselor. I actually used to say that I had the perfect marriage because I worked all day shift and he worked all 3 to 11 so we barely saw each other. As time went by we grew further and further apart. I began to put what time I wasn't sleeping into my son and new daughter in law. She became pregnant with our first (and only) grandchild in December of 2005. I was oblivious to what my husband was doing. In July my daughter (I think of her as my daughter not an in law) became "Pre-Eclamptic" which meant that her blood pressure was sky high and the only cure for it is delivery of the baby. It was way too early when I happened to be down there one evening and as soon as I saw her I knew something was very wrong. I took her blood pressure and knew I had to get her to the hospital. I tried not to show my fear as I explained that we needed to get her to the hospital. We all loaded into my car and I drove her to the hospital. She was not due until the end of September but I knew we were going to have a baby within the next few days. They admitted her and started her on Mag Sulfate to stop the early contractions. They gave her a steroid shot to mature the baby's lungs and she would get a second one in 24 hours and then we would pray that she could keep him in until 48 hours after the second shot. During this time I was a physical and emotional wreck. I could not understand how my husband could seem so distant. She was admitted on a Monday and on Tuesday he came home and told me he was going to have to give a coworker a ride because their car was being worked on. He did not tell me who it was or even that it was a woman. I became suspicious and asked who it was and he finally told me. I will refer to her as the slut. He then admitted that he and she had talked and since they lived so close it was stupid for them not to ride together. I was very upset and I told him that I was very uncomfortable with this but he did not care. I was so caught up between working and being at the hospital that I just did not have the energy to fight with him. On Friday she had an emergency C-Section and my grandson was born at 2.1 lbs. He was so tiny and fragile. He would spend the next 2+ months in the NICU. As I was leaving the hospital in the evening after he was born I saw my mother and Dad and my sister in the ER. It turns out my mom had an intestinal obstruction and had to have emergency surgery. I was close to my breaking point by now. Mu husband came home that night and said he had taken a "Poll" of the guys at work to see if their wives would be upset if they suddenly began sharing rides with a female coworker. They were unanimous in their answers and it was a definite YES!. He came home that Friday and said because the guys said this he would stop driving her to work. So much for my feelings.
As the days went by and we watched our little miracle struggle for life and I watched the fear and pain that my kids were going through I was lower than low. It did not help that my husband was being very secretive and distant even by his standards. He would get home at 11:30 but refused to go to bed until 3 or 4 am. One day in August he and I were going to the store before he left for work. Out of the blue he asked me how many minutes we had on our cell phone plan. I had just added a phone for my mom and told her she could use 100 minutes a month so immediately I said I would talk to her if she was using too many minutes. He became very agitated and said that I should not say anything. Something told me that I better look beyond the obvious. I waited until he left for work and I began to go through all the bills. At that time he was taking care of paying them and he was shredding the bills as he paid them. I searched and the only bill I could find was the one from his cell phone for that month. As I looked at it I became sick. There were over 75 calls to and from the same number. They would begin from the time he left the driveway and last till he got to work then they would start as he left work till he got home. They also were at 1 and 2 am (when I was upstairs asleep). I was absolutely hysterical and I did the one thing that I will never forgive myself for. In my panic I called my son and ask him if he knew how I could find out whose cell number it was. He heard the terror in my voice and asked me questions. He kept telling me to calm down and that there was a logical explanation. Unable to stand it any longer I called the number and I had a very good idea whose it was. The first call she answered and when I said I wanted to know why her number was on my husbands cell phone bill so many times she hung up. I called repeatedly and finally left her a message that if she cared at all about my husband she better call me back. In the meantime I was trying to call my husband but of course the line was busy since she was calling him to let him know that I had discovered what I eventually would come to know that they were having a very in depth Emotional Affair. When I finally reached him he was very cruel. I was hysterical and I begged him to come home so we could talk but he refused. He said that we would discuss it when he got home and I was not to bother him again at work. I also finally reached her. She of course lied through her black and decayed teeth. They were just "BEST FRIENDS" nothing else. She was in New England visiting her daughter or she would come and talk to me. I told her that I did not believe the Just Friends bit not with that many calls. Of course I also knew that they must be seeing each other at work since they both worked the same shift. I sat there for the next six hours with my heart in my throat not knowing if I was going to have a husband after he got home. When he walked through the door I was sitting in the dark sobbing. He came in with an air of indignant self righteousness. How dare I question him and call him at work. He proceeded to tell me that they had been talking since February. So 6 months had gone by without me knowing anything. At first he would not give an inch as to their relationship being anything but friends. When I asked him if it was innocent why did he hide it from me he finally confessed that early on they realized that they had crossed boundaries that they should never have and that they each made a vow that they would never lave their spouses. Apparently it was OK to carry on an Emotional Affair as long as they held the lie that they were just BEST FRIENDS. I told him that this could not go on. I said that he had to stop having any contact with her at all. This just enraged him more and as usual he went upstairs and packed a suitcase. I should have left him go but I loved him much more than he loved me. I finally said that they could be friends but no more calls. I had no idea the actual enormity of the situation.
My husband was the master manipulator and he knew exactly what buttons to push and he did. He said that he had become so depressed because I was taking the pills to sleep that he hated coming home. He knew that I felt horrible at my weakness and that he could turn all this around to make me think it was all my fault. It worked. I stopped cold turkey that night with the pills and vowed to be the best wife ever. He said that one night she called maintenance to come fix something and since he was the only one working 3 to 11 he went and seems they struck up a conversation and per his description she made him feel like a school boy. Everything escalated from there. They would sit and talk several times a night and even though he promised me no more calls they continued. I became a detective. He portrayed her as this poor put upon person who everyone took advantage of and whose husband was a drunk and she was very unhappy in her marriage. Of course warning bells went off but he was not budging from his story of just friends. He was a creature of habit. He always left this house at 1:25pm on the dot to get to work to get a parking spot (even though he did not start till 3) and suddenly she began leaving at the same time. As it turns out they had made a plan that she would wait at the stop sign for him and he would slow down and let her in front of him so he could follow her to work everyday and the same when they left work. Then suddenly this man who was computer illiterate seemed to be spending an unusual amount of time on the computer. Of course I was checking everything. His cell phone, his emails but he was smart enough to delete the history on the computer as well as all his emails.
