In the Moment

I have been working on writing more frequently, and while I have shared my story here, this is my effort to concentrate on what the moment meant for me. If you have been through something similar, what did the moment mean for you?

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It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to what I was reading.

“I am running out of interviews to prepare for.  Maybe we could go get a room in the city.”

My stomach flipped and my heart sank. I tried to convince myself it wasn’t real, but a few minutes later, I was running through various scenarios in my mind. I thought I was going to vomit. I sobered up quickly as I tried to rouse him from his drunken stupor. I told him to get out. He was black out drunk and had no idea what was going on.  I had a house full of people coming the next morning and I would not be able to get any sleep if he was here. I pushed him out the back door. I did not care what happened to him, I just wanted him gone. I moved away from the locked door and it burst open again, the frame cracking and splitting. He was enraged, and I called his father for the first time in our near six years of marriage. I asked him to come and pick up his son.

Once he was gone, I trudged up the stairs. I tried to lay down in bed, but his phone was in our room and I could not be near it. I went and sat in the glider in our child's room, listening to the breathing. Sighs and movements made the tears flow. “So what happens now? You leave him, right? Now you have proof he was cheating on you. With her, while you were busting your ass to keep your family together and to keep him from falling into an unemployed back hole. So now you leave. You pack your shit and take your child and you go home. You spend the rest of your life alone, but you prefer that, right? You go, because you don’t put up with that shit and he lost you.” I dialogued with myself the rest of the night. Both selves were right: I should go and I should stay. Ultimately, he will be the one to choose.

When the sun started to come up, I stood up and peered into the crib. My baby's soft cheeks were rosy, and it was a good dream. My baby would be one in a few days, and in a few hours our family would be downstairs to celebrate. I got in the shower so that my mom would not be able to hear my tears or my thoughts. “My child loves him. Can I really break that up? It isn’t your fault though: you were faithful. I fixed my hair and caked on the make-up to hide the bags under my eyes.  I could hear mom downstairs with my baby, making breakfast. I stood in front of my closet trying to find something to wear that would be forgiving. I still was not used to my body after giving birth. I heard a vehicle door slam, then a few moments later, our front door opened and closed.

He walked up the stairs and the vomit started to rise, but I managed to keep it down.

“Sorry about last night. I didn’t know I was so drunk. I’ll fix the door.”

“That isn’t why I had your dad come get you.”

“Then why?” He sounded annoyed.

I took a deep breath, mustered all my courage and looked him in the eyes. “I am only going to ask this once. If you lie to me, I will pack my things tonight and this marriage is over.”

Silence.

“Did you sleep with Her last year when you were out of work?”

As the tears started to well up in his eyes, he looked to the floor. “Yes.”

He tried to pull me close, and begged me to hug him. He pleaded with me to say something, anything. I looked down at the top of his head. He could not bear to look at me. All I could think was how unfair this all was. I married the love of my life. I married my best friend and my entire life as I know it changes at the glance of a text message, because he could not keep it in his pants? In that moment, I decided to stay. Not for him. Not because I am a faithful Catholic. Not because I took my vows seriously, and not for our child. I chose to stay because I deserved the life I wanted. I had spent the last five years and change bending over backwards to make our marriage work. I did in the face of insults and fear. I did it during happy times and awful times while he left it up to me to pick up the pieces. After pleading for his honesty throughout the course of our entire relationship, if I bailed the moment he was finally honest, what would that prove?

“Do not ask me to comfort you right now. That is unfair. You need to take a shower and go get the birthday cake. I will talk to you later. If you can continue to stay honest, I will stay. Lie to me and this is over.”

I bit my lip to keep myself from crying and I walked away. 

Divorce was not an option.

Marriage is a big deal. It means committing yourself to another person for life. It means making someone else's needs equal to your own, and compromising and loving someone else until death. This is not always the easiest thing to do. It certainly is not easy when you have just found out your husband was having sex with other people while he was unemployed and you had not only just given birth to your first child, but also were eyeball deep in trying to care for said child while you were at work so that he could concentrate at home on finding work.

My parents divorced when I was in high school. I felt as though I could stop it, and when I could not it left me very angry and upset. I escaped to college and had the added guilt of feeling as though I had abandoned my siblings. We all went through really tough times dealing with our parent's divorce, and all of us came out of the mess with the steely resolve to never ever go through it again. My faith was a part of this desire, but no more than my parent's divorce.

When I met my husband, this was something that we talked about before we were ever at a point where we knew if marriage was an option. He told me he felt the same way. If we were going to commit, it was for good.

