Written Week of Mon 10JUL2005:
OVERALL:
Last weekend she looked at me and said "I need a break from you" after spending $160 of our money to get her hair colored and buy new clothes and underwear. Then she left Saturday and did not come back until Sunday, and said she was at C.'s but that nothing happened.
This weekend wife was leaving for the weekend to ostensibly go with coworkers to Atlantic City.
When I asked when I was going to see a bill for the cell phone, M. said that I won’t because she will pay it with work money, when the original deal was for us to pay for the minutes or something like that. Wonder why she doesn’t want me seeing who called who and when and for how long?
I am not supposed to call anybody with her on the trip because “they’re all about respect and I don’t want them to be involved in our petty personal stuff”. Like they’re some kind of Gods or something.
She wouldn’t give me the name of the hotel and the room number in case of emergency with the baby.
Every phone message from her had absolutely no background noise.
She has no receipts for anything.
When I mentioned about maybe taking the Mac card to AC wouldn’t be a great idea, she jumped on that opportunity (I think because she knows I can’t track her that way).

FRIDAY 08JUL2005:
M. leaves message on home machine that she is finally on the turnpike at 6 PM, when the original “plan” for AC was to leave “sometime in the middle of the afternoon”.
Called C. Fri 6-7 PM, left message to beep me.
Sent text to M. informing her of the baby’s whereabouts (at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s).
No response from C.
Went to a bar, played pool, drank a few beers.
Went to a convenience store to call C. again, when I call home to check messages, message from M. saying to please call her and tell her about what’s up with the baby (as if she never got the text message, which I know she did because I checked status until it said “Read” a few minutes later). I think she just wanted to be sure of where I was. Called her, asked her why is she bugging me when she made it very clear that she didn’t want me calling her checking up on her, now she is doing same to me. “Fine, I won’t call anymore”.
Still no response from C.
At this point I am thinking that C. is not beeping me because he told M. to do her own lying.
Drove towards the interstate intending to go to C.’s and see what the ****** is going on.
Turned back because:
1. If she is there and not fooling around, it will only infuriate her because of lack of trust.
2. If she is not there, C. may not appreciate the unexpected visit, M. will hear about it and I am screwed again.
3. If she is there and is fooling around, I couldn’t bear to know because I am a big idiot who mistreated his wife and probably deserves everything he gets.
4. I am emotionally drained and really just don’t want to deal with it.

Called her from the phone at the gas station by the interstate exit and told her I was going to up around a friend’s house.
M. later (on Sunday) says she called that same friend on Saturday, ostensibly to ask if I made it home alright (I think she was just making sure I didn’t go and “Rambo” her and C.).

SATURDAY 09JUL2005:
Sent text to M. at about 10 AM informing her that we were headed to see Clifford. One message on home phone a little later telling me that they are going out to lunch and that she and the chix are going to do something that afternoon.
A little after 9 pm the phone starts ringing at home.
I let the machine get it, no message.
This happens a few more times (as if to make sure I’m really not home), and then she starts trying to check the messages:
1. Why would she need to check the messages? She knows I will call her or text her on the phone.
2. The only reason I can see for her to check the messages is so she knows if I checked the messages and got hers from earlier that day.
3. When she finally figures out that I have changed the code, I hear her say “f***er” vehemently in her rage/hate voice.
4. She keeps calling back (like six times) and trying to get into the messages (I think so she can erase the evidence of her previous attempts because she knows she is ****** now).
5. She beeps me and also sends me a text message to call her.
6. Never does leave a voice message.

No way am I going to let her hear my voice because I know something isn’t right and I wouldn’t be able to hide it, so I text her again that the baby is alright and that I turned the machine down low and the phone ringer off so the baby could sleep.
I left the computer online all night, probably a mistake because it let her know that I was really at home.

