Visit in Palm Springs and then home

I spend a week in Palm Springs with my sister and my parents trying to figure out what to do next.  My dad is afraid that I will get nothing and that my plans won't work out.  He wants me to get an attorney (I'm a paralegal and he is a lawyer so I don't think this is necessary).  I think I can do it myself because I used to do bankruptcy and divorce as a paralegal when I was younger.  I think that is why I thought about getting a separation agreement.  I'm really glad that I got one because during the summer before we got a final agreement, things were very much up in the air.  We are also broke and I know that an attorney is just going to be an extra expense.  Filing is around $300 and then I have to go to two separate classes (one for divorce and kids and another for not having an attorney represent you. I leave Palm Springs thinking I am in a good place and that after his hospital experience, he is ready to start working at our marriage and make his apologies for messing up.  Boy, was I wrong.  But I digress.

I arrive home to love and kisses.  My daughter is home now, too and we are trying to move on.  Before she gets back from New Orleans, I sit down with David and make sure he brings home divorce papers.  I have him sign off on the Separation Agreement I have to make on my own (not sure if it is a legally binding agreement at this point).  He isn't really helping with anything and keeps saying he doesn't want to get divorced and wants to be with his family now.  I want to make sure it is all legally binding so I get all the divorce papers signed around and go down to file around the first part of April (only about 3 weeks after all this came to light).  All my friends and some of my family thought I was crazy to move so quickly but I was acting on my gut and my gut was telling me that this life he said he wanted to continue to build with me was a lie.  I have since learned that my gut never lets me down.  Listen to you gut.  While I was in Palm Springs, my sister suggested that I get a reading from our friend, Patti.  She does astrological readings and I gave her a call.

We schedule a call and I go and try to find a quiet place for us to talk (which is nearly impossible in this little house plus my daughter has a friend over and they are watching movies in the next room).  I try to talk quietly but I'm sure some of it was overheard???  I actually liked the reading, which says better days are coming and financial security is coming in the next few months as well as a definite shift for the better within 3 years.  If we stay together it will end up like we are ghosts living in the same house but not really together.  The relationship is over and I need to take care of myself.  He has been lying to me and I will discover many more lies over the next few months.  Well, at least I can count on financial security.

I ponder over the divorce filing and wonder if I am doing the right thing.  I decide to ride things out and see what happens.  If it works out, I can always get remarried but for now, I work at making things pleasant at home and hope that we can work things out.  I don't want to hate anyone.  I also don't want to be with someone that doesn't want me.  I want to end things as friends if nothing else.  I want him to be able to still care for us so he won't completely abandon us for this woman.

The first few weeks....

APRIL 13, 2014

He Cheated.  Those are words that I never thought I would say about my husband of just over 17 years at the time.  About a year ago today (it's April 11, 2015 right now), I got a call from a foreign sounding man who wanted to tell me that my husband had been cheating on me with his wife and apparently he wanted me to do something about it???

I've spent a really long day with my 15 year old and her French Exchange Student.  I’m really tired of the pace of trying to entertain these two.  I’m sitting in my car waiting on the girls to get back from the Duck Ride (a tourist attraction in Seattle, WA) and start realizing that the day is far from over.  I get a call from my surprisingly, grumpy husband saying that he would like to go to our next event at the University of Washington. He’s being really cheap about paying for the entertainment of these two so I am relieved that he is willing to help out with feeding them.  We’ve had a pretty hard year financially.  I’m a real estate agent and he is an attorney so we both depend on incomes that are not always stable.  

We spend some time walking around the campus and decide to head to “the Ave” to have some dinner.  We are walking down “the Ave” and not being able to pick a restaurant when my phone rings and it is an unfamiliar number.  I usually don’t answer and let it go to voice mail but I decide to pick up.  It’s a male and he is apparently foreign and hard to understand.  I step inside a drugstore so I can hear him better.  My family and our guest come inside, too.  My daughter is curious so she is listening to me question the man on the phone.  He is saying something about my husband and his wife having an affair.  My husband is an attorney and the man claims that she is one of his old clients.  They have been together for some time and he has proof that he is willing to send to me.  He says that his wife has admitted the affair and then threatened (in her grief) to kill herself so he has put her in a mental hospital for evaluation.  She is getting out on Monday (today is Sunday) and he thinks I should know what kind of man I am married to and he hopes he will leave his wife alone.  I think he is also afraid that my husband will be there to pick her up.  

I’m shocked!  I stand there stunned.  I tell him he must have the wrong guy (as I glance over to my very quiet, somewhat overweight, bald, 50 something husband).  He seems to know what is going on and is pacing like he is getting ready for me to question him.  He has been talking with this guy and he knew he was going to call me!  Why didn’t he warn me and tell me what he had done himself?  I’m so stupid!