He continued to try to convince me that she was really a nice person and he wanted me to become friends with her. In reality he wanted to create a cover so that her husband did not become too suspicious. Some of their conversations were so intimate that she felt comfortable telling him that she had moved into her own bedroom about 6 years before and had not had sex with her husband since. She said the only time he wanted her was when he was drunk so she wasn't sleeping with him anymore. She held herself up to be a "Victim" that everyone used. In reality she is what I call a "Professional Victim". The only way she could garner any attention was to play the part of this poor put upon soul. All the time she was pretending that she wanted to be friends with me ( I later found out he was making her call me and invite me to play Bingo) They referred to me as her"Buddy" and in actuality this was their way of mocking my stupidity. Trust me when I say that I never had a minute that I was not an anxiety ridden mess. I began throwing up sometimes all it took was an ice cube and I would throw up for hours. Not that he cared because he did not. I would go upstairs and be writhing on the floor with severe stomach pain, vomiting hour after hour and he never so much as checked to see if I was dead or alive. This man who had not bought me so much as a card for any holiday for years while I piled gift upon gift onto him decided that since she told him she never had a birthday cake that I (yep me the wife) would need to help him plan this little surprise party that consisted of just the 3 of us. I had to order a cake (it had been at least 4 years since I had a cake because I refused to buy my own cake). He also had an intimate joke with her about her being a Penn State fan. So now "we" had to make this little funny spoof on Penn State craft that he was going to stick on the back of her vehicle at work. Yes folks I was an absolute fool but I also was remembering that little saying "keep your friends close and your enemies closer". Praise God that my best friend from grade school was such a wonderful friend. She had been through the same thing with her "Ex-husband" the difference being she had stopped loving him and he probably never really loved her. She was my life line. If it had not been for her support and the fact that she picked up the phone every time I called to cry on her shoulder I would not be married today and I might not even be alive. I was severely clinically depressed. I was in a fight for my marriage and my family. My son idolized his Dad and it would have killed him if he knew what his Dad was doing. Don't get me wrong, once I found out about their "friendship" they did nothing to try to hide it from MY FAMILY. Her family on the other hand was spared. Her husband knew something wasn't right but she absolutely refused to talk about it with him. He was afraid she would leave him so he just buried his head in the sand. I on the other hand could not have been more involved. When the calls were getting out of hand and I talked to him and told him to stop and he would not, I called her and said enough and she was so afraid that I would make him stop "being her friend" that she would do as I said. Of course she told him everything I said. She came to my house while I was at work to have coffee with him. My sister lives next door but that did not stop them. She would wheel in any time she went up the road and saw him in the garage and never once come to say hi to me. Then the emails began and they were going on constantly. Of course I told him to stop and he lied and said he would but I caught him sneaking and typing her emails while I was upstairs. So I called her and told her to stop. I was very upset about the following to and from work but was told she always left at the same time and it could not be helped if they ended up following each other. I was working in home health at the time and I made it a point to come every day before he left for work to see him. Everyday as we both were leaving he would sit in his car and motion for me to go ahead of him and even when i refused he would not leave until I did. One day I decided to pull off into a spot where she could not see me but I could see her. She came to the stop sign and just sat there waiting. No cars were coming so I knew what was going on. Finally I decided that she needed to know that I was aware of their little game so I pulled out of my spot and the minute she saw me she floored it and off she went. Of course she would pull off the road somewhere and wait for him and on the rare occasion that he got ahead of her he would pull off and wait for her. If it wasn't so devastating it would be funny for 2 grown adults to be acting like teenagers having a crush.
The funny thing is that subtly he began showing me attention. I would make a point to wait up for him every night even though I had to get up at 6 am. I would make him something to eat and he would sit with me and tell me everything she had confided in him. I knew she had no idea that was going on. He told me about the time she was pregnant with her son and her husband came in so drunk he pissed all over her. My husband I am sure thought this would make me feel bad for her and ease up on the reins I kept as tightly as I could. On the other hand I was even more determined that she was not going to break up my marriage. I fought harder than I had ever fought for anything. The increase time and attention he was paying me was a novelty since he had never been the cuddling and talkative husband I always wished he would be. He was still a selfish self centered liar. Our 28th wedding anniversary was coming up and in my desperation I took all the attention he was giving me to mean that he was realizing just how far I was willing to go to ensure his happiness. Now as I look back I see that we had a very sick and twisted threesome going on. I asked him time and again if he would renew our vows since in my demented mind I tried to believe we were on our way to happiness. I was trying to help the slut improve her marriage. It was clear that her husband loved her. During this year long affair my husband manipulated me into buying a boat, new car, a second camp among other things. I stooped to an all time low by asking her to try to talk my husband into the renewal of vows. He finally agreed and as I made all of the plans the one thing I asked of him was to write a little something to say to me. I reminded him daily and he said he was. Mean while the entire week before the vows and party afterwards all he talked about was how he was going to ask her to dance with him. Finally I said I did not think it was a good idea since her husband was going to be ther and it would cause problems. All the while my heart was aching that he was more concerned about dancing with her than the fact that we were renewing our vows. She absolutely refused to come to the church for the renewal ceremony and in retrospect I know it was because she couls not stand to see him marry me again. The Pastor who originally married us 28 years ago was performing the service. When he had finished the vows part he said that we had written something that we each wanted to say to each other. I had spent hours writing mine and I poured my heart out to him. Then the Pastor turned to him and said for him to go ahead he just gave a blank stare and in front of all our family and friends he humiliated me by saying that"she said what he was going to say" and he had nothing prepared. I tried not to show my shame and pain but it was obvious. At the party after she was there and if anyone who did not know us would have walked in they would have thought that mu husband and her were the ones who just got remarried. She had the audacity to sit at the table that was meant for just he and I and her husband and I sat there like two idiots while the two of them had their heads so close together and were whispering to each other all night. I finally had to tell him that he should at least say hi to his family. Before the party was over he said he wanted to show her something at our house (the party was next door in my sisters garage) well I wasn't letting them go alone so I walked out behind them. I wasn't sneaking but they walked fast and just as I was coming around the house to the door I saw her facing out towards the door and he with his back to me and they were in am intimate embrace kissing. As soon as she saw me she stepped away and they both acted like they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. I was so angry and so hurt that I could barely keep from beating the crap out of both of them. Of course he denied it was anything more than a friendly hug and kiss on the cheek but I know what i saw. We generally booked a cabin in a State Park for a week for our anniversary (well I did it all he had to do was get in the car and drive) This year since we had bought the boat and had it moored at a park about 30 miles from our house I decided to rent a cabin there so we could use the boat before we had to get it off the water. One day the week before we were to leave he came to me and he said he had to ask me something. I knew immediatly what it was and I looked into his eyes with tears running down my face and I asked him no I begged him not to ask. Of course being a selfish bastard he was not the least bit remorseful as he continued to ask if it would be alright if he invited the slut and her husband out for the Saturday before we would be coming home because she was afraid of the water because as a child she was "sickly" and never allowed to go swimming" and he wanted to take her out on our pontoon. As I wept openly he took me by the arms and he said that since she had helped him with his marriage (what a joke) now he had to "put me on the back burner" while he helped her with hers. He tried to make it sound so noble but I was finally beginning to see that this was much more than even I had realized. The entire week he did nothing but talk about how much he hoped Saturday would be nice for her to come out for a cook out and a boat ride oh he threw in a comment her and ther about taking her husband fishing but it was clear that it was her that he was concerned with. The week was ruined for me. His obsession and dependance on her was so great that for the first time ever he insisted that we come home mid week so "he could finish painting the truck" it was purely coincidental that 15 minutes after we got home she pulled in the driveway and spent an hour chatting and laughing with him while I watched through my tears out the kitchen window.
That was the first time that I could not wait to leave the cabin and the pain of the true betrayal behind.
Things became very starined between us. I knew for sure that they were heading for deeper waters and either already had or were going to be taking it to a physical level. I watched him like a hawk. When He went to camp for deer season I called her and I asked her flat out if she was in love with my husband. She absolutely denied being "in love" but only that she loved him as a best friend. Then she asked me why I did not trust him and why I was so controlling. Less than 2 weeks later I came home from work and as usual checked his email and much to my surprise there was one there that she had sent him. I immediatly opened it and it said" When we lay our heads down to sleep if that is what we choose to do" It was her asnine way of asking him to have sex with her. I was enraged and I called her immediatly and asked what in the F--- she was doing asking my husband to sleep with her? She tried to pass it off as "just a joke" and I said what so F------ funny about offering to spread your legs for my husband. I said that I had never felt the need to ask my best friend to do that. I went on to say that I had asked her less than 2 weeks before if she was in love with my husband and she had said no. She replied "Well what did you want me to do say yes?". I said a few more not very nice things and then lost her. I called my husband and by this time I could not see straight I was so mad. I said that if he did not come home immediatly not to bother. The exact words fail me but he knew that I was not asking I was telling him. He must have realized the seriousness because he found someone to cover his shift and was home within 45 minutes. I can not even remember what exactly was said. I do remember for the very first time in our married life I beat the shit out of him. He was on his knees begging me for forgiveness. He acknowledged that they had crossed all the boundaries and short of having sex they had been intimately embracing and kissing at work!!!!!
