Why do I find myself only writing when I am hurting and troubled?
On Friday July 28, 2017 my husband Louis started getting ready to go to work. It was a normal day in which we exchanged affectionate gestures before he left. The day before he had copped a feel on me in the kitchen, and the entire time I was constantly on the lookout for our 8 year old to interrupt us as young children seem to have a radar for when parents are sneaking little intimacies (he joked about this all the time). It has been like this over the summer in that before he would go to work, we would kiss, hug, and even sneak little naughty gestures of intimacy when our children were not looking. While he was at work, I dealt with the AC/Heating repair gentleman because our house unit was not cooling properly. We were in contact during the time via text messages so I could keep him updated on the repair situation. Because I normally have to be up early in the mornings with the children, I got ready for bed at my normal time of 9:30pm and was lying in bed by 10pm. I usually rest while waiting to hear my husband arrive home from work which is normally any time between 10:35 to 10:50 pm. Some nights (in fact more often lately) he would come into the bedroom to see if I was asleep and to kiss me goodnight before he went to sit at his home laptop to wind down from his day of work. He would do this because I had told him previously that I normally wait to hear him arrive before I fully allow myself to fall asleep. Little did I know that as I drifted off to sleep that night that my husband was planning to wake me up and destroy my life with a shocking announcement.
At 3:08 am Saturday, July 29, 2017 my husband wakes me up to tell me he is very unhappy with our relationship. He says I do not “fulfill” him. He feels we are not compatible and have never been compatible. For 14 years and 2 months he has been unhappy. I am shocked, and can’t think. Not only am I still struggling to wake up, but I am listening to my husband announce that our relationship is completely over and that nothing I say or do will change it. He tells me I have no choice in the matter; he is done with our marriage. He wants to move on with his life and seek someone who might make him feel “fulfilled” which is something he claims he never felt in our entire 14 years of being together. He wants a chance to find happiness, and he says that surely I want to be happy too, as he does not believe I have been happy. I informed him that I was happy with our family and marriage, but that I am currently unhappy with myself because I am still struggling to lose the weight from my last pregnancy while trying to take care of our 22 months old daughter. He assures me that he is not leaving me for another but that he really just wants to have the opportunity to seek a chance of finding someone who might “fulfill” him. He hopes I will not make it difficult, but wants me to allow him to have reasonable visitation with our two young children. Unable to say much of anything due to the fog of shock I was cast into at that time, I cry.
He tells me he wants to live in our guest bedroom until he can afford to get a place of his own. He wants me and the girls to have the house. He knows I don’t have a full-time job, so while I look for full-time work he will continue to pay the bills on the house until I get a full-time job. Once I get a full-time job, he will be able to afford his own place according to him, if I start paying the payments on the house mortgage. He also claims he understands it will take some time to find myself full time work. I agree but tell him one thing is that until he moves out, no dating. I don’t believe in dating while still living together would be good for my sanity nor our children. I tell him it would set a bad example for our children, but I also tell him that because I still love him I would not be able to handle watching him date others in front of me. Thus until he moves out there will be no dating.
As he turns to leave our room, I notice our shotgun which usually hangs on the wall is missing. I ask him about it, and he informs me that he was concerned about my reaction so he took it down and hid it. I ask why he felt he could not trust me when I have never shown him reason to think I would harm him. He laughs and says it was just a precaution. He walks out of our bedroom to go to the guest room for the night.
Saturday, July 30, he wakes up earlier than usual and starts helping me fold and put away clothes when he never has wanted to help with house chores. I try to talk to him on the sly because I don’t want to fight with him in front of our 8 year old daughter. I weep and ask questions from time to time during the day. Most of the questions I am asking is along the lines of why did he not tell me sooner how he was feeling? Why wait 14 years? Surely he has not been miserable the entire 14 years as he claimed.
He constantly stands firm in an almost hateful but certainly very harsh manner as he tells me it is over, and he expects me to move on with my life and find happiness without him. During this time, any time I move near to him; he quickly moves away. He keeps avoiding being near me and keeps at least 5 foot distance from me at all times. He holds himself stiff and uncomfortable in my presence. He keeps telling me that I have done nothing wrong, but we are just not compatible. I do not fulfill him.