I’m really upset but I’m trying not to freak out in front of the girls.  I ask him what is going on and he replies that the guy is crazy and making stuff up.  I tell him what the man is telling me and that he is sending me some sort of proof.  Still denies that he is having a relationship with someone.  I knew immediately that I was being lied to. I’m mad and we decide to go to another area to have dinner. Then the texts come in.  It's pictures of texts off this woman's phone saying how excited they are to go to a hotel together and be alone.  How they deserve happiness and she has bought new shoes and underwear for him.  

I turn to my husband and tell him that he is BUSTED.  Thank goodness the French Student’s English is not so great.  Unfortunately, my daughter is figuring out what is going on.  We get to the restaurant, the girls go in and David and I begin the TALK.  OMG.  What the heck is going on?  He tells me that he hasn’t been with her yet but that it is true that he was seeing the woman behind my back.  Lying to me for months and then about to be with her but the husband read her texts with him and busted things up.  The husband has put her in a mental hospital for making suggestions that she was going to commit suicide.  What is going on!!!  This can’t be happening!  Not my husband.  We have sex all the time.  Sure we fight but so does everyone!  What have I done?  Who is this person and why is she coming after my husband?  How did this happen?  I have so many questions and he keeps telling me I can have a divorce.  I guess that means he loves her and not me.  What am I going to do?  We barely get along financially now.  We have no money, we have no assets.  He’s going to leave me and my daughter with nothing and run off with some stranger?  She’s married, too!  What about her family.  How selfish!  How could I have not seen what was going on?  I’m literally freaking out!

We go into the restaurant and I’m so sick at my stomach that I go to the restroom to be alone.  My daughter follows and asks me point blank if her dad is having an affair.  I tell her yes and she goes out to confront him.  They have a discussion and she is so mad at him, too.  My daughter sees things very black and white so she just knows he is cheating and that is awful.  I go outside so I can breathe and be by myself.  I get more texts from this woman’s husband with pictures of her underwear and discussing how they both deserve to be happy.  More texts keep coming and my heart is breaking. Details of the text are silly.  They sound like they are in high school and not like adults. He's obviously excited at the idea of banging her. He's not happy? So he gets a girlfriend?  Whatever happened to discussing things with your spouse and then deciding to move on?  When did we have that discussion? I am so blindsided by this.  Who is this whore that she is throwing herself at my husband?? Getting through dinner is so difficult.  Finally, it’s time to get the French Student back to where she is staying. My daughter has told her that we are having difficulties with the IRS and that is why I am so mad at her dad.  Driving home seems like hours! 

Our daughter goes upstairs and sits somewhere close to the stairs so she can hear what is going on.  I’m so mad that I can’t even think about what she is up to.  David and I sit down in the living room and discuss what is happening.  He says things like, “We haven’t done anything yet so you are overreacting.”  “The guy is so mean and crazy that he put her in a mental hospital to punish her and that she didn’t try to commit suicide.”  He’s trying to make me feel sorry for her?  What the hell?  Her life is so bad but she hasn’t left this guy.  She decides to find some guy to take over for her financially before she leaves?  She decides that is my husband?  I guess she thinks because he is an attorney that he has some money?  Affairs, crazy people!  How did he get involved with this person?  How can he throw away 18 years of marriage without even having a discussion with me?  He tells me that he loves me and that it was all a big mistake, he won’t talk to her anymore and he wants his family.  I tell him to bring home divorce papers.  I want to have him sign a settlement agreement so I can be sure that he will support us financially no matter what happens.  I don't trust that he is going to stay with us like he is claiming.  For some reason, I go into being totally practical about the situation.  I want to make sure that my daughter and I will be able to have his financial help.  I have never really worked since we've had children and I am older now so it is pretty frightening.  

The husband of this woman has told me that he doesn’t think they have actually been together yet and that is was stopped in time.  He just wants me to know what has been going on and to work out things on my end. All I can think of is if he does sleep with her, he will be gone.  He will think he is in love and it is all very exciting and dangerous.  At this point, I have no idea what these people look like, where they live or what they do.  They haven't had sex yet?  Maybe not, but it seems like it is still in the works.  He is so sympathetic to her circumstances.  It makes me suspicious.  

