It’s not right or wrong. It’s just a different perspective.

What I thought was going to be my biggest trauma, has turned out it was my biggest blessing.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.   Romans 8:28

It was the night before Thanksgiving 2016, I was sitting in the living room on the love seat and my husband was sitting on the couch across from me. He was on his cell phone drinking a glass of bourbon. I felt things had been off and had been asking if everything was ok. He assured me many times nothing was wrong. A week prior I was pacing the sidewalk in front of our home, smoking a cigarette, talking on the phone to my best friend. It was the first time I spoke it.

I told my friend something was wrong, and I thought my husband was cheating on me. I just felt it. I didn’t see him with anyone, didn’t overhear a phone call, didn’t see a text, no email, no one told me.  I had zero information other than how I felt. She told me I was crazy, that he loved me, and he wouldn’t do that. That night I just knew. It was the night before Thanksgiving, a holiday weekend, and he wasn’t just on his cell phone; he was on his work cell phone. I just got up and went to bed. My husband came up a few minutes later and crawled in bed next to me like every other day. I remember I just woke up in the middle of the night from a dead sleep. I went to the bathroom and when I came back, I picked up his work phone and typed in the passcode, but it didn’t work. His 5-year-old knows the passcode. He woke up when I did this, I just got back in bed and sat there for a minute. I asked him; “why did you change your passcode?” He said, “I don’t know.” “You don’t know?” I asked him to unlock it and let me see it and he said “why?” I said, “so I know I am not crazy.” That is when he told me he had been talking to someone else for a few weeks. I just started crying and asked “why?” He said, “I don’t know”. I asked if he had sex with her? He said “no.” I asked for the phone again and he deleted the messages right in front of me.  I just got dressed, got in my car and headed to my friend’s house. I called her on my way, it was 4 am on Thanksgiving.  I told her I was right. That’s how you know your friends. I called her at 4 am on Thanksgiving and she came outside and sat in the car with me. I don’t really remember anything we talked about, but I remember she showed up when I needed her, and she let me run my mouth for a minute.

I drove home and my husband was in bed with my stepson. I went in and asked him to come back to bed. I asked him what he wanted to do? Did he want to end the marriage or fix it? He said, ‘I don’t know.” He asked what I wanted to do, I said “I want to fix it.” Then we just went to sleep. The next day, Thanksgiving, we were back on opposite couches, and I asked again. So, it was just talking and nothing physical? That’s when he told he kissed her.  When I think back about it, it is a little crazy because I can remember him turning himself into the victim, crying and I somehow started consoling him because he felt bad about what he did. You are not the victim. He did this. He made a choice to do this. I am not dead inside, I have all the feelings, we can process that. Let’s talk about it.  Why are we feeling that way? I can make a choice to not act on every impulse I have. Feelings come and go like the wind. He had a choice and chose to do the wrong thing. I didn’t do anything wrong. I just loved him. I was honest and faithful. He lied and he pretended to be something he wasn’t. He lied to me, he lied to her, he lied to his kids, lied to his friends, lied to his family.

That is when we went to see “Grandpa” our 1^st therapist, I scheduled for marriage therapy because I believed in forever and that we could fix it.