First, let me say that I am not bashing men. I love men—I think that they are the greatest. When I say “they,” I mean it in the context of the cheater, man or woman; the one who lied or did what they did. The one who will not admit their own failure and instead choose to beat down the other in some perverse effort to make themselves feel better about what “they” did. That being said, I was left one day by my husband who, at the time, just said that he wanted to “simplify his life” and that he “would never be the man to make me happy.”
I can’t say it was a total shock because I sensed for months something was wrong. I tried to get him to talk to me; he wouldn’t. The surprise was that he never did (ever) come to me and say that he had marriage ending issues on his mind and that maybe we should get some help. Shouldn’t that be part of the responsibility of the vow? Anyway ... I found out weeks later that there was a suspicious relationship going on with one of my best friends and eventually, enough evidence surfaced to make it quite obvious that it was true and had been going on for quite some time. I don’t think he went looking for it; it was emotional to start with and grew. Still no excuse.
The why do they do that comes in here. Once confronted, he became about the nastiest, meanest, most arrogant human being I have ever been around. He refuses to admit the truth and blames everything on me. He hides the relationship, which is still going on, from our kids. They do know the truth and would never accept it. In his words, he didn’t even leave me. You see, “I pushed him out the door.” Yeah, while I was busy asking what the heck was wrong and taking care of our kid with cancer, I was pushing him out the door. Now, I am the bad guy—it’s all my fault and somehow, all the years we spent married and the life we made together raising our kids is a joke.
I stayed home and took care of them. I wanted that—we wanted that. Anyone who knows us knows that. We planned financially for years to do just that. Now I am told that I was “afforded the privilege” to stay home with our kids all those years. Oh, and it gets better. I was also “afforded the privilege” to take care of our sick child for three years. What a guy. Does anyone get this behavior? Why? What’s the point?
It has made my healing ten times harder than I think it needed to be. From the beginning, he has told me that I wasn’t really hurting, that I was just afraid of the future. Can you imagine that? Twenty-one years of being married and loving that person to the bottom of my feet and being told that my pain wasn’t even valid? I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. What happened? If anyone gets it ... I’d love to hear it.