SUNDAY 10JUL2005:
Doesn’t get home until 5 PM, when the original “plan” was to be home “sometime mid-afternoon”.
Has sunburn on right arm and right side of her face, where one would get burnt from riding in the passenger seat of a car with the window open.
Doesn’t want to talk, claiming “tired”. More distant than before she left on Friday. Really defensive about questions.
When I ask her “Look, if you were with C. and not fooling around and didn’t want to tell me because I flipped out last weekend, tell me now and I’ll move on, but if I find out about it later, I will be pissed”, she asks me why she should have to answer that and that after ten years she shouldn’t have to answer that. This is after she asks me if I want to ask her any questions about this weekend. Nice.
Still claiming “I didn’t fool around on you”. Starting to really not believe it, especially since the good underwear she wore on Friday were put back in her drawer this (Monday) morning. All the other underwear are still in the bag. The good pair still smelled like they were worn, but they had obviously been rinsed or something. Maybe she only wore them on the ride down and then changed into something else and figured they weren’t dirty enough to put in wash. Or maybe she is testing me, seeing if I am going through her ******. Doubt it.

Sunday night I came to bed and put a hand on her hip and she kept pushing me away.
Her general defensiveness and attitude are such that she could actually be fooling around on me, or I could just be crazy, or she could be just messing with my head. I just wish I knew which. I also wish I had never done or failed to do whatever caused this situation. If she ever does come around, I have to remember to treat her with respect, even if she is railing on me. At this point, I just want to smother her and she has made it quite clear that that won’t work.

Written Wed 03AUG:

Well, she f-ing did it. The one thing we said we’d never do to each other. She admitted it to me on afternoon of Sun 17JUL. I had called the insurance company to inquire about our benefits, and I guess I was using an old card, so the 1-800 number had a recording that said “Our records show that your benefits have been cancelled”! I went into the bedroom and told her about the insurance and she was being her usual nasty self with the headphones on and she flipped out on me and asked me why I dumped it on her all the time when things happened and all the usual over-reaction [censored], so I went into the next room to get away from her and she busted in yelling at me about stuff and then she screamed “You know what, I DID sleep around on you last weekend and it felt good to have somebody want me for me and not because I’m supposed to be whatever, a wife or mother, to somebody” or something like that. I just stood there breathless with my heart in my throat and wanted to die on the spot.

It’s not really a free-will confession, but I guess she knew in her heart she had to get it out and then was as good a time as any. I’ll take it. The suspicion is still killing me slowly after two weeks of knowing for sure and one week of being torn between knowing she was lying to me about stuff and wanting to believe her about the not-fooling-around part because of just having realized that she is the love of my life and I have been neglectful, if not downright mean to her when she was probably depressed about me and so the cycles go.

I wanted to leave after she told me (my plan was to drive around in the truck, maybe drink, or kill myself directly) but she made me “sit down here and we’re gonna hash this out”.

We did hold each other and cry and apologize and she said she felt horrible and couldn’t tell me and she thought I would take the baby from her forever and I said that’s what irrational people do and I would never do that, and I said I was sorry for being such a ******, and not realizing she needed help earlier and not listening to her when she was screaming and getting nasty with her instead of trying to help, et cetera. It did feel good, but why does it seem like I have more to apologize for when she was the one her who did “the one thing”?

Knowing is better, but it still hurts and I feel like I have a broken heart [insert sobs here]. I walk around in a daze all day, not really getting anything done, just thinking about her because she is a lot better now and she reminds me of the way she was when I fell in love with her. I hate to say it, but I think it is because of the Zoloft she has been taking since her scheduled annual. I had called ahead and warned them she was having problems because that’s what they told us to do at the baby classes we took when she was pregnant. The first day she took the first half of a ten day half-dose regimen (the day of her annual exam, Wed 20JUL2005), she came home, took a nap, and then started talking about “What do you want for dinner?” and acted all nice (if still a little cold and distant).

So now it’s weird because I didn’t think about myself for the first few weeks, just her and the baby and the house and yard, and now the feelings of resentment have popped up, but at the same time I want her so badly, but then I see her and C. in my mind’s eye all the time and it disgusts me and I don’t want her sometimes, and she is not helping me with this pain, I think partly because she is doped up and can’t feel this pain I have or any guilt on her part most of the time.