As it is Saturday, he works. Only he uses the excuse that he is working on some graphics art work for a work project contest as an excuse to leave 30 minutes earlier than usual. Then he does not come home at his usual time, but instead stays out over an hour and an half past his usual arrival time home. I get upset. I sent him a text message that started off nice but got progressively more aggressive toward the end. It said, “Are you safe? Are you trying to worry/stress me out? Or are you really going to be this big of a fucking immature ass? At least have the curtsy to let the people who you still live in the same home know you’re okay if you are going to be so damn late.” When he finally came home, he said he was out in the parking lot shooting the bull with some co-worker guy. The guy offered him a place on his couch because supposedly Louis looked so upset at work that the guy felt maybe Louis needed a place to crash once knowing that Louis had broken off his marriage.” (now I wonder if this is even true because Louis has been caught in several lies– Edit: most likely he was spending time with his co-worker girlfriend as I now have proof the girlfriend considers this to be the date of his and her anniversary together). 
I laid into him when he got home for being so late and putting me through worry. I explain we are still married and still living together in the same home thus out of respect he should have let me know he was going to be late so I would not worry.
Then we talked because I told him that I did not want him unhappy with our family. I asked all kinds of questions to try to understand why he was so unhappy. He never could pin point anything in particular. Just a general unhappiness that I do not “fulfill” him. He is unable to give specifics.
We move on to talking about our girls and how to handle the house, visitation, my not having a full time job (because he wanted me to cut my hours back at work in order to care for our children as he had a full-time job with benefits and my job was not full time with benefits) so I can’t support myself and the girls, etc. He wants me to stay in the house with the kids. He offers to continue paying our bills until such time as I am able to get back on my feet in order to be self-sufficient. I agree to all he proposes without arguing over any of it really because it seems like he is trying to be fair to me and the kids.
Again he reiterates that he just wants me to allow him visitation time with the kids. He explains he will move out but that he can’t right away because he does not have funds to get a place of his own yet. Furthermore, if he is going to continue to pay the house bills here for the girls and I, then he won’t be able to afford a place of his own until after he gets either a significant pay raise or the transfer to a new position that he is interested in (and supposedly the department for that position is seeking him specifically out in hopes of getting him to transfer to them when this position becomes available–whenever that is as no one seems to know). He wants to remain at the house for an indefinite amount of time and keep things pretty much the way things are except he will sleep in the guest bed and I in our king sized marriage bed. He wants to move out when he gets enough money together to allow him to move, but he talks like this could take many months. Again, I agree but I have one demand. No dating. Neither of us is to date anyone while we still live together as I would consider that cheating as long as we still live in the same home. The look on his face and the posture of his body immediately alerted me that I had indeed stumbled on the issue at that point.
He immediately did an about face on him the living in the house issue and decided he would go live with his friends KKBFF and Chris who are a couple he knows because KKBFF works with him at Navy Federal Credit Union. He wants to date and does not want to wait to seek his next soul mate or future whatever. At this point, I asked him again if there was someone else. He says no there is no one in particular, but he wants to be free.
He claims he just wants to date to seek someone who will “fulfill” him. Again he is not able to be more specific so we go around and around with him playing word games. We re-hash the terms and agreements that he is proposing regarding him getting time with the kids and taking care of us financially. All of which I am willing to agree with but I push the no dating issue. I am not willing to allow either of us to date and do not want strangers coming in to the home around our girls. I explain this to him. He finally agrees that he will not date until he moves out. He makes a few text messages and tells me he will get with KKBFF the next day to discuss him staying with them until he can afford a place of his own.
Sunday, June 30th, he messages KKBFF when he gets up and arranges to meet with her at Sky Zone with her two boys and him bringing our daughter, Jasmine. He is supposed to discuss moving in with KKBFF and Chris until such time as he can get out on his own.
I let him know I will do my best to find full time work so that he does not need to stay there too long hopefully, but that I am concerned because I have been trying for full time work for years and nothing yet so far for me. Recently, I had a chance to apply for a full time position in my department, but when I mentioned it to him weeks before about the position in the department which was available, he said I should not apply because the position was “contract” work for 1 year only with no guarantee of renewal after the year. Before this breaking our marriage issue, he said it would not make sense to have me work full-time for such a job that was not secure nor permanent when he had secure and permanent work at Navy Federal. As we have never put our children in day care and always chose to work our work schedules opposite in order to be good parents, he would have to cut his hours back at Navy Federal if I took a full time position, and as it was not a secure job, his reasoning was that it would be stupid to give up a secure position with benefits on his part for me to work full-time–even though he constantly told me how he hates his job.
