All I apologize for leaving for so long but I am back once again. I just need someone to look at what I've written and tell me what I need to do, so let me attach this. I appeared on MB before as BetrayedHusband and Ontherock, I think, I've posted before and have received help from senior members. To them I say thank you.

BEFORE 12/13/2004 11:50 AM

It’s funny, I once sat down and decided to write a book about my life. I was deployed to Kuwait in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and since I was basically just wasting my time over there waiting to get back, I said, “hey let’s just write a book about me.”
What a noble idea. So I wrote, I started where I thought my life took shape into where I was at the time, in high school. You see I was newly married to my high school sweetheart so it was just appropriate to start there. I may have given a little background information, the who, what, when, where, and how of it all just to answer some questions, but pre-high school was just not that important to me.
Ironically it was everything prior to the glory days that molded me into who I was. The fairy-tale vantage point of a life not begun, that was all before I chose my electives and braved the 200 yard walk to the school.
I sit here now and look at who I am and think that who I am must change again because it is a far less perfect setting to which my story would begin now. Events really do mold a person, as much as people like to say they’re independent and in control, they’re not, even their sense of independence is a result of oppression they once encountered. They tell themselves that it will never happen again, they will never be so naïve, they will never let someone else run them and they make their little goals to avenge their trespasses. Say it isn’t true, I challenge you.
The original reason I wanted to write my story was because of a book that I read that my great-grandfather had written about his life. Looking into my great fairy-tale future I decided my great-grandchildren may want to know about my life and the ancient times, so I wrote.
The writing stopped when my marriage began to falter. The writing never continued after August 23rd, 2003. That day, a beautiful day in Iraq, I woke up. I woke up to the realization that this life is temporary, I woke up to something that I thought I would never wake up to, a roadside bomb detonating in front of my tactical vehicle. I was asleep but as any good storyteller would do, I found a metaphor in the situation.
I was asleep, I could have died. Period.
You see how that puts things into perspective for a person, why write about your life when you have a life to live? I quit writing. The pages that I had written, somewhere around 78 or so, were on hold, they all but disappeared once I returned to the United States and to my new marriage, one of lies, mistakes, and infidelity. I know it sounds extreme, and partly I am dramatizing the whole situation, but that is what I walked back into. I went from having a new-found appreciation for life and all it offers to a deep desire to have never been born. I went from having my “happily ever after” lifestyle to a living hell that I thought I would never have to endure with my wife. Perfection and expectations gave way to impurity and regret. Ask me what has molded me into the person I am today. You see the difference between my grandfathers book and what I write today is simple, he was looking back after a long life and writing fond and important memories, while I’m writing for now.
“Now” would probably change by the time my greats would get the chance to read this. “Now” would probably seem so distant to them that maybe it wouldn’t even matter, but fond memories and important facts that those people choose to base their legacy on, they are not here. Reading my elders paragraphs of his World War II days and his families travels across the plains on wagon were all very interesting, but were merely facts. They didn’t deal with any of the emotional tangents that rule my life today, or that of my great-grandchildren. I was less than eight years old when I read his story. I would rather have my son of 18 read this. I would rather him see the inadequacies that I have felt than the memories that I deemed important or appropriate. Many people talk of learning from their mistakes, it’s more convenient to learn from others. Convenient but not as effective.
What have you learned so far? That I’m disgruntled, sarcastic, bitter? Good. That’s my intention. For me to write about things that have made me happy and act like they are still relevant would be a lie. I would be lying to you in order to inspire “feel-good” emotions rather than provoking thought.
Truthfully I have to hope that one day I will be able to pick this up and tell myself how much things have changed, look back and say, now I survived that. I hope that my son, my wife is pregnant right now, will be able to read this and say my dad went through this and survived, why can’t I?
The truth is though that as of right now I don’t know if things will be ok. I don’t know if things will be great and I’ll look back and admire myself for how I survived. Times have been so difficult, not impossible, but difficult.