He blamed me and the pills but this time I was not letting that happen. I called him every name in the book and I told him that it was over. Either he cut off all ties with her or I was divorcing him and I would make sure it was me who told her husband everything. My chivalrous husband refused to assign any of the guilt to her. He said it was all his fault that he has mislead her. That here he was a fairly good looking guy who wasn't happy and he began showng someone who was anything but attractive some attention and she was not happy in her marriage so it was all his fault. This just made me angrier here he was defending this slut who had the nerve to ask him to sleep with her. We talked all night. He was under the misconception that he could still say hi and talk to her once in awhile but I made it clear that if he so much as smiled at her I was done. I took every little trinket she had given him and busted it and threw it in the garbage. When he found out he got very upset. they were his and I had no right doing that! I set him straight.
There is much more to add but I am going to post this now so that other victims who may feel that they are completely alone and ashamed or even unsure what really is going on might have the chance to read this and know that my only reason for sharing this intimate pain of lies and betrayal is to reach out to any one who needs someone to talk to.
I am back again to continue telling my story of my husband's Emotional Affair and how I not only survived it but ended up with a much better man, husband and marriage.
Needless to say things at our household were anything but joyous that Christmas. I was so emotionally devastated that I could not think straight. I have always been some one who believed that people are basically good unless they prove other wise. I have always tended to give people the benefit of the doubt. Here I was even after knowing what I did and finding the email from the slut asking my husband to sleep with her I still was very conflicted. She had emailed me and told me that when her daughter left from her visit on January 15, 2007 she was going to tell her husband everything (of course she threw in a veiled threat that she was sure he would be coming up to talk to my husband. I replied he could come up anytime but it would NOT be my husband who did the talking it would be me!!! She was so sure that my hubby would never say anything to incriminate her because through out the entire affair the one thing he repeatedly said was that he did not want to hurt her husband!!! Too bad neither one of them gave a shit about me!) I have always been a Christian but a very lax one. All of this brought me much closer to the Lord. I prayed continuously I am sure sometimes God just thought "Not her again!" I had a very good idea that the two of hem were still communicating at work. How was I to stop that? He could not change shifts and short of having him followed I had no way of knowing what was going on. When I got her email saying that after all that I had done to protect her family while she could have cared less about mine I was really conflicted. I prayed and prayed. It was New Year's Day and I was working and as I was coming up the road that passed her house I felt something very strong telling me that I had to prevent her from causing her family the pain that she had put mine through. Before I even realized it I was driving up her driveway!! Yes I was even stupider than you thought! I was so convinced that God was telling me that while what she had done was wrong that if he was able to forgive me I should be able to forgive her. So I gathered every ounce of ccourage that I had and I walked up to her door and knocked on it. She answered the door and as soon as she saw me she looked like she had seen a ghost. She quickly stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her. She stood glaring at me. I said that while what they had done was more than wrong that I now believed that she had become confused and that she made a big mistake but that I could not let her family suffer as mine had. I told her that I did not want her to tell her husband anything and that we needed to talk. She was hesitant but reluctantly agreed. I said that I would see her the next day. I went home and I did not say anything to my husband about what I had done. The next day was a Monday and I stopped at her house and talked to her about all that had gone on. She was all to eager to accept my version of the story that she had been overwhelmed by the attention from my husband and that they blurred all boundaries. I asked her how she felt about him now and she said that she still loved him BUT ONLY AS A FRIEND!!! I told her that I forgave her and yes folks another act of obvious insanity I actually talked her into getting in my car and I drove her to my house to "SURPRISE" my husband with his mistress!!!! Of course they tripped all over themselves declaring that they had made a big mistake and that they now knew the boundaries existed and must not be crossed. The only positive thing that came out of this complete act of idiocy on my part was to end up realizing that my theory that all people are basically good was nothing short of bullshit. After I took her home and came back to my house I thought my husband would shower me with affection for allowing him a second chance but he did not seem too happy. As it turned out they had never stopped communicating at work. So the affair had never really ended. I later found out that my hubby had left the email from her asking him to sleep with her there on purpose. He realized that he was so far out of his league and he was too much of a coward to do anything about it so he knew I would. I later found out that the email had actually been from the day before and when I asked him what he thought when he got it he said he panicked. He went to work and did not really address the actual invitation but said that they would ALWAYS be FRIENDS. Truth be told he knew that line had been crosse so many times there was no way to ever go back but he was still very much into his selfish, self centered did not really give a shit about me mode.
On January 6th just 4 days after I had arranged a "reunion" of sorts between the two cheaters, he came home from work, said he did not feel good, laid down in bed beside me and had a Grand Mal Seizure. I have been a nurse for many years but that was the worse seizure I had ever witnessed. I forgot I was a nurse and instead was a wife. I called 911 immediatly. By the time they got there my sister having seen the ambulance pulling up my driveway called my son and suddenly my bedroom was full of Paramedics, EMT's and family. They were excellent and just as they were getting him on the cart to transport he started to come out of the Post Ictal State (the time period after a seizure where the person is still very confused and disoriented). He was confused and scared but I told him that he had to go to the hospital and get checked. The hospital trip was a total waste. Of course as we were following him in who just happened to be cleaning in the ER???????????? Of course the Slut! Remember I was still trying to convince myself that they realized what a horrible mistake they had made and were now "JUST FRIENDS". She ran up to me and hugged me and was crying. My sister almost passed out. She knew all that had transpired except the part where I lost my mind and invited her back into our lives and basically enabled the affair to continue. We were in and out and back home from the hospital in less than an hour. They did absolutely NOTHING except bloodwork which showd an elevated Prolactin level which is indicitive of a recent seizure. They gave us a script to have an EEG done outpatient(!!!!) and told me to make him an appointment with a Neurologist. The next 5 or 6 weeks are barely a memory. I can remember that he told her that I had thrown away all the trinkets she had bought him. One in particular was a small wooden frog that she bought him for his keychain when she was in New England (yes the same time that I discovered the affair). Interestingly he had steadfastly refused to have any type of keychain trinket before she bought him the stupid frog. I bought him several and they all disappeared never to be placed on his keychain but apparently hers meant so much more to him that he put it on immediatly and it came off when I cut it off with a knife and threw it away. She actually had the nerve to ask me why I had done that and I actually was stupid enough to feel bad!!!!!! As far as the affair things quickly went back to the way they were and all promises that were made to me were forgotten.
