Big yellow taxi

It’s odd, really, how much Joni Mitchell has been swirling around in my head lately.

The house is quiet. At the risk of sounding cliche, it’s too quiet. Every time I hear a slight noise, my heart jumps in my chest. Even though I’m sitting here with a big window leading out to the only entrance he could come to, every time I hear a zipper clang against the side of the dryer, I think it’s the sound of him unlocking the front door. Coming back to me.

I wish I had the ability that some have, to let my anger take over so that I feel nothing but white-hot rage when I think about him. Really, I’m not sure if anyone actually does this - maybe it just seems that way sometimes.

Earlier, a taxi pulled onto my street. My heart stopped for a moment, until it turned off into another cul de sac. 

So far this morning I have managed to refill the coolant in the car, start a load of laundry, run the dishwasher, and pack up a few more of his things. If I didn’t have to take the dog out, I doubt I would have gotten out of bed in the first place. But I’m here. I’m awake, after a few hours of fitful sleep. There’s a hole in my chest, a knot in my stomach, but I’m alive. I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, because what else is there to do?

-

My sister in law called again, and we talked for hours. It was so incredibly nice to be able to just speak about it openly, to not have to keep the secret anymore. He is going home to his parents, alone. He still hasn’t contacted me, not even to let me know that he’s safe. That he’s left the state. I don’t know who this person is, and neither does she. “This isn’t my brother. He’s a shell.” Those were her exact words.

She told me that in a period of ten minutes, talking to her, he said of me: “I just want her to hate me.” No less than five times. 

I guess that would be the easy way out for him, but even now, I don’t hate him. If he turns his back on me, that will be his choice. Not mine. I won’t take his bait to be the villain.  

How it ends

And just like that - he left.

He wants someone who will be "nicer" to him. I hope he finds her.

Before and after

I can’t think of a poetic way to put this, but I wanted to share something that’s been helpful to me in the last few days. I’ve stumbled across little things, again and again, that remind me of how things were “before.” Which is to say, before I found out. Before the affair, too, but what comfort is that when I’m left wondering what I was doing wrong back then, to eventually drive him out of my arms?

I’ve started realizing - consciously - every time I see an old photograph or a Facebook update or a forum post or ANYTHING that reminds me of “before,” I tell myself it’s an artificial distinction. He was the same person back then, who was doing everything that I know about now. Not to try and poison the past, but to be realistic. And it’s a strangely comforting thought.

I have this tendency to try and escape into invented realities. I remember, a long time ago, back when I was working a retail job I hated - “before” - he once expressed surprise that I had to work the next morning. “I thought you had the day off,” he said. I replied: “man, I wish I lived in your reality!” Like it would do me any good. But that was what ran through my head - if only I lived in that nonexistent world where I don’t have to work tomorrow.

This is just more of the same. There’s no reality where he doesn’t cheat on me. That world doesn’t exist. It’s happened, it was happening while other things also happened, there’s no use in trying to escape back into a comforting lie. 

- 

His mother’s gone back home. It was a strain, trying to pretend like everything was normal…but at the same time, it’s what we’re doing anyway. No one with a hidden camera in the house would guess that our marriage is falling apart.

I wanted to tell her, but she is sick with worry over James’ sister already, her anxiety and depression reaching another fever pitch that is interfering with her life, and nothing makes a mother feel more helpless than that. James’ mom isn’t the dramatic type, but I heard her cry on the phone to her daughter the other night. She is worried and hurting, unable to alleviate her daughter’s suffering. I can’t burden her any further, even if it means taking more of a burden on myself. I know that’s not fair, but it’s also not fair that she should carry it.

And yes, I know I didn’t create this burden. All the same, I don’t feel I can pass it on to someone already struggling. 

I’ve successfully withdrawn as much as I can at this point. Trying to “get out and live my life” as much as possible. Might go to the library to work tomorrow, just to prove (to both of us) that I can do something on my own. Since we moved here, I’ve hardly left the house on my own. Just being able to say “I’ll be gone for a while, bye” will feel like a small triumph. I’ve signed up for a beginner’s yoga class as well. Might join up with a local gym - a different one from his. He’s gone to his gym with HER. I’ll never set foot in that place.

