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.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Jaymie Would NOT be Keeping the Swag!

As I was saying....I impulsively called Shannon, wife of banished best friend Marc, on my way to work. Our conversation began as I assumed it would:
"Hey, Shannon.  I just had to call and let you know that I'm really gonna miss spending time with you, but there is no way I'm letting Marc back into my life."
"Oh, Shawn!  I am so sorry!  I do not know what Marc was thinking!"
"He was protecting Richard.  He thought he was helping him, I guess."

I shouldn't have assumed this would be an easy phone call.  You know what they say about ASSUMING....
 "I told Marc he really screwed up!  I wish he'd told me.  I'd have called you.  I didn't know about the affair until after you found out, but I knew something was weird when Marc told me Richard bought some girl in his office a massage table a few months ago."

And...there it is.  Another shoe dropped.  An additional kick in the gut.
I felt my face flush hot red.

It took me a few seconds to regain my composure.  I was seething.
"When was this?"
"I think it was during the summer, before you and Rich went to Vegas for your birthday."
"Thanks, Shannon.  Take care of yourself.  I gotta go."

Hung up.  Called Richard.
"Wanna tell me about the massage table?"
"What?!" Since DDay I had asked for the WHOLE story, every detail, regardless of how minuscule.  He had a multitude of chances to tell me about the massage table.  I had asked a million questions about how the affair started!  That was one of the ways he reeled her in.  He was her guardian, her protector, her savior and Sugar Daddy.

Can't you just see his face?  Sitting there at his desk, trying to focus on some other poor sap's pending divorce, picking up the phone, hoping for Love Lorn Lucy and hearing Royal Bitch.  Not a propitious beginning to a productive day.

"Tell me about the massage table.  When did you buy it for her"?  The word "HER" always slid out of my mouth like bile.
"After she got fired from Sharon's office.  She wanted to become a massage therapist.  I offered to help her get started.  It was only $100.00"  Only $100??  Who cares?  Why is that relevant?  I guess I should feel better that my cheater spouse was thrifty!

Richard had gone out of his way (way, way out...around the block, across state lines and over seas about sums it up.) to help get Jaymie a job in his office working for Sharon, another attorney that leased office space from him.  So, Jaymie was in his law office everyday, but her paycheck came from Sharon, not Richard.  Gotta give him credit for covering his ass in that regard.  After about 4 months, Sharon let Jaymie go.  Bet you thought I was just being bitter and spiteful when I told you Jaymie wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.  I think Sharon only kept her around for as long as she did because she knew she was doing Richard a favor.  I learned later that the best thing Jaymie did while she was there was reorganize Sharon's client files with two shades of Pink!
The IQ of a cotton ball.
It was after Jaymie got canned that Richard's obsession with her took on an air of urgency.  Since he wasn't getting his daily dose of his fantasy fuck (Sorry.  My language has been awful.) he had to find other ways to spend time with her.  So began the months of lunches, trips to doggie beach and hours spent at a coffee house called Krakatoa.  All of this time lead up to when he FINALLY got her to take her clothes off on September 7, 2010.

"What else?  What else did you buy her?"
"A bracelet.  At the charity auction.  I bought her a diamond bracelet.  It was a tiny thing, diamonds and emeralds."
Now he's hitting me where I live!  JEWELRY??
I think I blogged about the night he stayed with Jaymie at the Sheraton after a charity event.  This was something we had attended together for years.  This particular year, I had just returned from a work trip.  I was fried.  I did not want to go.  I asked Richard if he would mind going alone.  I expected a fight.  He would never want to go to something like that without me.  This time...he was very compassionate about how tired I must be and he would share my apologies with our group of friends that would be there.  Mean while...he's getting a room to stash Jaymie in until the event is over.  Then, he calls me, says he drank way too much and thinks he shouldn't drive.  Why would I question that?  Better safe than sorry, right?
I hate remembering how stupid I was.

