After an affair, your life doesn't belong to you anymore. For over a year, I couldn't control my own thoughts.
The turmoil in my head was viciously repetitive but savagely random. With this blog, I began to exorcise the demons holding my head hostage.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

The REAL Truth

About a month after DDay, the wheels came off the coaster from hell and the car I was in almost flew right off the horrific track, hurling me to my demise.  Seriously, after I found the emails, I thought my life was over.  Life, as I knew it, was over, without any shadow of a doubt.

I was cooking dinner for my 97 year old grandpa.  Dearest man alive.  He was working with Richard trying to fix our chain saw.  I know, 97 and repairing our chainsaw...Crazy, right?  Grandpa is not only the dearest man alive, he is also one of the most amazing.  Anyway...Richard had left his computer open.  He had been making his laptop available to me as per instructions from Dr. K.  Cheaters learn in therapy that for the betrayed spouse to heal, there must be total transparency.  Richard, unlike many wayward spouses, had been more than willing to accommodate me.  I put dinner in the oven and thought I'd take a peek.  Up until then, I hadn't really dug, just sort of glanced.  Remember, I was living in Lovers La La Land, my own personal version of the FOG.  Richard had previously shown me some emails that he exchanged with Jaymie.  The ones I had seen to date were very vanilla.  He was careful, or so he thought.  I was about to find the emails that were of a more exotic flavor.

Went to his office email.  Searched Jaymie.  Nothing.  Went deeper into deleted files and VOILA, found the hard truth.  The REAL truth, not Richard's version of the truth. Truth I had suspected all along.  This was "Fog" truth, but that did not make it less real.  My understanding of this discovery was that Richard had been lying to me since DDay.  More lies.  Another layer of shock.  If you're gonna look, you should be prepared for what you'll find, however I can't imagine what would prepare you for this.

I found the mother load of heart wrenching, marriage shattering, breath stealing, mind bending, soul melting lies on the screen of a laptop.  My eyes wouldn't focus, probably because they instantly filled with tears as soon as I saw the first email from Richard to Jaymie that said, "I love you, Jaymie.  You make me feel things no one ever has before."  And, that was one of the easier emails to read out of the repulsive pile.

My Grandpa was here!  I could NOT lose it in front of him!  Dashed for the Xanax and sauvignon blanc.  Gotta chill.  Gotta keep it together.  Breathe, for God's sake!  I thought the first morning when I found the phone records that verified the affair, was the worst day of my life, but this revelation sent that morning to a distant second on the worst days of all time meter.

After I medicated myself, I started to scan the extensive list of emails.  I knew I didn't have much time.  I had only been trying to absorb the idea that my husband was in love with someone else for a minute or two when Richard walked in.  He instantly knew the ugly, REAL truth of his relationship with Jaymie had been discovered.  His face froze in a mask of abject terror.  I looked back at him in utter disbelief and with no hope left for our future together.

A few ineffective words dribbled from his mouth.
"I never wanted you to see those."
"Oh, my God.  I'm so sorry."
"Please let me explain."
He was probably thinking, "How in the hell could I be so stupid and computer illiterate?  I deleted those fucking things!  How did she find them??"

Told him to shut the fuck up!  "We can not do this now.  Get out.  Leave me alone.  I will not let this hurt my Grandpa!"  And, then a bit calmer, "I'll let you know when its time for dinner."
Good for me!  Self-control!  I don't even think the Xanax had kicked in yet!  Shut the computer and went in to check on the dinner that I could not possibly eat after reading words of passionate romance from MY husband to her, like these:



 Richard

 to Jaymie
show details Sep 9
I want you to know some things:

I love you and I want you to be happy. As amazing as Friday was, the days since have been even better. Your words, your voice, your texts, your emails, your pictures have added an unforeseeable dimension of excitement and joy to my life.  I can see what I have given you as well. You have never looked prettier and I believe you have never been happier. When you said today you were frustrated, felt tension and pain in your neck, I felt terrible for you. I don’t want you to feel that way. I want you to feel the way I have made you feel over the last week. I want to be free, easy, unburdened. I want you to live every day at your maximum potential in all areas – physical, emotional, mental.  I want you to feel sexy all the time. Soon you and I will both return to being effective on our routines and in what we do.  I understand you are going through turmoil now and I want you to know that I will support whatever happens.  I will listen, but I will not judge. I will encourage, but I will not demand; I will guide but I will not control.

