I wasn’t going to publish this and then I thought back to the moments from one year ago. The days and weeks after when I thought oh God I’m all alone. The moments where I STILL struggle with feeling so damn alone in my choices and experience that I want to curl back up into a ball. That is why I’m sharing this because in the end, I’m not alone. Even if I don’t know you or you don’t know me we have survived and we will ultimately THRIVE.
One year….that is exactly the amount of time that will have passed when I finally am willing to let this jumble of words see the light of day. I’m writing this in May because, well because I know part of my writers block has been that I’ve not been honest. I’ve protected my husband, I’ve drawn a line, and I’ve done so much….but ultimately this blog is for me. I sure family will have an opinion, friends may have an opinion, y’all likely will have an opinion on the “rightness” of this post. I can only say here and now if you don’t want to read a mass of frustration and down right not pleasant things about marriage or Alex and myself then stop reading now. Seriously. Family if you’ll get opinionated then you need to shut up, shut this post down and back off. Plain and simple.
One year since my world crumbled (again) and I had to be the strong one and shove puzzle pieces back. One year since nothing has been quite the same, like a scar that fades but is always there.
In the last 12 months y’all have heard me talk about infertility, about depression, about major struggles but I’ve never really been 100% open with you. Why? Well because for one year I had to make sure that the universe wouldn’t spit up on me when I put it all into writing.
September 6, 2011 I had just come home from a “girl” weekend. What was supposed to be a weekend of fun and rum in the sun, ended up being cold and wet thanks to a tropical storm. Not only that, but rum was tossed out the window when I found out my best friend was pregnant. Phone calls to my mom helped me sort through the feelings of “What the HELL is this total bullshit” but phone calls to Alex did not. Mostly because I couldn’t reach him. Not that this was new…
That night, September 6th, we were going out to dinner. On the way to dinner the phone rang. Once, twice, three separate times…it just wouldn’t stop. I asked him about it and he said he’d deal with it later. At dinner he rushed off to the bathroom, I knew what he was doing but I pretended it was all OK. I just texted him angrily to “get the hell off the damn phone and stop embarrassing me by having me sit at a Hibachi table all alone.”
Dinner was tense. The drive home I got a text, since I was driving I asked Alex to check it. Magically it was “deleted.” Now I was left knowing something was up and not knowing what the hell to do to figure it out. Though, secretly I think I knew. Then….my phone rang.
Have you ever had a moment where time stood still? Where your entire life stopped and you could move normally but everyone else was just frozen? That was my life at that moment. I picked up the phone and heard the words I suspected but never wanted confirmed. I put it on speaker so Alex heard them too.
“I slept with your husband. ”
It went on and on – I, God I can’t believe I did this, stayed on the phone with her. Getting detail after detail while he is standing there denying everything. Fast forward to Alex storming out to call and presumably yell at her for spilling the beans (I do know he called her) only to return to my shit in a bag on the bed, my mother in the living room, and me curled up in a ball in the bathroom. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t function. I couldn’t think. I just felt pain and anger, so much anger. A part of me said to cut my losses right then and there. I had lost my one of my best friend’s to death less than a year prior to that, found out I was infertile, and then this. A knife, a pill, or even a gun would have solved everything. Not even the man who was supposed to love me forever loved me enough. It was brief, but yea on that floor the thought crossed my mind…Not that I was thinking that much…I was just trying to be able to breathe and not vomit again and again and again.
Fast forward 6 days – its now September 12, 2011. My second wedding anniversary. My husband has slept with another woman. I know more details than I wanted to know and less than I wanted to know. I have his wedding ring and he’s been relegated to another room while I cry night after night. Anniversary my ass.
Time passed, discussions and counseling, fights and tears, letters and talks, steps forward and backward and forward again has brought us here. One year later…and we’re still married. In fact in 6 days we’ll celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary (although not by eating Hibachi). This last 12 months have been hell. Alex and I have dealt with a lot, we’ve got more to deal with, but you know what I choose to stay married and so did he. We got that its hard… we’ve been living it.
Oddly the hardest parts haven’t always been directly related to him. Its been from other people. I’ve been told I deserved to be cheated on because I am a controlling bitch. I’ve been told I was stupid for staying with him. Alex was uninvited to a wedding and I was asked to explain that to him – thus punishing ME for a decision my husband made. I’ve had friends stop being friends because I choose to stay with him.
Let me explain this simply – every single person out there says “I’ll never stay with a cheater” because who the hell would say opposite? I don’t blame them! But until you are in MY life and in MY marriage you will NEVER UNDERSTAND my decision. In no part of this did I say “Alex is innocent” because he’s not. He made that choice not me. But I made the choice to stay and fight for the marriage alongside him. I don’t deny that for a good solid 8 months post-P day (phone call day) I contemplated divorce. I won’t deny that this irrevocably changed my perception of marriage. However, you have no right whatsoever to judge me until you’ve walked in my shoes. (And I warn you, I have tiny feet…you’ll get cramps.)
So having said all that, it’s been one year and I am happy to say that I am looking forward to my anniversary. Just know, if you face this situation you aren’t alone and it does get better.
**On a minor note, this post has been removed from comments. If you want to get in contact with me you can utilize the contact page of the blog. Also, for the next while future posts will be tightly monitored. I don’t love this but I also refuse to go through hell on my blog because people think they have a right to say something hurtful or cruel towards me OR Alex. So…I will read all comments and I will approve those which stay in the spirit of non-attacks. Thank you for being so understanding.