It was during this time that I caught him acting like a teenager. We had a fax machine that you could put on speaker and he would do this once a week and dial the automatic bank information system and listen to all transactions and balances. Well one Sunday morning I was upstairs and he was down and I heard him going through the bank info on the speaker phone. I knew immediatly that he was up to something because he had just doen this the day before. I very quietly came down the steps and walked to the area that we kept the fax and computer. He did not see me at first and I watched as he was one finger typing emails to her and using the speakerphone to cover the sound of the keyboard!!!1 I just stood there with my arms crossed and a very angry and disgusted look on my face. He finally saw me and his face became red and he looked as guilty as they come. I just gave him "the Look" and said "you make me sick" turned and went back upstairs. He followed immediatly begging me to forgive him. He said he knew it was wrong and stupid but he couldn't help it. We had some words and I knew right then what an idiot I had been. Nothing had changed except that I actually helped them continue the affair.
It was only 1 or 2 nights later he came home from work again and not only said he didn't feel good but he did not look good either. He laid down and again had an even worse Grand Mal seizure than the first one. It was February 19th, 2007. He was in a full Tonic Clonic Seizure, he bit through his tongue and was frothing at the mouth but it was bloody. I tried to shake him to see if I could get him to come out of it because we both knew that if he had a second seizure he was going to lose his driver's license for 6 months. I knew I was going to have to call 911 and I did. This time he remained in the Post Ictal State for about 2 hours. I went toe to toe with ER doctor who refused to do an EEG. They did admit him and as soon as he was alert enough to realize he was in the hospital the first thing he said to me was " You better call (the slut) first thing in the morning." Not does our son know or I am glad you are with me no his only lucid thought was of her. I immediatly had a sense of impending doom. I knew something was going to happen just had no idea of what.
First thing the next morning (being the lloving wife I was I stayed all night ) he asked me to call the (slut) and I foolishly did. Of course she was working 3 to 11 but she still made a special trip down that morning to see him. I was with him most of the time he was in the hospital. I was determined to make sure he had every test possible to find out why all of a sudden this perfectly healthy man had had 2 seizures within 6 weeks of each other. She called constantly when she wasn't visiting before her shift and also during it. As each call and visit seemed to reach out and mock me I began watching everything much closer. Of course we knew he was going to have his license suspended for 6 months per Pa. law. This brought on a new problem. How would he get back and forth to work. Of course the 2 of them had a great idea!!!! He would ride with her!!!! I was very against it and I used the excuse that it would upset her husband. No matter what idea I suggested as to remedy the ride to work issue he would find a reason that it would not work.
His Boss was very supportive. He was a very hard worker and they knew that they just did not know about his "extracurricular activities". His boss said that he would pay one of the guys to pick him up and take him home if he had to. On the day he was to be discharged I finally had my eyes opened for me. He was down getting his last test when she called. I answered the phone and I told her he would be discharged but we had no idea when. It was her simple reply that would be there undoing. She said to me that I was to call her as soon as I found out when He was to be leaving and that "I COULD CALL HER ANYTIME UP TO 1:50" As that was when she left for work. I hung up and I sat there digesting what she had just said. Now I knew 100% that they never stopped the AFFAIR even after I found the email. The reason that he insisted that she be allowed to "lead him" to & from work was because they left at the same time. Well right from the COW's MOUTH came irrefutable evidence that the reason they would end up following eachother was because she left at the same time he did. Here she is saying that on a day she knew he was not working that she left at least 25 minutes later than on the days they both worked!!!! It may sound insignificant but it was the clue I needed to finally admit to myself what had and still was going on. He was discharged and I took him home. I knew immediatly that I had to get him away from the house because I had to work the weekend and I could not have her coming to my house and "visiting" him. Without his knowledge I called his brother and asked him if he could possibly take him to camp where he could relax and he would be with them since I would be at work. His brother agreed and I packed his bags and off he went. Immediatly after he left I emailed the slut and told her not to say anything to her husband about riding together. I also told her that I did not want her to have ANY contact at all with my husband until the following Friday which was my first day off. I asked her politely if she would please plan on coming to my house and she and him and I would sit down and have a much needed talk. On Saturday I was working and of course was alone in the office. I suddenly knew that I was going to wait till my husband got home from camp and then I was giving him an ultimatum with no loop holes. It was either me or her but no longer would I sit back while they continued their Emotional Affair that also had begun to include physical intimacies such as kissing embracing and very inappropriate discussions and sexual innuendos. I called my BFF from the office and had what I firmly believe was a nervous breakdown. I sobbed and sobbed my heart out to her. I told her what I was going to do and that I had no idea if he would choose me but that I could not go on like this anymore. As usual she listened and supported me and prayed for me. Later that night I was at home and I was an anxiety ridden mess. The phone rang and I answered it and it wasmy husband which was very unusual. When he was going to camp for only 2 days he never called me. It is hard to get a signal and it is in the middle of nowhere. We talked a little but I did not want him to even think I was planning anything not when he had just had 2 Grand Mal Seizures found to be 100% STRESS INDUCED (it's very stressful basically having 2 wives). I tried to cut it short but he always had been able to sense when something was wrong. He asked me what was wrong and of course I lied and sai nothing. I said I loved him and would see him the next day and I hung up. He called back and this scene was replayed several times until finally I said that I would talk to him when he got home. He would not accept that and jjust kept calling me until finally I lost it and sobbed uncontrollably. In between sobs I told him that I was done. I could not live with another women in my house and my bed and that even if it meant losing him he had to choose. I made it clear that if he chose me it meant that she would be dead to him and one slip and I was walking. It must have been something in my tone that he knew I was dead serious. I told him that he had to choose. He said calmly that "There had never been a choice and that it was always me". I told him again that this time there would be no going back. If he chose me then he was agreeing to put her completely out of his life forever. He said again very calm and clearly that I was his choice.
I'll stop here for now and hopefully finish the story on my next entry. In the mean time if you read this and feel that anything sounds even remotely familiar don't dismiss it PLEASE> Send me a comment and I will work with you privately to help you through your pain and turmoil.
Until next time>>> May God Bless and watch over all of you.
Hi, this is my first attempt at Blogging so please be patient. My reason for entering such uncharted territory is to create something positive out of the WORST part of my life, my husband betrayed me by having an EMOTIONAL AFFAIR.
I am a firm believer that it is not possible for two people (each in a committed relationship) of the opposite sex to be "friends". The transition from being "friends" to having an Emotional Affair" is all too easy. Perhaps they work together and have that in common. They start out innocently enough by chatting about work, the weather or whatever but all too soon they begin to talk about more personal issues such as their spouse (or Significant Other). First it may be just to blow off steam or to portray themselves as martyrs but it isn't long until they are talking about their intimate thoughts and feelings. This very quickly becomes almost like an addiction. Communication is far too easy with cell phones, texting, IM, emails and the list goes on. What starts out as a 15 or 20 minute talk at work soon becomes 15 calls a day plus emails and much much more.
I have been married to the same man for 31 years. The one absolute I had was not that he would never leave me but that he would never cheat on me. I had never heard of an Emotional Affair and how could a man who showed no emotion but anger be capable of having one? This man I thought I knew became a total stranger. She was a co-worker (not in the same department) he was in maintenance. She was also someone who lived not a mile from our home but we had never really met her just knew of her from school days.She was someone who was a no one. I am not just being mean but literally she was someone you could walk by 100 times and never really notice her. She is not attractive at all. Again I am not just trying to make myself feel better (actually that made it seem worse here was a scrawny, scraggly haired, decayed teeth woman who looked like she had "been rode hard and put away wet". For any of you who don't know that Horse related terminology it means she was ugly.) I am no Beauty Queen but standing next to her I looked damn good. I am outgoing, generally happy slightly overweight red head. I am a nurse and have always been a people person. I have plenty of faults but they don't outweigh the good. My husband had always lied to me about anything and everything from the day we met. This was a constant source of arguments. His favorite was "Lying by Omission" he just did not tell me things then when I found out he said "I didn't tell you because I knew you would get mad". I told him over and over that not only did the issue he hid upset me but the lying made it twice as bad. It never sank in.