For the past year I have had to deal with my wife’s infidelity and the fact that the man she chose to be unfaithful with was at the time my best friend. We had both deployed together and he got to come back early. I offered him my house which proved to be a devastating mistake. It’s hard to know who to blame, on one hand I had allowed it to happen. I sent a man with a troubled marriage into my home with my troubled marriage, a fuel for their raging fires. He promised me that he could be trusted and that he hoped that he could help my marriage. She said that it was ok and that she didn’t mind. Neither one of them were happy with their marriages. My friend and his wife were constantly having problems, she was in Louisiana and he thought that she was cheating on him. My wife and I were having problems, her back in Georgia, me in Kuwait, and all of her past still in our marriage. I just can’t seem to blame myself too much because it seems to me that even if I hadn’t offered him my home to stay in while his family was away and he was waiting to get out that they would have still found their way to each other. In fact I’m not so sure that they wouldn’t have sought each other out.
At any rate, it was a very hard thing to deal with and after months of lies, then a little dose of truth followed by a month of lies I guess I somehow stopped caring. It’s hard to look at who you were, a trusting, loving and caring person with everything to live for to this, the reclusive, apathetic and hateful person I am today. Even the thought of my child coming into this world doesn’t seem to offer relief to the pain that I feel. Pain may be too strong of a word, betrayal may be more fitting.
I live with the anger that I never was able to let out on my “friend” and the disappointment that my wife threw onto our marriage and my high expectations. I can’t even begin to describe the way that it made me feel to know that she would actually do that to me and now it seems like all that I want to do is the same to her.
It’s a little ironic that the way she treated me when I returned from overseas is the same way that I treat her now. I remember asking God to answer me with His Will. If my wife were to get pregnant than I should stay and if she doesn’t than I should go. I guess the problem with that is that there wasn’t a timeline set. So I assume that if she had never got pregnant we’d still be going and I’d still be saying the same thing. I think about cheating all the time. I think about leaving my wife and child, I even think about the hassle that child support and holidays would bring later on. I think about her re-marrying and the hatred I would have for her and her new spouse. I think about the fact that I never knew my dad and what that would mean to my son. I think about the fact that most of my childhood friends that had separated parents ended up in and out of trouble with the law and always had an unhealthy home-life. Sometimes it’s too hard to bear.
The truth is that I’m going through something that millions of people around the world have had to endure. The infidelity of another. I know this because when I was aggressive about getting my marriage back I did a lot of research and spent countless hours on the internet trying to get help, as well as spilling my guts to sympathetic strangers. I put in the hours and the work to get our marriage, meaning my wife, back into the swing of things and once she came around it’s as though all of my energy was exasperated and I was left with nothing except the short end of the stick.
The true conflict now is not between my wife and I, it’s between two sides of myself. There is the side that says, stay, it is God’s Will. You will get through this, the baby, Israel Joseph, will change everything for the better. You will grow to lose the resentment and pain, the feeling of betrayal that has controlled you for so long and your life will improve. Then there is the side that says, you shouldn’t be here, do you think she won’t do it again, especially once you have children, come on, get real, she doesn’t deserve you, look at all of the other girls out there for you, they’re all your type, they’re all your taste, try them, spite her, wouldn’t you rather your child grow up without you and happy than with you and miserable because you and his mother can’t get along?
Notice how one is a question and the other is a statement? I wonder how this proves the validity of either. Perhaps it’s because one is something that I really hope will happen and the other is something I’m very doubtful of. To think that the best woman, the one that I have known the longest, that I ever had in my life would hurt me so much doesn’t speak well for the millions of strangers out there that I gaze at while walking around in public places.
I think that this conflict is also blaming myself, my wife, and my friend constantly for the problems I now have in my marriage. When I look at it, I’m not attracted to my wife anymore, she’s attractive, she just doesn’t attract me. I don’t know if I like her anymore, I love her, but don’t like her. I can’t talk to her anymore, we’ve had so much silence and dishonesty that it’s very hard to talk.

