This is looooooong. And not even 1/3 of the story, but I'll get there. If you're bored that I go on ad nauseum with details you could give a sh!t about, sorry. It's my therapy. Grab a coffee. Or a vodka. Whichever. And be prepared to completely change your opinion of me & vote me off the island.
Remember now, I am culling this saga from emails, changing names/cities etc. So if you are a long time reader, you'll recognize the old story here as it changes into the new one.
Also bear in mind this narrative is a 2010 voice and speaks about 2009, i.e. this is not occurring now, although some parts are written present tense. And every bit of this story happened POST separation, The Husband had moved out of Stepford to Clean Slate.
Pardon the non-capital letters, texting-type abbreviations, and run-on sentences. When I am writing to keep up with the voices in my head, all bets are off. More to follow after. so...
i had an affair w glenn about 15 yrs ago, he was married, i was not. it was exciting and fun and wrong, but i knew it wasn't going anywhere. yes i was friends w them both, we were all a big group of friends who went out together all the time, we were in a supper club together, i was at their wedding for gods sake.
he was attracted to me from the moment we met, it was no secret. he would kiss me occasionally when we were out in a group, away from everyone, quickly and on the sly. it was fun, we were both flirts, and i just wrote it off as such initially.
we both remember well the very first time he kissed me, waaaay before this turned into anything real, climbing into a convertible mercedes around 2am with a huge group of people. it was dark, he was climbing over me and kissed me as he climbed past me. that kiss scared him how powerful it was, he said later. we both remember that event in vivid detail, for only having been about 2.6 seconds long, it was significant somehow all those years later. he wasnt yet engaged to lucy, but they were living together and had been dating for years
so we have this crazy fling, version 1.0 we call it now. he told me things he never shared with anyone; we both grew up in abusive households, have a lot in common
but 1.0 ends, i meet the husband, get married, move away. g said later how he was so mad at me for that, the irony. hello, you're married stupid. and after i ended it with him, he shows up one night at my bedroom window (pre-husband obviously). i remember i sent him away "go back home to your wife" and i remember how HARD that was to do.
actually his wife is the first person in our group i told about my marriage, bc the husband & i had eloped. i felt badly about the affair, but knew she would kill my ass if she ever found out. that's part of the reason i ended it. i thought the best thing i could do is just try to be a good friend to her. magical thinking anyone? we had a bday party for me about 3 weeks after we eloped to announce we were married - she was the only person i told our secret prior & she made the wedding cake forfuckssake. jesus i hate myself just typing all this stuff out. i suck.
anyway, she still has no idea about our version 1.0 - i almost wish she did, although at this point i don't think there is anything she could learn about him that would make her leave if she hasn't already.
so january 2009 or earlier, i find lucy on facebook and friend her, not glenn. that was on purpose. and then g finds me, through her page i assume, and friends me. i look thru her fb photos (many albums showcasing social and couple bliss), they look pretty & happy and are living this great life with money and travel and lots of friends, many of whom i know & were my friends when i was single. i am glad for them - sincerely very glad - and think all is well, and that he's moved past whatever it was that made him unhappy with her. I was just so thrilled to find that whole pocket of friends again from that happy, social time in my life: pre- soul-killing marriage.
g starts IM-ing me on fb, first w her in the bkgd, totally benign, 'lucy says hello', etc. and then one night when he is in another city on business. he travels for his job and was at a hotel. that night he says he has thought about me every day for 15 years, would see me tomorrow if he could, we reminisce about how crazy it all was, the mercedes incident and the affair itself, until sometime past midnight. it was all very flattering and i had never forgotten him - but did not imagine i would ever see him again.
he starts texting me next. so i send him a soft-boundary email: you are still married and we can only be friends. he says okay, backs off for a week or so, and then we are texting again when he is on a trip to Dallas. that damn connection is still there, just the fun, smartass humor, completely-on-the-same-wavelength connection.
he wants to come see me in stepford, just take me to dinner. i say: are you going to tell lucy? he says: i didn't really think about it. i say, no. no. no. no.
i put him off for about 3 weeks or so, then:
"please," he says, "i just need to see your face." -I bolded that line because it that is the sentence that pushed me over the fence. he had a gift for phrases that pierced my soul, that was just the first of many.
