Whatever You Say, Honey… I Believe You

Would it sound crazy if I told you that even after that fateful day that I found out about HER Husband still did not admit that any indiscretion happened between the two of them?

Because that’s exactly how things played out.

Husband insisted that nothing happened between them and continued to insist they were just friends.

And I believed everything he said. Never mind that my girlfriends told me he was lying through his teeth. I truly felt obligated to believe him if I wanted to save our marriage.

What a fool I turned out to be.

In the days and weeks after Husband’s ‘friendship’ with HER was revealed, he and I operated on a new normal. Our arrangements were still the same. I woke up early every morning to get myself and the kids ready for work/school. He came home in just enough time to take the kids to school. I would try to talk to him before I left the house but he would never be in the mood. I would go to work and the first thing I would do is check his cell phone records from the night before. When I didn’t find HER number listed, I’d breathe a sigh of relief thinking maybe Husband was heeding my request that he no longer hang out with her. Daisy put it plain and simply to me when I’d give her the update that I thought that Husband was behaving himself, well, based on his cell phone records.

“You know he has another cell phone, right?”

No way. Never. Husband would never do that to me. That would be next-level shady. Husband is not like that at all.

Or so I thought.

It was still early on in our ‘break’ during which he still held the upper hand. I was still the shitty wife who he need time away from. The other girl in his life was nothing more than a friend who was there for him. I had to accept it. I couldn’t ask any questions about her. She wasn’t the problem, I was told over and over again. I was the problem.

So the entire first month of our break that September, I remained on my best behavior. Doing my best to prove to him that I had changed and I was ready to be a better wife to him. Showing him I could take care of the kids while keeping the house in order. If he wanted sex everyday I’d give it to him no matter how tired I was. Anything to get him home so we can get on with the business of fixing our marriage. Every morning in the short time we were home together, I would ask him if we could talk. And every morning when I asked him if we could talk he would say no. There was nothing I can do about it.

I was, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner to Husband. And I allowed it. Looking back at it now, I know that things didn’t have to be that way. I could have easily took equal control over how our separation would be. Was it really a separation though when we were technically still under the same roof? Even though we only saw each for less than an hour a day, we still lived in the same house, slept on the same bed (albeit at different times of the day) and ate food from the same fridge. I still did his laundry! Believe me, I tried to get a place of my own that was big enough for me and the kids. But Husband rejected that idea. Said it was best not to disrupt the kids in anyway. How could I not see that this was Husband being selfish? Having his cake and eating it, too. It was Husband ensuring that his wife stayed put at home taking care of the kids while he went and lived another life as if he was single.

I couldn’t see all of this because I wasn’t thinking straight. All I cared about was getting our marriage and family back to how it was. Husband could have told me anything — the earth was flat, the moon was made of cheese — I would have believed him. That’s how blind I was. How willing I was to do whatever it took to get him fully back.

If I had only known then what I know now, things might be different. I might have been able to save myself a ton of headache and all the heartache that followed.