Is a 180 possible?

High upon a mountain, on a cold rainy night, we sit in our car overlooking the city below. The beauty of the night was shown by the lights of the city reflecting on the lake that surrounds it. I began telling him how much I’m going to miss this place and in a very sweet voice, he tells me I don’t have to go. I can stay and enjoy more nights like this in the city where I’ve called home over the last few years. He then leans over and gives me a gentle passionate kiss. During the time he’s kissing me, my mind wonders back to the time we met. It was during a time when he was just as passionate as this. Where had he been all these years? This was the man I once knew. The one I had missed for so long. The one I had wanted to show me love like this over the last several months.

As the passion heats up, one thing leads to another and we lose control. We are the same, yet different together. It was as though we had just met, with the chemistry and attraction so thick we couldn’t brush it away from our eyes.

The closeness was comforting and the fact that he could show me love was something that I had been missing for a very long time. Something I’ve craved, wanted and begged for and I finally got it. The question is, how long will it last before things go down hill? A person cannot do a 180 from one day to the next, especially after treating the one they love with such cruelty over a long period of time.

The truth of the matter, is that we relieved stress. Stress that had built up for quite some time. He might think that everything is okay. But he basically did the same thing with someone else, so I cannot take it to heart. He might think that things have changed, but after tonight I’m sure he knows they have not.

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Next: Where are his friends?

Hot blooded/Cold blooded

I feel really good and really strong. I feel I can actually see this as a friendship more then a relationship and it’ll help me get by the next few days that I’m here. I still don’t know when I’m leaving but one thing I do know is that things can change very quickly here as we are still on a roller coaster. He was really nice to me last night when he saw I was packed and ready to go.

He hasn’t talked much to me over the last few days, so I was quite surprised when he came to me and said, “Those of us who live on the Mediterranean are hot blooded people. When two people split up there is usually a lot of heat…like a torn up house and a lot of fighting between the two. If we told people what happened, they wouldn’t believe it because it was so calm when we parted. You North Americans on the other hand, are cold blooded in the sense that anger is not expressed in that way.”

My reply was..“we just know when its time to go, its time to go.”

He thinks that being calm during this time is strange and seeing it from his point of view, it probably is. I don’t think he was expecting me to be really calm and remain friends. I think he was expecting me to totally flip out, hate him and leave. One thing he doesn’t realize is that my reaction has nothing to do with where I’m from or how I was raised. This is just me and the type of person I am. A lot of Americans fight and tear up the home, etc. Its not that common but it does happen. However in my experience, people just leave each other when they least expect it or when they’ve had enough.

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Next: Is a 180 possible?

Were there other women?

Things come to mind about our life together. There were many opportunities for H to go out and find someone else. I began thinking about this time or that time when he had a good advantage away from home. The question is, were there more times or just one?

A few months ago, H had brought to my attention that a couple of years prior, he had lunch with a woman (“S”) from “that forum”, while away on a business trip. At the time, I didn’t think much of it, although I was a little upset that I was told two years after the fact. After all that has happened, I now believe he may have had something going on with her as well.

About a year and a half ago, H and I attended a face to face meeting with about 20 forum members who gathered for lunch. “S” was there along with her fiancée. When I was introduced to her, she would not look me in the eye, nor would she say anything to me at all. Looking back now, H spent most of his time that day by her side talking with her. Today “S” is still a friend of H and even though she is now married, it doesn’t really mean anything because the woman H betrayed me with, was also married.

I cannot believe that my life has come to this! Looking back on all the times I would have never given a second thought to and now, I look back and there are a lot of times that are questionable. Things will never be the same between us now that I know what H is capable of.

In addition to all this thinking, I also began comparing my H behavior now to that of a few months ago. What I have come to realize is that he is acting the same way he did prior to my finding out. He shows no remorse for what he has done. He’s not helping me get past this and says I need to help myself. He is very cold and distant and avoids me as much as possible. He doesn’t even talk much to me at all. He’s in his own little world thinking only about himself. I thought things were going to change. I thought things were going to be different and they are not.

He’s not being cruel or mean but he’s not being understanding, loving and caring. He’s in between. Maybe its not something I’m suppose to understand. Maybe I’m suppose to save myself and just go.

