Four years of infidelity. Not one year of total cheating betrayal but four. FOUR. YEARS. As long as our youngest child has been on the planet. Back at our newly purchased house, we were to grow old in, I stared at him as he folded laundry. A sigh escaped my lips. He noticed.
“What?”
“I can’t imagine what it must be like to lie to your partner for four years.”
He looked at me. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I saw two sets of eyes. One set was black and bleak. The other set was frightened.
“You don’t want to know.”
You’re right. I don’t. I can’t begin to even imagine imagining how one goes down such a soul-killing path. And how another person – a mother no less – supports that, revels in it, and somehow loves the liar you have become.
At our next counseling session with Dr. K I had some one-on-one time at the outset.
“I want a divorce. Now.” I did not pause, grab a hankie, shake a shoulder or two. I put it out there and it felt damn good.
The woman who has as her tagline, “Couples Counseling Works!” nodded in agreement. There’s no coming back from a four-year betrayal. Without even a whimper of a fight, she threw in the towel. She called him in. And I told him.
He said we should think about that because of the tax ramifications. Oh. Yea. We should. Um, I still want a divorce. Now. You creepy, sleazy, smarmy child.
“The only reason why people get divorced is so they can remarry,” he says.
No, Genius. People often get divorced because they can’t stomach the fact that they married such a __________ (I’ll let you fill in the blank. Don’t hold back. You know you want to rip it till it feels good again.) They get divorced because they still have a shred of self-esteem left to re-root and grow. They get divorced because they want to be free to live a life in truth, with respect for themselves and others. They get divorced because the sight of their spouse makes them nauseous because the person they thought they had married had been a fraud since day one. They get divorced not so they can fall in love with someone else but so they can fall back in love with their own being.
In 8 weeks I went from married with issues to blindsided, betrayed and heading towards divorce. When I looked at Genius I couldn’t see the man I married anymore. I felt nothing. As I sat with his most recent confession (Note to you: When they say they’re so happy they don’t have to lie anymore expect more lies.) and let it pummel my being, I realized that I couldn’t be married to him anymore. There was no saving it for the children. I was by necessity jumping off the largest cliff ever. My desire to climb Mt. Everest pales in comparison to watching your life, the life you thought you were working on with a dedicated partner, crumble like a sand cliff.
I won’t ask why. I’ll ask how. How is it that men and women continue to have affairs when they know that (A) the truth will always come out and (B) the pain it causes is so devastating? They must simply care only about themselves and not care about anyone else. Oh, and they’re stupid.
As I walked away from the session with Dr. K, I felt spun. Four years. Of lies. Of betrayal. For four years he proactively hurt me. And our children. He thought more of himself than his family. That’s not a man. That’s a selfish coward. Sadly, it seems there are so few men left.
The road ahead will not be easy. But he did make it easy for me on one level. His actions were so gross that I was left feeling nothing for him. Not love. Not like. Not, Oh, I wish we could get through this. I felt the same thing for him as I feel when I see Kim Kardashian. “Why does she exist and why is she in my space?”
I never want to touch him again. Not even accidentally. Knowing he is in the same atmosphere as he makes my skin crawl. I have been living with a criminal. Hey, if this was Arizona that would be completely true! And don’t think I haven’t wished upon a star that we had moved to Arizona, even though I don’t think people should live in Arizona. Hello, water!!
My children interact with this dishonest, emotionally vacant narcissist. Oh, God, why didn’t I use a sperm bank? The thoughts that streaked through my red-haired head were ugly. In such a short period of time, I had never conjured up so many ways to verbally shred someone as I had in the two days post-confession number 967. I wanted this prick out of my life forever. And I wanted him pulverized by his own actions.
And then we flew back East to see the family. Joy. You’ve seen The Brange travel through the airport, right? We didn’t emulate them. At all. Longest day of my life. Ever. But at the end was a bonfire. And a series of texts that led me to Mr. Jackpot.
I think you are a very brave, strong person. I had a similar experience happen to me 3 years ago & I don’t think I still am at the place where you seem to be already.
It reminds me of this quote:
“If he is dumb enough to walk away, be smart enough to let him”
It looks like you are doing exactly that. I’m sure that somewhere down the road you will see that this is the best thing that has ever happened to you.