~then i say, "oh come on then".
he was so excited it was engaging. beyond excited to see me. when? how soon? what day? what time? where do you want to eat? after years with someone who didn't even look up when i walked in a room, his enthusiasm was refreshing and nice. like opening a springtime window in a stuffy room.
so on wed, february 10 of last year [2009] he comes to stepford. i meet him in the lobby of his hotel, we hug, he is literally shaking all the way to his core. i felt it. he tells me later he was pacing so hard in the lobby that the clerk asked if he was meeting someone important and he said yes.
we go to eat sushi and are talking so much the waitress has to come back 3 different times bc we keep forgetting to look at the menu.
after dinner we go to a bar to watch the bball game. we are at the bar watching the big screen, i'm cheering my team, we are talking, and he leans over and kisses me. and i know this is trouble bc it is crazygood. i let myself be talked into going back to his room for the 2nd half of the game.
i tell myself i am not going to sleep with him, but i am really bad at that, and i do. and it is beyond amazing. best there ever was or will be. several hours later i leave for my own house. he doesn't sleep all night, he texts me the next day. i see him the next week in 2 more cities, and again his body shook when i first hugged him in greeting, and i was touched. and he tells me he loves me and always has.
and so it begins. again. version 2.0
we chase each other over 2 states once or twice a week for the entire year and i fall madly deeply in love with him like i have never loved anyone ever. EVER. omg just typing this is making me cry. i need more meds, lol
we stayed in hotels in each city we visited - yet went out to dinners, to concerts and sporting events, things we could never have done in 1.0 bc people knew us in our former town and we couldn't possibly be seen alone together. 1.0 we hid. 2.0 we played in public. this was an improvement. we could go out as a couple. the hiding comes later.
between january and september of 2009 we have over 38,000 txts between us (thirty. eight. thousand.) if that tells you anything about our constant contact. he erased as he went, for obv reasons, i saved them all and now have them ported over on my computer. they are my letters in a shoebox for when i am an old woman. to re-read & treasure. in my mean nasty phases i want to print and bind them and send them to her wrapped in ribbons
march 2009: she is looking through all his credit card receipts and sees that he came to stepford. blows a fuse because she knows i am there, and it is nowhere he travels for work. that's the first we start lying and covering up: he came to stepford to talk to me about things, bc we have always been able to talk - and that part is true. we did talk about his marriage and how he tried to leave about 6 months earlier, she lost her mind, the counseling they did that he eventually continued solo (very familiar), she never wanted children and he did, and why he's unhappy and living in the guestroom. and we talked about my marriage and what all went wrong in it etc.
of course the fact that we are having a crazy love affair is Omitted.
So. Next: july 4th weekend they go to the beach, but are staying with different sets of friends, he with boys, she with girls. like it's high school. same type arrangement over valentine's day earlier that year. his friend b lives at the beach, and was a friend/acquaintance of mine also. [sidebar: b got married in may 2009 in the carribean - g goes to the wedding & tells b about me - texts me from the wedding and runs up astronomical cell bills on his company. he tells a few friends about me throughout the year. that he loves me, doesn't want to hurt her, etc.]
so anyway, we are at july 3rd. he and i are txtg constantly that night, and one of the last txts i send is that my heart is at home with him. he erases up to that txt, was drinking, passed out asleep. she goes into the house (?), gets his phone, finds that text.
the next day i am at work and my phone rings, it's a beach area code so i think its g calling from b's house, i answer. it's lucy. "do you have time to tell me what's going on btwn you and my husband?" "no. i don't" she tells me about the text she found on his phone, that i of all people should know better (g had told her about the husband's affair) i say: i'm at work, that i have no problem talking to her, just not today, & hang up. i had every intention of at least telling her that g was miserable & needed someone to talk to. immediately i contact g. who asks me to pleasepleaseplease not talk to her, so i ignore a later text and phone call. and add her phone number in my contacts as "don't answer"
she has both sets of parents waiting at their house when they arrive home from the beach the next day in an Intervention of sorts. He is to get off facebook and have no more contact with me. she sends me a scathing, mostly inaccurate email about how awful and hypocritical i am, that she should have known when he came to stepford AT MY INVITATION (not!) bc i have cheated on every boyfriend i ever had (untrue! but i had no intention of correcting any of her errors with a reply), and she made me my wedding cake for god's sake, etc. and i need to get my hyprocritical bible-quoting ass to read about the sanctity of marriage, etc. you know, who can argue? i'm wrong as fcuk on paper, no question, but i love him. complete role reversal.
she unfriends me, and quits fb. he deactivates his fb acct. i cannot tell you how much i miss him on the facebook. we used to do our song lyric statuses for each other and send each other funny flair. it's no fun without him. anyway, i digress
we are so insane that a mere 3 weeks later, the weekend of july 24, she goes back to the beach for a weekend with her friends, and i drive to Pastville (the beloved city we met in, and i wish to this day i had never left it) and spend the weekend with him. we stay at a hotel, but i go to his house a few times. i thought he would hide me, as in version 1.0 but we went to the movies, and out to dinner, and dessert. it was one of the best weekends we had together, ironically. full of love and future-talk and fun.
august 2009: she jacks his phone again around 2am and finds photos i have sent to him. NOT the olan mills variety portraits, mind you. (and let me just say, that's been new. i haven't trusted anyone enough to do that stuff before. we sent pics back and forth this whole year) and the next morning i wake up to a vicious voicemail she left at 2-3am about how hideous my various body parts are, and she tells me not to fcuk with her.