Right before I hung up on him, "When you get home, I want to hear it all!  I'm sick of new info trickling in!  I've had it!"  Then, I called Jaymie.  Of course she didn't answer, but I know she got my voicemail which said, in no uncertain terms, "I know about the massage table and the bracelet.  I want them back.  You will return them. Half of the money used to bribe you with all that swag is mine."  Through out the day, I left her a few more messages that were equally as adamant, adding that if she didn't get back to me ASAP, I'd just call her daddy and work out the details.

After I got home, I received a text from Jaymie.  She said I could have the items.  We texted back and forth about when the exchange would take place.  I told her I'd be there in the morning.
Richard was aware of my intentions.  Our conversation that night was heated.  My temper was as volatile as a solar flare.  I learned he also had taken her on a shopping trip to Fashion Valley Mall.  He bought her lingerie at Victoria's Secret and perfume at Nordstrom.  Seriously...Nordstrom??  My Mecca??  The torment never ends!

"Did you give her any money?"
"Some.  Once in a while.  She was out of work.  I was just trying to help her out."
My husband, the philanthropist.
"How much?"
"I don't know.  A few hundred."
"How fucking MUCH?"
"Not more than a thousand."

 I was soooo done with him for the night.  I wanted Jaymie's attention.  Texted her about the money.  Told her I wanted that back, too.  I knew that wasn't gonna be as easy.  That money was long gone.  I wondered how pathetic, little, unemployed Jaymie would come up with a grand?  Then, my revenge antenna stood straight up.
I could always ask her Daddy for it.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have just started following your blog; I found you (unfortunately for me) when I saw your comments on the Betrayed Wives Club site. I have started reading your posts from the beginning so that I could get the full back story. I am only in through your first 5 or 6 posts... I want to take the time to read each and every one of them, including the comments and I plan to read every word.
Girlfriend, I am just over a year from my dday and, holy shit, do I feel your pain! I was never one to swear much before, but the good girl in me has been pushed aside so that the newer, stronger, take-no-shit version could be set free. My, story, like yours, is long and messy and too complicated to share in this space but is similar to yours in so many ways. I can tell you that I am a kindhearted, smart, attractive 55 year old faithful and loving wife who was blindsided by my husband's affair. We have been married almost 37 years and raised two of the finest human beings you would ever want to meet (I am a little biased!!) We are admired and respected in our community and have a loving circle of friends and extended family. So why in the hell do men (and women, obviously) jeopardize all of this wonderfulness for the occasional fuck with someone outside of their marriage? I have my theories, and I am learning so much by reading the stories of other betrayed wives so that it is all starting to crystallize for me.
So you go girl, get that swag back from that
bitch/whore, I am living vicariously through you and your stories of revenge!! Not an option for me, but that is another part of my long story...
Love and hugs to you too,
**S**

Scabs said...

You are wicked!! I love it!

Anonymous said...

Shawn,
You are one smart BW and you don't take crap from anyone. You are lucky that at least you find out some of this information, as I never can and I am miserable because of not knowing things. Marriage is slowly going out the door.

But back to your blog, I admire you so much for sticking up to your WH and the OW and threatening her to give you those things back. I think she knows that you have her over a studded barrel with you being able to get to her Daddy, so she has to respond to your demands. I think telling her family was the smartest thing you ever did.

I would be just as livid as you to find out later, what you just found out and would have tried to do something about it.

I hope you get it all back and then some. You Go Girl!

Songbird, but you know who I am.

shawnthewife said...

Hello**S**,
Most of the readers here understand your pain, my pain...our pain. I believe unless you are a betrayed spouse, you can't get it. What I hope readers understand about my blog is I'm telling you my story that began in 10/10. I've had many months to look back on how the first year went after DDay and there is WHOLE lot I'd do differently. There are questions I would have asked Jaymie that I didn't, but mostly I'd have treated her as persona-non-grata...dead to me.
Revenge ain't gonna mend your broken heart. Only your WH can help you with that.
Please check in again. Let us know how recovery is going.
Hope & Hugs, Shawn

shawnthewife said...

