When I first learned of my then-husband's affair, it literally felt like someone kicked me in the stomach and stole the very breath from my lungs. I'd suspected it for over a month, but I didn't think he would take his marriage vows so lightly. I came across his and her emails to one another while doing maintenance on our computer. He thought he'd erased those emails...But he didn't realize that they automatically saved to the "sent" folder, and he was very religious about hitting the "reply" button on her emails, which gave me both her words, and the headers which let me know when the messages were sent.
Suddenly, everything I had ever done for that man seemed such a waste, and I felt as though the marriage itself was a travesty. He had told me he loved me
that morning, for crying out loud! And there I was, reading the emails that told me how the affair had started, how long it had lasted, how it had progressed from flirtation to the physical. I read his words demeaning me, calling me "distant", "cold" and "a ___" (rhymes with witch). I read her words as she lovingly teased him about me, saying things like, "I love you (Oops! Better not let the wife see this!)."
Suddenly, everything that I thought had been stable and rock-solid seemed as shifting as sand. I had spent almost nine years with the man, and I suddenly felt like I never knew him at all. Our new daughter was only ten months old, and I remember holding her and sobbing helplessly, because what I'd counted on to be the one constant in my life was no longer there in an instant. For me, everything changed when I realized the betrayal.
I changed when I found out about it.
I called him at work and asked him if he had a good lawyer. He asked, "Umm...Why? What are you talking about?" I replied, "I found Leslie's and your emails to each other." At the time, he worked fifteen minutes from home. That day, he made it home in seven minutes.
He didn't realize exactly how much I knew, of course. He wasn't very savvy about the Internet, and perhaps he thought he'd just forgotten to erase a few emails. So when I asked him about her calling the house when I wasn't home, he denied it. Three times I asked. Three times he denied. So I quoted the email, word for word, from four months before, when she told him how very sexy she found his voice, and while it was comforting to hear on the phone, she much preferred it in person. His face crumpled at my words, and it was apparent that he knew I knew everything, or at the very least most of it.
It was the only time in nine years that I had ever seen my husband cry. My two miscarriages didn't even cause grief. The death of his aunt caused no tears. But he wept bitterly...Not because he regretted the affair, but because he'd been found out. For me, it was a bitter blow to an already beaten relationship to be lied to in addition to being cheated upon.
He begged me, through his tears, to stay. I tried staying for our two kids' sakes, of course. But something very precious and very beautiful died inside of me that day, and no matter how I tried, I couldn't revive it within myself. Every word he said, I doubted. His "I love you" sickened me. I became paranoid if he even left to go to the corner store alone. I didn't believe anything he said...And once, I'd hung onto his every word
Physically, I couldn't stand the sight of him, and I just couldn't bring myself to make love to him. I went to a doctor to be tested for sexually transmitted disease within a few weeks, but at the time, nothing showed up (Six months later, I tested positive for HPV. I was devastated!). Every time I saw him naked, I gagged at the thought of him going to someone else and then wanting to go to me. The body I had once adored had become obscene, defiled, and I wanted none if it. The few times he forced me, I wept bitterly afterwards, and felt disgusting.
An abused woman often doesn't realize the depth of abuse until after she leaves the situation. In my case, I lasted four months before I finally left. No matter what he called me in those nine years, no matter how he'd hurt me, no matter how hard I'd worked both inside and outside the house, no matter how he'd beaten me down, I was willing to stay. It was only when I discovered the affair, and realized that I could no longer trust him, that I left with the kids.
My first marriage was lived without God's presence, but I think God delivered me.
In my second marriage, where God plays such a big role for both of us, I still don't know if I'd have the strength to forgive infidelity. I'd like to think God's worked so many changes in my life, but I don't know if I'd be strong enough to take the betrayal a second time.