So I have the greatest conflict of my entire life going on in my heart/mind/soul/spirit:

A: I always said I would never put up with a woman that screwed around on me again, after ex #1 (twice) and ex #2 both did me wrong. Are these feelings of resentment OK to express to her? Won’t that take us backward instead of forward? What’s wrong with me that my women don’t like me after a while?

B: She’s my heart of hearts whom I’ve always loved and:
1. We have a kid now.
a. The baby is the greatest thing that ever happened to me and I don’t think I could bear to be away from her for any length of time – I would probably drink myself to death if I had to live without her.
2. I’ve always stood by her when it really mattered.
a. When her grandma died I was there, not at the funeral but when she came home and cried her eyes out, I was there at her place. Even though we had just gotten together, I sat on her bed and held her for what seemed like hours while she cried and I consoled her and I really felt like we made a connection.
b. When she got fired from her job (right after we found out she was pregnant, in I think Spring ’03), she came home blubbering and crying about “I’m sorry” and stuff and I just held her and told her it would be all right, that she would get another job, et cetera. I really don’t remember ever seriously going after her verbally because she lost that job, but I did get nasty when she didn’t work for a long time after the pregnancy, which I realize now was probably just a symptom of the depression she felt.
c. When she was pregnant, I treated her like a QUEEN. I always made sure she had everything she needed so she didn’t have to get up and down, we slept on the floor because her back hurt, she needed fluids and milk all the time, I tried to hold the house together a little bit, and I thought she was so blissfully happy and I was happy to be the man-slave for her.
d. At the birth of the baby, I stayed with her basically the whole time (I did guiltily slip out for a couple cigarettes), I tried to be the best expectant daddy I could, and I felt like I really pulled it off, acted like a man should, comforted his wife, brought her everything she needed, helped her go to the bathroom, rubbed her back a lot, didn’t make the joke about the extra stitch, et cetera.
e. When she got in the car wreck and I went to pick her up at the hospital, she was all like “I’m sorry” and blubbering and stuff again, and I just held her and told her I was just glad she was going to be OK, and I took her home and took care of her and the baby (maybe not perfectly, but I was trying).
f. Even when she was being really nasty to me and I had opportunities (I won’t say a lot) to do that to her, even though she was not giving me any sex for months at a time, I never could bring myself to do “the one thing” to her, because I remember the pain from before.
g. Are these the acts of a man who deserves to be told “I hate you”, “You never help me”, “I swear to God I’m gonna ditch you”, “You need to get a better job”, and then screwed around on?
3. We’ve shared so much over the years.
a. She was at my graduation from night school and stood by me the whole time I was away from her almost every night and only worked part time for two years to get there.
b. Stood by each other when two of our cats died while she was pregnant.
c. Sex/affection/intimacy:
i. When we first got together, I remember a time when we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other and the sex was long sessions of passionate, sometimes dirty sweaty sex where she gave me special kinds of sex to please me, but I know she liked it or she wouldn’t have done it, or sometimes we just laid on the waterbed and just kissed and petted, or just watched movies and hung out.
ii. At a wedding in ’02 (I think) we went back to the hotel early and had drunken mind-numbing monkey-sex that at least I will remember for the rest of my life. I could have sworn that night it pleased her to please me and I loved her all the more for it.
iii. At my class reunion in ’02 we went back to the hotel and really had a good time with each other bodies and pleased each other more than a few times, as I remember.
iv. After she got her teeth fixed I remember a few times she even tried to give me oral, because she knows it’s a thing I like, and I was figuratively and literally blown away and felt like a god that she would try something she always said was distasteful to her because she felt better about her teeth or whatever.

I guess I let sex get too repetitive or got greedy with it like I always do because I like it too much, and the porn didn’t help. I thought being honest and up front about it and the masturbation with her would help, but it didn’t. I would kill for a woman that was so horny she had to have sex or frig herself off a few times a day, but that’s not M. She actually told me once that she never has masturbated in her life.