And so far, he’s simply falling in line. Doesn’t try to kiss or touch me anymore. Didn’t say “I love you” when I got out of the car this morning for my therapist appointment. He is still acting as interested and engaged in our life together as ever, planning dinner and starting conversations about everything BUT our marriage. I don’t know what this means. I didn’t expect him to start chasing after me immediately, but I also don’t know how long I can go on like this. I need him to show some intention of doing SOMETHING.

I guess there’s nothing to do but wait.

We can't return, we can only look behind from where we came

yesterday, a child came out to wander

caught a dragonfly inside a jar

fearful when the sky was full of thunder

and tearful at the falling of a star

I was running. Running hard, as fast as my little legs could carry me, to catch up. I was following my mother’s voice. 

Like many mothers of her generation, I imagine, she fell back on the music of her young adulthood during those late nights, rocking me to sleep. And even as I grew older, old enough to start to really remember things, some of them kept on. Other songs, I forgot. It took me many years, and many times of hearing it later on, before I realized that “All My Loving” by the Beatles was in her rocking chair rotation. 

But “The Circle Game,” by Joni Mitchell, was a perennial favorite. My earliest memories of it, I think, harken back to when I was just old enough to go on the quarter-mile walk down our street under my own power. On the way back, I’d start to grow tired, and she’d bribe me by telling me that if I made it to the big rock in front of a neighbor’s house, I could climb on her back and she’d carry me the rest of the way home. Up our long, winding driveway, which seemed insurmountable.

sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now

cartwheels turn to car wheels through the town

and they tell him: take your time, it won’t be long now

before you drag your heels to slow the circle down

I don’t know why, but I always had trouble remembering that second verse, the one about when the boy’s ten and everyone tells him “when you’re older.” I suppose I was looking forward to cartwheels turning to car wheels through the town, even if that didn’t happen for me until well over the age of sixteen. 

My freedom came much later, and at great cost.

In recent weeks I’ve acutely felt the loss of my family, more than I ever have in the past. Meeting James was the catalyst that pulled me away from them, and caused me to cut off contact. Now, objectively, it needed to be done. They are poisonous people. But one still loves one’s parents, I suppose, no matter what.

Until now I’ve never felt deprived. I had James. I had his family. And while they’re flawed in their own way, of course, like every family, they try. They care for each other. The deep, abiding bitterness and hostility that I knew in my family of origin is foreign to them. But now, I face the possibility of losing everything. Him. Them. Everyone.

Because of James, I am geographically and emotionally separated from everyone with whom I grew up. In some cases that’s good. In others, a bit more ambivalent. But I’m feeling a kind of homesickness now that I never knew before, even when I felt sadness and longing for something a little more familiar. Now, I am feeling the kind of homesickness that comes with knowing your home is gone.

Not just distant, but gone.

I guess, in a way, that’s true of everyone. Once you’re not a child anymore, the concept of “home” that you once had can never exist again. But now I’m left feeling like I took a sledgehammer to something that…well, all right, it wasn’t GOOD, it wasn’t HEALTHY, but it was something. Turning to my parents in a time like this would be the worst thing I could possibly do. I know that. But not even having the option? It’s a terrifying thought.

Once again, like the affair, this is a situation I did not create - I could only react to it. Will I be able to react with the same surety, the same sense of rightness now? And what will happen years from now? 

What will I regret?

so the years spin by and now the boy is twenty

though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true

there’ll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty

before the last revolving year is through

The further

Some days, it feels like the heartache will eat me alive.

It’s been a difficult realization for me, and one I am still struggling with. I’m drinking too much these days, nothing dangerous, nothing horribly out of character, but I know the sadness is driving me to it. I’ve never been a problem drinker before and I wouldn’t classify myself that way now. But there’s no denying that it helps to smooth the rough edges. At the same time, it makes me cry harder. Earlier, after a drink or two, I found myself on the verge of grabbing him and holding onto him as tightly as I could.

