Trickle Truth

When I woke up on this day 2 years ago, I had no idea that my whole life and everything I knew and believed was about to change. I had no idea that by the end of the day, my entire world would be turned upside down. 

April 24, 2018, the events of this day still haunt me. I woke hopeful he had seemed a little more himself this week then he had the past few months. I thought we had finally come out the other side of whatever the heck was going on. He got up, headed to work, and I went about cleaning the house before leaving on a bus trip. We had shared a moment that morning when he arrived back home a few hours after he left. I didn’t know then what I do now that he was also with her that morning. It was a series of odd things he had met me at the bus to give me a bag that he needed me to take with me and he would Kiss me goodbye. I had no idea when I loaded that bus @10 am what would happen next. He messaged me on the trip, but by lunch, he wasn’t replying to anything I had sent. I coached that softball game messaging him when I had a moment still no reply after the game I called his phone and got a message stating the customer I dialed had restrictions. I had my child that was with my call, and she got the same message. I called my youngest and asked where’s dad he said he is busy. I said why won’t he answer me he said his phone is broke. Which I found weird as it was new. I said, will you have him call me? A phone call I would not receive.

 Then it happened a message on Facebook.

 I would silently cry tears the rest of the bus trip. I wasn’t prepared for what was awaiting me at home. 

All the Lies the deception. 

Sadness, anger, fear all of it had set in when I arrived back to my car @11:30 from that ball trip. 

When I arrived home, I noticed his work truck missing from the driveway. 

I walked into the house to see him sitting in his uniform against the bed with the lights on at midnight, and I knew something was really wrong. I walked in. I handed him my phone showed him the message, and he gave me back my phone and said, ya, I know I was put on leave because of it today.

I stood there in shock, devastated, and the words I dreaded knowing the answer to.

 Is it true?

He said none of it!

I said, then we fight!

I was willing to stand beside him like I had the last 25 years of life and fight with him for him. I didn’t sleep at all that night. We stayed up talking about our options what we would do going forward. I knew I had to go to work as I had things I had to take care of. To this day, I regret going.  

After I arrived that morning, I would receive a phone call that would again shatter any sense of hope I had.

I remember calling and telling him what was said between the husband of the girl and me. My exact words were I will help you hide the body, but you have got to start telling me the truth. I have to know what I am getting into. He again said it was all lies. 

That’s when it started the trickle truth. A change in the story over and over again. Trickle truth!

That is what I got. It won’t take a psychologist to understand that infidelity is damaging, damaging to kids, damaging to the family. He had watched the damage with his own eye when he and my friend decided to do this. He watched again as I would find out about A. When he had walked away last time. A lot of this damage was inflicted by the lies he told so he could cheat, sneak around for an affair. Lies, more lies, deceit.

Normalcy home, work-family, trips, love notes, like not a thing, was wrong. Like he didn’t have this giant secret in our marriage that I knew nothing about that he had not been lying to me for months. I had asked him to tell me the truth. On this day and so many other days.  The money he spent in someone else. 

risking my health

Downplaying the sexual and emotional nature of an affair, “we are just friend

Lies All the damn lies. I am leaving, I just need time. In the end that's precisely what he did, He left and never looked back after he promised me that we were okay and he would never leave, 

Justification

rationalization

history rewriting

I could go on and on with this list. 

The primary reason for a cheater not telling you about the affair is to protect the cheater from the consequences of their choices.

TRICKLE TRUTH. I would live this trickle truth from this day through August. 

The trickle truth I would hear from others, small pieces I would be given and told from others.

We had been through a lot in the past quarter-century, yes, 25 years. Did he really believe at this point that I was incapable of dealing with any significant issues that face the relationship? This was so demeaning, even if he thought it would protect me from the abuse he had made me live from his infidelity.

Spoiler Alert: The damage in cheating is not your spouse having sex on some secret meeting spot.  Not the fact that he skipped off into the sunset to be with this woman willing to insert herself into someone else’s marriage willingly. The real damage is what it took to create the environment that made this affair possible, manipulation, gaslighting, the destruction of your sense of reality, walking on eggshells because your spouse is unpredictable, irrational, distant, and making you feel like a crappy partner. Then he was risking my emotional and sexual health. 

All of this came from the person I trusted most in life, my best friend, my husband, my protector, my everything. 

It messes with your sense of self, your sense of worth. 

When he made this choice, yes, choice, to cheat, he made a choice to break every boundary we had put into place. He broke every promise he had made, he broke all the work I had done on myself, on love on trust. It’s not that I couldn’t handle the truth. It was that he had so little respect for me that he felt it didn’t deserve it. 

Salt in a wound of infidelity! 

He lead me to believe his false reality because he didn’t give me a choice in the decisions he was making. He got to make a choice to do it then wanted to control the consequences of it. Denying me the ability to make my own informed choice. 

I have struggled to make any choices going forward from this day; I have tried to listen to what the Lord has wanted me to do. I have cried more tears than I ever thought possible. Where love once brought joy, love brings sadness.

I have spent hundreds of dollars and a considerable amount of time in therapy, and I have to hold onto this.

 HOPE 

To all my fellow betrayed partners navigating this aftermath of infidelity. 

I hold onto hope that there is a way out of this darkness. Hope and knowledge that support is out there for this chaos and destruction. I hope that somehow someway I will survive, and do I even dare say it thrive once again. I know staying quite only protects one, but telling my story may help many and give them HOPE.