I know we will be together forever anyway.  So this is not about me. It is about you being happy and feeling free and good without burdens.

I love you.

He sent her this just two days after the first time they had sex in his office.  Almost every email or text contained words of deep, undeniable love, a love he had never felt before, a love without question, a love worth risking his entire married life.  Inside my heart and soul were disintegrating.  On the outside, I smiled and called the kids and Grandpa in for some homemade baked mac & cheese.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shawn,
So sad and hard to read and I know in a way how you feel reading those e-mails. When I received the letter from the OWH, along with the 4 very deep love letters, I couldn't believe what he said to hear. No one has ever meant more to me in my life than you and I can't imagine living life without you! The love I feel for you is so deep, I can't imagine you not being in my life. I think about you everyday and cherish the time we spend together. Those are just some of the love things he said to her, but they didn't have sex in 3 yrs.? So, I know how it hurts to read those things. My H never said all those things to me in 27 yrs., but yet he says those in birthday cards to her? We didn't deserve this pain, did we. I lay here tonight and just want to go on a cyber sex spot and do something, I'm so tired of all of this, just like you are. I won't do it, but he still doesnt own up to the amount of pain he caused me. I don't think yours does either.
Hugs,
Songbird

Anonymous said...

Keep writing Shawn, you put your feelings on paper so good and I can feel your pain and what your trying to say so well. It also helps you to get the anger out. None of this is easy and I'll comment more, when I'm not typing on an I-pad. I wish that I was as strong as you are, I use to be, now I'm up and down all the time.

Take care of yourself, my friend.

Love, Songbird.
I think you know who I am. I'll tell you in a personal e-mail.
I did post on your other site that you had stopped, so not sure if you saw it or not?

shawnthewife said...

Hey, Songbird: I know who you are and I am sending you BIG hugs! Plus, I want to share a couple thoughts with you.
First: The emails Richard wrote to Jaymie were, as I described in the post, heart wrenching and almost impossible to comprehend...at the time. Now I know, Richard was living in a fog of selfish, fantasy. Those words were based on nothing but lies, a complete alternate universe that he created to make himself feel special. He dealt with his mid life crisis by finding a hot, young girl that worshipped him. Was it hard for me to learn to differentiate Real from Fog? Hell, Yes!
But, I was able to learn, because he helped me.

Which brings me to point number two: I could not have healed from this trauma without Richard's help. The man stepped up. Answered all my questions, repeatedly. Shut some people out of his life that I felt covered his ass during the affair. His life is now an open book to me. At times, his regret and remorse were palpable.

We've come so damn far. Let me repeat that...WE'VE come so damn far. This is a full on, team effort. If you aren't getting what you need to heal from him, you need to find a way to heal yourself. Don't waste anymore time waiting for him to be your salvation.

You deserve to be happy. Let yourself be happy.
Hope & Hugs, Shawn

Songbird said...

Shawn,
I'm glad you figured out who I was. I am so happy that you and your H are doing so much better and he stepped up to the plate like a man. You've been through a horrible thing and reading the letters, hurts like hell. I felt like a knife was going through my heart every time I think about what he wrote to her. I know you felt the same way, as I remember all that you said. I know that you said that Richard was living in a fog, but I guess I'll never understand why men, like our H's have to write such loving, detailed things to the OW. The OW is already got them on a pedestal, so like I asked my H, John, why did you feel it necessary to write all those things on a birthday card, that already said so many loving things anyway. Of course his comment was, "It's just something you do to make her feel good, I didn't mean all the things I said." She was already feeling good, damn it, why go the extra 100 yards to get her attention? Like you said, it was another life he was living in, but why didn't we ever get cards like that? I didn't get his undying love on paper before I married him and sure never got half of what he told her on any birthday card. He wrote a darn book, for heaven sake, almost like he was afraid that he was going to lose her. I often wonder if that was the reason, as they stopped and started their A so many times, due to her H or me finding out, not that he ever thought that I would. It was hard trying to get together with their schedules and her worrying about her H finding out, which he did one year into it. They did get divorced a yr. after he sent me the letters, served her right and she had 2 little girls to. These WS never think of all the people they hurt. Our 18 yr. old moved out her senior yr. as she couldn't deal with the stress, so I missed her prom, but thank God, we were able to go to her graduation. She went from a straight A advanced student to barely passing high school. She just finished her college degree at the age of 40, thanks to her Father's A.

