The 10 Month Wait

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Last night, about ten minutes to eleven, H came into the family room with an envelope in hand. The envelope contained the long awaited for disclosure letter.  I asked for it before he came home last April. I asked for it several times over the past ten months -- nothing.

Just a blank stare.

I don't know what finally prompted H to deliver on the overdue request or worse, why he chose that time of night to hand deliver his written train wreck.


The letter began with a pretty demanding request to do everything in my power not to show the letter to anyone -- especially our children.

pfffft...I still believe I own my own story



H's letters always begin with a bit of justification, this one was no different.  After getting through the preamble, the brief letter contained a generic version of names and approximate dates.






The sucker punch came in the mix of lies I was told and what was written in the disclosure.



Let me re-wind several years.   


We were at home, my kids and I -- hanging out. H was at work, I thought.  I was supposed to be setting up his new iPhone.  As my son and I were going through the process, we came across all the things H had been already doing on his new phone.  

Pictures.  Email.  Texts.

I'll never forget how the bile rose up in my mouth, and my body started to shake.  Betrayal has a very physical reaction for me.


I had H's bag packed and on the porch.

We were watching for him.

When he came up the walk, I went outside, locking my kids in the house and us out.  

I remember asking him how work went.  The lie that spewed out was so smooth. So I asked him how was Brenda, or Carol, or Stacy?  


He knew I knew.


There was anger and yelling on my front porch that afternoon.  And then for some reason, the words "I know that God will forgive all of this -- and I will too."  I didn't mean or expect that H would walk back inside.  At the time, I just wanted to get all the hate out of me that was brewing in that moment.

H's reply to that was something neither of us expected either.

He suggested we go inside to talk and work all this mess out.


What got worked out that day, I thought, was that H was going to call off all these involvements of his. He was going to focus on me and him and nothing else, no one else would come between us again. 

I honored my side.  I put off everything I wanted or needed. I ignored all my friends.  I doted on him, making him the king of the castle.

My kids were furious all this was going on.




Fast forward to the present, and the letter, and the truth.... 


I couldn't sleep at all last night.  I tossed and turned.  Each time I started to drop into slumber, the trauma shook itself free again.  All night long,  between the tears and the nausea, I kept asking myself 'why?'

Why did you believe him?  Nothing he said was true.  Nothing he agreed to did he honor.  



What a fool I am!

What an idiot!




How do men live double lives?  

How can they tell more than one woman they love them, then go home and say the same thing to their wife?  

The duplicity. The lies. The betrayal.  I'm sick of it. Sick of wondering, do I finally know all of it now, only to realize the disclosures will continue to trickle in and the pain and trauma will be relived over and over.

How can I make an informed decision for my future with the uncertainty of my marriage?



Now what?  

This 'trial period' has not gone well for me  All the stories he told me where incomplete.  H lead me to believe there was much less than there actually was. 



I'm all in knots again. 

My whole body shook through the conducting of all four hymns during Sacrament meeting. It was all I could do to make my way through the chapel and out to my car at the end of the first hour without throwing up.

There are days, like today, that I don't want these 'hand-picked trials' like the speaker talked about today in Sacrament meeting.  I don't want the pain.  The loneliness, the husband that hurts too much from his own actions to hold my pain.  

I don't want to put on the face every Sunday, pretending to every church member that we are all one happy family.


I'm weary from loss being my constant companion.