3. Sometimes Life Gives You A Push In The Wrong Direction…And Keeps Pushing

Not currently cheating. Was in my past. Everyone in my life already knows this, and although I regret what happened, we are all human and our faults are part of us too. So, having said that, here it goes;

My husband and I had been married for 2-3 years at the time. We just went through a miscarriage and learned that I would likely never have children as a result of PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). It was a hard time for both of us. We were grieving and our world was kinda falling apart.

We didn’t have time to grieve though, because my Father one month later tries to shoot himself and fails, struggling with his alcoholism and current divorce (was his 2nd at the time) and he was dropped off on my doorstep. His parents were gone (my grandfather had passed away a few years prior and my grandmother was in a Nursing Home with Alzheimer’s) and no one else in his family, including his adopted brothers and sisters would take him in.

Queue tons of stress and pain and heartache. Husband is bitter and angry about the miscarriage and the news that his wife can likely never give him children, and is unable to express or sort out his feelings partly due to the fact that currently I myself am on the verge of a meltdown, and also because my Dad, passed out drunk on my living room floor every night is taking up all of our personal time.

We begin to avoid one another because all we do is fight. Our hurt and anger comes out in nasty words and jabs at one another. Four months go by like this. We stop having sex. He goes in auto pilot mode and goes from the bed to the computer to work and back again. Rinse and repeat. We stop talking. He spends over 12 hours a day (more when not working) on the computer and doesn’t even eat dinner with me. He is working 15+ hours a week at McDonalds. I am doing 50+ hours a week a metal fabrication shop.

I work, I clean, I cook, I mop up the puddle nightly that is my father, and I sleep. My husband and I grow apart. I start to feel unappreciated as I take his absence in my life and in our bed as him ignoring me and/or resenting me for not being able to give him children.

I begin talking to someone through an online mmorpg that I play in my spare time to keep my sanity that I met through my Guild.

The talking goes from in-game to emails and from texts to phone calls. I tell this person how lonely I am. He tells me I am worth more. Tells me that I am not less of a woman for not being able to produce children. He pays attention to me. He calls me beautiful. He asks me how my day is.

He becomes a distraction from the pain and a cure from the loneliness that my husband is inadvertantly making me feel.

We have phone sex a few times. I send him photos. He sends me photos.

He talks about driving up and meeting me. (He was a few states south of mine.) It never comes to pass.

Eventually I tell my Father what is going on. I am feeling guilty and lost and want some advice. He is too drunk and bitter from his divorce and cries out that all marriages are shams. He encourages me to continue cheating because all marriage is a joke and my husband is an asshole.

I have a nervous breakdown at work. Lock myself in a bathroom stall and sob on the floor crying out for my Mother. The secretary of the company gives me a ride home. They call me back the next day and ask me not to come back in, that I am no longer needed.

Jobless and broken I come clean to my husband. He is surprisingly unfazed. Says he figures I didn’t want him around anyway. I tell him that is the opposite of what I want, and actually am just so damn lonely! He says he is too but can’t deal with anything right now. He is lost. We are both lost.

He goes to work at his new job (had to get a 40+ hour a week Job after I lost mine) at a Plastics Shop. We agree that maybe he should move back in with his Mother for a while. His bags are packed. I stare at them while he is gone.

Dad tells me that I should say fuck it to my marriage because it’s all a lie, and go with him as he returns to work as a Long-Haul truck driver cross-country. Says I can be his “log book sidekick”.

He upsets me so I go to my Mom for the day. I suddenly have no desire to even contact my internet friend. All I can think of is the hole in my heart that will be there once my husband leaves that night. I cry on my Mom’s floor. She says if we really didn’t love one another, that it wouldn’t hurt like this. She tells me that my husband and I are both just devastated by a baby that we never had time to grieve for and that we are both handling it in stupid, selfish ways. She advises me to go speak to my husband before it is too late. My Mom has no car. I didn’t currently drive at the time either.

I call my Dad and pleaded with him to take me to my husband’s work so I can stop this before we separate and ruin something that was never broken. He reluctantly agrees after how hysterical he finds me. For once he isn’t drunk.

I go to my Husband’s work and wait for him to come out on his smoke break. His eyes are red. He has also been crying. We both hug each other, the first contact we have had in months although sleeping in the same bed and we cry. I tell him I love him and I am sorry for cheating. He tells me he is sorry for shutting off the entire world and me. We agree that we love one another and don’t want to lose each other to stupid ways of coping with pain. We agree to change and work on the bad parts of ourselves and how we handle things.

A month later my Dad moves out and in with his new soon to be 3rd wife. My husband and I both see separate therapists for a few months. We learn to grieve and grow together again. We fall more confidentially in love with one another than we ever were before.

I attribute my cheating to the first and obvious reason that we are all capable of being assholes. But also that we married young, (I was 19 and he was 21) and that I had terrible parents and never really had the chance to grow up before life cut into our dreams. My Dad using me as a stable for his drinking and own issues also did not help any. Plus the fact that my husband grew up in an abusive household (mainly his Father) and he only knew how to internalize his pain, and never was taught to voice it or talk about it for fear of shame.

I blame no one but myself. But to this day we are closer than ever and are going on our 7th year of marriage. We are talking of renewing our vows on our 10th anniversary. We still have no children and don’t ever plan on it happening for us. We have grown and learned together that life is never what you think it is when you start out, and neither are people. But if you truly love someone you grow together instead of apart.