The Discovery: 36 Hours of Hell

I've been needing to write this post, to get it out here so I don't have to dread it anymore. The discovery of my dead and the aftermath is the most painful part for me to remember, but to get it out here will hopefully take it out of me.

The Other and I had known each other for 6 months by the time Husband started to get a clue something was wrong. During those 6 months the Other and I would cut off all contact, have nothing to do with each other, but we always fell back to each other. I have never been addicted to anything, but I can only guess that this was like an addiction. It certainly felt that way.

With addiction, when you have your high, it feels great but its an unstable high-one that comes with a price and never sits easy. And when you aren't high all you do is think about when you can get your next hit. I felt like a druggie slumped against a wall with a needle buried in my vein. My life was uncomfortable, or rather, my spirit was uncomfortable in my body. I felt constantly like I was living a hundred miles from myself and it was painful to live that way. Joy did not exist for me.

One night Husband saw me behaving strangely and asked me about it. I denied anything was wrong, tried to put him at ease. Tried to be honest since the Other and I had just gone to "lets only be friends" again. But he knew better. So the next day, while I was at work, he logged into my email and found all sorts of awful things.

I was not around for this part, but I think this is the thing that I find hardest to live with. Knowing how he must have felt when he found the truth of what was happening. He was home alone with the kids and he just broke down and started weeping. He took the kids to daycare, just dropped them off and said sorry, and came to my work. When I saw him I knew something was wrong. He told me to tell my boss I might not be back for the rest of the day and then took me out to the rocks to talk.

He asked me about the Other, I tried to deny, to cover. He read to me excerpts from my emails- things I had said to the Other about my feelings for him. I just looked at him numbly. I really didn't feel anything. I think I was in shock. I kept staring down into the rocks and thinking 'if I could just jump, I could wedge myself under one and let myself die. Just go'. My arms hurt so badly they felt like they could fall off. I am certain it was adrenaline flooding my system. I think I could have lifted a car if I needed to.

We left the rocks to drive home, I got my car from work and called my Best Friend who was aware of what was going on. She didn't answer. I texted her EMERGENCY! and she called me right back. I was so scared. She told me she loved me, she told me to tell him everything. So I went home and I told him I had met the Other and spent time with him. I told him everything. And that was when he broke the chairs. Splinters flew around the room and I just sat there. Names and curses were hurled at me and I just sat there. I felt like I deserved every bad thing he said to me. I agreed with him.

He kept talking about the perfect storm. How I had unleashed it on him. Not only did I have an emotional affair, not only had I met the Other, but I also did not love him ever. He could have handled any of the two, but not all three. It was blowing him over, I was his world and it was collapsing around him.

I knew my stony exterior was making things worse. My lack of emotion. But I couldn't help it, I didn't know what to do. I wanted so badly to be with the Other, I thought, if Husband and I could just live in a peaceable friendship and co-parent, we'd be ok. He could find someone who loves him like he deserved and we can be really good friends. Husband even said he thought he could let me go and be with the Other. That I should be with him if I loved him. ...He almost gave me away.

That night, after hours more of talking, it was time for bed. I wanted to sleep on the couch but he insisted that he sleep there. So I went to bed and felt broken suddenly. I managed a little sleep but it felt alien to be so far from him, I crawled into the living room and lay beside his feet and rocked back and forth crying and singing the song Father Abraham.

I don't know why I sang, but I think I was trying to wrap myself up in something that was about God. Trying to get some comfort there. Husband ended up making me a bed and allowing me to lay beside him, even though he didn't want to be near me. He was kind even in his torment.

The next day was just as awful. I took the kids to daycare, called in sick to work, and we sat looking at each other. He forced me to eat, and I cried while I chewed because no part of me wanted food in my body.

Then I got a call from a friend who told me we needed to go see a Therapist she knew, she wanted me to call him (I had texted her the day before about what was happening). Husband, who had been having the odd feeling like he very much needed to get counsel from this same friend, agreed reluctantly to see this Therapist. But only because the friend told us to. Not for me.

I called, hovering on a breakdown and asked for an emergency appointment. Thank God he had one. We went there at 2:30 and met him, he looked at us, concern playing all across his face, and asked what was going on. I told him that I had committed adultery and began shaking and crying.

He talked for a little over an hour. Husband was calmer than I had seen him since he came for me at my office the day before. He said later that something in that man, Therapist, was able to ease the storm inside him.

I wish I could remember everything from that session. I think I wrote it somewhere, but important happened when he asked us what we wanted. Husband said he wanted to give it a month and then decide, because he didn't want to decide when he was so emotional. Then came my turn. In my head I thought that I just wanted to be free to love the Other and have Husband fall in love with another and live happily ever after. No one hurting.

But that wasn't the right answer, and I knew it. So I said, with shaking voice, "in a perfect world I would fall in love with my husband."

I don't know what happened in that moment, but I had a major click, something did happen. It was like everything was gone- the Other, the memories of my dead love, all the past barriers to me loving husband seemed to be gone in that instant. I suddenly loved him!

Our session was over, we made one for the following week and we left to go debrief. As we drove I was full of fear. Would he want me still, could he ever touch me again, would he ever love me again?

We walked up to a bluff near a park by our home and sat down to talk. As we ascended, Husband took my hand and I looked up at him hopefully. He sat down, he took my hands and he said he was going to fight for me. And inside me I felt this love for him, a love I had never felt. And fear about the love because I wanted badly to tell him but I was so afraid he wouldn't believe me. But I said it anyway. I told him I loved him. And he could see in me that this was different. The sun shined down on us and we looked into each others eyes, and we fell in love.

He had always loved me, but had never had me. Now that our love was for each other, it was greater than anything we'd experienced. He came to realize he loved me before, but not in this whole and beautiful way.

He took me as I was, a broken thing, and he loved me in spite of my betrayal.

Meanwhile, during all of this the Other was freaking out. I had suddenly disappeared and he was afraid something was wrong with me. In hindsight, I should have had Husband tell him I was dead. I think that would have been better for everyone, I'll explain how I almost became a cheesy life-time televison movie in another post.

Instead, I sent him an email explaining what happened. Then I shut down everything I had that had a connection with him. Every single account, number-everything. I disappeared. I had to.

At first I was afraid the new love for Husband was a trick, and that I'd find myself longing for the Other. But I am glad to say that wasn't the case. The Other seems to be totally gone from me, and my dead love as well. I am beholden to no one but Husband, God and myself.

When I think about how badly my life could have gone, during those 36 hours of hell, and how wonderfully it became, I am breathless. Who am I to have such a beautiful gift come from an awful sin? But who am I not to? We all deserve love, deserve to find the love of our life and deserve to be loved. We yearn to love and be loved desperately. And finally that is true for me.

Now that I'm done with the discovery, I can stop being afraid of it. I can smile and be done with it. Because, as awful as it all was, it was the way a beautiful story began.