Last week, there were four major incidents that made it undeniable to me that my husband's girlfriend just isn’t going away. We have avoided talking about her because I am so angry about the affair we can’t get anywhere. I have worked so hard to figure out what is my business and what isn’t.
My son is my business if my selfish husband decided it would be a good idea to introduce the two if them after having known each other less than a month. Maybe selfish isn't the word. Thoughtless seems more accurate. But the details of how serious they are, how much time they spend together, or anything else that pertains to their relationship doesn’t actually impact me. And, I haven’t really wanted to know any of it.
But I have questions I just can’t make logical answers for. I totally understand how and why my husband reached the conclusion that we should no longer be married. I am also of the opinion that it takes two to make or break a marriage. I sought out the help I needed. He did not. I learned how to reconnect with the world around me and become a part of it again. He continues to Peter Pan his way through life.
I have tried over and over to tell myself that I don’t need to know, that I may never understand. And I just haven’t been able to get past it. I was packing up photos of us, cards we gave to each other for anniversaries, birthdays, I wasn’t upset. I’ve loaded those memories of us into a box so that when he’s old enough, Ethan can see how much his parents loved each other. I was fine looking at all that stuff.
It’s the damn girlfriend. And she doesn’t seem to be going away. He loves her. Which means that unless my husband and his entire family have been lying to me, at some point he is going to be around her. I don't think it's a good idea for Ethan to be introduced to anyone until after Chris and I are divorced. (whoops, you dropped the ball on that one, Chris). And that either opens up a bottomless well of grief in me or makes me homicidal. This woman who had so little respect for my marriage. This woman who disparagingly referred to my husband being with our son as “daddy duty.” This woman who had known Chris was married and pursued him anyway. How can I make peace with her ever being around my child?
When I can’t sleep at night, it’s not because I’m running memories of our first eight years together through my head. I am revisiting last spring. I don’t want to live there any more. The ridiculous thing is that if we had stayed together, I would have forgiven the affair already. The day I found out about it, (after I kicked him and threw a drink in his face), and realized that EVERYONE knew, not only did they know but condoned it...it was mortifying. I remember bawling to my mother-in-law whose sage wisdom and calming presence had pulled me through so many impossible times, telling her that I couldn't understand why this was happening when we were trying to reconcile. Her response was "Marriages break up everyday." I remember feeling a part of me die right there on the spot. I was expecting her to talk to Chris, make him see how foolish he was being, that he was committing not only a crime against God, but against the law, too. I expected her to remind him of her own marriage to Shannon, and the PTSD he went through that nearly destroyed their family several times over when he was growing up. That the affair was a symptom of a bigger problem and we needed to work on fixing it.
But the affair is actually a relationship, an ongoing seemingly healthy happy partnership by all reports. Is it that they have found something that he and I worked so hard for? Is it that he’s with someone and I’m alone? Is it that he trashed my respect and trust for him in order to be with this woman? I don’t know. But I have to find some way of accepting it and letting it go–whether they’re together another ten days or another ten years. I don’t want to give this woman any more of my energy. And I don’t know how to stop.
How have you dealt with people who have hurt or wronged you? How do you deal with them being around your child?
