D-Day

The months leading up to D-Day were long and exacerbating. I saw things. An unknown address on a box with his name.  Unusual text conversations with a woman and child unfolding when he did not know I was watching. My then husband walking into our home after a work function in gym clothes and explaining without my questioning why he was in gym clothes.  Impromptu work trips and late-night work calls.

My body knew something was very wrong. I stopped sleeping. I could not focus on work or performing simple tasks. My brain was constantly searching to make sense of what I saw, and to process the responses he would tell me when I had enough nerve to ask for clarification. His moods were erratic, his emotions wildly unpredictable, and his presence in our marital home had become fleeting to non-existent. 

A dear friend died unexpectedly that same week on vacation with her family.  A young, beautiful, vibrant life, gone.  She was a wife and mom of two small children.  It was the pain from her loss that had me take a hard look at my own life, and my own marriage.  I called my then husband on my way home that Friday to tell him I was leaving him.  I had no words, no explanation, nothing concrete to support this sudden and impulsive choice.  I had no plan, no exit strategy.  I just knew I needed to get out.

Saying the very words, “I’m leaving you,” sent me into hyperventilation and panic.  By the time I arrived home, panic was replaced with an irrevocable fear.  I would need to face him.  I stepped outside for air, of which, there was none.  It was a stifling, humid July evening.  We would sleep on it.  He would go to a hotel and meet me at our home in the morning for my final decision.  Another sleepless night.

Morning.  You do not forget mornings like this one.  You could see the sun breaking between the summer bloomed trees that coated our backyard.  It was my favorite time of day in that house.  My eyelids lathered in dried tears and two hours of sleep were slow to open. It did not take long for my brain to register the morning ahead. I showered, applied make-up, dressed, and ran out for coffee. I made it back just in time for his car pulling into the driveway.

We had a beautiful screen porch that overlooked our wooded property. I spent many mornings on this porch snuggled up with a cup of coffee and our dog. But not this morning. Even the dog felt tension in the house as she and I both sat upright on the edge of the couch, the summer sun already beating through the screen. He walked in moments later.  And over the next two hours my life would be changed forever.

On that beautiful porch, my coffee would go cold.  My phone would go unanswered. I told him my decision remained the same. I would be leaving him. He paced the house, angry and demanding to know my exit plans. I lingered, tracing an imaginary outline of his footsteps with mine. Eventually we met, our bodies facing each other with a tension that still sparked that butterfly dance in my belly despite the adverse atmosphere. He took my hand and told me he needed to tell me some things. We resumed sitting on the porch, me upright on the edge of the couch, he slumped over, now remarkably with no words. 

Secrets eventually surfaced out of a great depth; from a place I had never been.  A place as his partner of fourteen years I desperately wanted to go to but had never been invited. I hold so much grace for younger me, as I listened patiently and self-controlled to a life I knew nothing about. My then husband spoke of his childhood and glimpses of memories too painful for details in this moment. He spoke about an addiction, and his attempts and failures over the years to heal from on his own. All of this made sense based on his erratic, unpredictable behavior, and frequent absence from our marital home, and I was oddly relieved. But my body knew there was more, and my brain in-between consoling him registered I needed to ask the one question that remained unsurfaced. There had to be an affair. The behaviors I experienced in the months leading up to this day would be clarified. I would finally have all my answers and validation. And without hesitation, I asked, “how long?”. I held my breath as I prepared myself for six months, maybe a year at most.  I would survive; we could survive infidelity.  His eyes met mine, lips trembling and soaked with tears, as he replied. “Six years…”

Hours later I would sit on the dog’s bed, on the hard, cold kitchen floor. This felt safe. My ears were ringing. He was talking but the ringing was too loud. A bottle of wine caught my eye from our wet bar that read, “and truth will set you free.” A newlywed cookbook sat collecting dust on the shelf above our desk. Our kitchen sink held cold cups of coffee, and remnants of tears when my face would hover wondering what time he would be home.  There was no freedom. I was a wife in a story I did not know existed.