But right now, I don’t think I can do that. We’re not officially “reconciling” until he commits to this 100%. The last time we talked about it, after my therapy session, he told me once more that while he still loves me, he loves her, too. His heart is split in half. If I can’t have all of him, he can’t have all of me, either. 

It’s horribly unfair that it has to be this way. I shouldn’t be trapped in a marriage with someone I can’t trust, who only half wants to be here, someone with whom I must separate emotionally so he understands that I’m not to be taken for granted. Where am I supposed to turn? He still has her. I have no one.

But that’s the way things are. 

We’re not reconciling, but we’re not separating, either. His mother’s visiting next week. After she’s gone, I’m going to consult with a lawyer and make sure that James knows that I’m doing it. I’m going to explain to him that I want to reconcile, and if we do, if he commits to it, I will put 100% of my effort into being the best wife I can possibly be, and meeting all his needs. But until then, I can’t. I have to focus on taking care of myself.

If nothing’s changed after the holidays, I will ask him to take steps towards independence. Getting a job, moving into the spare bedroom, whatever it takes to make him understand I am serious.

Whatever happens, I know I’ll never be able to forget what he’s capable of. And that’s the deepest cut of all. 

Chasing pavements

I’m starting to learn to let go.

I’m letting go of the delusion that I can control what he feels.

I’m letting go of the delusion that I can control what he does.

I’m letting go of the assumption that there is, or should be, any logic involved in his decision-making (as I see it). 

I am preparing myself for every eventuality. I’m accepting that the future is unclear. That his choices are his to make, and I am similarly free to pursue my own happiness.

-

Last night, I shared the letter that I put in my last post. It went badly enough that I’m no longer sure of the future of our relationship. Based on conversations we’d had before, I thought we were on the road to recovery. I was starting to feel safe again, in a small way. But it might have been wishful thinking, or maybe I talked him into saying things he didn’t mean. Or maybe he meant them then, but doesn’t now. I don’t know.

At the moment I am following the advice in the book Not Just Friends, and not making any rash decisions so soon after finding out. But today, I feel much readier to leave - if necessary - than I did the day before. I’m feeling that strange of sense of relief that comes when the unthinkable happens. When your worst nightmare comes to pass, but you come out the other side and discover you’re still alive. Worse for the wear, certainly, but you survived. And if you can survive that, you can survive anything. 

Catharsis is a myth

I distinctly remember someone saying that in my Psych 100 class back in the day, and the teacher nodding in agreement. Apparently, studies showed that people who were given opportunities to "vent" anger and frustration typically ended up more upset afterwards than they were before.

Obviously there's a lot of different aspects to this, and I know there are some constructive types of venting, I've experienced it personally. But while writing about my feelings on the day I found out, and directly afterwards, really helped me work through them, now that some of the dust has settled, I've found writing about it is upsetting me more than I was before I started.

I sat down to write an explanation to him about why he can't talk to Delilah anymore. I thought it was important for him to understand that his friendship with her was ALWAYS inappropriate, and always made me unhappy. He's acting like the beginning of the "affair" was the beginning of the trouble, when it very clearly wasn't. Their relationship ALWAYS had poor boundaries. Otherwise, it never would have gone there.

Once I'd gotten it all out on paper, I felt much worse. I was angry for most of the day, and I haven't even been able to get my head on straight enough to share the letter with him. Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't. I think he needs to hear what's in it, but maybe just verbally in our next therapy session. Which just happens to be scheduled on our 5th anniversary.

Of course.

This is what I wrote. I've lost any ability to judge whether it's appropriate or helpful or not. It also feels unfinished, and as a writer, that bothers me much more than it should. 

I think the problem here is that you are assuming our issues began when you crossed the line between “close friends” and “lovers.” But in reality, while having crossed that line is a major betrayal of trust, it wasn’t a single action or moment. Your relationship with her was always inappropriate, otherwise that moment could not have happened.