I would like to tell you the one thing that I learned the hard way. It is that "You TEACH people how to TREAT you". I have always been a giver and he a taker. The more I gave the more he took and never gave anything in return. His expectations grew with every time I gave. I always backed away from arguments because I knew I couldn't win. He always used the
"I'm leaving" card and that became his weapon of choice. He got the suitcase out more times than I could count. I am not trying to make him sound horrible. I am just as guilty because I allowed him to treat me with total disdain and instead of taking a stand I "hid" from the ugly reality that he did not love me the way he should and sometimes I don't think he loved me at all.
Well let me get on to the actual affair. I spent 28 years of our marriage trying to get him to talk to me, to want to be with me and do things but it never happened. I got hurt at work and ended up with chronic low back pain from the injury. I know he did not believe that I had the amount of pain that I said I did and frankly he didn't care. As long as it did not cramp his style it was really not something he cared about. Working as a nurse requires constant lifting and bending and even the Neurologist who was treating my back pain said that I would never be without pain and he tried everything including therapy, rest, medication, Cortisone injections into the sacroiliac joint (if you have never had one trust me they hurt like hell) and surgery was not an options. So I had little option as to pain control. I became even more depressed at his lack of care and concern and eventually I did misuse the muscle relaxers not to get "high" but to sleep. As long as I was asleep I did not have to think about the fact that my marriage was on the decline and he did not care and would not see a Counselor. I actually used to say that I had the perfect marriage because I worked all day shift and he worked all 3 to 11 so we barely saw each other. As time went by we grew further and further apart. I began to put what time I wasn't sleeping into my son and new daughter in law. She became pregnant with our first (and only) grandchild in December of 2005. I was oblivious to what my husband was doing. In July my daughter (I think of her as my daughter not an in law) became "Pre-Eclamptic" which meant that her blood pressure was sky high and the only cure for it is delivery of the baby. It was way too early when I happened to be down there one evening and as soon as I saw her I knew something was very wrong. I took her blood pressure and knew I had to get her to the hospital. I tried not to show my fear as I explained that we needed to get her to the hospital. We all loaded into my car and I drove her to the hospital. She was not due until the end of September but I knew we were going to have a baby within the next few days. They admitted her and started her on Mag Sulfate to stop the early contractions. They gave her a steroid shot to mature the baby's lungs and she would get a second one in 24 hours and then we would pray that she could keep him in until 48 hours after the second shot. During this time I was a physical and emotional wreck. I could not understand how my husband could seem so distant. She was admitted on a Monday and on Tuesday he came home and told me he was going to have to give a coworker a ride because their car was being worked on. He did not tell me who it was or even that it was a woman. I became suspicious and asked who it was and he finally told me. I will refer to her as the slut. He then admitted that he and she had talked and since they lived so close it was stupid for them not to ride together. I was very upset and I told him that I was very uncomfortable with this but he did not care. I was so caught up between working and being at the hospital that I just did not have the energy to fight with him. On Friday she had an emergency C-Section and my grandson was born at 2.1 lbs. He was so tiny and fragile. He would spend the next 2+ months in the NICU. As I was leaving the hospital in the evening after he was born I saw my mother and Dad and my sister in the ER. It turns out my mom had an intestinal obstruction and had to have emergency surgery. I was close to my breaking point by now. Mu husband came home that night and said he had taken a "Poll" of the guys at work to see if their wives would be upset if they suddenly began sharing rides with a female coworker. They were unanimous in their answers and it was a definite YES!. He came home that Friday and said because the guys said this he would stop driving her to work. So much for my feelings.
As the days went by and we watched our little miracle struggle for life and I watched the fear and pain that my kids were going through I was lower than low. It did not help that my husband was being very secretive and distant even by his standards. He would get home at 11:30 but refused to go to bed until 3 or 4 am. One day in August he and I were going to the store before he left for work. Out of the blue he asked me how many minutes we had on our cell phone plan. I had just added a phone for my mom and told her she could use 100 minutes a month so immediately I said I would talk to her if she was using too many minutes. He became very agitated and said that I should not say anything. Something told me that I better look beyond the obvious. I waited until he left for work and I began to go through all the bills. At that time he was taking care of paying them and he was shredding the bills as he paid them. I searched and the only bill I could find was the one from his cell phone for that month. As I looked at it I became sick. There were over 75 calls to and from the same number. They would begin from the time he left the driveway and last till he got to work then they would start as he left work till he got home. They also were at 1 and 2 am (when I was upstairs asleep). I was absolutely hysterical and I did the one thing that I will never forgive myself for. In my panic I called my son and ask him if he knew how I could find out whose cell number it was. He heard the terror in my voice and asked me questions. He kept telling me to calm down and that there was a logical explanation. Unable to stand it any longer I called the number and I had a very good idea whose it was. The first call she answered and when I said I wanted to know why her number was on my husbands cell phone bill so many times she hung up. I called repeatedly and finally left her a message that if she cared at all about my husband she better call me back. In the meantime I was trying to call my husband but of course the line was busy since she was calling him to let him know that I had discovered what I eventually would come to know that they were having a very in depth Emotional Affair. When I finally reached him he was very cruel. I was hysterical and I begged him to come home so we could talk but he refused. He said that we would discuss it when he got home and I was not to bother him again at work. I also finally reached her. She of course lied through her black and decayed teeth. They were just "BEST FRIENDS" nothing else. She was in New England visiting her daughter or she would come and talk to me. I told her that I did not believe the Just Friends bit not with that many calls. Of course I also knew that they must be seeing each other at work since they both worked the same shift. I sat there for the next six hours with my heart in my throat not knowing if I was going to have a husband after he got home. When he walked through the door I was sitting in the dark sobbing. He came in with an air of indignant self righteousness. How dare I question him and call him at work. He proceeded to tell me that they had been talking since February. So 6 months had gone by without me knowing anything. At first he would not give an inch as to their relationship being anything but friends. When I asked him if it was innocent why did he hide it from me he finally confessed that early on they realized that they had crossed boundaries that they should never have and that they each made a vow that they would never lave their spouses. Apparently it was OK to carry on an Emotional Affair as long as they held the lie that they were just BEST FRIENDS. I told him that this could not go on. I said that he had to stop having any contact with her at all. This just enraged him more and as usual he went upstairs and packed a suitcase. I should have left him go but I loved him much more than he loved me. I finally said that they could be friends but no more calls. I had no idea the actual enormity of the situation.
My husband was the master manipulator and he knew exactly what buttons to push and he did. He said that he had become so depressed because I was taking the pills to sleep that he hated coming home. He knew that I felt horrible at my weakness and that he could turn all this around to make me think it was all my fault. It worked. I stopped cold turkey that night with the pills and vowed to be the best wife ever. He said that one night she called maintenance to come fix something and since he was the only one working 3 to 11 he went and seems they struck up a conversation and per his description she made him feel like a school boy. Everything escalated from there. They would sit and talk several times a night and even though he promised me no more calls they continued. I became a detective. He portrayed her as this poor put upon person who everyone took advantage of and whose husband was a drunk and she was very unhappy in her marriage. Of course warning bells went off but he was not budging from his story of just friends. He was a creature of habit. He always left this house at 1:25pm on the dot to get to work to get a parking spot (even though he did not start till 3) and suddenly she began leaving at the same time. As it turns out they had made a plan that she would wait at the stop sign for him and he would slow down and let her in front of him so he could follow her to work everyday and the same when they left work. Then suddenly this man who was computer illiterate seemed to be spending an unusual amount of time on the computer. Of course I was checking everything. His cell phone, his emails but he was smart enough to delete the history on the computer as well as all his emails.
