The Whole Story and Nothing But The Story....
Full disclosure day for my CS was November 3, 2012. That is the morning I layed in our bed and asked him "Are you and ________ having an affair?" Now granted this was not the first time I had asked him this, this was the second time, the first time several months before he lied and this time he came clean with everything.....
The OW entered into our lives on March 17, 2012. She and I had moved in the same circles for years because of our autistic children that we had in common. I was the president of a not for profit for autism for 10 years before retiring from it and she was the second president to take over after my retirement some 4 years later. But last March my husband attended an autism fundraiser with me and my children where she was also helping to run the event. This was the first time the two of them would meet face to face. By that May I was in over my head with her fully inserted into our lives. She is a single mom of two girls, one teenager a year or so younger then my kids and another daughter who was 8 and autistic. By that May I was being my codependent self and offering to help watch her autistic child for the summer while she worked. Well it was within a few weeks of her dropping by daily to drop off and pick up her child that my husband and her began having an affair.
By July I was accusing him (and of course he denied it). On August 8th my mother who had just moved back to the area to retire just a few months before was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. My world was spinning out of control. Three days after my mom's diagnosis I woke my husband up in the middle of the night and I wanted answers once and for all! He was completely caught off guard and sleeping off tying one one earlier that night so I knew full well his answers would be honest once and for all and sure enough they were...well sort of. He still denied having an affair with the OW but did admit "I haven't loved you in over ten years" and then went on to say he wasn't happy, etc... my world was crumbling and I was losing every shred of sanity I had. Exactly ten minutes later he announced "I'm heading home" because we were away for the weekend at our cabin to focus on my mom and her new diagnosis and take her mind off things. Just as he was walking out to leave and I was sobbing, my mother came out of her room and collapsed, bashing her head into the counter and breaking 6 of her ribs.
Skip ahead to end of August and of course by now my mother has been diagnosed with brain tumors as well and we are going in to have the gamma knife procedure done on her brain. On that day after I brought her back home my husband and I went for a drive and once again I begged him to tell me if he was having an affair? On this day he chose to disclose "No I am not having an affair currently, but I did have one 12 years ago."
????WTF????
I go to my doctor the next day for some much needed anxiety meds and she gives me the number of a psychotherapist to go and see. I come home, hand the card to him and say "You're way more fucked up than me right now, maybe you should go?" He takes my advice and begins seeing the therapist 3x a week. Whoa! I have a mentally unstable nephew I had to place in a group home 2 years ago and the most he ever had to go was once a week??? So hubby started his sessions and I began reading the book "More Than Just Friends". I only mention these two things together because I strongly believe they are the two things that made the difference in our lives and possibly the reason we are still together today. If you don't count my mom needing an ambulance that one day, because of that he didn't leave and I believe didn't make one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
So as he continues to do more therapy he's slowly coming back to me and the kids and becoming much more stable and like the person I fell in love with, but on the other hand the OW is becoming more unstable and unhinged. They still have admitted to nothing either one of them, my mom is now in my home on hospice and I have just about had all I can take so I finally start putting my foot down for the first time in my life. I finally tell him I've had it and he can either completely quit talking to/seeing her or he can leave. "You quit the softball team she's on! You quit running whenever she calls with some broken down car or kid that needs to be picked up! You quit everything with her or you leave!" and just like that it all stopped. The next day he changed his cell phone number and the next day after that is when I asked him and he finally told me the truth and instead of it being the worst day of my life it wound up being one of the best because for the first time in months I wasn't alone trying to save our marriage.
Every day since November 3, 2012 he has shown his gratitude for me and our family. There is not a week that goes by that he doesn't say "I'm still grateful every time I come home and the locks have not been changed." We are still both in therapy separately and just now starting to discuss couples therapy. We have been to hell and back these past 15 months between the affair, losing my mom, my grandmother and my uncle but we are still here and doing everything in our power to reconnect and make this work because in the end I still love him and although I wouldn't wish an affair on anyone, it may be a very good thing it happened because the man that stands before me today is a man I haven't seen for a very, very long time and I'm glad to have him back. Don't get me wrong there are more days than fewer that I want to hang him by his short and curly's but on the whole, we now laugh way more than we cry and I will take that as a lot of tiny steps in the right direction.
