Five. Goddamn. Fucking. Years.
Five years ago, after a long and very pleasant trip to go see a concert that we had been wanting to see for a long time (Trans-Siberian Orchestra) with my mother and my sister, my STBXW and I came home to our five kids. We had Black Friday at home, then the following Saturday, we went to my mother's for a belated Thanksgiving celebration. After the meal, while everyone was cleaning up and the kids were nearing the point of food comas, my brother asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. It was cold, he had been drinking, and I didn't want to go. He kept pushing, so i went with him. He told me that my STBXW had confided in his wife that she had slept with my best friend in 2008.
We returned to my mother's house and I was in shock. I started loading up the kids, and the ex immediately knew something was up. I refused to talk to her. We drove the 45 minutes home in silence. When we got home, I put the kids to bed and went to my office. She followed me, asked me what was wrong, and I locked the door with us inside.
I said to her, "I know you fucked [friend]."
"What are you talking about-"
"Don't FUCKING lie to me, or I swear on every god that I will throw you out of this house right now."
She denied it. While she sat on the couch, I opened up an instant messenger and sent my friend a message, and as I was typing it, she admitted that she had slept with him once. in front of her, her first OM admitted more. She revised her story and made up a long justification as to WHY she did it. I blocked him after confirmation and raged at her. She begged me not to leave her, said that she was feeling the spark of love for me again, on and on and on.
One month later, I drank myself into oblivion and had a complete mental and emotional breakdown at my grandfather's house. Seven days after that, on my 30th birthday, I prepared to kill myself. I had a bottle of Ambien and a bottle of whiskey and I was going to make myself a nighty-night cocktail and just not wake up. I figured a month's supply (30 pills) and a whole bottle would do it.
Just before I started, my kids knocked on my office door. They brought in a cake that they had baked themselves, along with a small succulent that they had purchased for me with change they had found in the couch and under the dryer. They sang me Happy Birthday, and we ate the cake while sitting on the floor. We watched some silly cat video compilations on YouTube and I put them to bed. My ex came in afterwards, saw the pills and whiskey, and asked me what I was doing. I told her, then I flushed the pills down the toilet. I have not taken prescription sleep medication or any strong painkillers since. I have never taken them without prescription, but I refuse to fill any prescriptions for painkillers that are made for me. I just deal with the pain.
For the last five years, we were in false R. She pretended to be 'trying' while she was searching for a new partner. Last December (the 17th, according to the phone bill) she had her first phone conversation with the OM. In February, she started talking with his wife, her OW. On June 19th, we had sex for the last time. In July, she flew out to Texas under the pretense of a business conference (a four day event over a weekend) and stayed for two and a half weeks.
She came home and was cold and distant. I tried to take a 5 day hiking trip, but panic attacks and anxiety from what my intuition was SCREAMING at me cut it short and I was gone for two days. When I came home, we had another day of cold distance, and then I went and picked up my friends from the trailhead, delivered them home, and came back. We slept in the same bed for the last time on August 13th.
At 8:00 on August 14th, I confronted her about what had changed while she was in Texas, and, after some pushing and prying, she said that she had realized that she was a lesbian and didn't want to be married to a man anymore. I asked who she had cheated with, and she denied it. I asked about a specific person, she paused and said, "It wasn't [person]."
"Then who was it?"
"I told you, I didn't..."
"Don't. Fucking. Lie. To me."
"... it was [OW]."
I left our bedroom, gathered my things, and drove to my mother's house. The next morning, I dug OM's number out of our records and called him to inform him our our wives's affair.
"I am [STBXW]'s husband. Are you aware that she and your wife had an affair?"
"... I... need to call you back."
"... you fucked my wife, didn't you?"
"I really just need to call you back."
"Don't be a coward. Just admit it. You fucked my wife."
"I... REALLY need to call you back later."
I hung up and drove home, waking my STBXW and confronting her with her lie of being a lesbian.
"You fucked [OM], didn't you?"
"This is how you wake me up?"
"You're goddamn right. You fucked him. Admit it."
"He was... there."
"Did he fuck you?"
"He was... involved."
"Stop being a fucking coward. Did he stick his penis into your body?"
"... that is none of your business."
After that, I started getting anonymous facebook messages from someone who had accessed her account. They had taken pictures of her conversations with OM, talking and sexting about their time together, about their coming time together (before she left to go see them), about his threats to fly to my state and beat me with a baseball bat, as well as pictures of a screen that had pictures of her engaging in multiple sex acts with OM and OW.
This went on for two weeks while I was constantly bombarded with anonymous internet texting numbers telling e I was abusive, I was lazy, I was fat and horrible, at all hours of the day and night while I was still reeling from my life being thrown, once more, into the blender.
I am now three months and fifteen days out from my final DDay and the end of my almost 17 year marriage to an unfaithful, lying, cheating abuser. I am in IC, my anti-anxiety medication has been doubled, and I am so incredibly lonely. Tomorrow, I go to my mother's with my five daughters to celebrate Thanksgiving while the STBXW does whatever she is going to do. I don't know and I don't care.
I don't feel like I have much to be thankful for. I'm tired. I've mostly ended my dream job of being a full time author by going back to work selling goddamn smartphones. I have to build up financial history to be able to try to rent a house large enough to support myself and five children, two of which are on the Autism spectrum. I will be living alone four days a week and have my girls the other three, the days I am not working. I have no idea how I am going to find another partner. I have no idea how I am going to afford this. I have no idea what the future holds.
This is fucking bullshit. I guess I just move forward now and see what happens.
