It was an ordinary day here. - 01/08/11 05:01 AM
Typical Virginia winter� gray/brown, damp, too warm to snow, but too cold to leave your coat unbuttoned. It was a Wednesday.
It was an ordinary morning for me. But my �ordinary� had changed. Over the past few weeks, it had become pretty ordinary on most days for me to get a voice-mail or phone call at around the time I got to the office or shortly thereafter. She was a stay-at-home mom, and she often liked to call me once her husband had left for work.
This day, I got to the office a few minutes late, and saw that I�d missed a call from her. Sometimes she left a voice-mail, sometimes not. This time, she didn�t. Uneasy as I was at fleeting times with the whole sordid thing, I was usually happy for the diversion of conversation with her, but this day I had work to do, stuff piled up from the holidays, and an overseas trip looming in under 3 weeks.
So I didn�t call her back like I often did. We�d spent a lot of time together the previous week, and meanwhile, things weren�t going well for her at home. She and her husband had gotten into another fight on Sunday morning before church. Or maybe Saturday night � I�m not sure I got the whole story from her.
I�d told her we ought to let things go cold for a spell, because she kept getting uneasy feelings that her husband might be onto something. Maybe we should cool it for a few weeks � even break it off if we had to (after all, we were adults; we could quit any time, right?); but we could leave it open-ended, keep our options open.
But every time she sensed me getting cold feet, she�d call back in a day or so to say that things were better at home, that the suspicions she�d voiced earlier now seemed unfounded and he seemed oblivious. Which was certainly what I wanted to hear. I�d told her weeks earlier that I wasn�t into breaking up anyone�s family � mine nor hers. (I somehow convinced myself that there was a smidge of decency in that nuanced stance. Oh, my God, that�s how far gone I was!)
Sunday night, she�d left a reassuring voice-mail on my cell, saying that things were smoothed over. Monday we�d chatted and she wasn�t as sanguine -- she talked again about feeling trapped in her marriage and about wanting to consult with a lawyer, just to learn about her options. I felt a pang in my gut. Dammit, I�d gotten myself hooked. Again, I tried to buck her up, to encourage her to smooth things over with him, because if she were to get divorced, well, she�d be free, and that�d mean she wouldn�t be satisfied any longer with a part-timer like me. Here I was, a married, 41-year-old father of two, and I was afraid of getting dumped by my affair partner because it would hurt! This couldn�t get any more f*d up, so why not just keep riding the merry-go-round and see what happens, I must�ve thought. Or something inane to that effect.
So we weren�t sure where it would lead, but I wanted to believe that nothing was pressing us to decide. So thought I. I was happy to keep having my cake & saving it too.
Around 9:30am, she called back. �I need to talk to you.� I said I was busy and asked if I could call her back later, but she seemed anxious and said she wanted to see me that morning. I couldn�t; I had a meeting at 11:00 and a lot of work to do. I demurred, but she was weirdly insistent, even for her. �Just tell me what�s up,� I said. No, she wanted to see me, not talk about it over the phone, whatever "it" was. She was starting to sound kind of desperate. Finally she gave up and whispered: �[He] knows.�
Her husband, that is.
�About what? The e-mails, the phone calls? Or everything?�
We�d been somewhat discreet in our e-mails, until the last few days when she�d gotten a little sloppy. For a final couple of seconds, I tried to console myself with the optimism that it could all be explained away as something less than what it was. That we could somehow tie it all to the time we�d spent (and there had been quite a bit of it) practicing and talking about music together.
�Everything.�
My world stopped.
We talked a few minutes more, as she explained how he knew. I relented and told her to come downtown; she�d be in on the subway in about an hour and 15 minutes. The next few minutes were a blur. I closed my office door, sat at my desk and held my head in my hands. I couldn�t believe this was actually happening. And I�d brought it all upon myself.
