It Happened To Me: My Husband Said He Was 'Going Away For A Weekend Alone' — But I Was Secretly Reading Every Exchange Between Him And The Woman He Planned To Run Off With
Finding the journal detailing his affair was only Part One of my nightmare. As he continued to document every lie and misdeed, I resorted to desperate measures to keep my son safe.
Hello Smellies,
First of all, I want to acknowledge and apologize to those of you who have written me specifically asking when the next installment of this series would be running. I answered/lied that it would likely run last week and then it took us longer than we thought it would to get it all right. In any case, sorry and I trust you will feel it was worth the wait and thanks for hanging in there. I've been really eager for it also.
For any of you who don't know what I'm talking about, before you read today's installment below, I highly recommend that you read Part One, “I Read My Husband’s Journal And My Whole World Changed.” I am often not a linear reader myself, and start books in the middle or at the end, but in this case, it may be satisfying to do it the regular way. And you're the lucky ones because you don't even have to wait for Part Two. You can binge both parts of this incredible story right now.
And then please do tell me what you think of this and everything else we are doing here at AJPT, and anything else about your sweet life in general, in the comments. Or via any and all of those myriad ways you get to me when you have something important to say. It's all important.
I love you! And a huge thank you to Amelia for this gripping ongoing story.
-Jane
By: Amelia Warner
I found out about the affair ten days before Christmas, and it forced me to make a hard choice: Call it out or ride it out. I chose to remain silent about my husband's cheating, in the best interest of my son. My only goal at that point was to protect him, and I knew that to blow the top off my secret before the holidays — and his upcoming 14th birthday — would forever taint both those occasions for him.
It was bad enough that I was about to break up our family. I didn’t see any point in making it worse than I already knew it would be, eventually, when we delivered the news that his parents were separating. The affair was a grenade I was willing to throw myself on top of for the sake of preserving his peace and well-being. If only temporarily.
Preparations for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day kept my mind and hands busy. For that, I was grateful. My mom and stepdad (who, going forward, I will simply refer to as “my dad” because he embodied that role so beautifully) came to our house for Christmas Eve dinner. I teleported myself to a different reality that night. There were smiles and laughter, and shared stories. A good time was had by all. Christmas Day was challenging for me, but I had turned the charade into performance art, and I kept going into the New Year.
When January 2, 2012, arrived, I sat at my desk in our shared office. The house was quiet; no more Winter Break, vacation days, or networking parties. Hands in my lap, I stared at the empty black spiral-bound notebook in front of me. My favorite ballpoint pen, a Pilot Opt Fine Point sat diagonally on top of the notebook. A pad of neon pink mini Post-It Notes was off to the right.
Our two rescue dogs lay on the floor next to my chair, one on either side, like sentries.
I had already consulted an attorney, but I needed to come up with the $10,000 retainer fee to engage her services and begin the filing process. I looked at the phone in its cradle on the upper right-hand corner of the desk, behind my computer monitor.
I did not want to take the next action. I did not want to pick up that phone and call my mother. I did not want to ask her if I can borrow $10,000. I did not want to tell her about the affair. I thought, “I don’t know if she will be cruel or kind. I do not want this to be my life. I do not want to speak out loud the truth that will make this story real and not just a nightmare I might someday awaken from. I do not want to give any more oxygen to this fire. I have no choice. I cannot take money out of our savings. He manages our finances, and my name isn’t even on that account.”
The journal he had been sharing with his secret lover, a living, breathing document they passed back and forth between them outlining all of their misdeeds, had been out of my husband’s possession during the holidays, presumably with the mistress. But, upon its return, I caught up on all the things I missed. The next two entries were devastating.
While my son and I were in San Francisco, in addition to cooking and screwing in my kitchen and sleeping in my bed, the two of them had executed a plan for an accidentally-on-purpose run-in at IKEA so that my husband could meet her daughter. It was a smashing success. Excitement all around for how well the whole thing had gone. Not one glitch. My husband gave her daughter a rave review. She was bright, sweet and funny, which didn’t surprise him one bit.
In the middle of the night, in my silent house, I stifled the urge to let fly the primal, guttural scream roiling like the early stages of a cyclone in my chest and throat.
Until that point, their relationship, however deranged, had been confined to two selfish, self-centered, delusional adults; now, they were widening the circle to include two innocent children. I felt murderous, but mostly, I was feeling protective, not just of my child but hers too.
My husband then rattled on about a psychotic plan to rent a loft downtown, miles away from either of our homes and, more importantly, miles away from our kids’ schools and all their friends. I didn’t know if this hare-brained scheme was being hatched as a temporary solution, or if they were seriously planning their future together.
Her contribution to this imagining of their “someday” loft was the genius fantasy of displaying this very journal on their imaginary shared coffee table, like a beautiful book, as a visual declaration of their love. “Our kids will just have to understand that these things sometimes happen. They will adjust, and one day, they’ll understand,” she wrote.
I could barely breathe.
I quickly went down a rabbit hole in my mind. Was it simply a matter of time before I read about a new cockamamie plan they had concocted for her to meet my son? It seemed the next logical step. The clock on my timeline began to tick ever more loudly.
I had had so many WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK moments up to this point, but the loft and the IKEA meet-up raised the stakes — and my anxiety level — considerably. On the other hand, my muddled brain was beginning to get the vague sense that this affair could be my golden ticket out of complacency and resignation, and into an uncertain (but hopefully brighter) future filled with possibilities which I could not yet begin to imagine, but which I prayed existed.
A few years prior, at the local park where our son played sports, there had been a crazy baseball season defined by several parents of the kids on the teams being exposed for having affairs with one another. As the infidelities became public knowledge — and separations and divorces were set in motion — there was one couple for whom things turned ugly fairly quickly.
The cheating husband started shit-talking his soon-to-be ex-wife to their kids. Those kids were eight and ten years old. It was heartbreaking and infuriating. I was flabbergasted by the emotional immaturity and selfishness of it all. I noticed the ten-year-old boy becoming less social, less engaged with his teammates, and less joyful on the field. This was a kid who normally had some swagger.
Admittedly, up to this point, I had always thought this kid was kind of a jerk — a jovial but somewhat bratty kid. Now, my heart was breaking for him. I remember thinking how horrible it would feel to have to share your children with the person ultimately (or at least partially) responsible for the collapse of your marriage.
Sitting in my office now, I could not bring myself to envision a scenario in which I had to co-parent with this woman, a situation in which she would have access to my child and I would be powerless to stop it. But, as the journal entries became increasingly unhinged, it seemed that that situation had the potential to indeed become my reality.