so at this point, it all looks to her like i am just a filthy whore who is chasing him. this too blows over somehow (!!) - she really did not want to live in reality - and we are still staying in hotels all over 2 states declaring our undying love etc.
wed, september 2, 2009 he is playing golf that afternoon and poker at night, texting me how much he loves me while i am packing to move, etc. around 1-2am my phone rings, it's him. he returned home to find out she went thru his stuff yet again and found a flash drive he put photos on - again, not the olan mills variety, and he has apologized a zillion times for even saving them. he had switched jobs two months prior and before he turned in his blackberry in july, he transferred the photos from it to a flash drive. said he couldn't bear to delete them. and of course he should have.
bc what he came home to was an empty house with photos hanging all over the kitchen. she printed and taped them everywhere. [hello, the lifetime original movie is calling and wants its script back!] -and it wasn't just me in the photos this time. it's both of us. so - he's done, he packs his stuff, he gets in the car and drives 4 hours to stepford. arrives at sunrise. we spend 2 days together, she doesn't know he's here w me.
he goes back the 3rd day to discuss what he thinks is going to be a separation. haha i wish. what i have learned about g thru all this, and it started right around here: when he is stressed out like this and under extreme pressure and questions, he shuts down and disappears, which he did for about a day or so. not at all who i thought he was in all my prior knowledge of him. he txts me not to use that phone, she is busting into everything, to contact thru yahoo messenger or email instead, blahblah.
he's in a hotel and on friends' sofas for the next week or so. she calls and leaves another fun voicemail that since i fcuked with what was important to her, she's going to fcuk with what's important to me, that maybe she should send these photos to the husband, that she has his phone number (a surprise), and would do whatever she needed to ensure that i don't see my kids again, etc.
- they don't have kids together, btw, which is entirely evident in her saying that kind of sh!t to me. the husband's affair partner has a boy my daughter's age, and i never in a million years would have threatened that sh!t. you just don't do that.
but if you're not a mother, i guess you do. another bone of contention in their marriage. she's on so many psychotropic cocktails (he says, and she was when i knew her years ago. but who hasn't been at some point?) i guess she was never 'ready' to have kids, he always wanted them, and resented her for it. i knew back when they were both my friends that kids were not on her agenda. it was just some unspoken knowledge. g & i had talked about how we wished my kids had been his. he asked if i would have another baby. we talked about what we would name a baby boy, he picked the first name and i picked the middle name. sigh. but anyway.
and thus ends part one of version 2.0, feb to sept 2009 - i'm sure if i were reading this as an objective 3rd party i can see all kinds of holes and red flags and would beat my own ass for my idiocy. what i cannot properly convey in these words is the very real feelings between us. he met my two best friends in stepford during this time, who both loved him, i remember one said we glowed together. and that we were meant to rescue each other.
he would text those friends directly and tell them how much he loved me, that i was the only bright spot in his life, and that if he married me it would be forever. of course now they love him a lot less, and want me to walk away, but we are getting to that part Yes, yes, yes, I know. You think I don't? I KNOW, man. Judge away. This whole blog since 2006 has been the horror of discovering my husband's affair, what led up to it, the war-torn aftermath. And now I have been on the other side of it.
I have both perspectives, in sharp relief: I am the Sybil of extramarital affairs. Now can be called as an expert witness on both victimized wife and co-conspirator. Welcome to my world. Hate me yet? what did lucy call me? bible-thumping hyprocritical ass. that's about right i guess. unintentional hyprocrite, party of one.
And during the events that unfold next, I knew so many times how lucy felt with each discovery, or imagined scenario. How she flailed wildly about to keep her life as she knew it Under Control Dammit. To have her hands on all the flying parts. To not lose the appearance, the superficial, the framework. And to a great degree she was more successful than I was. But in other ways she failed miserably. And I so wanted to sit down over coffee with her and give her advice about the whole bloody mess. I fantasized about it so many times. Because here I am with all this hard-won wisdom and I'm dying to give her that perspective and of course I cannot possibly. How arrogant of me. The conflicts of my soul.
Because, in the end, it has nothing to do with her. And you cannot force anyone to behave how they don't want to. Or keep them away from the person they love. Well, you can. For a time. But then they will just go underground.
Even if you don't think you are able to stick around, bc I am now a nasty two-faced POS in your horrified slack-jawed opinion, please do. But be mindful of my request in the previous post: be gentle. This whole story has an ending like The Sixth Sense.
we are who we are and we make so many choices because we want to be loved. it's amazing how easy it is to look at someone else's life and tell them what they should do....but we don't have that perspective on our own lives... sue mac
we are who we are and we make so many choices because we want to be loved. it's amazing how easy it is to look at someone else's life and tell them what they should do....but we don't have that perspective on our own lives...
sue mac