He�d hired a private investigator. Keyloggers, in-home wiretap, the whole schmear. I knew she�d given him ample reason already� her leaky alibis; the long-distance affair she�d carried on with her ex-BF from Florida, from which she segued into chasing me. Being clumsy when closing out her browser windows while we were IM�ing. Always wanting to stay past the times we�d agreed upon, so that she�d get home late. Her husband would call, asking where she was, and I�d stand there and listen in silence, while she made up some lie about being out shopping and getting stuck in traffic, and there being some kind of accident at the intersection up ahead, etc. And God knows what suspicious behavior she�d done that I didn�t even know about. The previous evening, Tuesday, he'd confronted her.
I had to tell my wife. OW had begged me not to. She wanted to see me, to make her pitch face-to-face. But even as stupid as I was, I knew it was played-out, and finally had to end now. I knew I had to make a call � it couldn�t wait another minute.
Somewhere during this, there seemed a flitting sensation of relief. But it was the relief of jumping off a height in complete darkness... no longer being stuck up there, but having no idea whether anything was going to catch me, or whether it would be far preferable if nothing did.
I moved the phone closer so my shaking arms could make my fingers hit the numbers. I felt like I was hovering above the room, watching myself, or watching someone else.
_________________________
I reached her at the hospital, where she was about three hours into her day-shift. Just an ordinary day for her. Probably just an ordinary phone call. I said �I need to talk to you.�
And there, over the phone, I sucker-punched her right in the stomach. Told her I�d gotten mixed up in something awful, that I'd been in an affair. She hesitated, then asked �With who?� And before she could even catch her breath, I told her --which is to say, I punched her right in the face, the girl whom I�d sworn to cherish and honor.
I tried to tell her that I'd chosen her, not OW. (Thinking to myself, Way to go, GloveOil, you worthless jerk... Where was your choosiness back in October when this all started?) I don�t remember what else, other than begging for forgiveness and saying I was so sorry. Over the phone, I could hear her laboring just to breathe. She said she had to go, and hung up. I felt so totally alone in all the world. At the time, I was still all about me, and I probably didn�t even try to imagine what she must�ve felt -- the woman to whom I�d promised �forever.�
And her world had turned upside down.
I can never get to the center of that pain of hers. In truth, I never want to. Many of you have felt it firsthand and know better than I what I�m talking about.
I started to pray, but I caught myself. Who was I kidding, that God would give me the time of day? I�d spent the previous two months' Sunday mornings singing songs praising Him, while standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Guess Who, with both of our spouses out there in the congregation, both of us together there among the music team, getting deeper into trouble all the while, willfully ignoring the unimaginable hypocrisy of it all, and stupefyingly persuading ourselves that the truth would not out.
I got someone to take my meeting, and told my boss I had an emergency at home and needed to leave for the day. OW arrived downtown and we met in the subway station and sobbed with no dignity. We composed ourselves a little and she wanted us to find a caf� or a park bench to talk, but I said I had to go home. I told her I intended to beg for my wife�s forgiveness, beg her to keep me. She got angry when I told her I'd already called TWC -- she�d begged me not to tell my wife. She actually thought she could persuade her husband �not to make things messy� � she had a college degree, but her stupid brain was still feebly trying to find some way to keep the door open for our affair. On the train back to the suburbs, she was all crying, and begged me to run away together with her, and said we could make each other so happy. I was numb. I knew I couldn�t be happy without TWC and our family. And what about OW�s own daughter? Did she mean to run away from her child, too? How could she think that we could be happy?
I took advantage of her one last time, not in the awful way, but for transportation�I asked her to give me a ride from the subway station to the feeder bus lot where my car was parked. And I went home to wait for TWC to come home from the hospital.
It was January 7, 2009.
_________________________
I�ve never put all this out here before. I didn�t show up here on MB until 8 months after d-day. In the interim, TWC and I got lucky with the first marriage counselor I tracked down, from a list our pastor had sent me. The MC insisted that we get �Surviving An Affair,� and it became our text. She helped mediate our conversations. She gave us practical homework. She got me to shut up and listen when I should listen, and she got me to talk to my wife calmly.