He continued to try to convince me that she was really a nice person and he wanted me to become friends with her. In reality he wanted to create a cover so that her husband did not become too suspicious. Some of their conversations were so intimate that she felt comfortable telling him that she had moved into her own bedroom about 6 years before and had not had sex with her husband since. She said the only time he wanted her was when he was drunk so she wasn't sleeping with him anymore. She held herself up to be a "Victim" that everyone used. In reality she is what I call a "Professional Victim". The only way she could garner any attention was to play the part of this poor put upon soul. All the time she was pretending that she wanted to be friends with me ( I later found out he was making her call me and invite me to play Bingo) They referred to me as her"Buddy" and in actuality this was their way of mocking my stupidity. Trust me when I say that I never had a minute that I was not an anxiety ridden mess. I began throwing up sometimes all it took was an ice cube and I would throw up for hours. Not that he cared because he did not. I would go upstairs and be writhing on the floor with severe stomach pain, vomiting hour after hour and he never so much as checked to see if I was dead or alive. This man who had not bought me so much as a card for any holiday for years while I piled gift upon gift onto him decided that since she told him she never had a birthday cake that I (yep me the wife) would need to help him plan this little surprise party that consisted of just the 3 of us. I had to order a cake (it had been at least 4 years since I had a cake because I refused to buy my own cake). He also had an intimate joke with her about her being a Penn State fan. So now "we" had to make this little funny spoof on Penn State craft that he was going to stick on the back of her vehicle at work. Yes folks I was an absolute fool but I also was remembering that little saying "keep your friends close and your enemies closer". Praise God that my best friend from grade school was such a wonderful friend. She had been through the same thing with her "Ex-husband" the difference being she had stopped loving him and he probably never really loved her. She was my life line. If it had not been for her support and the fact that she picked up the phone every time I called to cry on her shoulder I would not be married today and I might not even be alive. I was severely clinically depressed. I was in a fight for my marriage and my family. My son idolized his Dad and it would have killed him if he knew what his Dad was doing. Don't get me wrong, once I found out about their "friendship" they did nothing to try to hide it from MY FAMILY. Her family on the other hand was spared. Her husband knew something wasn't right but she absolutely refused to talk about it with him. He was afraid she would leave him so he just buried his head in the sand. I on the other hand could not have been more involved. When the calls were getting out of hand and I talked to him and told him to stop and he would not, I called her and said enough and she was so afraid that I would make him stop "being her friend" that she would do as I said. Of course she told him everything I said. She came to my house while I was at work to have coffee with him. My sister lives next door but that did not stop them. She would wheel in any time she went up the road and saw him in the garage and never once come to say hi to me. Then the emails began and they were going on constantly. Of course I told him to stop and he lied and said he would but I caught him sneaking and typing her emails while I was upstairs. So I called her and told her to stop. I was very upset about the following to and from work but was told she always left at the same time and it could not be helped if they ended up following each other. I was working in home health at the time and I made it a point to come every day before he left for work to see him. Everyday as we both were leaving he would sit in his car and motion for me to go ahead of him and even when i refused he would not leave until I did. One day I decided to pull off into a spot where she could not see me but I could see her. She came to the stop sign and just sat there waiting. No cars were coming so I knew what was going on. Finally I decided that she needed to know that I was aware of their little game so I pulled out of my spot and the minute she saw me she floored it and off she went. Of course she would pull off the road somewhere and wait for him and on the rare occasion that he got ahead of her he would pull off and wait for her. If it wasn't so devastating it would be funny for 2 grown adults to be acting like teenagers having a crush.
The funny thing is that subtly he began showing me attention. I would make a point to wait up for him every night even though I had to get up at 6 am. I would make him something to eat and he would sit with me and tell me everything she had confided in him. I knew she had no idea that was going on. He told me about the time she was pregnant with her son and her husband came in so drunk he pissed all over her. My husband I am sure thought this would make me feel bad for her and ease up on the reins I kept as tightly as I could. On the other hand I was even more determined that she was not going to break up my marriage. I fought harder than I had ever fought for anything. The increase time and attention he was paying me was a novelty since he had never been the cuddling and talkative husband I always wished he would be. He was still a selfish self centered liar. Our 28th wedding anniversary was coming up and in my desperation I took all the attention he was giving me to mean that he was realizing just how far I was willing to go to ensure his happiness. Now as I look back I see that we had a very sick and twisted threesome going on. I asked him time and again if he would renew our vows since in my demented mind I tried to believe we were on our way to happiness. I was trying to help the slut improve her marriage. It was clear that her husband loved her. During this year long affair my husband manipulated me into buying a boat, new car, a second camp among other things. I stooped to an all time low by asking her to try to talk my husband into the renewal of vows. He finally agreed and as I made all of the plans the one thing I asked of him was to write a little something to say to me. I reminded him daily and he said he was. Mean while the entire week before the vows and party afterwards all he talked about was how he was going to ask her to dance with him. Finally I said I did not think it was a good idea since her husband was going to be ther and it would cause problems. All the while my heart was aching that he was more concerned about dancing with her than the fact that we were renewing our vows. She absolutely refused to come to the church for the renewal ceremony and in retrospect I know it was because she couls not stand to see him marry me again. The Pastor who originally married us 28 years ago was performing the service. When he had finished the vows part he said that we had written something that we each wanted to say to each other. I had spent hours writing mine and I poured my heart out to him. Then the Pastor turned to him and said for him to go ahead he just gave a blank stare and in front of all our family and friends he humiliated me by saying that"she said what he was going to say" and he had nothing prepared. I tried not to show my shame and pain but it was obvious. At the party after she was there and if anyone who did not know us would have walked in they would have thought that mu husband and her were the ones who just got remarried. She had the audacity to sit at the table that was meant for just he and I and her husband and I sat there like two idiots while the two of them had their heads so close together and were whispering to each other all night. I finally had to tell him that he should at least say hi to his family. Before the party was over he said he wanted to show her something at our house (the party was next door in my sisters garage) well I wasn't letting them go alone so I walked out behind them. I wasn't sneaking but they walked fast and just as I was coming around the house to the door I saw her facing out towards the door and he with his back to me and they were in am intimate embrace kissing. As soon as she saw me she stepped away and they both acted like they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. I was so angry and so hurt that I could barely keep from beating the crap out of both of them. Of course he denied it was anything more than a friendly hug and kiss on the cheek but I know what i saw. We generally booked a cabin in a State Park for a week for our anniversary (well I did it all he had to do was get in the car and drive) This year since we had bought the boat and had it moored at a park about 30 miles from our house I decided to rent a cabin there so we could use the boat before we had to get it off the water. One day the week before we were to leave he came to me and he said he had to ask me something. I knew immediatly what it was and I looked into his eyes with tears running down my face and I asked him no I begged him not to ask. Of course being a selfish bastard he was not the least bit remorseful as he continued to ask if it would be alright if he invited the slut and her husband out for the Saturday before we would be coming home because she was afraid of the water because as a child she was "sickly" and never allowed to go swimming" and he wanted to take her out on our pontoon. As I wept openly he took me by the arms and he said that since she had helped him with his marriage (what a joke) now he had to "put me on the back burner" while he helped her with hers. He tried to make it sound so noble but I was finally beginning to see that this was much more than even I had realized. The entire week he did nothing but talk about how much he hoped Saturday would be nice for her to come out for a cook out and a boat ride oh he threw in a comment her and ther about taking her husband fishing but it was clear that it was her that he was concerned with. The week was ruined for me. His obsession and dependance on her was so great that for the first time ever he insisted that we come home mid week so "he could finish painting the truck" it was purely coincidental that 15 minutes after we got home she pulled in the driveway and spent an hour chatting and laughing with him while I watched through my tears out the kitchen window.