The OW entered into our lives on March 17, 2012. She and I had moved in the same circles for years because of our autistic children that we had in common. I was the president of a not for profit for autism for 10 years before retiring from it and she was the second president to take over after my retirement some 4 years later. But last March my husband attended an autism fundraiser with me and my children where she was also helping to run the event. This was the first time the two of them would meet face to face. By that May I was in over my head with her fully inserted into our lives. She is a single mom of two girls, one teenager a year or so younger then my kids and another daughter who was 8 and autistic. By that May I was being my codependent self and offering to help watch her autistic child for the summer while she worked. Well it was within a few weeks of her dropping by daily to drop off and pick up her child that my husband and her began having an affair.
By July I was accusing him (and of course he denied it). On August 8th my mother who had just moved back to the area to retire just a few months before was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. My world was spinning out of control. Three days after my mom's diagnosis I woke my husband up in the middle of the night and I wanted answers once and for all! He was completely caught off guard and sleeping off tying one one earlier that night so I knew full well his answers would be honest once and for all and sure enough they were...well sort of. He still denied having an affair with the OW but did admit "I haven't loved you in over ten years" and then went on to say he wasn't happy, etc... my world was crumbling and I was losing every shred of sanity I had. Exactly ten minutes later he announced "I'm heading home" because we were away for the weekend at our cabin to focus on my mom and her new diagnosis and take her mind off things. Just as he was walking out to leave and I was sobbing, my mother came out of her room and collapsed, bashing her head into the counter and breaking 6 of her ribs.
Skip ahead to end of August and of course by now my mother has been diagnosed with brain tumors as well and we are going in to have the gamma knife procedure done on her brain. On that day after I brought her back home my husband and I went for a drive and once again I begged him to tell me if he was having an affair? On this day he chose to disclose "No I am not having an affair currently, but I did have one 12 years ago."
????WTF????
I go to my doctor the next day for some much needed anxiety meds and she gives me the number of a psychotherapist to go and see. I come home, hand the card to him and say "You're way more fucked up than me right now, maybe you should go?" He takes my advice and begins seeing the therapist 3x a week. Whoa! I have a mentally unstable nephew I had to place in a group home 2 years ago and the most he ever had to go was once a week??? So hubby started his sessions and I began reading the book "More Than Just Friends". I only mention these two things together because I strongly believe they are the two things that made the difference in our lives and possibly the reason we are still together today. If you don't count my mom needing an ambulance that one day, because of that he didn't leave and I believe didn't make one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
So as he continues to do more therapy he's slowly coming back to me and the kids and becoming much more stable and like the person I fell in love with, but on the other hand the OW is becoming more unstable and unhinged. They still have admitted to nothing either one of them, my mom is now in my home on hospice and I have just about had all I can take so I finally start putting my foot down for the first time in my life. I finally tell him I've had it and he can either completely quit talking to/seeing her or he can leave. "You quit the softball team she's on! You quit running whenever she calls with some broken down car or kid that needs to be picked up! You quit everything with her or you leave!" and just like that it all stopped. The next day he changed his cell phone number and the next day after that is when I asked him and he finally told me the truth and instead of it being the worst day of my life it wound up being one of the best because for the first time in months I wasn't alone trying to save our marriage.
Every day since November 3, 2012 he has shown his gratitude for me and our family. There is not a week that goes by that he doesn't say "I'm still grateful every time I come home and the locks have not been changed." We are still both in therapy separately and just now starting to discuss couples therapy. We have been to hell and back these past 15 months between the affair, losing my mom, my grandmother and my uncle but we are still here and doing everything in our power to reconnect and make this work because in the end I still love him and although I wouldn't wish an affair on anyone, it may be a very good thing it happened because the man that stands before me today is a man I haven't seen for a very, very long time and I'm glad to have him back. Don't get me wrong there are more days than fewer that I want to hang him by his short and curly's but on the whole, we now laugh way more than we cry and I will take that as a lot of tiny steps in the right direction.
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