Then she told me, this morning in fact, that she had thought I didn’t want her anymore because of all the porn. I in fact went to the porn ‘cause I wanted her so badly and I thought she didn’t want me anymore, and so the cycle goes.

I really want to help her break out of her sexual repression ‘cause I know for a fact that she desires at least an active sex life, and I have seen her become almost animalistic when the conditions are right. I know she doesn’t want to live a sexless life and I know she will let me in eventually, but right now I just ache so badly to be held or kissed or even stroked on the back of the head. She is trying to at least get comfortable with me sleeping in the bed and doesn’t shrink away from any form of touch, but I can’t get her to “kiss me like she means it” or anything beyond rubbing her back and neck and it hurts so badly I can’t hide it and then she asks me what’s wrong and I try not to tell her but then I do and she gets mad and we’re back to square one again.

Now I’m so anxious to fix all these wounds that I still feel, that it is weirding her out, in part I think because of the Zoloft and in part because she doesn’t want to feel anything because she just feels guilty about what she did, or she doesn’t want to remember the rage and hate from before, maybe. I dunno.

I do want to have sex/affection/intimacy with her and I’ve been trying to be decent about it but I feel like most of the time all she wants to do is sit and watch TV again and put her headphones on again. I think she thinks I want to have sex to satisfy me, but I really just want to be close to her and I told her I would return the favor for all the times she “helped me out” sexually. That was yesterday – no takers yet! Not even any interest in me sexually and I don’t understand when she says she’s not comfortable enough with herself yet for sex with me, and I say she was comfortable enough to have sex with C. and she hadn’t been together with him for ten years, and she says that wasn’t reality and this is. WTF is that supposed to mean? Were she and C. on another ethereal plane or what? Every time she tries to downplay the affair by saying it wasn’t really an affair, it wasn’t even like real sex, et cetera, it really galls me, even though I know she is trying to save my feelings.

So I guess I’ll just keep holding on, alone in love, waiting for my love to really come back in spirit. Hard to live with the body when the spirit isn’t there. All this is not her fault, matter of fact it’s probably more my fault, but knowing that doesn’t stop the intense pain of sexual betrayal.

Written Thu 04AUG2005:

Last night something really screwed with my head. I went down to a friend’s house for a little bit and when I was there I was going through the phonebook on the cell phone (which she had freely given me to take along) to get our home number and found a new contact in, listed as “A”. I had erased C.’s number from the phonebook the other day, and when I viewed the “A” contact, it was C.’s number. Red clouded my vision and instantly I was back to the day she told me about the affair. I called her, ostensibly to make sure she and the baby were OK (which was the original purpose of looking through the phonebook to call home), but I couldn’t resist asking her, “Can I ask you something without you getting mad?... Why would you put C.’s number back in the phonebook under ‘A’?” at which point she got defensive and said she doesn’t see why I should have messed with her phonebook, she isn’t calling C., et cetera. She also made me promise not to flip out on her when I got home last night or this morning. I did not say a word about it, just got home and acted like everything was OK (which it very well may be) and did the same this morning. What am I supposed to think here?

1. She is calling C. and that’s why she’s been so semi-happy; she is getting her emotional needs met from both ends, which I feel would hamstring all the progress we’ve made.

2. She isn’t calling C. but saw I had erased the contact in the phonebook and got pissed off and decided to put it back in, but why put it under “A” where it is real obvious and then hand me the phone?

3. She is trying to drive me over the edge so I’ll leave her and the baby and she gets the house or whatever.

If she is still contacting C. then what the ****** are we doing? I know he was her friend for years but she did agree not to have any contact with him. Even if she is just trying to save my feelings about it, it still counts as a lie and I thought we agreed to no more lies.

I still feel the love for her but last night made me think about making plans for divorce and custody, and now my trust in her has been shaken again, so it will be hard to act cheerful and supportive now. And I just recently started to feel almost normal again. Damn it!