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Next: Hot blooded/Cold blooded

The day after

I am in total disbelief as to what happened yesterday. This morning, I felt as though I had just waken up from a bad dream and I was trying to convince myself that what did take place was all in my mind. About an hour later, I realized what had happened was actually my reality. The shooting pain started in my chest again and I was not able to shake it for nothing. My head felt like it was high in the clouds surrounded by fog so thick that I could not see in front of me. Lost and in need to find my way back, I realized that I was no longer myself and that the best part of who I was had been taken from me without my permission. I was robbed and wanted to get myself back and my life that once was.

It was at that moment when the anger set in. Who gave him permission to go out and betray his family like that? Didn’t he have any morales as a human? It totally disgusted me to imagine him bedding down with someone else and then coming to me after the fact, without me knowing what he had done. How does a man live with himself for so long and even more so, how can he lie to the one person who he claimed he loved?

All this should have hit me harder then it did. But much to my surprise, it didn’t. Perhaps it was due to the last three and a half weeks of him down talking me each and every day about my character or about me as a woman. My self esteem had already been shot and by this point there was not much more he could have taken from me. I remembered him mentioning problems in the marriage but if the truth be known, they were only issues that we had with one another. Issues that could have been easily corrected. He lead me to believe that everything was my fault and I even began to take total responsibility for everything. He thought these minor issues were marital problems? No, not by a long shot. His infidelity, now that is a marital problem and a major one. It is nothing like those small issues that he claimed would break up our marriage.

As the day progressed, so many things ran through my mind. What will I tell my daughter to convince her to leave the only home she has even known and move half way around the world? Where will we go? The only life I had ever known was in my home country. One I would now have to return back to after all these years. I have no family with whom I can depend or lean on for support and the few friends I had left behind faded over the years. At least I have my daughter who gives me the strength I need to move forward and I know deep down inside, I can make it anywhere.

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Next: The day after continued – Mis-fortunate Events?

The day after…Mis-fortunate Events?

I spent about an hour crying as though I were mourning for someone I had lost. The pain was different this time. I felt it in the pit of my stomach, way deep inside. I hid myself away in another room so my daughter wouldn’t see me so upset. Its hard to hear a little voice ask “Mommy, why are you crying?”. I have run out of answers for her and I know she is beginning to realize that something is terribly wrong with mommy.

While crying alone in my pain, the phone rang. I answered only to hear a woman ask for my husband by first name. I told her he was not home and then she hung up. At that point, my mind started racing.

Over the last eight years that we’ve been together, there has never been a personal phone call for him from a woman. After all, he does have his cell phone where all his personal calls are received. Those who know him, know he works during the day so why call him at home? Was this just a coincidence that a phone call comes through from a woman the day after I found out about the affair? Could it possibly have been her? I continued thinking and decided I would tell him about the woman who called just to see what his reaction would be.

When I confronted him to tell him about the call, he said “we can just add this on to the mis-fortunate events that have been happening lately”, claiming he didn’t know who it was. He wasn’t surprised nor worried about the call at all which lead me to believe that perhaps he had told her that I had found out and that it was indeed her.

At that point, I grew very upset . “Are phone calls going to be coming through every day that will lead me to believe that you are still in contact with her? If that’s how its going to be, then I can’t take it! Its hard enough trying to get over this! You’re not helping and on top of that, now you’re receiving calls at home! With a blank look on his face, he said “I really messed up, didn’t I?” And I replied “yes, you fucked up! There’s no other way to say it!”

After a few minutes and what seemed like an eternity of us just standing there with nothing more to say, he started in with such a cold voice…“You have to help yourself get over this” he acted as though I was sick with a cold and needed to help myself get well. How can he just act as though this were a simple virus? He is the one who stepped outside our marriage to be with someone else. He cut open my chest, ripped out my heart and shot it after it was already dying.

I replied telling him “no, you have to prove to me that it was nothing and that you love me. You have to show me understanding and help me get through this difficult time. If you can’t do that, then its over because I cannot go on like this! I cannot carry this load of shit now and try to make this marriage work! I won’t be able to get near you…I won’t be able to bed down with you…I’ll be thinking about her, what you did to her and how you shared your body with someone else. It’s not something that I can get over just like that. It’s going to take time.”