That was the first time that I could not wait to leave the cabin and the pain of the true betrayal behind.
Things became very starined between us. I knew for sure that they were heading for deeper waters and either already had or were going to be taking it to a physical level. I watched him like a hawk. When He went to camp for deer season I called her and I asked her flat out if she was in love with my husband. She absolutely denied being "in love" but only that she loved him as a best friend. Then she asked me why I did not trust him and why I was so controlling. Less than 2 weeks later I came home from work and as usual checked his email and much to my surprise there was one there that she had sent him. I immediatly opened it and it said" When we lay our heads down to sleep if that is what we choose to do" It was her asnine way of asking him to have sex with her. I was enraged and I called her immediatly and asked what in the F--- she was doing asking my husband to sleep with her? She tried to pass it off as "just a joke" and I said what so F------ funny about offering to spread your legs for my husband. I said that I had never felt the need to ask my best friend to do that. I went on to say that I had asked her less than 2 weeks before if she was in love with my husband and she had said no. She replied "Well what did you want me to do say yes?". I said a few more not very nice things and then lost her. I called my husband and by this time I could not see straight I was so mad. I said that if he did not come home immediatly not to bother. The exact words fail me but he knew that I was not asking I was telling him. He must have realized the seriousness because he found someone to cover his shift and was home within 45 minutes. I can not even remember what exactly was said. I do remember for the very first time in our married life I beat the shit out of him. He was on his knees begging me for forgiveness. He acknowledged that they had crossed all the boundaries and short of having sex they had been intimately embracing and kissing at work!!!!!
He blamed me and the pills but this time I was not letting that happen. I called him every name in the book and I told him that it was over. Either he cut off all ties with her or I was divorcing him and I would make sure it was me who told her husband everything. My chivalrous husband refused to assign any of the guilt to her. He said it was all his fault that he has mislead her. That here he was a fairly good looking guy who wasn't happy and he began showng someone who was anything but attractive some attention and she was not happy in her marriage so it was all his fault. This just made me angrier here he was defending this slut who had the nerve to ask him to sleep with her. We talked all night. He was under the misconception that he could still say hi and talk to her once in awhile but I made it clear that if he so much as smiled at her I was done. I took every little trinket she had given him and busted it and threw it in the garbage. When he found out he got very upset. they were his and I had no right doing that! I set him straight.
There is much more to add but I am going to post this now so that other victims who may feel that they are completely alone and ashamed or even unsure what really is going on might have the chance to read this and know that my only reason for sharing this intimate pain of lies and betrayal is to reach out to any one who needs someone to talk to.
I am back again to continue telling my story of my husband's Emotional Affair and how I not only survived it but ended up with a much better man, husband and marriage.
Needless to say things at our household were anything but joyous that Christmas. I was so emotionally devastated that I could not think straight. I have always been some one who believed that people are basically good unless they prove other wise. I have always tended to give people the benefit of the doubt. Here I was even after knowing what I did and finding the email from the slut asking my husband to sleep with her I still was very conflicted. She had emailed me and told me that when her daughter left from her visit on January 15, 2007 she was going to tell her husband everything (of course she threw in a veiled threat that she was sure he would be coming up to talk to my husband. I replied he could come up anytime but it would NOT be my husband who did the talking it would be me!!! She was so sure that my hubby would never say anything to incriminate her because through out the entire affair the one thing he repeatedly said was that he did not want to hurt her husband!!! Too bad neither one of them gave a shit about me!) I have always been a Christian but a very lax one. All of this brought me much closer to the Lord. I prayed continuously I am sure sometimes God just thought "Not her again!" I had a very good idea that the two of hem were still communicating at work. How was I to stop that? He could not change shifts and short of having him followed I had no way of knowing what was going on. When I got her email saying that after all that I had done to protect her family while she could have cared less about mine I was really conflicted. I prayed and prayed. It was New Year's Day and I was working and as I was coming up the road that passed her house I felt something very strong telling me that I had to prevent her from causing her family the pain that she had put mine through. Before I even realized it I was driving up her driveway!! Yes I was even stupider than you thought! I was so convinced that God was telling me that while what she had done was wrong that if he was able to forgive me I should be able to forgive her. So I gathered every ounce of ccourage that I had and I walked up to her door and knocked on it. She answered the door and as soon as she saw me she looked like she had seen a ghost. She quickly stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her. She stood glaring at me. I said that while what they had done was more than wrong that I now believed that she had become confused and that she made a big mistake but that I could not let her family suffer as mine had. I told her that I did not want her to tell her husband anything and that we needed to talk. She was hesitant but reluctantly agreed. I said that I would see her the next day. I went home and I did not say anything to my husband about what I had done. The next day was a Monday and I stopped at her house and talked to her about all that had gone on. She was all to eager to accept my version of the story that she had been overwhelmed by the attention from my husband and that they blurred all boundaries. I asked her how she felt about him now and she said that she still loved him BUT ONLY AS A FRIEND!!! I told her that I forgave her and yes folks another act of obvious insanity I actually talked her into getting in my car and I drove her to my house to "SURPRISE" my husband with his mistress!!!! Of course they tripped all over themselves declaring that they had made a big mistake and that they now knew the boundaries existed and must not be crossed. The only positive thing that came out of this complete act of idiocy on my part was to end up realizing that my theory that all people are basically good was nothing short of bullshit. After I took her home and came back to my house I thought my husband would shower me with affection for allowing him a second chance but he did not seem too happy. As it turned out they had never stopped communicating at work. So the affair had never really ended. I later found out that my hubby had left the email from her asking him to sleep with her there on purpose. He realized that he was so far out of his league and he was too much of a coward to do anything about it so he knew I would. I later found out that the email had actually been from the day before and when I asked him what he thought when he got it he said he panicked. He went to work and did not really address the actual invitation but said that they would ALWAYS be FRIENDS. Truth be told he knew that line had been crosse so many times there was no way to ever go back but he was still very much into his selfish, self centered did not really give a shit about me mode.