Around noonish, He goes off to Sky Zone with Jasmine and leaves Aurora with me. 2:14 pm, I get a text message letting me know they are still at Sky Zone that reads, “Just a heads up. We are still fine and still at Skyzone.” I replied, “Thank you for letting me know.” At 3:54pm I get a message, “Jasmine wants to go for ice cream. That fine? She refilled on time several times and jumped herself into a headache.”
At this point, I feel like he is over doing it on the keeping me informed. I send him a message saying, “I am not trying to control you damn it. I just want to know you are safe when you should have normally been home. Last night you would’ve been home an hour an half earlier on a normal night. Today I know you are out having fun with her. That fun with her is open ended no schedule time to come home. Last night you were late and didn’t tell me anything. Do you not get the difference? Last night was not about controlling you. I am not my mother. I don’t need to be in control of you and your time. I just needed to know you’re safe that everything was okay. He replies, “I understand but just making sure you know where I am with her. Over two hours later, he finally brings our daughter home.
He informs me that KKBFF and Chris are getting a new place to live around the 15th of August, so he needs to wait until then to move out of our home and into the home with KKBFF and Chris. I say “okay but just remember I don’t want any dating as long as you are still living here. It is disrespectful.” He needs to move out before dating as I don’t feel the relationship is over until he moves out plus I don’t want our girls exposed to a bunch of different strangers. I tell him I feel anyone who meets our girls should have been around a good while first so as to avoid hurting the girls.
We continue to talk and I tell him I feel he is leaving me for someone in particular who has caught his attention. I tell him how I trust he has not actually slept with her yet, but that all signs point to his having a particular person in mind for dating. He denies it at first. Eventually, after I present my factual observations of him and his behavior, he finally relents. I tell him that I noticed he had changed his appearance by trying to grow a goatee this past week. I tell him I understand his feelings of mortality after having to see an eye doctor over his blurry vision. I let him know that his face and body language spoke loudly and clearly when he made the abrupt change in when he planned to move out only after I insisted on the no dating. He finally admits there is someone he is interested in but that he has not done anything to act upon it. According to him, they have not kissed, held hands, nothing, he insists because he wanted to end our relationship first before seeking her out.
He insists that surely I have occasionally had thoughts of being with another. To which I let him know I have never in 14 years even noticed another guy because I have been way too in love with him. My whole focus has been riveted on him since the day I met him. He is shocked. I can tell from his face and body language that he had no clue that I was that focused on him as my mate/partner. His attitude is due to how he likes to claim I have an insatiable sex appetite—even to the point of calling me a nympho from time to time. I let him know that while I love sex, I can control myself and my urges because I deeply love him, so when I could not have him I used my battery operated toys without shame and always remained faithful even in my head and heart to him. My love for him was always more important that any physical sexual urges I might have because I always felt if a person truly loved someone then the person would not hurt the person they love by cheating–even emotional cheating. I have been known to joke that if there was such a thing as love at first sight, that I felt it for him when I first met him May 3, 2003. I then typically follow up with how I believe in “lust at first sight, but that love grows over time.” So no, I have never even looked at another since I met him on that beautiful May night, which is why it hurts so very badly that he waited 14 years to get bored with me, after I was so deeply, madly in love with him that I can’t even think of a future without him in it.
Monday, June 31st, I go to work in the morning. He is very distant from me. If I enter a room he keeps a huge distance from me. Avoids being too close to me. He tells me that he wants to go to see a movie that night with Chris and KKBFF, but wants to make sure I am okay with the girls for the night. I let him know I am okay and that I hope he enjoys the movie. He tells me it will be in the afternoon around 5ish.
