No one gets married thinking “geez I can’t wait for this to be over.” It just happens. People change. One of you grows, one of doesn’t or doesn’t want too. Sometimes you just wake up and realize he isn’t the same person you married. Or maybe you aren’t the same person…
I always said I wouldn’t stay with a man that cheated. I watched a friend take her husband back after he cheated, and I said “that would never be me”. I saw my ex’s nephew cheat on his girlfriend with the now wife (whom he has cheated on as well) they took him back again and again. “That will never be me” I said. Well it was me for a while. In the end I was true to myself. Just took a little longer to get there.
So the beginning. The details are sketchy, because honestly, I hate remembering what happened.
He was always very charming. Woman love him. They will always love him. When we met and started dating we worked in the same grocery store. Other woman hated me, because they were jealous. They wanted him. And he wanted me. (must have been my low self esteem that made me look so vulnerable)But this isn’t the story of how we met and fell in love, really that’s not a great story now that I think of it.
So I always had a feeling about a woman that he worked with. Lets call her Kim. He would come home from work and talk about her. We both decorated cakes, so he was always telling me about cakes she had made. Then he would tell me about her kids. And one day he stopped talking about her. Not a word. I hadn’t noticed. One day when I was Ff with our youngest. (he will be 8 tomorrow!) I went into his work to say hello. He was on his lunch break. I saw where he was siting and he was sitting with Kim. I sat down with them and no one talked. Just awkward silence. I didn’t notice. I thought all was fine.
I few weeks later, still pregnant with “the peanut” he had been staying at work late every night. Like an hour or more. But never got paid. He supposedly was working but off the clock. So this day I happened to be on my way home from work and saw his car was still at work. I decided to sit in the parking lot and see what happened. I pulled over to where his car was and I could see him in the driver seat and Kim was leaning on the door, talking to him. It’s not like they were making out or anything just talking, but something about the way she was leaning on his car wasn’t right.
This time I had noticed. I asked him about it. He said it was nothing. They were just friends she was just talking to him, he convinced me I was pregnant, emotional, crazy to think he would ever cheat.
So I let it go. Ignoring how miserable I was. Not because I was pregnant with a HUGE peanut (10 lbs 9oz peanut!) miserable because I was a prisoner in my marriage. Although I wouldn’t realize it, or I didn’t want to realize it, yet.
So the peanut was born, and geez he was a pistol. Big as a 3 month old, cried if he wasn’t held, upset tummy always. Again I was miserable. I blamed it on the cranky baby. I thought once he out grew this everything would be great. (spoiler alert: he never out grows it!)
For a while we settle into this new normal. My 3 yr old is super attached to me. He is jealous of his newborn brother. He hates that I have to hold the baby all the time. I am now juggling a baby that won’t sleep and won’t let us put him down, and a 3 yr old that wants me to hold him, sleep with him always.
Somehow I figure it out, the best I can anyway. Eventually my ex is placed on a new shift. 4 am to noon. So he is in bed by 7 maybe 8 if I am lucky. So I work all day, no nights because the ex won’t have it (should have been a red flag, wasn’t at first). Then I come home he goes to bed about 3 hours later. Thank god my parents live next door. I would never have got through any of this without them.
So we are plugging along, everyone thinking we are the perfect couple. Perfect marriage, perfect kids, perfect home…meanwhile I am eating my feelings and weighing more than I ever have.
His brother, concerned about our health buys us a gym membership. Well buys the ex a membership, but I am “allowed to go along as his guest”. This is not an important fact but sticks out in my mind for some reason.
I get a promotion at work, along with this promotion I get a company cell phone. So there is an open line on my parents family plan. He takes it. Never pays my parents a dime for it. But he enjoys free cell service. At some point everyone on this family plan is eligible for a free phone upgrade. I am helping to make this happen, for them by doing al the shopping online for the free phones. I end up somehow on his phone records. I wasn’t snooping, event though it probably appears that way, but I had no reason too.
Any way I see lots of calls, but one phone number in particular, has lots of incoming and outgoing calls. Hours a day worth of calls. 2 hours every morning while he is working. 2 hours after he gets out of work. an hour here or there while he is picking the kids up from school. Several hours while he is home with the kids, and I am at work.
So naturally I call my sister, she tells me to call the number. I do. A woman answers. I don’t recognize the voice. I chicken out and hang up. I wait for him to come home. I ask him who it is. He says “I don’t know that number”. Of course I don’t believe him, he stands there and lets me call again. Voice mail this time! It is Kim. Suddenly it all makes sense. He denies, denies, denies. And I believe, believe, believe. “we are just friends” he says, “it’s nothing” he says, “we don’t talk about anything important” he says (just their whole lives!) I ask him how long. He says he doesn’t know. I demand to know how long. He says “a year”. One mother f****ing year…
too be continued…
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