Hey, EMS!! I was wicked, crazy and mostly...so completely broken. As you know, this was pain I had never felt. I couldn't process the pain. I couldn't deal with the pain, so I focused on the rage. My reaction was to fight back, hurt Richard & Jaymie even more than they hurt me. And, as you also know, there is no way to accomplish that. Even if there was, it wouldn't make me heal any faster.
I hope other readers get that. What I did might sound like I was 'All that and a Bag of Chips!' I know lots of BWs want a piece of the OW.
I'm hear to tell you...SHE IS NOT WORTH IT!
Unless she continues to try to slime her way into your life, Let Her Go!
I truly hope other readers get that.
Hope & Hugs, Shawn

shawnthewife said...

((Songbird))
You have had such a long hard road. I wish you could move forward instead of being continually sucked back into your painful past. I wish you nothing but a happy future and I hope it starts today!
Remember...I'm writing this blog about things that happened over a year ago. I am now healing. This is the story of my journey, my road back to happy. What I'm blogging about now was the first few months after DDAY. Those days were no help to me at all. Sure, I made Jaymie miserable. I'll admit, that was kind of fun. But, it was fun for a minute. Didn't help my broken heart, didn't help me find my way back to Richard, didn't help me understand what had happened to my marriage.
I had to learn to focus on what was happening TODAY, not a year ago, not a month ago, not yesterday. How was my marriage today? I had to let Jaymie and the affair go.
No small feat, but the only way to heal.
Be happy, Songbird!!
Hope & Hugs, Shawn

Anonymous said...

Hi again Shawn, and thank you for reminding me that the events you are describing here are not happening in real time. Your recollections are so vividly described and well written that it is easy to forget that. I so appreciate the perspective you bring, the perspective that can only come with time and healing.

When I look back at my life the first 6 months after my dday, I am grateful that I had a caring and wise IC to give me some very good advice. The revenge against the OW thing has been a huge issue for me. She was a married co-worker of my husband's who had a huge crush on him and was hell bent on a new life with him, all the while pretending to be my friend. She plotted her scheme so expertly, she even lost weight and had a tummy tuck before her big seduction attempt with him. She waited until they were alone together on a business trip, 3,000 miles from home to make her move. A knock on his hotel room door late at night because she wanted to "talk". Trust me, I am not excusing my husband for any of this, but I can see how she worked him with the kind of attention and flattery that was extremely intoxicating. And then, like a stupid bug entangled in a spider's web, he was snared. She had "the goods" on him now. She threatened to tell me, tell their employer and co-workers about what had happened. Anyway, my weak husband attempted to placate her. He said she was volatile, had a wicked and unpredictable temper, especially when drinking (which seemed to be all of the time). She called him her "knight in shining armor"...yuck. No doubt, he was getting the side benefit of extremely hot sex, the kind that most married couples are not still having after 30 years, and I'm damn sure she wasn't having with HER husband. And she was highly motivated to win over the exec in the corner office (aka, my husband). After all, it had worked for her before. Oh yeah... she cheated with her current husband while he and she were both married and working together. She got knocked up, and they both left their respective spouses and children to be together and have their "love child" and get married. Well, when said child was nine years old is when she set her sights on my man, so I guess an affair with a co-worker isn't the best foundation for a marriage!! Sorry I am rambling here, I feel the need to explain the rage that I feel when I think of this irresponsible and selfish woman. What to do with the rage, that is the million dollar question...

(I just realized that I have rambled on too long here, to be continued in a post to follow!!) **S**

Anonymous said...

(sorry about that, here is the rest of my post)...

Thank God I listened to my IC and, for the most part, had no contact with her. I say for the most part because I did have a few highly satisfying experiences toying with her. But based on my husband's accounts of her, my IC is almost certain she has some kind of a personality disorder (BPD) that causes her to be easily enraged and unpredictable. So I have taken that advice and decided not to fuck with the spider and her web. And my husband? Besides feeling extremely stupid and remorseful, he has a new appreciation for me and our marriage and family, and that has been the mainstay of my recovery. It is like he has looked into hell and been given the second chance to turn around and walk way from that hell. Since the day that I discovered the text messages that unfolded into my dday, he cut her off so swiftly and completely that I think it shocked even her. She suddenly lost her power; her threats to tell and ruin his life were empty now. Now SHE was the one who had to worry; to worry about me telling HER husband and family. Touché, bitch, touché.