I decide that I will get on Facebook messenger to contact my mother. I have not been in touch with her for over a year and a half but decided a few weeks before all this started that it is time to forgive her saying some totally mean stuff to Louis. So I tentatively reach out to her. I see I have some Facebook friend invites. Sarah B…….. sent me a friend invite back on July 1st but because I was avoiding my mother, I did not ever see the invite. KKBFF had just that morning sent an invite to me for friend request. I mention it to Louis. He tells me to ignore them that I don’t need to be involved with them. They are supposedly just some of his co-workers. I accept KKBFF’s invite and send her a message to let her know I was not ignoring her but that I don’t get on Facebook much lately so I missed when she sent it. I tried to send the Sarah person who also sent me an invite the same or similar message but find I cannot. Sarah has me blocked. I figure she got mad that I did not accept her invite at the first of the month. I don’t worry about it. He leaves around 5:20sih pm for the movie. I go back online to Facebook to see if mother has responded because I refuse to have Facebook messenger on my phone due to annoying little “ting” during the day every time someone sends a message.
I am surfing on the web and periodically checking back to Facebook messenger to see if mother got my message and responded when I notice a post by KKBFF. This post is congratulating her man for an award at work. She declares she is going to marry that man and tells him to get outside to get his lunch because she wants to go home. She posts this at 6:56 pm when they are supposed to be in a movie with Louis. I try to talk myself down from the upset feelings at realizing he might have lied to me about who he was with at the movie. I call my best friend Jenn because I am hopeful she will help me not see or read too much into this. After all surely this KKBFF could be texting during the movie, right? No. Jenn actually listened to me read the post then pointed out that it sounded like KKBFF was dropping off Chris’s lunch then going home which is not the movie theater. So I wait. And wait. Around 10:02 pm I text him “We need diapers for the baby. We’re out.” He responds, “Will get some on the way back.” I think surely he will be home soon then as he knows I need diapers. 12:30 rolls around and I get tired of waiting and stewing over his lying to me.
I call. He answers. He is saying something to someone in the back ground then informs me that he is at Whataburger and getting into the car to come home. I tell him I know he lied to me. I tell him I believe he is on a date. He denies it. I tell him I can prove he was not at the movies with KKBFF and Chris. He replies, “prove it.” I tell him about the post from KKBFF. He replies, “I am going to kill her.” He comes home and we fight because I accuse him of dating. He says it was not a date. They did not kiss. They just talked. I told him it was still a date which is something we agreed he would not do until he moved out. He maintains it was not a date. I tell him he needs to get out of the house right away that I am not tolerating his dating so soon after telling me our marriage is over.
I remind him that one thing sets me off quick and hard—a lie. He knows I have issues with people lying to me. The entire argument he maintains it was not a date but just two people getting together as friends. I call him a liar and a cheat. I accuse him of leaving me for another woman and that he can’t even wait 48 hours after breaking my heart before he is out with another woman. I tell him that he is cheating as long as we still live in the house together. He feels it is not cheating because he told me that the relationship is over. I tell him that I am shocked by his lack of morals considering all these years he ragged on anyone who cheated on a spouse like this. During the argument he lets her name “Sarah” slip and I realize that she is the one who sent me a Facebook friend invite back at the first of July then sent me messages in middle of July, but because I was avoiding talking to certain family members on Facebook, I had not seen the invite nor messages due to not logging in for the month. He confirmed that yes his new girl is that Sarah Broaddus from the Facebook invite. Now her blocking me suddenly makes tons of sense. She is the other woman.
She is the woman he is leaving me in order for him to be with her. He eventually admits that Sarah was at Sky Zone when he went to meet KKBFF the day before, but he assures me that he did not know she was going to come to Sky Zone. She just showed up with KKBFF because Sarah and KKBFF are besties. Furthermore, he tells me that they barely spoke to one another and did not even give looks to one another because our daughter Jasmine was present at Sky Zone, and he was not there to meet up with Sarah but was there to talk to KKBFF about moving in with KKBFF and Chris.