In effect, by proposing continued contact with her, you’re asking me to return to a time that I hated. Of course it was in many ways easier to bear than this post-betrayal time, but I saw the writing on the wall from the beginning. Do you remember the fight we had on your birthday, when I agonized over the fact that seeing HER was the only thing that seemed to make you happy? Or before that, when you got back from driving her home on that first visit and you had no answer for why I should trust you alone with a woman who was clearly infatuated with you for forty-five minutes? How about the time I cried in bed because I wasn’t your best friend anymore, and you couldn’t think of anything to say to comfort me? Or the time she missed her bus and you drove hours and hours to take her home from Haddonfield, and I couldn’t stop crying?

When you say “I think we can make it work,” that’s what you mean by “it” - a life where I have to endure you being friends with someone who nearly destroyed my life. Someone whose presence was slowly poisoning my marriage from the very first day you talked.

By continuing a friendship with her, you’re asking me to choose one of two impossible options. I can trust you and turn a blind eye, which given the circumstances, is insane. Or, I can become the Friendship Cop, having to monitor your conversations with a person who committed the ultimate betrayal against me. I will have to read conversations that make me sick to my stomach, every single day, knowing that you can’t give this up. That I will NEVER be enough for you. That my happiness means less to you than a poisonous friendship that you just can’t let go.

You seem to want to partition the “appropriate” and “inappropriate” parts of your relationship with her. That is impossible. The whole thing is a threat to our marriage. Even if you don’t agree, you have to be able to respect my feelings about it. I know that on an intellectual level, you realize that what you’re asking of me is impossible. But the feelings you have for her are clouding your perception. You think you will be sad forever if you can’t talk to her? How do you think I will feel? Betrayed, lied to, treated with the ultimate disrespect - you bringing your girlfriend home and parading her around in front of me, letting her sleep in MY HOME, eating MY FOOD, sitting next to you, touching you in MY CAR - kissing her on MY SOFA - and God knows what else - and now, it feels like you want to continue to torture me because you cannot handle ending a friendship that is hurting me so deeply I can’t even find the words to describe it. 

L'Étranger

Every blog post I’ve written, up until this one, has been something I needed to write. Now, I feel like I’m forcing myself. I feel like I should write something, but I’m not sure what to say.

Things are improving, more or less. As much as they can, I suppose, just a few days after something like this. Therapy was difficult, but I’m very glad we did it. My therapist is good at cutting to the heart of the issue when it’s necessary. He got James to really confront some of his thoughts and feelings. And I was able to say a lot of things I might have had trouble saying to James’ face. 

I keep expressing disbelief that he could even be debating the value of a few-months-old friendship vs. a marriage of five years. (And that’s not even counting the time we were together before that.) I’m starting to feel like a broken record. But I just don’t know what else to say, and I feel like it’s not really getting through. He acknowledges that it’s insane, but can’t see through the fog enough to really understand where I am coming from.

His remorse is obvious now. He is horribly depressed, apologizing over and over again, barely able to function. He won’t eat unless I put a plate of food in front of him. There’s no color in his face. Most of the time he’s just curled up on the sofa, under a blanket, staring at the wall with glassy eyes. He agreed to cut off contact with her until our next meeting with my therapist, but he’s not that out of it - he knows that in all reality, cutting off contact with her permanently is the next logical step. And he doesn’t feel ready to do that.

In spite of his remorse, when I try to express how much it hurts me that he can’t make this seemingly easy decision, it never ends well. Last time, he told me “she’s hurting too!” And yes, he understands that everyone is hurting because of what they did, what he allowed to happen. They might both technically be adults, but he’s something like 7 years older than she is, not to mention the one who’s married. The responsibility was with him to stop things before they spiraled out of control. 

Yesterday, he said “do you really want to go on like this? Do you really want to be with someone like me?” I’ve gotten similar reactions from other people. It’s not unreasonable to wonder if I’m only staying because I can’t handle the logistics of splitting up a marriage. Because I’m afraid. Because I believe I’ll never find someone else. 

But I know the real reason I want to say is because I still love him. I know that this doesn’t change who he is. He is confused and lost in the heady swirl of a brand new “relationship” and has lost sight of some things that he used to know, but he’s not a lost cause. Not by a long shot. My gut never steers me wrong - it tried to warn me about this many times - and now, my gut tells me to stay. There was never any question in my mind about that.