Dying to hear more about Mr Jackpot!
JC,
Thank you for taking the time to comment. Ever feel like the puck in an air hockey game? That’s how I feel. Some minutes (not days) I am flowing and centered. Others I am angry and disgusted. I am standing at the door with paisley hankie in hand bidding him bon voyage, all the while knowing I will have to deal with him for the rest of his days because he is the father of my children.
My intention is to stay firmly present in the here and now so that I don’t miss the still-happening moments of joy.
Will Mr. Jackpot be a contributor to that joy? We shall see. It won’t be long before I am writing in real time and will have you caught up so you can see for yourself.
Thanks again, and if the opportunity strikes please spread the word about HGM.
Love yourself,
Cleo
I know exactly how you feel because I lived through similar. My husband left me for an employee of his. Unlike you, I never got angry. I was just so sad & couldn’t understand why. I let him come back 5 different times in 2 years! Yes, I said 5 LOL. He is still with her to this day….& I still hope it blows up in his face. I wish I had the strength you seem to have…I’m rooting for you & spreading the word on my new fave blog
JC,
Thank you so much. I’m rooting for you, too! It matters not how often you took him back. You did what you felt was right at the time. I have discovered my anger only recently although it was there all along. It’s important to let yourself have your emotions without allowing them to take hold of your heart.
My strength comes from inside. I’ll be writing about this soon. I hope that it helps you find your strength because it is there. Sometimes I deny myself the right to be strong in favor of a cry session or six, but I know that I am capable of weathering any storm with grace, and compassion for myself.
Stay in touch, keep reading, thank you for your kind words of support, and most of all –
Love yourself,
Cleo
You don’t have to deal with him forever, just until the kids are 18. I assume you wouldn’t legally have to consult him in regards to your kids lives because they would be adults, right? I mean, you wouldn’t see him unless you’re the kind of family that has renuions or pot lucks… If I’m incorrect, forgive me. I’m ignorant.
BTW, your blog was linked to from LaineyGossip on a post about Gwynyth Paltrow. (Random, I know) Expect traffic from strange people who may or may not be in your demo.
M,
Lainey, beautiful, funny Lainey. Love her. Me and Gwynyth in the same post!? Makes me feel all goopy inside.
Here’s my challenge on dealing with him forever…I have to be sure that I can teach my boys how to have positive, honest, fulfilling relationships, and that you can’t just toss them away. I need to stop the cycle of infidelity that has permeated his family. Somehow I will create within the boys a moral compass that won’t lose it’s way. So I imagine I will have to be friendly while having boundaries. I already include him weekly in some trip to the beach or hike in the woods. I need to honor the part of me that instinctively knows that the boys need to see a family unit that still works to believe that it’s possible for them.
And I will keep you posted on my progress, failings, belly laughs and heart ache every step of the way. Thank you for caring enough to comment. It means the world to me.
Love yourself, M.
Cleo
M, it goes beyond age 18. What about when the boys get married, become fathers, etc.? She’ll have to face The Genius at their weddings, at least. Their lives are forever intertwined because of the children.
Dear Cleo,
Thankfully, I come to you via, Lainey – the gossip maven that at times I feel like I am an internet lurker of her inner smutty gossip thoughts. And here I am a consumer of your inner thoughts on this journey. Amazing in many ways, one of which, how eloquently you’ve been able to write, even with some humor amidst the pain.
I appreciate your sharing this journey with the realms of blog readers and writers. In my understanding, the narrative you write within these pages continues to evolve and re-write, re-story your life, past, present and future. I find when I write as a catharsis, the meaning of the words change each time I re-read them and re-make the history the text represents. I hope for you that these pages aid you along in your journey.
And I hope that counseling has helped you in some ways. I’m one of those strange women who has entered a career where I am honored to be present to a journey, at times searingly painful, but always with the hope and belief in the possibility of positive difference, perhaps some joy, to exist within the lives of the clients I counsel.
best,
Gep,
Beautiful Lainey, the wordsmith extraordinaire. Love her. To pieces. And so grateful for her support. I appreciate you taking the time to come to HGM and journey with me. Every time I write this I have to pause and take a few deep breaths: I’ve never been more grateful in my life. That is one of the many gifts I have received since The Pocket Call – to see beauty everywhere and to be so very grateful for it.