So, tempting as it has been to out her, I just try to focus the simple pleasures of life with my newly grateful husband and our family...knowing that I am the woman that he loves and has always loved, even through his whole ugly relationship with her. It is a struggle, every day, but I can honestly say after just a year and two months from my dday, it does get better, thank God. I don't think I could have lived with the kind of gut wrenching pain for any extended length of time. Thank you, Shawn, for sharing your brave and inspiring story with others and for allowing me to share mine.

Love, hugs, and blessings to you... **S**

shawnthewife said...

**S** My rage was unbridled, out of control and all encompassing. The pain of the betrayal was too much to bear, so I let my anger rule the roost. I thought if I directed all the rage where it belonged, right at Richard, our marriage was over. Not sure that I thought that in a rational way, more of a subconscious thing.
Regardless...Richard got a whole hell of a lot of my wrath, but not nearly all of it. I saved the lion's share for Jaymie. Continuing contact with her was a mistake, but it did serve one purpose. She was my virtual punching bag.
You were much smarter than I was. You showed some self-control. No matter how hard an OW chases a WH, the WH can always say NO!!. It's a choice. Bottom line. No BS...and that stands for Bull Shit, not Betrayed Spouse!
Hope & Hugs, Shawn

Anonymous said...

You are so right, Shawn, the WH can always say no, and mine did not. So I can blame the OW, or I can blame the circumstances, but ultimately it was my WH's choice to have an affair with this opportunistic whore... AND to drink the koolaid of her bullshit threats.

Like you, I was obsessed with making her pay... especially since my WH was so beaten down and remorseful that me raging against him just caused him to shut down in shame...taking it out on her just seemed like so much more fun!! But it became clear to me that she was a deeply troubled person, and did I really want to drag that craziness into my life? Believe it or not, my husband used to speak freely to me about her during the A when they were still working together. Telling me that she would get drunk on her lunch hour and come back to the office in a rage. That he felt sorry for her husband, that she was such a load that he couldn't imagine what it must be like to live with her. Why would I ever suspect that my H would be involved with someone like that? I now know that her rage was directed at him, when he would travel with me or tell her that he had no intention of leaving me for her she would act out in front of their co-workers. I'm sure he was as nervous as hell that she was going to spill the beans during one of her drunken tantrums.

So, it wasn't that I was smart, I just happened to have enough information about the OW to tread lightly. But I can tell you, I love having the power now, and the best revenge for me is that she is in an unhappy marriage and she did not "win". I will have to be satisfied with that...

My love and best to you, **S**

Anonymous said...

HaHa! ~ I love ya Shawn I really do. You are lucky I wasn't your hubby's OW. If you threatened to call my pops, I would've taken a pic with of all Richard's gifts, probably sticking my tongue out at you holding a sign up with my father's number on it saying "go ahead make my day." And if my father would've found out your 60 year old husband seduced my 24 yr old body, a whole new war would've broke out. You definitely would've met your match ~ haha! That's not an insult at all, I'm just saying you got lucky, very very lucky & that is a good thing. Seems llike Jaymie handled herself with class after DDay, something I wish I would've done, but you said it best. Let the bitch whore go.

Anonymous said...

You should have had a full disclosure with his therapist and your therapist. That is the only way to get information out of some of these weasels. They even lie to their own therapists. Lying is just part of them. And you realize that lawyers are considered the worst. Lawyers and actors - liars all of them. Cheats and liars. My H is soon to be a lawyer. Ha hahahahaha. But we together have a plan. I am to stay for 5 years for my darling daughter. I have 4 to go. Yippee. I hope as I am reading that you got your full disclosure. But I don't understand why you only focus on Jaymie. Of course, that's non of my business.

Anonymous said...

You're right, liars cheat and cheaters lie and ones that cheat multiple times will never change, all they do is wait for the next whorish opportunity to pop up.