Glimmers of the man I used to know are coming through the clouds. “You didn’t do anything wrong here. I did,” he tells me. He understands he is being ridiculous. And I don’t expect him to fall out of love with Delilah overnight. I realize this is going to be a process, but it’s one I’m willing to go through.

My therapist asked him if he’s always had trouble making choices. He said he has. But he made the choice to be with me in the first place, and it couldn’t have been easy. He had to ask me to take a MAJOR risk in leaving my entire life behind, to be with him. Now, it was a terrible life and I didn’t want to keep it. But from his perspective, as he’s expressed many times, I left behind a lot of possibilities and he feels like he “ruined my life,” even before the affair. Never mind that I’m a successful business owner now, having accomplished something that relatively few in my industry can ever hope to, and in less than two years of work. I’m doing something now that utilizes all my talents and makes me a boatload of money. Who knows how much of that I could have done without him? Yet he persists in this delusion that he did something horrible to me. 

I guess the choice was a difficult one, after all.

My thoughts are still scattered, but I’m at least able to get back to work a bit. He’s still managing to do some of his usual household chores. Overall, even though our world is crumbling down, we’re still able to keep some things from falling apart.

Let’s hope it stays that way.

What a collection of scars you have...

…never forget who gave you the best of them.

Hannibal Lecter said that, followed by an explanation that our scars have the power to remind us that the past is real. Pretty insightful for a cannibal, but I have to say, I don’t want any reminders right now.

Not now, not ever.

(Talk of abuse coming up - nothing terribly explicit, mostly emotional in nature, but if that’s likely to upset you, I would skip this post.)

I saw an article online that mentioned, sort of casually, that people with unfaithful spouses often suffer similar effects to those who are survivors of domestic abuse. I believe it. It’s strange, because leading up to this, I was fighting off a sickening feeling that I’d been here before. Not here, exactly, because I’ve never been cheated on. James was my first. My only. Nobody else was ever interested in me, before he came along.

But I’d felt like this before. Somewhere. Where? When? Keeping secrets, unable to express my feelings. Crying alone. Becoming further and further withdrawn, isolated. 

I hadn’t felt that way in years.

Not since James came and rescued me from my childhood home.

I was nineteen when we met. Not living at home anymore, but at the same time, my mother’s shadow loomed large. I was living at school, but not far from her. Not far enough.

James was my escape. I kept him a secret from my parents for as long as I could, because I knew that it wouldn’t be received well. I was terrified. My parents were my sole financial support, and I didn’t know a life without them.

After my mom found out, I remember her telling me: “It’s a good thing Grandma’s dead, because what you’re doing right now would kill her.”

An expert at emotional blackmail, my mother.

I still don’t really know what’s wrong with her. I’ve tried to armchair-psychologist her many times, just for my own edification, but the reality is that I don’t know. I can only guess. I remember the screaming, the name-calling, the accusations. How many times did she tell me that she wished I was dead? Once, she got very specific, saying that I should become a suicide bomber with Al-qaeda. To my mother, a devout Christian, that not only meant me dying - but also burning in hell, for eternity.

That was what she wished on me.

From time to time, it got physical, but that’s not where the real damage was done. I became the person that I am today because, as a child, I never felt safe. I never knew which mother I was waking up to every morning. The one who loved me, or the one who hated me? 

There was no emotional safety. The place that was supposed to be my ultimate refuge was a minefield. And I hadn’t felt that in years.

Until now.

The home life that James created for us, that Delilah helped him create, made me feel betrayed and unsafe like I hadn’t since I was a kid. I can’t even begin to express how devastating that is. 

He was supposed to be my escape.

One of the things I screamed at him in the moment of confrontation: “my parents were right about you.”

I hope I’m wrong. I hope they’re wrong. I need them to be.

I need to feel safe again.

Note: Since writing this, we have been to therapy together and things have improved. I will write more about that later, but I still wanted to get this out.

Things we lost in the fire

There are so many things that I won’t just be able to enjoy anymore. Not in any kind of pure, meaningful way. So many things that will remind me, or send me back somewhere I don’t want to go. Make me question everything.

