My Husband's Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me (33 page)

“My father’s coming to visit,” I told Brian when I picked him up from work that evening.

Brian was surprised. “Does he know about our problems?”

“No,” I lied. It was the first time in my life that I had ever told a lie to my husband. I knew Brian would feel embarrassed if he knew my father knew.

I don’t know why I thought it was suddenly okay to start telling lies in my marriage. What I do know is because of what had happened I was now questioning the truth in every value I had ever held dear. Since I could no longer believe that my own relationship was secure, how could I trust anything else in my life? How could I know my friends, family and children would not betray me also? I was now questioning everything I had ever trusted or believed in.

On Friday afternoon I met my father at the airport. On the way home, we had a nice seafood lunch at a charming oceanside village. It felt good to discuss my mess openly with my father, and as my mother suggested, I found him to be quite reasonable.

“Dad,” I reminded my father, “I have told Brian that you don’t know about our problems, so it is imperative that you not say anything to him.”

“No problem,” he assured me. “I am not coming here to cause any trouble, only to help out in whatever way I can. When my daughter calls me with a problem, I come to help.”

On Saturday morning I made bacon and eggs for breakfast and we gathered the family around the dining room table, attempting once again to act like normal people in the midst of our turmoil. No

sooner had a simple prayer been uttered and people started to eat then my father said, “So Brian, I guess we’re having some problems here. This is quite serious that you have lost your driver’s license.”

Every fork stopped. I felt blood rushing to my face and my heartbeat quickened. I gulped. Brian stared at me in disbelief.

“I think we should continue this conversation after breakfast,” I suggested, wanting to avoid the discussion in front of the children.

I couldn’t believe that the first time I had ever lied to my husband, I had been caught red-handed almost immediately. Oh, how I wanted to get out of this one!

We made it through breakfast cordially discussing the weather, the kids’ schooling and the current position of the solar system (one of my father’s favorite topics).

Afterwards, Brian and my father tried to find excuses to get away from the inevitable discussion. Determined to face this issue head-on, I brought them back to the table.

“You two are the two men in this world that I happen to love more than any other men on the planet,” I began. “You have also both hurt me more than any other men ever have or probably ever could.” I hoped this would level the playing field. No sense my father thinking he was a better man than Brian. He wasn’t. He had certainly done as much, if not worse, than Brian in his day, and I knew it.

“Dad, for the first time in my eighteen years of marriage, I have lied to my husband,” I said. “Brian, I want to apologize to you for that. I out and out lied to you and I am truly sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. It was foolish of me. Dad, I’m already feeling betrayed and as though I can’t trust anyone in this world and here you promised me that you wouldn’t say anything. Once again you have hurt me.”

“Well, I thought I just wasn’t supposed to talk about the affair,” my father tried to justify himself.

“Don’t start with me Dad. You know perfectly well you weren’t supposed to say ANYTHING.” I was uninterested in any more game-playing.

“Botth of you have let me down. I’m sick and tired of it and I’m not taking any more garbage from either one of you. I expect both of you to face this and to be nice to each other. I don’t know if Brian and I are going to make it, but I love you Brian, and I am fully committed to rebuilding our marriage. Dad, I appreciate your wanting to help, however, I think you need to let us work this out ourselves. I don’t know where we go from here, but I think I have said what I need to.”

Both men sat silent and startled. “Well Brian, obviously I cannot claim to be a better man than you,” my father said. “We all make mistakes sometimes. Why don’t we go and have a beer and talk man to man, alone?”

Brian declined. And I guess I couldn’t blame him. He had had enough of people pressuring him to do this, that and the other thing.

I spent most of my time with my father that weekend. He took me out and spoiled me a bit. He also talked with me about my problems and offered me helpful perspective, reminding me that most men are unfaithful to their wives at some point. He reminded me that I wasn’t alone in my experience and that this was a problem in our society as a whole.
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The fact that my father had gone to a big effort and expense to visit me, showed me that he loved me in a way that I had never understood before. This was something I desperately needed. It was with a lot of emotion that I saw him off to his plane on Monday morning.

Journal entry, October 6, 2000:

My dad came to visit on the weekend, and all-in-all it was a good

visit. Brian withdrew all weekend.

As I meditate on my talks with my dad, I feel he has offered some

valuable advice. I have to get myself and my family out of this state

of continual crisis. I have done nothing but sacrifice myself for my family and it is ending with them walking all over me and abusing me. If I keep on like this I’m going to lose my health and then I’ll be no good to anyone.

Journal entry, October 11, 2000:

I went to see the family doctor today and he inspired me greatly. He told me that he was a good judge of character and that he knows Brian, and that he knows that Brian is a good man. I know that’s true too. He told me that we can make it through this. I believe it. He says that if our family unit breaks up we will each always live with a pain that will haunt us, but if we keep this family unit together and heal and restore the relationships, we can all go on to have happy lives. I believe that too.

Within a couple of days, my father called me up to offer me a free trip to Chicago to visit him and my half-brother, Charles, who I hadn’t seen in fourteen years. Apparently it was my brother who was offering to pay for this trip.

Now that my family knew, they were doing everything they could to support me.

I was not going to pass up a free trip to my old home town. I hadn’t been there since I was sixteen years old. In the past I might have stayed home for Brian, but now, I didn’t hesitate. He had hurt me. I didn’t know if I could trust him anymore.

My family was offering me help. I was taking it. Period. I was making my own decisions now. I was far more independent than I had ever been before. Danielle had agreed to drive her father back and forth to work while I was away, so there was nothing holding me back.