I got none of the remorse like you did, only now, but he's still claiming to not remember a lot and doesn't want to talk about it.

Thanks for the encouraging words, Shawn. I'm not waiting on him anymore. I went to the Nursing Home and I've signed up to sign to the shut in's, do sing alongs and also sing with the jam sessions. All that makes me feel so happy, as I love being with the elderly and I can sing to them privately in their room as some of them can't get out. I also started back exercising yesterday and I'm staying with that. I listened to my late piano player, Ron, who died at 61 of Lukemia and remembered how he always made me feel special and good about myself, something that John hasn't done in so long. I could have easily had an A with this man, but I wouldn't have. We worked very closely together, but I had a great deal of respect for him and his wife and he felt like a big brother to me. He was also a wonderful Christian man, I still miss him and when I listen to him play the piano, it's still hard for me.

I'm going to be happy, one way or another.

Love, Songbird

liveandlearn47 said...

I too ended up with all the electronic emails and text messages from the length of my husbands affair. "can't imagine life without you"..."I truly have found my soulmate, the love of my life" - this after their first sexual encounter that occurred the day after our week long family trip. His facebook post upon return from our trip stated "he'd been to this place and that and a few others. True nirvana"....I'd missed it. I felt like such a fool.

I found the wealth of emails before I confronted him. I went through the phone records, the emails and all that I could pull from the archives of our computers and sadly reviewed them all with a friend. It amazed me that it had all occurred while I was so unaware. And for me she was someone I knew. It sickened me.

Here's the good news...and I'm now 2 years out from d-day with a reconciled rekindled marriage... the emails mean nothing. My marriage counselor said it's all apart of the chemical reaction that these things bring on. The secrets, the lies, the intensity of the moment - of course it feels like love and all that. The chemicals emitted are running rampant in their heads. They are being fed words of affection and such that defy the dailiness of ones personal life with a long term wife and the homelife that is attached to that.

It was my husbands immediate remorse, transparency, the length to which he went to repair the damage, the almost 2 years of NC that led me to see it all as a bit of nonsense. Real in the moment but not real once out in the open. My husband describes the whole experience like being high...out of body... the biggest mistake of his life. If this truly was the depth of what it was supposed to have been - how could he just walk so quickly away from it?? Perhaps once the truth is known all that was precious and lovely is stained with all the angst that it brings to ones spouse. I believe it's a hard thing for a remoreful spouse to reconcile living through the raw emotional purging of the betrayed spouse and hold fast to some beautiful love story with the AP that has brought this to his reality. The lose of who he thought he was, the loss of integrity of his marriage and the sanctity of his children's vision of his parents a single unit - could he possibly continue to believe that those stolen moments and the intensity of the sex and written interchanges to be all that he in the moment thought it was??

Now I only speak about the wayward spouses that once discovered do put all their efforts into repairing and restoring all that they have stolen...having spent many years on all sides of the infidelity boards - so many don't. They leave - or they placate and take their affairs deeper underground. I know I'm blessed to not be dealing with the latter two. I'm grateful that my husband does not have the character flaw of being such a louse. I know if he was - I would be gone. He wouldn't deserve the one time gift of reconciliation that I have gifted him.

Go in peace...you're words are powerful...

shawnthewife said...

L & L: Our stories do seem so similar. The feeling like a fool, being totally blind...Oh, yea. When do I get to stop beating myself up about that??

I've found most of us can relate to each other. Our experiences often connect, if not in actual occurrences, then in emotional ties.

So glad you joined our little road to happy group. It means so much to hear from someone that is ahead of me. It's like having a compass.
Hope & Hugs, Shawn

Anonymous said...

I just discovered your blog this afternoon, and cannot stop reading it. It has been 7 months since I discovered the first tell-tale text that my husband of nearly 12 years (together for 21 years) had been carrying on with a woman he met through work. Unfortunately, unlike most of the women on here, my husband has not shown extreme remorse or begged me for forgiveness. In fact, he moved out of our home 3 months after my discovery, and will not give his girlfriend up. He's "tried" to end it with her at least 3 times, but can't seem to stay away from her. We have been doing individual counseling as well as family counseling with our two daughters 11 & 8. We are now at the point where we have agreed to a 3 month separation which means we will not communicate with each other except to do the kid exchange. The holidays are coming up and it kills all of us to do this now, but I fear if we don't do something drastic, he will never wake up!
Your input is greatly appreciated.
-mar

Anonymous said...