This post is not our recovery story. Elements of that story, and lessons we learned, and which we hope may be of some benefit or caution to others, are elsewhere here & there, scattered among our 600-some posts. My first couple months� worth of posts were lost because of the October 2009 server crash. We�d done better than OK by August 2009, but there was still some stuff in there that makes me cringe, and still a lot of stuff in my head that I didn�t feel I was getting anywhere with. Mostly, I had only circled around, but hadn�t gotten to the core of, how selfish I�d been.
So I am glad for the 2x4s that I got back then. I am grateful for the people who kept me focused on TWC�s feelings. I�m grateful for LousyGolfer and HPB (tst) who gave me some sort of advice that I must�ve followed � they�ve given the same advice to others. I�m grateful to Tawandabelle for her words of compassion, and to MelodyLane, who explained that guilt could actually be my friend � that was a minor epiphany for me. I�m grateful for Mark1952�s wonderfully articulate and carefully thought-out advice on memories and triggers. I�m grateful for some lady whose screen name I can�t even remember, but who sat up typing a long message (well, not as long as this one!) even though she was on painkillers and was typing with a broken shoulder, to root for me and my wife and to point out where she thought I still sounded foggy. I�m even grateful in some weird way to a couple of posters whom I won�t even call out, as just about everything they posted to me was so rude, unconstructive and/or downright profane that it got edited out by the mods; in their own way, unintentionally, they helped me see just how deep a BS�s pain can be, and how it can change people if a WS doesn�t go all-in on trying to make amends. And that was all in the first 10 days or so, months before I got up the nerve to bring TWC around to the site for the first time. (And she got a little upset with me at first then, because she saw this little posting habit, which I�d just revealed to her, as being Independent Behavior -- before she dipped her toes in and saw what you all were about.)
A lot of my recounting of that awful day two years ago is from the only standpoint that I can recall it from, which is my own. But I know it wasn�t about me. I know I can never get to the center of that pain which I caused.
I haven�t spoken of OW�s husband, who deserves more and better than these few words. I�d known him and OW for over two years before OW and I ever started to slide into our improper friendship, but I didn�t know him well � hardly at all, actually. I�d thought him rather reserved, ill-at-ease in casual conversation, shy perhaps, but we might�ve been friends. He was good at his job, polite and mild-mannered, well-dressed, well-spoken, and had never had an unkind word for me. If there were any defect in his character or conduct � she claimed he drank and was a workaholic and neglectful (and I now know that I can place little credence on anything she said) � in retrospect I�ll say no one could blame him, for look what he was living with! I have never apologized to him, except through our pastor in the weeks immediately afterwards. The vast preponderance of advice I�ve since read on the matter says that any benefit of apology from an OP to a BS is outweighed by the dredged-up pain of contact with the OP, and that no apology will be seen as sincere, and thus that while a (F)WS must be willing to offer an apology, he/she should not be so inconsiderate as to actually convey one, especially after this much time has passed. But if I should live to be 500 years old, I will never be so sorry for anything, aside from how I hurt my wife, as I am for how I must�ve hurt him.
They separated, and were divorced 11 months ago.
_________________________
In some way, it feels as though TWC and I have been through a war. In history books, it�s said that wars have winners, insofar as countries or causes are �winners.� However, the memoirs of soldiers who fight wars, or civilians who live through them, say that wars have no winners at the level of the individual. Yes, those on the �winning� side are glad to have "won", because they know the alternative would have been even worse; but they think of the loss and the pain bound up in it all, and it leads them to quiet tears, not cheering and confetti. The soldiers, and the innocent civilians, too, just tell of simple gratitude for having lived through what others did not survive, and they tell of being mystified as to why they were chosen to live while others didn�t make it. That�s kind of how I feel today. (Except for having and deserving none whatsoever of the honor which nations attach to their soldiers, and for deserving quite the opposite of honor.) Mostly, I�m just grateful, and couldn�t be otherwise. All these MB principles are worth their weight in gold, but unless TWC had seen her way to forgive me, I�d be out on my [censored], alright. That forgiveness is a mystery I may not ever get my arms & brain all the way around, but I�ll take it.
This morning, my wife e-mailed me this:
�Hello, my love. It's January 7th and it's just another day: no sadness, no triggers, just a day when I am in love with my husband and so very thankful for him in my life.�
Can you believe that? Just an ordinary day.
