It was August, and we had just celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary three months earlier. From the outside, everything in our life looked positive. His business was doing well, our children were happy in school and outside activities, I was doing well in my own projects. I had a calling I loved at church and good friends. Our marriage seemed to be doing better and our sex life was good. I had no reason to suspect anything was
A few months earlier we had gone to Hawaii for a work conference for him and a Disney resort to celebrate our anniversary. Looking back, I remember times when he would abruptly have to leave my side to use the bathroom for long periods of time. And it always had to be back in our room, not a public bathroom. I once sat on a bench alone for an hour waiting for him.
In order to go to Hawaii we had a close friend of both of ours stay with our kids in our home. I was grateful to her, she was my husbands business partner, our kids were friends, we had double dates together as couples, and she always seemed ready to help.
The week before I found out about his double life I accompanied him and this couple to New York City. They had an important company to meet with at a festival there. I was thrilled to go on a trip to New York City, it was a highlight of my summer and a fun way to end the season before my kids went back to school the next week.
And then came the day. The sun was shining through the windows, glistening on the pool water as I sat at my computer and worked away. The weather was perfect. Our children were at school and we were home alone.
I was happy with the direction our life was taking. I felt blessed. My husband was due to leave for Salt Lake City in an hour. While we lived in another state, the headquarters for his business was in Utah and he had been commuting there every other week for about three years. It was hard, but we hadn’t wanted to uproot our kids from school and our community and so we had decided to make it work for the time being.
I remember him grabbing me by the hand with a weird look on his face and pulling me down the hallway quickly. I had to practically skip to keep up with him. I laughed, asking him if he had a surprise for me before he left, a gift, or impromptu make out session. I giggled as he pulled me into the living room. I sat down on the white couch next to him and asked him what was going on. The mood shifted as I realize he was visibly frightened and disturbed. I knew he had bad news, but I couldn’t figure out what. Did my mom have a cancer relapse? Did the business collapse?
His body was hunched over with his elbow resting on his knees, hands covering his face. He did not touch me or look at me in the eyes. He began to sob. My stomach started to hurt. My body began to respond.
“I have something I need to tell you. But I you have to promise me two things. One, that you won’t ask any details, and two, you won’t leave me for at least a year.”
(At this point, after a lot of therapy we could really dive into the psychology of this “confession,” but I need to get this part of my story out before I throw up.)
Etched in my memory is the remembrance of me staring straight in front of me. There was a window straight ahead where everyone else’s life went on as usual, and beside that a large nautical map of my home area that I loved so much, resting against the hall waiting to be hung. I began to see tunnel vision, and I was distracted by this weird buzzing in my ears. I felt like I was floating above my body, and I felt numb all over.
I now know that I went into shock.
A small, quiet voice in my head said quite plainly, “Your life will never be the same again.”
Next to me, my husband and sobbed louder, consumed in his own pain. But as I would find out down the road, he had lived a selfish life for quite a while and was used to focusing on his own needs above others’.
“I had sex with another woman”
I sat there. The buzzing grew louder. I did not cry.
He turned and wrapped his arms around me and sobbed into my left upper arm. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
The me that was floating near the ceiling wondered abstractly all the ways my life had just changed. Was it a one time thing? I didn’t take him for being interested in prostitutes, but he did travel a lot. Was he mixed up in pornography? Where was this person? Our state or Utah? I couldn’t even stomach the thought. I thought I might pass out. I still did not cry. I couldn’t really think straight.
He seemed relieved he had released his burden. It had not gone as badly as he thought it would. I remember disjointedly a few things. I remember standing in the kitchen closing a cabinet door. I can’t remember how I got there or what I was doing. I remember being in my bedroom next. He kept talking, following me around. He said something about how he loved me and wanted to make it work with me. I remember looking at him and saying one of the only things I said in this whole encounter, “if I wasn’t enough for you before, why would I be now?”
I then remember him zipping up his suitcase. He was leaving for his business trip. Business as usual. In hindsight, the whole thing is so crazy. But that’s what affairs are, really.
I followed him to the front door. He kept talking. Something about how he understood if the locks were changed when he came back but he hoped that wouldn’t happen. I said nothing. He hugged me. He left.
I watched his car drive down the long driveway and turn right. I think I collapsed.
The bizarre thing is I remember picking my kids up as usual from the bus stop. I think I took them to sports practice. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to even process this.
Looking back it is so weird. The whole thing is so weird. But after all the work I’ve done on myself, I realize I didn’t have the self love to tell him not to go. Or to even stand up for myself. I had an old wound of abandonment and so I let him walk out.
He handled things the way he always had and the way his parents did. Not really addressing anything. Not communicating. Walking out with the least amount of emotions.
I know now that he called her on the way out of our driveway to report on how it went. He was leaving me and flying to where she was.
But I had no idea what a tangled mess he had made out of his life and by extension, mine. My innocent, trusting brain had no idea of the possibilities. I remember after 9/11 Matt Lauer commenting that no one prepared for this because it was a “failure of imagination.”
I understand that now completely.
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