He then said with no expression on his face or feeling in his voice…“I love you, its just difficult for me to show you. I cannot help you get over this because you must do it yourself. You continually bringing up what I have done is too much for me.” Then he went on to explain.. “If the tables were turned, and it was you who had done this to me, I would hate you and never forgive you. I would divorce you and fight for custody of our daughter.”

I was completely floored and couldn’t hold back…“So I am the better person here because I can actually forgive and try to make this relationship work? You would hate me and I’m not suppose to hate you? I’m trying to keep our family together even though you would never do the same if you were in my position?”

He was speechless. Having nothing more to say, not even a comment, he turned and walked away heading back to work. He left me standing there as if I had said nothing at all.

Now that I know what he would do in this similar type of situation, do I stay and try to make this work even though he is not doing much on his part, or do I save myself by leaving this all behind me and moving on?

We all know that situations arise during the most difficult times in our lives and its during those times when we feel we cannot take on any more. Then along comes something that just adds to the load we are already carrying and its at that time when the weight is just too difficult to bare. Our steps become slower and weaker until we finally collapse. I am not quite there yet but the weight is getting much heavier with every passing day.

Status note: He is still leaving the departure date up to me.

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Next : What does he really want?

The day my heart died

It started as just an ordinary day. A day of going through all the things I accumulated over the last several years of my life here in this country. My husband and I had been in continuous conversations about our marriage and financial status over the last four weeks. At least we finally accomplished something together, a mutual agreement even though it may not have been sincere on his part and it may not have been truthful. At least its something to let us go our separate ways and say a nice goodbye to each other. There was definitely something wrong with this picture but like my husband said, it is the best option for us right now.

Before I started sorting through my things, I decided to sit down and take a break. My mind began to wonder thinking about my time here and leaving this place I had called home for eight long years. When I looked up, I saw the email program on the computer still open from last night. I was drawn to it as if it were calling to me so I decided to look through the emails. I knew that my husband had cleaned out his emails from all our computers due to the fact that I had been playing P.I. trailing him in order to find proof of what I had believed for so long. There was quite a few junk emails but one email stood out like a sore thumb. It was a personal email to him from a woman. This did not surprise me as he has received many emails from women in the past. I decided to give it a read just for the hell of it.

Now being that we live in a non-English speaking country, I had to get an on-line translator to interpret the email. I began reading the email and even though it doesn’t translate every word, you can pretty much make out what it says. The woman basically was saying he hadn’t been in contact with her for about 20 days and it was really bothering her because she felt that they had spent a wonderful time together. Right when I got to that part, I started thinking to myself “be careful what you wish for”. As I continued reading, I came to the part where she mentions they made love and it was at that point that my heart skipped a beat and continued doing so. It felt as though I was shot and the piercing pain penetrated my chest which prevented me from breathing. By reflex, my hand went over my chest and I forced a couple of deep breaths. The pain was so deep that it hurt just to breath. As I was forcing my breathing, a flash of our lives together ran though my mind as if I were watching a movie on a big screen in fast forward.

It took me a few minutes to calm down during which time I was thinking about what I should do. Should I approach him now or wait until after he got home from work? Should I let it go for a while until more evidence is obtained or is this enough to get him to admit what he had done?

What rang through my head over and over again were the words he kept telling me…..

Have you went out of me? I would ask

No, I haven’t, he would say. I have nothing to hide. Do you have any proof?

Just hearing these words echoing in my head convinced me even more so to approach him now.

I called him home from work giving him one last chance to tell me the truth. He continued denying it even after the proof was presented to him. What seemed like a lifetime later, he finally admitted to it. At that point, my world came crashing down just by hearing the words “yes I did” come out of his mouth.

Everything I cherished about our lives together had totally been ripped away from me. I don’t even recognize the man who now stood in front of me not knowing what to say or do. He just stood there and looked at me as I cried a river of tears, so hard in fact, that I had no idea I had it in me.

The pain continued way deep inside – a place that I had never felt such pain before and it was as though part of myself were dying.

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Next: The day after