All I can think of is what is going to happen now?  How am I going to be able to survive without him?  I don’t have anyone to grow old with.  When is he leaving with her?  Is he leaving? Why doesn’t he love me anymore?  I thought we would be together forever.  That’s what he tells me all the time.  He goes upstairs to sleep and I go to our room alone.  I lay there crying and my daughter comes in and we cry together.  Just huddled together crying and worrying about our future.  No daddy, no husband.  Can’t sleep.  I miss him already and he hasn’t left the house.  I hate to sleep by myself and don't like it when he is out of town.  I have to leave lights on and the tv, too.  He says that he doesn’t love her (yet?) but there is something about her.  He must love her?  Why would any man give up his family if he wasn’t in love?  If he hasn’t slept with her?    I’m not sure that I slept at all.  Who could?  When we get up the next day, it’s all very weird.  What is going to happen?  I feel like my whole life has imploded in a single moment.  Just like we met, everything feels like it was going in slow motion.  I start to think of our relationship from the beginning.  How it was great, how it was painful and how it didn’t work sometimes.  I thought about when I was sick with cancer and he didn’t leave me.  So many memories. 

Waking up the next morning, I wonder what is going to happen now.  My daughter has a school sponsored trip to New Orleans to help with rebuilding that happens this weekend.  Things end up being very tense for days to come.  Some talking, some yelling.  Lots of promises that will be broken.  Day One down.  Day Two is very tense.  I know this woman is getting out of the hospital and I think my husband is going to go get her.  I find out later what happened.  He comes home at his usual time and we have dinner.  No one is really talking.  Just glaring.  He tries to act normal.

Day three.  I get a call from David as I am leaving my office, telling me that he has met up with Kelly and had to take her home (apparently, buses, taxis, and all other forms of transportation are unavailable).  He says that she has met up with him on the street and he didn’t want to make a scene so he decided to take her home.  REALLY bad idea.  Not 2 minutes later, I get a call from her husband about him taking her home.  The husband says that he picked her up from the hospital (not met up with her on the street) and has had her in a hotel overnight.  He (of course) denies this.  Crazy husband, no way he would do that, etc.  He keeps telling me what a scumbag this guy is and why I shouldn’t believe him (seems like he is the only one telling me the truth).  I can’t help but think, you are the scumbag!  You’re sleeping with someone else’s wife and cheating on me! We talk about it and why it was wrong and he says he is over it and won’t do anything like that again.  I know in my heart that this isn’t true, but I want this nightmare to be over so I let him go on. 

It makes no sense to me, though, and later I will find out that my gut was right and it was all a lie.  He even consummates the relationship while he has her at a hotel on Monday and probably Tuesday, too before he took her home.  That revelation doesn’t come until later.  After many more explosions of emotion over this whole affair.  The nightmare that never ends.

The week wears on and it seems to be causing us all more grief than (on the surface) seems necessary.  After all, I have decided to think that they have not been together. We decide that he will bring home divorce papers and we will go over them.  I make up some paperwork that gives me a Separation Agreement in case something happens, we will be taken care of???  He claims he doesn’t want to be divorced and that we should move on.  I hesitate to take him at his word and press on.  I make plans to go see my parents in Palm Springs.  He makes the reservations for me, saying that I deserve to go and he hopes that I will come home happy and with a clear head, ready to reconcile.  Our daughter leaves for her trip.  I have to take her at 3:00am in the morning for a 5:00am flight.  Almost to the airport, I get several texts from him.  One saying how much he loves us if he never sees us again.  Then another saying that he has called an ambulance.  

He has taken an edible (a pill form of marijuana) and it has affected him.  He thinks he is having a heart attack.  The police and an ambulance show up.  He can't get out of bed and they have to try to break in.  At some point he is able to open a door and they end up treating him like he has a heart attack.  No heart attack but they have time to hang out and notice my cookbook collection.  Apparently, one of the policemen like to cook.  They decide to take him to the hospital even though they can't find anything wrong.  I'm getting texts from him telling me to keep the police out (marijuana is legal here so he didn't break any laws but he has told them he took a pill from a jar and they can't see one visible) in case I have time to go home before coming to the hospital.  All I can think of is "War of the Roses" when Michael Douglas has a panic attack (something that my husband has occasionally, too.  I get to the hospital and they are happy to have me take him with me.  He has been totally rude to everyone.  He thinks they are trying to arrest him or something.  I get him home but as stupid as this sounds I feel like I have made him so freaked out that he has been hospitalized.  I think that I have put so much pressure on him that he has taken this pill to relax and he has had a bad reaction. Like that was my fault!!!  We end up having sex and I reassure him that we will work this out.  He seems so sincere and I believe him that he just wants us and not her.  I leave several days later, thinking we are patching things up and he will be sad that I have gone and that his daughter is not there either.  I’m gone for a week (apparently, he spends some of that time with this girl).  He doesn’t call me every day.  I should have listened to my gut on that, too.  I thought it was strange.  During this time, he visits with a therapist several times.  Says that it is helping.  Funny, I never did see any results from those sessions.  What went on while I was gone?  What are they planning?   

In Vegas with friends.

Feeling like this.

Our wedding day.