I keep wondering things. Where did they do the - as he coined it - “some sex stuff?” She lives with her parents. Did they do it in my car? Is that why it always took so long for them to get back from the grocery store? Did they kiss when they went out and walked my dog together, just a few dozen yards from the window above my desk? Is that why, when he’d see her out to her car, I’d notice him glancing back up at my window to see if I was watching? Did he presume to steal a kiss, if possible, right outside our front door?

I don’t want to wonder these things, but I do.

I feel sick to my stomach. We’re watching baseball, and I can barely hold back the tears because she loves baseball. It’s all I can think about. I don’t even know how I’ll react the next time I see a movie or a TV show that features an infidelity plot line.

In retrospect of course I realize that I “let” them get too close. Scare quotes because, honestly, what could I have done? I don’t know. I truly don’t know anymore. I used to think that people would cheat if they wanted to cheat, and the circumstances didn’t matter - that is, forbidding friendships etc. wouldn’t have any effect. And now, I don’t know anymore. If I had told him I didn’t feel comfortable, if I’d snooped earlier and nipped this in the bud, could I have stopped what happened?

Should I have?

Now, because of this - as horrible as it is - I understand how dire some of the problems in our relationship were, that I’d been ignoring. I know the cheating was his choice, but I also understand why he made that choice. No, I’m not supportive all the time. I’m not easy to be with. But at the same time, it’s hideously unfair to compare a brand new, exciting, illicit relationship to one that’s firmly entrenched in the sometimes-unpleasant realities of day-to-day life together. 

I don’t know how to walk the line between sticking up for my needs, and acknowledging my shortcomings in our relationship that led to us growing apart. I don’t know how to be a better wife without feeling like I’m begging and scraping for a cheater to stay with me. 

How it begins

All names and locations in this post have been changed to protect the innocent.

It started with “I love you.”

Scrolling through the long line of Facebook messages, I saw the words standing out like a beacon. “I love you.” Nothing even remotely suspicious surrounded them. Logically, I told myself it was the normal exchange of affection between friends. I remembered exchanging “I love yous” with a close male friend, after all.

But my gut told me to keep scrolling.

The next message that stood out: “Ooooh baby.” My throat tightened. But as my eyes raced over the surrounding messages, I quickly understood the context. She was was saying “ooooh baby” as an exclamation about something else, the way people say “oh shit” or “oh man.” They were talking about food that looked delicious. That was all it was. I relaxed a little, but once again, my gut nagged at me. Keep going. 

“Sweetie.”

“Baby.”

Okay, this time there was no mistaking it. My fingers and toes started to go numb. I kept scrolling, because at this point, how could I stop?

“Cuddling with you on the sofa…”

“Feeling your breath on my neck…”

“I want to act all couple-y for a while…”

“I want that too…”

A picture of him kissing her neck.

“You have magnificent breasts…”

I had to scroll over and over these parts, convincing myself that they were real. My heart was pounding so hard it shook my entire body. I jumped away from his computer like it had burned me, running upstairs and opening a chat with my friend. I’d complained plenty of times about what appeared to be the inappropriate closeness between my husband, James, and his friend Delilah. But this?

I never thought I’d find anything like this.

I’m not particularly proud of snooping. But to be fair, he never made any effort to hide it. He left his computer on, Facebook logged in, phone sitting around - I could have discovered all of this at any time. I trusted him, and he knew it. We were one of those couples that would joke about the possibility of cheating on each other, because it was so ridiculous. We were always together, when one of us wasn’t at work. And both being in the retail field, there wasn’t exactly ample opportunity for work-time hanky panky. 

But then, she came along, and everything changed.

Suddenly, I wasn’t the only person he wanted to spend large amounts of time with. James, like me, was someone who didn’t make close friends easily, so I’d never really experienced this side of him before. When he first started talking to Delilah, he kept asking me if I was comfortable with their friendship. Of course I was. I had no reason to be otherwise. He’d had female friends before I came along, and I never felt threatened by them.

But it soon became clear that this was something different.