Fast forward to our first year of marriage. To be honest, it felt as though I was doomed to live a life of misery. I was unsure of my ability to have children, and our life was incredibly chaotic. My husband seemed to have one foot out the door and told me that his feelings for me had changed. It was heartbreaking to be 22, newly married, experiencing family tragedy and feel entirely alone. At that point, the only thing keeping me from leaving suddenly was my view that our marriage was sacramental, and that I promised before God to be with him always.

I felt as though he was keeping his commitment to me because he hated to lose. Getting married young when all of your friends are telling you not to is tough. Getting divorced within a year is tougher. Going through any of the above when you hate losing or admitting you are wrong is even more difficult. My husband hates to lose and hates to be wrong. I did not feel loved or safe: I felt rejected and as though I was something to "win."

The next few years were slightly easier, but there were really tough moments. Our sex life was still mostly about him, and it was common for him to masturbate. I tried to ignore it. Our arguments would get scary. I also am not a fan of losing an argument, so I would let things bottle up and then get confrontational; there were a few moments that I was afraid he would hit me. The truth was, I knew little about his mind and what he was capable of. When I tried to get him to open up, or to talk about things when we were not upset, I was shut out and ignored.

I remember one particular incident that nearly ended the marriage long before I was aware of the affairs. We were at a party at his cousin's house. Her husband was not particularly a nice person. I was talking to him on the couch to pass the time. He was a little too drunk and pretended to accidentally feel me up. I awkwardly smiled to not make a scene, and stood up to go to the car. As I began walking to the door, I noticed my husband was coming in, and suddenly his cousin's husband rushed passed me to tell him all about how he accidentally groped me and he was so sorry. My husband looked at me and I was still a little shocked at how fast everything had happened, so I didn't look upset. So he high-fived him. When his cousin's husband left, I told him I was going home and he could stay or go, I didn't care.

He followed me out to the car to ask what had happened and explained why he thought I was not upset. The initial shock was wearing off and I was really angry. They were supposed to go to a game the next morning, and I was really furious at the high-five. I exploded in the car and things got really awful. He began screaming at me in a way I had never experienced from him. I was driving, but was fearful of violence. I stopped the car outside our home and told him to get out. When he refused, I got out and got into our second vehicle.

I had no where to go. It was late, and I had no one to call. I waited until I was sure he was asleep and slept on the couch. I heard him leave for the game in the morning and I went to our room to pack. I called the only friend I had (another of his cousins) to see if I could stay there for a little while so I could collect my thoughts. She told me no. It was hard to make the choice to leave and not be there for work the next day, so I stayed and let the matter drop.

This is one of the most extreme examples of what our marriage was facing at various points. There was a side of him that I could not fully know: there was rage, anger and events that I only saw glimpses of until After Knowing.

There were a few times that I had considered leaving the marriage, but the fact that I had put so much thought and prayer into the decision to take my vows, made life afterwards look depressing. Could I move back near family and be divorced before 25? I could not handle the separation from the Eucharist that would entail: God was all I would have left to show for my life. I did not know if a separation was easier or more difficult: it certainly seemed lonely. I missed the boy I had dated. I missed the way he looked at me and kissed me: I missed feeling as though we were meant to be together.

By the time we began to seriously figure out whether or not I could have children, things were better. We seemed happy again, and had spoken a few times about those first few years and the things we regretted about it all. There was love again, and I felt as though I was an equal again.

To be honest, I am not sure what began his search for another affair. My theory is that it had something to do with being out of work with a family to support. Or that he had too much time on his hands. To think that I was initially worried he would spend too much time looking at porn is now laughable given the reality. While I always had suspected something devious was happening during our first year of marriage, I never suspected it would happen again, let alone with the woman he chose. The betrayal is unreal to this day.

I did not want a divorce or separation After Knowing. I needed him to know that if he did not love me or wanted out, that he needed to just say so. After all, that had always been our understood arrangement: No cheating, just be honest.  I was more confused by his behavior than anything: all he had to do was say he wanted out and I would go live my very Catholic separated life and be on my way. So why didn't he just say it?

The empowerment that came with knowing that I had always done all that I could do to fulfill my vows was strong. Knowing that there was an underlying issue made me feel relieved. I did nothing to deserve this, a fact he was rather clear about. The truth is always more complicated than we imagine it to be: he did not want his marriage to be over, but he also did not want to give up casual sex. This was the moment that he full understood that he had an addiction to overcome and a choice to make, because the double life was no longer possible.

After Knowing, it took some time for me to know and feel as though he made his choice and he wanted to be married to me. I cannot tell you when exactly I began to trust it, but over the past few years I have grown to trust.

