My husband called it "a convenient escape."

It was really hard dealing with a frazzled wife with colicky baby, a 1 year old, a 3 year old and a 6 year old. It was much more fun to go out to nice restaurants with a nice-looking woman who could pay rapt attention to you.

That 1 year old is now 8, and her First Communion is in two days. My parents are coming and seeing my husband for the first time since they learned that, in addition to having an affair, he broke my arm because I threatened to call this woman. That was the week before Christmas and 12 days after I had a hysterectomy, and I hid the broken arm for four months. He's not being very gracious about seeing them. It makes me realize how little he has changed. He once said that he's the same person I married. Yes, it's true. He is. The affair was not out of character. The affair revealed his character.

My parents are staying with my brother, who lives in my same town. Next Wednesday is a band concert for our 10 year old, and our 15 year old is attending Driver's Ed until 6 and then leaving for a band trip at 8. My husband wanted to attend the Band Concert, and I said I'd be willing to take care of the daughter who needs to be picked up from Driver's Ed and then taken back to the school at 8 for the Band concert. As he was leaving, I heard him mutter under my breath, "But I don't want to be stuck with your parents." When I asked him what he said, he said, "Nothing."

What a despicable jerk.

I do believe people can change. I believe he could change in the future. I married him with a different view of his character. My view has changed because of how he has treated me and continues to act.

We have managed to live together to care for our children, and I try to stay away from him as much as I can. For our wedding anniversary, I am giving him a book that portrays how two people can live together for years with completely different views of the marriage and one person can create an entire myth about their spouse to justify immoral behavior. It's called The Viper's Tangle. I doubt very much that he'll see himself in the main character, if he bothers to read the book at all. That is the extent of my communicating with him. We manage to coordinate rides, take care of finances, and care of the home, but I live alone in this marriage. He doesn't understand me at all and doesn't care about how I feel or what I do. Dr. Harley himself said to me, "The concept of care doesn't make sense to him."

It's all about him and how he is affected by what goes on around him. He has no empathy whatsoever for my mother in particular who had the shock of her life to find out that her son in law was beating up her daughter in front of her grandchildren. He has no realization how difficult it has been for her to accept that I am staying with this guy and to attend a Band Concert with him.

In the book The Viper's Tangle, the husband eventually came to an understanding of what he had done and he intended to reconcile with his wife, but she died before he actually did talk with her. The book is in the form of a journal by this husband. It is very moving. Where there's life, there's hope. In the meantime, I am following the words of John Paul II: "The man loves, and the woman loves in return." I wait. My husband has learned to not be physically abusive, and I doubt he'll have another affair because of the pain it caused him in facing his own moral deficiencies and not because of any pain his affair caused anyone else.

We have been married 16 years next week, and our lives are not intertwined at all. He has no clue. I am a stranger to him.

Cherished