The re-story of my life…well-said. I will reread these pages, probably even in my porch-rocker days. The words pour forth from my heart to the screen. I don’t plot or edit. I can usually only breath while I write. And when I’m done I sleep well. HGM continues to bring me great understanding, support and joy.
I am so glad you mentioned counseling. Dr. K. is a gift as well. As with most things recently, I let go of the outcome of counseling. I didn’t label it. I didn’t judge it (Although I poke fun at it for humor’s sake. As you can likely tell, humor is essential to me.) And it took till just last week for me to experience the enormous benefits of counseling. I used my voice and it felt fantastic. Not right away, but it didn’t take but a few hours of walking on the beach to see the progress. I let go of a lot that day. And have been very peaceful since. I hope you stay with me to see what’s around the bend!
Love yourself,
Cleo
Of all the boyfriends I’ve ever had, I can only recall one where I said to him “Look, if you fall in love with someone else, I won’t blame you, because the heart wants what the heart wants. I just ask that you let me know.”
How weird was it then, that he turned out to be the only boyfriend I ever had who DID fall in love with someone else, and even though I had asked him to tell me if and when it ever happened, he didn’t?
The thing is, I didn’t want to run his life, or make his decisions for him. I just wanted to run my own life, and make my own decisions, and to know all of the facts that were relevant to those decisions. And one sure-as-hell relevant fact was whether or not my freaking boyfriend was in love with someone else.
He withheld that information from me. Information that he probably knew I would act on if he gave it to me. So he robbed me of my right of self-determination.
I think I did know, at some level, that this would happen. Or why would I have asked just this one guy, out of all my boyfriends? And early, I asked him early, a year before he met this girl.
What makes me so angry about men who lie is that they take away your right to set the rules for your own life. Such as, “I will not stay with a cheater.” or “I will not stay with a man who loves another woman.” Doesn’t he think you have the right to make that decision for yourself?
It’s not just the emotional fallout, it’s the medical risk as well. He’s sleeping with her, and they’re both cheaters, and she’s sleeping with her husband, who may also be a cheater, so you, his wife, are basically sleeping with a huge extended tribe of people every time you have sex with your own husband, and being exposed to everything they’ve ever been exposed to – genital herpes, genital warts, STD’s, heck – AIDS. And you don’t even know you’re being exposed to that risk. And he DOES know. And he withholds that information from you. What gives him the effing right to play roulette with your life?
A,
“So he robbed me of my right of self-determination.”
People should have conversations before having affairs, no? But they don’t. So we are left with responding when the veil is lifted. Can’t alter that one. But we can craft our response. It is how we meet this betrayal that defines us.
I have so many questions, things I wonder about, ponder. But I am certain of one thing: I alone control how I respond to this betrayal. And I am going to be a total goddess about it. When I sit in my rocking chair on the front porch of my writer’s cabin in western Sonoma, I will beam with pride for I will have mastered the art of being graceful in the midst of betrayal.
When I asked The Genius to be tested for STDs, in front of Dr. K., he scoffed. She told him, “I don’t care if you slept with Mother Theresa, you need to be tested.” He replied, gesturing to me, “I pick my partners with care.” Or something to that affect. I may have a word wrong but the meaning is as gross as you are taking it to be.
Blech.
Thank you for writing and sharing your story. We all appreciate it.
Love yourself,
Cleo
I felt I should comment because I’m Genius. And my husband is divorcing me. You ask how? I didn’t think ahead to consequences. I only saw how unhappy I was. My affair lasted four months and I told on myself but I also lied, saying it was over when I had three more weeks of self destruction to go through and then it all crashed and burned. A good thing to come out of it this horror I created is I got into recovery (I was drinking alcoholically at the time).
Cheaters are able to compartmentalize and we operate from our reptilian brain. We also don’t think the rules apply to us. I hope that I have changed. I am sorry for what you’re going through.
E,
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. I want to hug you for days. I have to tell you that when I read the first sentence of your comment I nearly fell off my perch. Of course, I initially thought you were the actual Genius. Holy arachnid! Whew. Breathed my way out of that one.