I need to clarify...he has confessed to a sexual and deeply emotional relationship with this girl who is 12 years younger than him. This is completely out of character for him. In fact, everyone has always labeled him as "the golden child", and the "responsible one". His girlfriend lives all the way across the country from where we live, btw...
-mar

Anonymous said...

Even after 4 years, this post brought back, immediately, the extreme, almost physical, pain of those discoveries.

You cannot un-ring a bell.

Mine left in the typical, blaming me for all of it, way and we no longer have contact.

I wouldn't wish this journey on my worst enemy. Your life is permanently altered by this trauma.

Coral

shawnthewife said...

Mar: I am so sorry your WH is so freakin' selfish. That's what it boils down to, so you're gonna have to set boundaries and stick to them. It'll be harder if you let him continue with the back & forth behavior.
Do you know about the 180 method? Here's a link. I don't buy into all of it because I am all about counseling and communication, but much of it may help you.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/233195/thread/1302875291/last-1350529944/The+180
The link is to the Healing Heart, the online forum that saved me. Try it.
Much Hope & Big Hugs to you!
Shawn

Anonymous said...

The same kind of story, but since you already know it, the words to Lonestar's Amazed, will forever haunt me. It never gets past the first two notes on the car radio before my husband shuts it down, and even trying to flood myself with hearing it over and over and over again while alone, to dilute it's power, it still makes my eyes fill up with tears, but I can now blink them back.
Formerly, Brokenonce

mags said...

Tomorrow is day 344 since discovering my husband of 25 years together( married 24 yrs at the day of discovery) not only had been having an emotional online affair with a woman living over 22 hrs and several states away. But in sept. she came to where we live and he met her at hotel having sex with her. I too have read the emails,texts and even mailed letters. The ones of how they are soulmates,true loves. The same things he used to write and tell me. I have been a mess and he won't own his choice to tear our family apart. I started marriage counseling the day after discovery alone. He left me to be with her a few weeks after I confrontrd him. He didn't say anything,he packed while I was out and just left. I didn't hear from him fot 30 hrs.( he was with her,but said he was going to stay with one of our grown sons to figure things out). He was only gone a total of 4 days because of his medical health. He knew he was going to have to have surgery and was scared so he came home. Lying to me while telling hrr he would be back. He still has not given me closure. We no longer see a counselor( big waste of money because the affair was never discussed), he acts as if last year never happened( that's about how long it went on as far as I can figure from emails). I cringe every time he goes to the computer room,I don't go anywhere without him or viseversa. The trust I had is gone,the being in love with him is gone and I don't know if either will ever come back. There is no intimacy,no hand holding,no cuddling, no I Love you's said. I feel like a prostitute when we have sex( because the things he does). When does the heartache end? When do I stop feeling like I want to just walk away from the only life I've known since I was 16( we started dating when I was 16, married when I was 17. I am now 42 and he is turning 47)? His health issues are what stops me,but I deserve happiness,to laugh and not cry at everything.

Winona said...

Fidning those messages a month after DDay, during a time which I thought we were making serious progress, sent me reeling. I too self medicated, freaked out etc. I had to pick my son up from school in a few hours and act as if nothing had happened. He was only telling her the he had never felt like this for anyone, that he wished only for happiness (she was 'leaving an abusive ex, turnsout she is a narcissitic and a serial adultress, her cheating ways drove him over the edge, does't excuse abuse, but she drove him to it) and that he felt like could breathe freely for the first time in years. all of this and more was the nearly word for word the crap he tol dme when were first dating, after his first marriage dissolved. This makes NOTHING he ever said to me special or meaningful because he gave this part of himself to HER, effectively telling her being with me didn't make him feel the same way. Logicaly I know it's fantasy, but those were the very things he said to me, so how on earth can I ever have been special to him if he could so easily say them to a two bit whore?

I still struggle with this aspect of it - how easily he could turn from me without speaking with me, sending me messages letting meknow how he feels...as if I were disposable when I was no longer shiny and new...