In the end….

I am not starting at the beginning. I am starting at the end because that is where this “journey” started for me. On a Sunday afternoon in December 2020.

My husband, I will call him John, and I were organizing his work space in our basement. He had been working from home since March and I thought we were attempting to make more room for his “stuff” so it didn’t have to sit on the floor. I asked him to help move a table to run along side of his desk so he could put everything up on it.

He was in one of his pouty moods and said no. I laughed and said “Come on. You know I have my issues.” He clenched his jaw and yelled, in my face, “Work on your fucking issues!!!”

His face was within inches of mine, and I could not believe his expression. I did not know him at all. In the past he had made comments when he was mad, but he had never screamed in my face. I stared back at him for a couple of seconds and then turned and walked away without saying another word.

About 20 minutes later, he approached me as I sat at our dining room table. I held up my hand and said I was not ready. He turned and marched away. That night, when I was going to bed, I told him I was going to sleep in the spare room.

The next morning when he came downstairs, I told him that we needed to talk. I told him I was done. I told him that what he said was mean, and I didn’t think he was a mean person. I also said he wasn’t happy and had not been for a while. He replied, “You aren’t happy either.” I answered, “Certainly not now.”

This was December 21. On December 28 he had put down first and last months rent on an apartment. Keep in mind December 24-26 are holidays and there was no business being done, but he was already to go. He would get his apartment for February 1. I was a little surprised by the speed of it all, but I also thought I knew why. You see, I had suspected he was sleeping with his boss since the summer of 2020.

His boss’s, Sonya’s, marriage broke up in the summer. John had been telling me all about how horrible Sonya had it with her abusive, alcoholic husband. He knew quite a bit about the state of her relationship. But it was when he told me that he had told Sonya some very personal information about me that I realized he was complaining to her as much as she was complaining to him. I felt that the reason he shared the information was more to explain why he couldn’t leave his wife just yet now that she had left her husband.

Added to this feeling was the fact that he was always going for a drive to go see the house that his co-worker Danny was building. He would drive out on the weekends, and many days during the week. When his day ended he would rush out the door to go to the house. It struck me as an odd thing to be so excited about – especially considering John is generally emotionless.

When we had a pool party at our house for his work crew I asked Danny if he thought it was odd that John was spending so much time out at the house he was building. Danny look confused. John sat completely still looking at his hands, concentrating on them. Sonya quickly turned her head to look at John and then turned away just as quickly. The other staff became visibly tense. I got up and went into the house.

After that day, he wasn’t going out to the house anymore. He was going over to a visit his Mom and Dad. One time I left our house 20 minutes after he did and drove by his parent’s place. His truck was not in the parking lot. He was not seeing his Mom and Dad. I would give him opportunities to come clean but he never did, although he did look at me with his trademark arrogant smirk as if daring me to ask him. If you want to know why I didn’t ask him directly, it is because I had in the past and was subjected to a barrage of “you are crazy”, “you are imagining it”, “you always think the worst of people” and I knew it was all a way to deflect and I no longer had the energy for his lies. I was also involved in a court case against my pedophile brother. I had a lot on my plate. This is the “personal information” he had shared with Sonya.

But, as of December 21 2020, I felt my future had promise. All I had to do was get through the next few of months and I would be free. I had no idea how bad things would get…….