Tuesday, August 1st, I go to work and by the time I come home he is getting ready for work. I have a few moments of heated discussion regarding his sudden lack of morals after all these years of making me believe he had morals which would never allow him to cheat on me or to break my heart like this. I remind him of all the times I told him I was worried he would get bored with me like he does all his “artistic” projects and move on but that he always reassured me that he loved me, so he would not become bored with me. He just wants to focus on the fact that our relationship is over while I am still trying to figure out how and why it ended. He tells me that I need to stop living in the past but to focus on the future. He is looking forward to the future and ignoring the past while I am too busy focusing on the past, he accuses. He tells me to go out meet new people and get laid. (Yes, he actually told me, his grieving wife, to go get laid!) He tells me to move on. He goes to work. When he comes home, I am still trying to get answers from him over this break up of our marriage. I get nowhere with him using word games to create verbal sleight of hand to avoid any discoveries I might would make in trying to figure out what happened to end my marriage.
Wednesday, August 2 is similar in that I go teach then try to hit the gym for a short bit. By the time, I return home he is getting ready to walk out the door. I won’t see him until much later. While fixing dinner for our 8 year old, she tells me that she is sad that daddy is moving out. She does not want him to move out. I explain that I don’t want him to move either but that he no longer wants to be with mommy that he now wants to be with Ms Sarah. Jasmine excitedly tells me that Ms Sarah is fun. That she went with Jasmine and Louis to have ice cream after leaving Sky Zone. Then she gets a lower worried voice when she says, “I am sorry mommy. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that because it might hurt your feelings.” I am like, “What! Who told you to keep a secret from me?” Turns out Louis told Jasmine not to talk to me about Sarah whom Jasmine not only was introduced to at Sky Zone but then Sarah played with my child at Sky Zone and went to have ice cream afterward. However, the friend KKBFF who he was supposed to meet at Sky Zone did not go with Louis, Jasmine, and Sarah for the ice cream. It was just him and his girlfriend with our daughter! Yet when he admitted in a previous discussion that Sarah was at Sky Zone he made it sound like she did not interact with him hardly at all nor did he indicate that he had introduced his home wrecker to our child. I get pissed and text him to let him know I know how he asked Jasmine to keep a secret from me—her mommy. How dare he! I pack the girls up and head to his mother’s house in Mossy Head for the night. I am angry. How dare he ask my child to keep secrets from me.
I have not been sleeping hardly at all since the first night he dropped this bomb shell on me. I am either crying or have crazy thoughts running through my head demanding to know what the hell has happened to me and my marriage that I thought was so very good lately. We hardly ever argued. Since we moved to the house we are buying back in 2012 we have only fought over what was best for our daughter and even then not much fighting really just more a heated discussion over Jasmine’s bed times and screen time. He does not like me limiting her screen time nor making her go to bed early for school times. So since I am not sleeping, I keep thinking of how we never fought any more. All our fighting was done before we moved into this home we are purchasing.
We did not even really fight when we found out we were expecting a second child unexpectedly. We had some tense weeks because he wanted me to abort Aurora rather than go through with the pregnancy. He made it clear that while it was my body and my choice, he did not feel a need for another child and he did not want me going through such a hardship at my age for fear of my health. He was advocating termination in a round about way but claiming he would be willing to accept my decision. Even then we did not really fight over it. He made me feel he wanted me to abort the pregnancy but deep down I did not want to do it so I told him I would not do it after the pregnancy advanced past the 8th week unless there turned out to be something wrong with the baby or my health during the early health testing. So if we did not fight over such a rough and unexpected issue then what the hell happened to make him suddenly decide he wanted a divorce?
I mean we lived together for years before we got married even though he called me his wife for 12 of those years while we were not married. We had two children before we got married. Now we have been legally married for only year, and he suddenly is so very unhappy that he claims he has been unhappy for the entire 14 years? I did not even ask him to marry me. He suggested us getting married last year! My head won’t stop thinking about how is this possible that he just suddenly decides to leave the family? So I get very little sleep. I drive home in the wee hours while leaving our girls at his parent’s house where I know they will not be exposed to the massive fight that I know we are about to have because HOW DARE HE ASK OUR CHILD TO KEEP A SECRET FROM ME! This one thing has broken me. I hate him for his lies but mostly I hate that he dared to involve our daughter when he keeps telling me to calm down and stop being upset over the ending of our marriage because we need to “remain friends for the kid’s sake.”
Yeah. Friends. Right. As if I could ever trust him again now. Not only did he lie to me but he introduced our child to his new girlfriend less than 24 hours after telling me he wants a divorce. Then asked our child to keep it secret from me. Yep this is going to be the argument to end all right now.
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