12/13/2004 11:50 AM

Maybe this is more of a journal than an actual book but that could make it better. This weekend was Kristie’s last weekend before starting her new job, so it went by very fast and it was pretty emotional for her. She’s just shy of 33 weeks pregnant and I think that months of carrying Israel have taken their toll on her.
We didn’t talk much this weekend but really we didn’t have time. I did a lot of thinking this weekend and thought myself into a deeper whole than when I started, so maybe thinking is not the answer. Usually when I reflect back on things they only get worse, however today I received an e-mail from my mom that I had sent them while I was deployed on the second anniversary of September 11th, 2001. It was basically an ode to everybody back home telling them how much I loved them and why. Reflecting on that was much better than the recollections that I have been having lately.
It seems to me like life can only get better but unfortunately at least for the short term it has took a detour into doubt-land. We learned last week that the Army wanted to take 460 bucks out of this months pay. Which normally wouldn’t be that big of deal, well yeah it would, but with a month and a half until Israel’s born and it being December, the Christmas month it feels like this couldn’t come at a more hostile time.
The Army had overpaid us but they take it back just as soon as they can so there is no confusion about who is the boss.
Anyway, enough of that, needless to say it made me angry and frustrated me but at the same time it also puts things into perspective, when they talk about financial responsibility and always having an emergency savings account, well let’s just say that now I understand.
Kristie and I have been talking about moving back to Amarillo, I think that we both miss our families and when we think about Israel growing up we want him to know his grandparents and cousins, aunts and uncles, not just remember who they are. So maybe three years down the road we can head that way for a new life.
You see I reenlisted to come back to Texas and not deploy but I am wishing that I had just finished my time where I was at and been done with the Army. There was a time when it was a place I loved to be but that time passed when I returned from Kuwait.
In hind-sight I never should have finished my deployment there, I should have saw the signs and asked to go home but I didn’t and that somewhat makes me feel that I put the Army ahead of my family and ahead of myself. I don’t want to do that any more.
So we right now plan on going back to Amarillo. I’m hoping that our marriage will survive long enough to see Israel into life. I know we have both had our doubts and I tell her that I won’t leave but at the same time it seems like that’s all I want to do.
You see having a mind like mine is a difficult thing, it can be so powerful that it takes control, only for all of the wrong things. I am rambling so I should break in progress.
I’ve always had the ability to ramble on when it comes to typing, I must just like typing, so maybe I should become a journalist so I can just type all day, but then again, I don’t like typing about anything but me so maybe I should be a journalist covering my life. I wonder if anyone would subscribe to that one?

01/03/2005 2:42 PM – WHY ME?

I’ve realized now that you have many different ways of dealing with emotionally traumatic events. Denial, anger, sadness, apathy, I’ve seen them all, but now I find myself in a different mindset, the on-going search of “why” all of this happened.
Of course I have asked the question before but it has never compounded itself so many times to the way I feel it now. I have become a revolving door trying to explain why and then realizing that my explanation of things that I did don’t justify the actions of others.
I guess the truth behind it is that my choices or my mistakes, or whatever they are that I associate with my problems aren’t really there to give a justification to another man, these problems and challenges I face while carried out by man, are not men’s responsibility, the justification comes through God, if you are of any faith you must believe that things happen for a reason, it helps you to get through the most difficult of times when you believe that it happened for a reason and with prayer, faith, and service to God you will be rewarded.
For me personally I have always thought of the book of Job when my life took a turn for the worse. Immediately this would make me think twice about my complaints, my questioning of God’s motives and even more of mans.
Now with all of the other sides of emotional reaction to my situation I am just left asking why. This reminds me of my time in Korea when in one month and eight days five people close to me or my family died. I took a trip to pity-city and found myself asking why and what’s next, hating the situation I was in and trying to find any way out, any justification to just give up. Instead I found resistance, constant objections and flags thrown to the wind.
Over two months went by while I searched for a way out and gave my sob story to whoever would listen, much like now, but eventually I got through it.