I don't deserve it, but you bet I'll take it.
It was an ordinary morning for me. But my �ordinary� had changed. Over the past few weeks, it had become pretty ordinary on most days for me to get a voice-mail or phone call at around the time I got to the office or shortly thereafter. She was a stay-at-home mom, and she often liked to call me once her husband had left for work.
This day, I got to the office a few minutes late, and saw that I�d missed a call from her. Sometimes she left a voice-mail, sometimes not. This time, she didn�t. Uneasy as I was at fleeting times with the whole sordid thing, I was usually happy for the diversion of conversation with her, but this day I had work to do, stuff piled up from the holidays, and an overseas trip looming in under 3 weeks.
So I didn�t call her back like I often did. We�d spent a lot of time together the previous week, and meanwhile, things weren�t going well for her at home. She and her husband had gotten into another fight on Sunday morning before church. Or maybe Saturday night � I�m not sure I got the whole story from her.
I�d told her we ought to let things go cold for a spell, because she kept getting uneasy feelings that her husband might be onto something. Maybe we should cool it for a few weeks � even break it off if we had to (after all, we were adults; we could quit any time, right?); but we could leave it open-ended, keep our options open.
But every time she sensed me getting cold feet, she�d call back in a day or so to say that things were better at home, that the suspicions she�d voiced earlier now seemed unfounded and he seemed oblivious. Which was certainly what I wanted to hear. I�d told her weeks earlier that I wasn�t into breaking up anyone�s family � mine nor hers. (I somehow convinced myself that there was a smidge of decency in that nuanced stance. Oh, my God, that�s how far gone I was!)
Sunday night, she�d left a reassuring voice-mail on my cell, saying that things were smoothed over. Monday we�d chatted and she wasn�t as sanguine -- she talked again about feeling trapped in her marriage and about wanting to consult with a lawyer, just to learn about her options. I felt a pang in my gut. Dammit, I�d gotten myself hooked. Again, I tried to buck her up, to encourage her to smooth things over with him, because if she were to get divorced, well, she�d be free, and that�d mean she wouldn�t be satisfied any longer with a part-timer like me. Here I was, a married, 41-year-old father of two, and I was afraid of getting dumped by my affair partner because it would hurt! This couldn�t get any more f*d up, so why not just keep riding the merry-go-round and see what happens, I must�ve thought. Or something inane to that effect.
So we weren�t sure where it would lead, but I wanted to believe that nothing was pressing us to decide. So thought I. I was happy to keep having my cake & saving it too.
Around 9:30am, she called back. �I need to talk to you.� I said I was busy and asked if I could call her back later, but she seemed anxious and said she wanted to see me that morning. I couldn�t; I had a meeting at 11:00 and a lot of work to do. I demurred, but she was weirdly insistent, even for her. �Just tell me what�s up,� I said. No, she wanted to see me, not talk about it over the phone, whatever "it" was. She was starting to sound kind of desperate. Finally she gave up and whispered: �[He] knows.�
Her husband, that is.
�About what? The e-mails, the phone calls? Or everything?�
We�d been somewhat discreet in our e-mails, until the last few days when she�d gotten a little sloppy. For a final couple of seconds, I tried to console myself with the optimism that it could all be explained away as something less than what it was. That we could somehow tie it all to the time we�d spent (and there had been quite a bit of it) practicing and talking about music together.
�Everything.�
My world stopped.
We talked a few minutes more, as she explained how he knew. I relented and told her to come downtown; she�d be in on the subway in about an hour and 15 minutes. The next few minutes were a blur. I closed my office door, sat at my desk and held my head in my hands. I couldn�t believe this was actually happening. And I�d brought it all upon myself.
He�d hired a private investigator. Keyloggers, in-home wiretap, the whole schmear. I knew she�d given him ample reason already� her leaky alibis; the long-distance affair she�d carried on with her ex-BF from Florida, from which she segued into chasing me. Being clumsy when closing out her browser windows while we were IM�ing. Always wanting to stay past the times we�d agreed upon, so that she�d get home late. Her husband would call, asking where she was, and I�d stand there and listen in silence, while she made up some lie about being out shopping and getting stuck in traffic, and there being some kind of accident at the intersection up ahead, etc. And God knows what suspicious behavior she�d done that I didn�t even know about. The previous evening, Tuesday, he'd confronted her.
