It's was one year ago that I found out the truth about my marriage. I was generally happy in the marriage, but her behaviour had changed slightly in the past few months and I was suspicious of something. She was drinking much more, and staying till the early morning hours at parties of new friends. Friends who were not of the marriage. I had asked her repeatedly what was wrong, why things were off - but the response was that nothing was wrong. I had begun to seriously think maybe I was going a little crazy. Surely she would tell me if something, ANYTHING, wasn't right. So I started snooping, casually checking her email and phone. The phone had become a locked fortress, but her email, facebook, bank accounts and everything else was still out in the open. I checked everything while she slept (including her phone)... not a damn thing out of the ordinary.
I was convinced I had gone nuts and I felt shame for snooping.
A week or so went by and I woke up late at night -this night 1 year ago. After doing a few things, there was her carefully guarded phone - sitting out in the open again. I told myself I was nuts and to go back to bed. I was halfway back to the bedroom when I turned around and went back to her phone. Sitting in the dark I scanned it for anything unusual. Personal email, work email, txt messages... all normal. Damn, the shame felt even worse this time. But, just before putting her phone back I accidently clicked on her personal inbox picker and to my surprise another hidden email account was on her phone. It was littered with hundreds of emails of their affair, right down to the times, places, and sexual positions they had been doing.
Now I'm sitting in the dark trying to catch my breath and hold back the tears enough to capture the evidence. It was surreal and like a kick to the face.
I woke her up from a cold sleep and confronted her - long story short, she turned her back on me and never looked back. 8 months later I found myself divorced.
A year feels like both a long time and a short time. In a year I got divorced, sold my house, and bought a new house. I've done a great job of getting my life back on track, one day at a time. Other than kids, I want nothing to do with her ever again. Part of me feels like it's been a long year - lots of change, lots of new beginnings, and lots of distance and disconnect from the ex. But there is also part of me that is like 'Wow, only a year!... A year ago you thought you were in a happy marriage." It's one of those mental puzzles where time feels distorted because of the amount of emotion and life events crammed all in. What's even more weird is that something was bugging me today. It wasn't till I checked a calendar that I put 2 and 2 together and realized the significance of the date - it's weird how our biological clock / subconscious remembers this stuff.