01/09/2005 4:47 PM

I guess that one of the things I have to realize is that I came away from the “war” a changed man with emotional scars. But like physical scars I have to assume that one day I’ll look in the mirror and not see them, they will be a part of me and make me who I am, but I won’t look at them and say they hurt. They will only come up when someone else asks about them, and maybe that’s the problem, allowing people to ask. Maybe not.
I can’t help but thinking that the reason I indulge in this so much is because I really want no part of it anymore while another side of me thinks that my dwelling is to give something to the world. I have been writing at work and at home, trying to sort out my thoughts and see where I really am. I’ve read the Bible for support and it helped but at the same time I’m continuing on the same path I was and it feels like it too.

02/17/2005 12:59 PM

My son Israel turned two weeks old yesterday. He’s beautiful, healthy, and I could be so much more thankful than I am.
It is so sad to me that I have let the past ruin one of the most precious moments in a person’s life, the birth of their child. My baby was born by c-section but all I can remember when first seeing him is the doubt I had that he was mine, the anger I felt towards my wife, my “best” friend and my child. He was born with long dark curly hair and little blonde highlights all over the place, ironically the same hairstyle that my friend had shortly before leaving my home for his family. It’s still so hard to get over. I should have been so happy but I wasn’t, I should be happy now but I am not.
I feel like I want out of my marriage so badly that it takes control of me and it leaves me in a role of a person who says “I love you” when it’s said to me but that doesn’t mean it. Am I really here against my will though? Or is it that I just don’t want to be happy? What keeps me from saying that I’m done, I’m through, I tried everything that I could and it didn’t work? I guess because in my heart I know that I haven’t tried everything that I could. I know that it’s been a very long time since I said, my marriage comes first. Everything else is first. I know that I haven’t consulted God through prayer enough, I haven’t been thankful enough for the blessings I have received.
I am now Negative Joseph, a bitter man, hating my own life. So much for the fairy tale.

I keep having to change usernames because I always lose my password and figure it's just easier to create a new one than to try to remember the old username and e-mail.

My old posts are located at the following links.

HOW DO YOU FORGET
I'M BACK, UNFORTUNATELY

I may have posted others but right now I can't really remember if I did or not.

hey bitterman
been where you have a few times now so know how you feel about the war and the affair.

You my brother, I would pay money on it, have a real case of PTSD COMBINED with the stress of your W affair.

Much of your feelings are more than likely related to PTSD but you can get over it. I had to get control of most of my PTSD before I could consider the M,and hey, my wife is Preggo 16 weeks.......had to say the first thing entered my head when I got back about 9 weeks ago was 'whose is it this time'.
In my smart moments I KNOW the bubs mine but that dark little thought just had to get out.

I do suggest you get treatment for it as soon as you can, it distorts your judgement and your emotions. Group therapy with other vets is proving to be very good and also keeping the Army from recording a doc treating you for it....but if you are not career as you say dont let that worry you. JUST GET SOME TREATMENT

For me it was like having the PTSD and the dreams of the war and then after getting that in control I had depression over her Affair and the movies that that played in my mind........ still does at times.....I just try to push it away. Everyone tells me it takes time, a lot of time, maybe years.

If it does help you settle your distrust a bit I fully recommend a DNA test, very quick & simple these days..it will end all doubt once and for all. My wife has offered this to me, even encouraged it, but dont know how I will respond to that yet. Even if I dont it does feel good to know she offered.

Of course the monkey that can throw a wrench in the machine is what do you, would you do, if you are not the father.
For me, well the other kids are just about grown 18 & 17 so I think I'd shoot through, couldn't face that every day, perhaps my loss but I dont want to end up being full of hate and anger for ever. Place and time for it but it has to go sometime.

You cant really recover mate until you get this first thing covered. Let your W know about it, the treatment whatever is recommended, start getting her involved as much as she can with a new bub in the house. frankly not much a w can do but be there for you when you need her.
Make one decison at a time in this.

Come join the GQ11 forum as well, lots more very experienced people there to help you too.


seeya mate