I had to tell my wife. OW had begged me not to. She wanted to see me, to make her pitch face-to-face. But even as stupid as I was, I knew it was played-out, and finally had to end now. I knew I had to make a call � it couldn�t wait another minute.
Somewhere during this, there seemed a flitting sensation of relief. But it was the relief of jumping off a height in complete darkness... no longer being stuck up there, but having no idea whether anything was going to catch me, or whether it would be far preferable if nothing did.
I moved the phone closer so my shaking arms could make my fingers hit the numbers. I felt like I was hovering above the room, watching myself, or watching someone else.
_________________________
I reached her at the hospital, where she was about three hours into her day-shift. Just an ordinary day for her. Probably just an ordinary phone call. I said �I need to talk to you.�
And there, over the phone, I sucker-punched her right in the stomach. Told her I�d gotten mixed up in something awful, that I'd been in an affair. She hesitated, then asked �With who?� And before she could even catch her breath, I told her --which is to say, I punched her right in the face, the girl whom I�d sworn to cherish and honor.
I tried to tell her that I'd chosen her, not OW. (Thinking to myself, Way to go, GloveOil, you worthless jerk... Where was your choosiness back in October when this all started?) I don�t remember what else, other than begging for forgiveness and saying I was so sorry. Over the phone, I could hear her laboring just to breathe. She said she had to go, and hung up. I felt so totally alone in all the world. At the time, I was still all about me, and I probably didn�t even try to imagine what she must�ve felt -- the woman to whom I�d promised �forever.�
And her world had turned upside down.
I can never get to the center of that pain of hers. In truth, I never want to. Many of you have felt it firsthand and know better than I what I�m talking about.
I started to pray, but I caught myself. Who was I kidding, that God would give me the time of day? I�d spent the previous two months' Sunday mornings singing songs praising Him, while standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Guess Who, with both of our spouses out there in the congregation, both of us together there among the music team, getting deeper into trouble all the while, willfully ignoring the unimaginable hypocrisy of it all, and stupefyingly persuading ourselves that the truth would not out.
I got someone to take my meeting, and told my boss I had an emergency at home and needed to leave for the day. OW arrived downtown and we met in the subway station and sobbed with no dignity. We composed ourselves a little and she wanted us to find a caf� or a park bench to talk, but I said I had to go home. I told her I intended to beg for my wife�s forgiveness, beg her to keep me. She got angry when I told her I'd already called TWC -- she�d begged me not to tell my wife. She actually thought she could persuade her husband �not to make things messy� � she had a college degree, but her stupid brain was still feebly trying to find some way to keep the door open for our affair. On the train back to the suburbs, she was all crying, and begged me to run away together with her, and said we could make each other so happy. I was numb. I knew I couldn�t be happy without TWC and our family. And what about OW�s own daughter? Did she mean to run away from her child, too? How could she think that we could be happy?
I took advantage of her one last time, not in the awful way, but for transportation�I asked her to give me a ride from the subway station to the feeder bus lot where my car was parked. And I went home to wait for TWC to come home from the hospital.
It was January 7, 2009.
_________________________
I�ve never put all this out here before. I didn�t show up here on MB until 8 months after d-day. In the interim, TWC and I got lucky with the first marriage counselor I tracked down, from a list our pastor had sent me. The MC insisted that we get �Surviving An Affair,� and it became our text. She helped mediate our conversations. She gave us practical homework. She got me to shut up and listen when I should listen, and she got me to talk to my wife calmly.
This post is not our recovery story. Elements of that story, and lessons we learned, and which we hope may be of some benefit or caution to others, are elsewhere here & there, scattered among our 600-some posts. My first couple months� worth of posts were lost because of the October 2009 server crash. We�d done better than OK by August 2009, but there was still some stuff in there that makes me cringe, and still a lot of stuff in my head that I didn�t feel I was getting anywhere with. Mostly, I had only circled around, but hadn�t gotten to the core of, how selfish I�d been.