I still do not know what would happen if our marriage regressed. It seems that when I reflect on the past years of our marriage, it is hard to imagine a situation that we could not conquer, or a time when I am not called to unconditional love for him.

Every day of our marriage since the affairs surfaced, my husband has proven to me that he loves me and that his wife and children are all he cares about in this world. He works incredibly hard to make sure I know this. I do not fear him, and I do not feel rejected. Divorce was not an option.

How I Knew Things Would Be Different

Sometime in the first few weeks After Knowing, I called my closest friend. I asked her if she thought my husband was capable of change. She knew we had struggles, but I don't think she was expecting that phone call. It was a question that was in the back of my mind for a long time After Knowing.

I previously mentioned that he had written me a note soon after that detailed how he would begin to start over. Here are some of the ways that he began to change, and are still different to this day:

1. He did pretty extensive research on Sex Addiction, and within the first few days had deleted all pornography from the computer, and set about ceasing masturbation.

2. He began coming to Mass with his family. Raising our child Catholic was important to me, and if I had to do it alone, I was determined to do so. He came to the realization that he was not acting as though he was fully a part of our family if he was not attending Mass with us. It was the answer to a very long held prayer for me.

3. He began to let me know when he would be late coming home from work, and would send me short emails from time to time.

4. He let me be angry.

5. He accepted responsibility when he was in the wrong or if he helped contribute to a problem: it was no longer a battle of wills when we had an argument because there was some honesty again in our marriage.

6. He asked if I could arrange for us to renew our vows on our anniversary. We needed a restart button, and this was better. We renewed our vows with the priest that was at our wedding, with our child and our close friends present.

Though I still reserve the right to change my mind, we have not ever participated in or sought out marriage counseling. We agreed that if it ever became more than we could handle, if I felt we were no longer speaking honestly with each other, or if I felt as though there was any back sliding, that we would find a counselor. To date, there has not been a need.

The night of our sixth wedding anniversary was when we renewed our vows. We ate dinner with our closest friends, and had a rare evening to ourselves after attending Mass and the renewal. About a month and a half later,  it was time for the appointment my doctor had requested, and he asked that my husband come with me. It was there that God answered another prayer. It was confirmed that  we had conceived our second child the night we had renewed our vows.

Life After Knowing is not always easy, but as the two year mark draws near, I can honestly say I do not think about it every waking moment. Most days it does not enter my thoughts. For me, staying was the easy part: the difficult thing was allowing him to change and take the lead. I stayed for many reasons, but none of them would have mattered if he had not been able to make changes and accept responsibility for his actions. It may seem as though staying was a push-over move, but I assure you that nothing about it is weak. I fought for my marriage and so did my husband. We fought together for the marriage that we wanted, and the life we live now is nothing like the life we lived Before. We are in a loving and committed relationship. Our children have parents that love them dearly and that love each other.

The reason I wanted to tell my story, is because affairs are things that no one wants to talk about. They are humiliating and demeaning, and no one wants to feel as though they are a fool. I assure you that you are not alone. Sexual dishonesty such as affairs, masturbation or sex addictions is unfortunately more common than most of us want to let on. Dishonesty in marriage happens. If you have experienced marital dishonesty and would like to tell your story anonymously, please email me at fromtheashes2012@gmail.com.

Sexually Transmitted Disease Testing

Once I was relatively certain there were no more surprises coming my way, I set about letting him fix it. The truth was, I had given my all to our marriage since day one, and I was exhausted. It was time for him to do some leg work. A raw honesty entered our marriage. It is not in me to be dishonest; I have an incredibly difficult time with it, but I felt as though I was a new person. I did not try to save his feelings when he asked me questions. I answered with brutal honesty. Before I Knew, I had been thinking about more children, and I was furious that my entire life was now thrown into this blender. Everything felt so uncertain and in a way I hated him a little for ruining things. When it was time for my yearly doctor's appointment, I asked for an STD test. My husband had planned on going anonymously into a clinic so that his work would never find out, but I needed an answer and I wanted to go to someone I trusted.

It was humiliating. My doctor was well versed in NFP and very Catholic, so he did all he could to comfort me while asking ridiculously hard questions so he could determine what kinds of tests I needed. He asked me if I was staying. I immediately responded yes without a thought. He asked if I wanted the numbers to a few NFP instructors for a refresher, and I realized that I didn't know if I could have any more children with him.

I came home in a foul mood. It was a difficult day. He was very upset that I had testing done, and I told him there was no way I was going to go to a clinic by myself, and that he had a month since I had brought it up to do something about it. he didn't, so I did. What followed was one of the most difficult conversations of the entire ordeal.