On January 6th just 4 days after I had arranged a "reunion" of sorts between the two cheaters, he came home from work, said he did not feel good, laid down in bed beside me and had a Grand Mal Seizure. I have been a nurse for many years but that was the worse seizure I had ever witnessed. I forgot I was a nurse and instead was a wife. I called 911 immediatly. By the time they got there my sister having seen the ambulance pulling up my driveway called my son and suddenly my bedroom was full of Paramedics, EMT's and family. They were excellent and just as they were getting him on the cart to transport he started to come out of the Post Ictal State (the time period after a seizure where the person is still very confused and disoriented). He was confused and scared but I told him that he had to go to the hospital and get checked. The hospital trip was a total waste. Of course as we were following him in who just happened to be cleaning in the ER???????????? Of course the Slut! Remember I was still trying to convince myself that they realized what a horrible mistake they had made and were now "JUST FRIENDS". She ran up to me and hugged me and was crying. My sister almost passed out. She knew all that had transpired except the part where I lost my mind and invited her back into our lives and basically enabled the affair to continue. We were in and out and back home from the hospital in less than an hour. They did absolutely NOTHING except bloodwork which showd an elevated Prolactin level which is indicitive of a recent seizure. They gave us a script to have an EEG done outpatient(!!!!) and told me to make him an appointment with a Neurologist. The next 5 or 6 weeks are barely a memory. I can remember that he told her that I had thrown away all the trinkets she had bought him. One in particular was a small wooden frog that she bought him for his keychain when she was in New England (yes the same time that I discovered the affair). Interestingly he had steadfastly refused to have any type of keychain trinket before she bought him the stupid frog. I bought him several and they all disappeared never to be placed on his keychain but apparently hers meant so much more to him that he put it on immediatly and it came off when I cut it off with a knife and threw it away. She actually had the nerve to ask me why I had done that and I actually was stupid enough to feel bad!!!!!! As far as the affair things quickly went back to the way they were and all promises that were made to me were forgotten.
It was during this time that I caught him acting like a teenager. We had a fax machine that you could put on speaker and he would do this once a week and dial the automatic bank information system and listen to all transactions and balances. Well one Sunday morning I was upstairs and he was down and I heard him going through the bank info on the speaker phone. I knew immediatly that he was up to something because he had just doen this the day before. I very quietly came down the steps and walked to the area that we kept the fax and computer. He did not see me at first and I watched as he was one finger typing emails to her and using the speakerphone to cover the sound of the keyboard!!!1 I just stood there with my arms crossed and a very angry and disgusted look on my face. He finally saw me and his face became red and he looked as guilty as they come. I just gave him "the Look" and said "you make me sick" turned and went back upstairs. He followed immediatly begging me to forgive him. He said he knew it was wrong and stupid but he couldn't help it. We had some words and I knew right then what an idiot I had been. Nothing had changed except that I actually helped them continue the affair.
It was only 1 or 2 nights later he came home from work again and not only said he didn't feel good but he did not look good either. He laid down and again had an even worse Grand Mal seizure than the first one. It was February 19th, 2007. He was in a full Tonic Clonic Seizure, he bit through his tongue and was frothing at the mouth but it was bloody. I tried to shake him to see if I could get him to come out of it because we both knew that if he had a second seizure he was going to lose his driver's license for 6 months. I knew I was going to have to call 911 and I did. This time he remained in the Post Ictal State for about 2 hours. I went toe to toe with ER doctor who refused to do an EEG. They did admit him and as soon as he was alert enough to realize he was in the hospital the first thing he said to me was " You better call (the slut) first thing in the morning." Not does our son know or I am glad you are with me no his only lucid thought was of her. I immediatly had a sense of impending doom. I knew something was going to happen just had no idea of what.
First thing the next morning (being the lloving wife I was I stayed all night ) he asked me to call the (slut) and I foolishly did. Of course she was working 3 to 11 but she still made a special trip down that morning to see him. I was with him most of the time he was in the hospital. I was determined to make sure he had every test possible to find out why all of a sudden this perfectly healthy man had had 2 seizures within 6 weeks of each other. She called constantly when she wasn't visiting before her shift and also during it. As each call and visit seemed to reach out and mock me I began watching everything much closer. Of course we knew he was going to have his license suspended for 6 months per Pa. law. This brought on a new problem. How would he get back and forth to work. Of course the 2 of them had a great idea!!!! He would ride with her!!!! I was very against it and I used the excuse that it would upset her husband. No matter what idea I suggested as to remedy the ride to work issue he would find a reason that it would not work.
His Boss was very supportive. He was a very hard worker and they knew that they just did not know about his "extracurricular activities". His boss said that he would pay one of the guys to pick him up and take him home if he had to. On the day he was to be discharged I finally had my eyes opened for me. He was down getting his last test when she called. I answered the phone and I told her he would be discharged but we had no idea when. It was her simple reply that would be there undoing. She said to me that I was to call her as soon as I found out when He was to be leaving and that "I COULD CALL HER ANYTIME UP TO 1:50" As that was when she left for work. I hung up and I sat there digesting what she had just said. Now I knew 100% that they never stopped the AFFAIR even after I found the email. The reason that he insisted that she be allowed to "lead him" to & from work was because they left at the same time. Well right from the COW's MOUTH came irrefutable evidence that the reason they would end up following eachother was because she left at the same time he did. Here she is saying that on a day she knew he was not working that she left at least 25 minutes later than on the days they both worked!!!! It may sound insignificant but it was the clue I needed to finally admit to myself what had and still was going on. He was discharged and I took him home. I knew immediatly that I had to get him away from the house because I had to work the weekend and I could not have her coming to my house and "visiting" him. Without his knowledge I called his brother and asked him if he could possibly take him to camp where he could relax and he would be with them since I would be at work. His brother agreed and I packed his bags and off he went. Immediatly after he left I emailed the slut and told her not to say anything to her husband about riding together. I also told her that I did not want her to have ANY contact at all with my husband until the following Friday which was my first day off. I asked her politely if she would please plan on coming to my house and she and him and I would sit down and have a much needed talk. On Saturday I was working and of course was alone in the office. I suddenly knew that I was going to wait till my husband got home from camp and then I was giving him an ultimatum with no loop holes. It was either me or her but no longer would I sit back while they continued their Emotional Affair that also had begun to include physical intimacies such as kissing embracing and very inappropriate discussions and sexual innuendos. I called my BFF from the office and had what I firmly believe was a nervous breakdown. I sobbed and sobbed my heart out to her. I told her what I was going to do and that I had no idea if he would choose me but that I could not go on like this anymore. As usual she listened and supported me and prayed for me. Later that night I was at home and I was an anxiety ridden mess. The phone rang and I answered it and it wasmy husband which was very unusual. When he was going to camp for only 2 days he never called me. It is hard to get a signal and it is in the middle of nowhere. We talked a little but I did not want him to even think I was planning anything not when he had just had 2 Grand Mal Seizures found to be 100% STRESS INDUCED (it's very stressful basically having 2 wives). I tried to cut it short but he always had been able to sense when something was wrong. He asked me what was wrong and of course I lied and sai nothing. I said I loved him and would see him the next day and I hung up. He called back and this scene was replayed several times until finally I said that I would talk to him when he got home. He would not accept that and jjust kept calling me until finally I lost it and sobbed uncontrollably. In between sobs I told him that I was done. I could not live with another women in my house and my bed and that even if it meant losing him he had to choose. I made it clear that if he chose me it meant that she would be dead to him and one slip and I was walking. It must have been something in my tone that he knew I was dead serious. I told him that he had to choose. He said calmly that "There had never been a choice and that it was always me". I told him again that this time there would be no going back. If he chose me then he was agreeing to put her completely out of his life forever. He said again very calm and clearly that I was his choice.
I'll stop here for now and hopefully finish the story on my next entry. In the mean time if you read this and feel that anything sounds even remotely familiar don't dismiss it PLEASE> Send me a comment and I will work with you privately to help you through your pain and turmoil.
Until next time>>> May God Bless and watch over all of you.
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