So I am glad for the 2x4s that I got back then. I am grateful for the people who kept me focused on TWC�s feelings. I�m grateful for LousyGolfer and HPB (tst) who gave me some sort of advice that I must�ve followed � they�ve given the same advice to others. I�m grateful to Tawandabelle for her words of compassion, and to MelodyLane, who explained that guilt could actually be my friend � that was a minor epiphany for me. I�m grateful for Mark1952�s wonderfully articulate and carefully thought-out advice on memories and triggers. I�m grateful for some lady whose screen name I can�t even remember, but who sat up typing a long message (well, not as long as this one!) even though she was on painkillers and was typing with a broken shoulder, to root for me and my wife and to point out where she thought I still sounded foggy. I�m even grateful in some weird way to a couple of posters whom I won�t even call out, as just about everything they posted to me was so rude, unconstructive and/or downright profane that it got edited out by the mods; in their own way, unintentionally, they helped me see just how deep a BS�s pain can be, and how it can change people if a WS doesn�t go all-in on trying to make amends. And that was all in the first 10 days or so, months before I got up the nerve to bring TWC around to the site for the first time. (And she got a little upset with me at first then, because she saw this little posting habit, which I�d just revealed to her, as being Independent Behavior -- before she dipped her toes in and saw what you all were about.)
A lot of my recounting of that awful day two years ago is from the only standpoint that I can recall it from, which is my own. But I know it wasn�t about me. I know I can never get to the center of that pain which I caused.
I haven�t spoken of OW�s husband, who deserves more and better than these few words. I�d known him and OW for over two years before OW and I ever started to slide into our improper friendship, but I didn�t know him well � hardly at all, actually. I�d thought him rather reserved, ill-at-ease in casual conversation, shy perhaps, but we might�ve been friends. He was good at his job, polite and mild-mannered, well-dressed, well-spoken, and had never had an unkind word for me. If there were any defect in his character or conduct � she claimed he drank and was a workaholic and neglectful (and I now know that I can place little credence on anything she said) � in retrospect I�ll say no one could blame him, for look what he was living with! I have never apologized to him, except through our pastor in the weeks immediately afterwards. The vast preponderance of advice I�ve since read on the matter says that any benefit of apology from an OP to a BS is outweighed by the dredged-up pain of contact with the OP, and that no apology will be seen as sincere, and thus that while a (F)WS must be willing to offer an apology, he/she should not be so inconsiderate as to actually convey one, especially after this much time has passed. But if I should live to be 500 years old, I will never be so sorry for anything, aside from how I hurt my wife, as I am for how I must�ve hurt him.
They separated, and were divorced 11 months ago.
_________________________
In some way, it feels as though TWC and I have been through a war. In history books, it�s said that wars have winners, insofar as countries or causes are �winners.� However, the memoirs of soldiers who fight wars, or civilians who live through them, say that wars have no winners at the level of the individual. Yes, those on the �winning� side are glad to have "won", because they know the alternative would have been even worse; but they think of the loss and the pain bound up in it all, and it leads them to quiet tears, not cheering and confetti. The soldiers, and the innocent civilians, too, just tell of simple gratitude for having lived through what others did not survive, and they tell of being mystified as to why they were chosen to live while others didn�t make it. That�s kind of how I feel today. (Except for having and deserving none whatsoever of the honor which nations attach to their soldiers, and for deserving quite the opposite of honor.) Mostly, I�m just grateful, and couldn�t be otherwise. All these MB principles are worth their weight in gold, but unless TWC had seen her way to forgive me, I�d be out on my [censored], alright. That forgiveness is a mystery I may not ever get my arms & brain all the way around, but I�ll take it.
This morning, my wife e-mailed me this:
�Hello, my love. It's January 7th and it's just another day: no sadness, no triggers, just a day when I am in love with my husband and so very thankful for him in my life.�
Can you believe that? Just an ordinary day.
I don't deserve it, but you bet I'll take it.