Yup.
Happy freaking anniversary to me.
Three years. Three years I've been thinking about what happened Memorial Day Weekend in 2012, and here I am writing about it. Maybe writing will help rid me of the images that haunt me every time I think about this holiday.
What are those images? Well, some are the ones that I experienced myself, and others are the ones that I have conjured up in my mind.
Let me start with the ones that I saw for myself. I am a runner. Or a jogger. Or sometimes just a walker. Yeah, I like to be a walker these days. But, three years ago I was more of a runner/jogger. I had signed up for a 5k that took place the Saturday before Memorial Day. My husband decided at the last minute to run the race, too. I have never expected to run with my husband. He is MUCH taller than me, and he likes to go FAST. I, on the other hand have no desire to go fast. I like to enjoy myself. Especially in a 5k. A 5k is usually a "friendly" race where you are supporting a good cause. So, back to my image. I was running, and really struggling. I had stayed up way too late the night before, and I was just trying to finish the 3.1 stinking miles. I knew that my husband would have finished at least ten minutes before me, so I expected to see him watching, and waiting for me to finish. Nope. Totally wrong. I searched the faces of the spectators. No husband in sight. I looked and looked for him the last two blocks or so of the end of the race. He's really not hard to find. He's tall, right? I was thinking that he HAD to be finished. Where was he? I finished, got my post-run treat (which really isn't necessary after a 5k) and saw him. He was standing a ways off talking with some friends. He didn't even know I had finished. I felt like he didn't even know I was there. I was searching for him, wondering if he was even there, and there he was just hanging out. I was crushed. Hurt. Angry. Confused. Sad. Just writing about it now I get that same pit in my stomach. How could he not even know I had finished? How could he not be waiting for me? I left. I had to pick up our daughter, and I left. I drove to my mom's to get her. This 5k has a cute kids race after the adults are finished, and I needed to pick her up and bring her back so she could race.
Needless to say, I was upset. As I drove back to the race with my daughter, I was in tears. I was heartbroken. I had gotten the cold shoulder from my husband for no reason that I could think of. When I got back to the race my husband was still oblivious to what I was doing. I took my daughter to the kids race and watched her run. End of 5k.
So, I can't really remember when I finally told my husband about how I felt, but when I finally did, he was really put out that I expected him to wait for me to finish. I felt neglected, ignored, pushed aside, blah, blah, blah.
OK. Now for the images that I didn't witness myself.
After the big reveal, (you know, the day I learned about the affair) I learned what my husband was going through at the 5k. He had taken my boys camping with the men/boys in my family the night before. He and the other woman had decided to meet that Friday evening. He had left my boys with my dad, and she had gone to dinner with me and all of the other women in my family. After dinner, when the ladies were hanging out talking and having dessert, she rushed to meet with my husband. (Insert unwitnessed images that I don't want to share) After their encounter, my husband came home, showered, and waited in our bed for me to come home. When I got home, I was shocked to see him there. He was supposed to be camping, right? No, he decided to run in the 5k the next morning. All right. Sounds good. Well, yeah. We know what happened the next morning.
Hindsight is 20/20. Now I know that he was caught up in a web of his own and he really couldn't care about what I was doing that morning. I sure hope that now it's written out, I can let it go.
So here we are, today.
Happy. Freaking. Anniversary. Cheers to the three year anniversary of the worst Memorial Day Weekend in my life's history.
Where are we today? In the middle of the aftermath of a relapse. Six weeks ago, my husband viewed pornography and neglected to tell me about it until this week. Ignoring all of the advice of our counselor. "Tell your wife immediately!" That's what has been drilled into his head for the last 18 months. Here I sit, looking at myself, and my flaws, wondering what's wrong with me? When will this nightmare end? The sore just starts healing, and the scab gets ripped off again.
I'm just going to live in my sorrows and eat chocolate until Tuesday. Maybe Tuesday will be a better day.
Maybe someday soon I can say again that I'm happy, so happy.
-The Wife