In the early summer of 2013, we moved to Metropolis. It was James’ hometown, even though his family relocated when he was a child. He never stopped loving the place, and always intended to go back. In early 2012 I started a business that turned out to be very successful, allowing us to make the move and start a new life.

Delilah just happened to live about forty-five minutes away. During our visits to Metropolis before we moved, we always met up with her and spent time together. Increasingly, I felt like a third wheel whenever I was with them. The first time they were physically alone together, I was overtaken with a feeling of dread. It was very practical - he had to drive her home after she hung out with us in our hotel. She didn’t have any other way to get there. I’d be damned if I was going to be the jealous, controlling wife who refused to let her husband spend forty-five minutes alone with another woman.

My gut was telling me something, but I didn’t want to listen.

One of the things we specifically looked for, when we moved, was a three-bedroom apartment. I needed a home office, and we wanted a spare room for family and friends who might visit. But within just a day or two of moving, the “spare room” became “Delilah’s room.” While I struggled to unpack and get my new place in some semblance of an order, she was always hovering. She and James would go out shopping together, hanging out, while I sweated and toiled at home. I told myself it was my choice. If I asked him to stay and help out, he would. I was just fine. And honestly, if they were out of the house without me, that gave me more space to work.

For the first few weeks, it seemed like she was constantly there. For a natural homebody like me, who’s not used to having guests, it was a living nightmare. My usual feelings of anxiety tied to having a near-stranger wandering around my house mixed with my particular reservations about her, and the nature of their relationship. They wrote little lists of things they wanted to do together, passed cute little notes that said things like “hi, best friend,” giggling across my kitchen table. Agonized, I passed it all along to my friend, who correctly diagnosed the situation as high-school bullshit. My husband was trying to make up for the silly, puppy-love high school relationship he never got to have. 

Finally, I was able to gather up my courage to talk to him about at least one aspect of my discomfort. He had to stop inviting her along EVERY time we went on an outing. Eventually, it was whittled down to just large events like sports and concerts, plus one sleepover per week.

After I found out what was really happening between them, I asked him about those times he brought her over. To my house. To eat my food. How we’d all play games together, but towards the end I couldn’t even speak to her or look her in the eyes. I knew, without knowing. And I thought he must know too, how much agony it was for me to be in the same room, the same building, the same planet, as her.

I asked him how he could bring her here. How could see look at me and smile and say hi, thank you for having me? How cruel were they?

“That was our time together,” he told me. “We decided it would just be that, and nothing else.”

Strangely, I took little comfort in the notion that their innocent friend sleepovers were actually a cover for them to play house, to exchange sweet nothings and cuddle on the sofa, right under my nose. But he told me that he was pulling back. The “sex stuff” was over, he was trying to separate from her because he knew that it wasn’t a healthy relationship for either of them. He’d figured that their affair would “just end” at some point. I asked him why he didn’t willfully end it. He said he didn’t want to.

He said he still wanted her in his life.

Before that, during the initial confrontation, he’d told me he didn’t want to be with me anymore. That he didn’t think there was anything left to salvage between us. He was unhappy. My mental illness made it impossible for him to live with me anymore. I knew my depression often made me withdrawn and difficult, but I’d been working on that, at his request. I’d been in therapy. I was doing better. I thought we were happy together. Hours later, he went back on what he’d said. He was in shock, assuming that our relationship would be over anyway, so he might as well stand his ground. He was sorry that he said there was nothing left to salvage. He was sorry that he blamed me. He still loved me. He wanted to be with me. But he couldn’t separate from her, not fully.

Because I’d spent a few hours thinking he was really going to leave me, for good, I didn’t feel in a particularly strong bargaining position. Unlike most people in my situation, I didn’t tell him that he was crazy if he thought he’d be allowed to talk to her again. I knew it was going to happen no matter what. I told him she wasn’t allowed in the house anymore, and he promised the romantic stuff was over.

And that’s where we stand now. He’s coming with me to therapy tomorrow. I have no idea how to move forward from this, but I know that I still love him, and this incident - despite what he says - doesn’t indicate that he’s a bad person, or cast a dark cloud on every good thing we have in our relationship.

I’m cautiously hopeful.