When Danielle drove me to the airport two weeks later, I was buzzing with excitement. This trip was a big deal to me. It was a time to reflect on all that had happened and decide where I wanted to go from here? What did I really want out of my life? I was at a new beginning. My marriage and my life as I had known it were over.

I was Linus, from the Charlie Brown cartoon, without my blanket.

I was like an acrobat who had just let go of the trapeze, somersaulting through mid-air, wondering if I would catch the next. I could go wherever I wanted to go with my life from here. I could leave my marriage and start a new life if I wanted to. I had every right to do so. I was confident in my own ability to support myself and my children. I was a knowledgeable teacher and a confident business woman. What did I really want?

In the airport, while waiting for my flight, I wrote a letter to myself:

Dear Anne,

You have begun an incredible journey. For eighteen years you thought you had one of the greatest marriages ever. Now this year your life has totally fallen apart. Your husband left you for another woman and now has come back. Your daughter has tried to kill herself. You have walked around in devastation and in shock. The pain has been overwhelming. As Brian accurately puts it, the clock struck midnight, your husband turned out to be a toad and your Cinderella fantasy has ended. Now you realize that what you really had was a codependent relationship and you are equally to blame for these problems. Brian is a good man and he is working on his issues right now. As long as he is, you will keep working on this family. But you have no guarantees for the future, except that you can fix yourself. Now you are going to be healed, and you are no longer going to make decisions based on pain from your past.

Arriving in Chicago, I was excited to see Charles once again after so many years. He greeted me with a great big hug and told me that I looked just like Cher. Must have been the black hair and leopard printjacket Brian had bought for me.

My brother looked great too. He was wearing a slick suit and a confident walk. A professional wine-taster and business owner, life was treating him well. He encouraged me to check out the career opportunities in Chicago.

“Get out of the remote West and come to the East where you can really make some money,” Charles advised.

“But I may still want to stay in my marriage,” I said.

“Then bring the whole family,” he said. “This is a much better place to live.”

My four-day visit was fantastic. My brother and father treated me like royalty, taking me to Chicago’s finest restaurants for great food and expensive wines. I took a nostalgic tour around my old stomping grounds and visited some of Chicago’s tourist attractions with the only Chicago friend I had stayed in touch with over the years.

Charles took me to Evanston, Chicago’s elite suburb, because he thought it would be the best place for me to live. And it was beautiful, right on Lake Michigan and only a short commute from the city. He showed me what a wonderful life I could have living there with my children. He even offered me a good job with his company, plus the financial support I would need to move and get set up. I could also see that he and his lovely wife would be a good support network while I got my bearings.

I now had an easy way out of my marriage. I was totally free. I was seriously tempted by his offer. I told them honestly that I was considering their offer and I would give them a definite answer within a month. We did a lot of important background work while I was there, investigating places to live and actual costs. The salary he offered me was very generous, and would provide a decent lifestyle for myself and my kids. I really wanted to move there. I wanted a new beginning, but I still loved Brian.

I felt sad to leave, sad to leave this wonderful treatment and return to my family problems, but my vacation had given me much-needed strength I needed to face the looming battle that waited for me at home.

I arrived to find Brian in a miserable state. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t going to rest until I was just as unhappy as he was.

I tried in vain to do the “right” things. Everything I did seemed to be wrong. Then he confessed to me that he was jealous that I had been on such a wonderful trip and jealous that I had people in my life who were there to love me and help me through my troubles. He also confessed that he had spent the past four days imagining that my family had set me up with some man, who he imagined was much more worthy and wealthy than he was. He feared that I wouldn’t come home and that he would never see me again. I now felt compassion for how he must have felt.

Danielle told me that Brian had been so worried about losing me that he had stayed in the bedroom and had become physically ill. She had heard him vomiting repeatedly throughout the night. Sad as this was, it comforted me. The man must really love me, if he became physically ill over the prospect of losing me, I reasoned to myself.

Journal entry, October 26, 2000:

The misery continues. I had to drive the kids to youth group at the church, drive Danielle to work, buy a saw blade for Brian and rent a movie. The kids were mixed up about where the youth meeting was being held and it took me nearly an hour to find the right place. On my way home alone in the car, I started screaming as loud as I could and ended up sobbing. I was afraid that Brian would be angry with me for taking so long.

Then I realized this was totally unhealthy and I felt like I wanted to separate. I also took some of my anger out on the kids. That’s bad even though I did apologize. It’s like right now I’m happiest when I’m not with Brian. As it worked out, I phoned Brian right away and explained my problem and he wasn’t angry. I still had no opportunity to talk to him. But there is still hope for our relationship and I so much want things to work out. I don’t know what to do. I need wisdom.

Journal entry, October 30, 2000:

Things are going really well between Brian and me. We had a great weekend. The hockey game didn’t go so well. We had numerous difficult talks until finally I forgave Brian in writing, absolving him from his guilt, but even more so promising not to continually bring

his faults before him anymore, except in the context of counseling for the purpose of healing. This seemed to make all the difference. Yesterday we had a great time together. We tried on rings in the mall just for fun.

The best thing about it was that last night Brian said yesterday had been the first day in a really long time that he had had a good time. I think all the quality time has also paid off. It has been so difficult I didn’t feel like doing it and wished someone else could have spent the time with Brian and had all the difficult talks with him. But I think that it had to be this way. Ultimately I want to be with him, I believe he wants to be with me and we are the ones who in the end have to work out our relationship. No one else can do it for us. Others can provide a little help, but we have to do the work. Only we can pay the price.