Why? in The past

First of all, I want to make sure it is understood that I do not want to vilify my husband. I also do not want to excuse his actions. They were wrong and hurtful, but we were both hurting in many different ways.

3 week after #1 was born, we found out his mother was diasgnosed with a particularly devastating form of cancer. She spent 6 weeks in isolation that summer receiving treatment; treatment that due to a chromosomal abnormality nearly killed her. I was naively optimistic. She was going to kick cancer’s ass. That’s what we do. We don’t let cancer get the best of us.

He, on the other hand, was devastated. He saw the writing on the wall. In hind sight, I was trying to give him a ray of hope, but it was probably more of a slap in the face.

Fall came and I started back to work, he started into his busy season. His mom was home from the hospital with the understanding hat she was not going to continue treatments. She wanted to embrace life. We understood what this meant, but I had no clue how suddenly things would play out.

We were trucking along, doing our own thing. There was a decided disconnect, but we were so incolved with our own lives we didn’t notice it. Or decide that anything was wrong with it. What I didn’t know was that he was relying heavily on online friendships and had found someone in particular to connect with.

And alcohol. There was a significant increase in the amount of alcohol he consumed at this time.

As the new year settled in, life became more strained. His friendship with this particular young lady blossomed into messages of a personal nature. They sent pics of each other, rationalizing that it was no different than masturbating to porn. They just happened to “know” the person they were masturbating to.

Around this time, we also hit a dry spell. His mother went down hill quickly and passed the day after Valentine’s. we had tickets to see a show that day-my favorite. In hind sight, we shouldn’t have gone, we should have gone to be with his family. But the thought process was we already had the tickets and she wouldn’t have wanted us to miss out on the show. But it was callous. I wish I hadn’t gone.

I like to think that at least part of his enjoyment of this relationship was an escape from the issues with his mother. I know that’s not all, but it had to be a contributor.

Their relationship continued to progress to the point where they were face timing their escapades with each other I had gone to bed. In early March, he was on his phone so much, I inquired about it.

“You remember that girl I told you about that wants to have a threesome with you?”

So that night, I checked out his messages and found sexually explicit conversations between them.

It had been going on for at least 6 weeks, and allegedly began over a mutual interest in me. (To this day, I do not buy that.) She is bisexual and polyamorous. During the same time that their friendship progressed, she was going through some shit herself. I can’t help but think that she subconsciously used him as a bit of an escape, too.

The relationship between them was not just about sex. I truly believe they found something very beautiful together, but that something beautiful wrecked my life. If they weren’t in love, the potential was there.

I do not accept fault in this-I did not cause it. They were both reckless and selfish. They made a very poor decision. But what I can accept is that there were things in our marriage that needed to be fixed. Things I ignored-we ignored. I’ve learned how to make my marriage a priority.

I’ve been trying to get over it and move on, but I realized you can just get over something with wounds so deep. You have to heal-and so I’m trying to find a new way to heal.