I told him that I was tired. I explained that a part of me truly needed to be able to be secure in believing I could support myself and my child if the changes did not stick. A part of me needed a back up plan, because I could not go through it all again as I was barely making it through it the first time. I told him that I did not know if I was willing to have more children with him. He asked me if I wanted to stay, and I said yes. I told him my answer is yes, but that it would take some time for me to trust him again. I asked if he could do it again, if he would have still asked me to marry him, and he said yes. He looked me in the eyes and told me that even if I couldn't trust him yet, he knows things are different and that he can change and that he would spend the rest of his life convincing me of it.

After some thought, I think I really just gave in. It had been a difficult month to say the least. I went to Eucharistic Adoration that week and I just repeated over and over "I can't do this. If it is Your will for us to have more children, then You decide. I can't do this..." I let go of that control because it was more than I could handle.

After the results of the testing came back negative, I was able to breathe a bit easier. My doctor asked that I come in again in a few months, so I set the appointment. Then my husband and I just focused on rebuilding.

After the Initial Shock

After our guests had left and our child put to bed, my husband and I were face to face with all the chaos. I had spent the entire day sick to my stomach. I felt defeated, angry, disgusted and slightly validated.  While I truly had believed that things were on solid ground between us when I discovered the affair, There had been times in our marriage where I was incredibly insecure, and my gut was telling me there were things he was not telling me. I had always felt especially queasy around this woman that would go as far as calling me names in the grocery store if she saw me. Knowing that I was right in my instincts about her was both validating and sickening. I asked if it had happened before while we had been together and he said no. After this initial question, I suddenly felt a surge of empowerment. The things that I wanted for our life together and the things that I wanted for me were crystal clear in that moment. We had married each other with the understanding that divorce was not an option. If we were going to be married it was for our entire lives. As I considered what I called My Life After Knowing, everything felt miserable, but what I wanted and expected was very clear.

I told him that the only steps in fixing the mess that I would lay out for him, were that he cut off all contact with her, that he must tell his friend the truth, and that he answers any question that I have honestly. Sometime in the next few days I sent him an email telling him he needed to figure out the answers to the questions he wasn't answering. I wanted to know details, because my version of our time together while this was happening was not real. I unleashed nearly seven years of being made to feel paranoid and like I was not enough for him.

Our marriage was good, and we had many good times, but in the difficult times I was made to feel as though it was my fault: that I was not meeting the expectations he had for me. I bent over backwards to make our lives better in the hard times, and he was simply never at fault for our problems. Pornography and masturbation had always been a problem in our marriage. No matter how many different ways I tried to explain how it hurt me and effected us, it fell on deaf ears. I felt unwanted and unneccesary, which made me try all the more harder to be what he wanted. In the first year we were married, I had finally received some answers concerning a health matter. I was learning to manage it, and dealing with the symptoms when he told me that he no longer loved me the same way that he did before we were married. Sex was about him when we had sex. He was taking night classes after work and would be gone until nearly mignight most nights. The events of this first year strongly influenced my view of myself within our marriage. His words haunted me, even though things did get better.

After my email, he wrote out a response and read it to me. It outlined his regrets and his plans to make it right for us. He was crying so hard that he could barely get through the letter. It was the first time in seven years that he apologized sincerely.

Nearly a month After Knowing, another serious discussion culminated in him not only revealing two other affairs, but that he believed he had an addiction to sex. One of the affairs was before we were married, and one occured during our first year of marriage. He had been lying to me about how late his classes went, and instead was trolling around bars looking for casual sex opportunities. The sick feeling returned.

To pretend it was anything less than nauseatingly difficult would be a falsehood. I had flashes in my head of how much easier it would be to slap him and walk away. How I wanted to hurt him as much as he hurt me. I replayed our entire life together and nothing seemed true. I looked at photos and I hated what I saw. It was all a lie. I felt stupid, even though I had long ago convinced myself that he probably had cheated on me during the first year we were married. I felt angry.

Something interesting came with that anger: it was a kind of selfishness. I was no longer apologetic for not understanding how to make him happy; rather I was determined to give him the chance to make me happy and to treat me the way I deserved to be treated. I felt as though I had vowed to be his wife and that I was going to hold up my end of the bargain despite the fact he had failed to hold up his. I wanted a chance at happiness, and I wanted our child to have both parents in a loving marriage. I was not staying in the marriage for his sake or for our child's sake: I was staying because I deserved to be happy, and I deserved happiness with the love of my life.