“Cheaters are able to compartmentalize and we operate from our reptilian brain. We also don’t think the rules apply to us.”
Your words have helped me to understand how someone can go down this path. I believe you will find your center, and you will come to understand why you needed to have this experience on your journey. I hope that, like me, you will focus on creating a positive outcome from this pain.
Love yourself,
Cleo
Sorry to frighten you. Thanks for your kindness.
My friend Donnee (when I’m calling her and wondering why Ex was the way he was, why we couldn’t make it work…) reminds me that understanding is the booby prize and it doesn’t change anything, but I like to understand, too. I’m trying to let go of that character defect–the need to understand other people’s motives.
I love that you close everything with “love yourself.” We can’t love anyone else till we accomplish that goal.
Write on.
Your clarity on this is totally mind-blowing. It’s as if you have seen inside my head, organized the jumbled mess of thoughts and emotions and organized them on the page.
‘His actions were so gross that I was left feeling nothing for him.’…..
This moment also happened for me. In the kitchen of the home we shared, while my 1-yo son, my ex and my ex’s father were in our living room, visiting. I, meanwhile, was on the phone with my doctor’s office….being informed that in doing testing for my second pregnancy – I had chlamydia. There’s nothing like registering with the health dept., while married and pregnant to pour salt on a wound. Oh, and the ex, he didn’t even need a doctor’s appt. Since they knew he had it, no need for him to ‘go through all that’….seems like a recurring theme of cause and (give the) effect (to someone else to deal with).
M,
Ugghh. It’s stories like yours that make me so grateful to know that the truth will always out. In our cases, the truth outed in time for us to still have a full, rich and honest life. Whether or not I ever love another man matters not when knowing that with myself I am always living the truth. That is essential for my happiness…not for a ‘happy dance’, which we now know does not equate to actual happiness. In fact, being able to do a happy dance when families are being lied to and destroyed underscores the actual mindset of the Happy Dance Chick. The word ‘unbalanced’ comes to mind.
But I digress…When I told The Genius to get a STD test (while in a therapy session) he balked. The therapist said, I’d have you tested if you slept with Mother Teresa. He said, I pick my partners well. Look at her, gesturing to me.
It makes you want to swish your mouth out, right? M’lady, we have been freed. In the midst of the chaos and upheaval, let’s be sure to live it up!
Love yourself,
Cleo
…have a shred of self esteem left to root and grow. What a perfect line. I remember being in your shoes. I don’t think there is a worse and more confusing hurt.
K,
There isn’t. The confusion, the pain, the understanding that the person I love/d thought nothing of hurting me, would rather hurt me than be honest. It motivates me daily to relish the happiness I experience in life and to strive to help others through the pain.
I’m grateful you are here and that you took the time to comment.
Love yourself,
Cleo
It was exactly like that for me too, but unless you’ve been there how could anyone understand how horrible it really is! My journey through infidelity was extra blind because I didn’t ever get the confession (and therefore family support) before or during counseling. He lied to the counselor(s) and they beat up on me! He finally confessed after divorce was final but without a single detail. I “knew” and also knew who she was. Maybe four years, maybe more. She divorced her ex for him, but he didn’t have the courage as we were together 25 years and well known in the community. He was her much older boss. It was the pink blouse in his office that did it for me when I showed up unannounced. I had him served at work knowing that all his minions knew and helped him keep the secret. I was teaching high school science, busting my butt and he was spending all his work days romancing my replacement at “work!” Our son was 9 when it started and 13 when it ended. I moved accross the country and made a clean break and total new start. It has worked out well with hard work and lots of luck, but, after 11 years I am still decidely single. 25 years of marriage and committment to a liar sets the bar for new relationships higher than any man should have to meet. Single after 60 isn’t how I had hoped, but, still far healthier to have hope than to have a charismatic, community beloved, self appointed genius. Still working on loving myself, but getting better at it!
M,
Thank you for taking the time to comment and for being here. Make falling in love with yourself FUN! It can be done. And when you fall head over heels someone will extend his hand to help you back up. Age will not be a barrier for you. One day you will thank your former spouse for setting you free through his poor choices, and you will open your heart enough to attract the most perfect fit.
Hope turns to actions that create magic. I believe in you, M. Stay close…
Love yourself,
Cleo