I Wasn't Ready to Eat The Crust

That night, after the notifications wouldn’t stop, I knew I needed a plan. A plan to tell him we were done and not fall back into believing it wouldn’t happen again because it would. Deep down, I knew that. I needed a plan to tell my girls, to tell my family, to tell his family.

The first thing I did was take screenshots. I didn’t do it for him, or even for them, I did it for me. Proof, yes, but also a reminder. A reminder not to forgive and forget. I had done that before, and we see where I am at again. A reminder that he had made these choices, built these connections, betrayed this life we had. A reminder to keep moving forward. Even now, I’m grateful I did that. On the days I felt weak, those screenshots told the truth when my heart wanted to rewrite it. I saved them in a folder titled "Delete Someday When Ready".

Each message that popped up fed the fire inside me. Ordinary words, carrying extraordinary betrayal. “I have a couple of hours free.” While I sat at the band concert, he was too tired to attend. “I have a couple of hours free.” While I was running kids to practice, buying groceries, and keeping everything afloat.

The hardest part wasn’t what I read; it was realizing how seamlessly he had lived this double life. Birthdays. Holidays. Deer-hunting weekends. Even on nights I kissed him goodnight, he was somewhere else entirely, with someone else entirely. And the part that still stings, even now, is how he could talk tough about how no boy would ever hurt our girls, never stopping to see that he was already doing the very thing he claimed to protect them from.

I remember sitting there, the glow of my phone in my hands, feeling both numb and so angry it hurt my heart. Part of me wanted to throw up. Part of me wanted to set something on fire. And part of me, the quietest part, the one I can hear so clearly looking back already knew: life as I knew it was over.

But in that moment, I wasn’t ready to move. I didn't want to eat this damn crust! I sat with the knowledge, circling the same questions over and over. What would be my first step? How would I support myself and the girls? I was a secretary at the local school steady work, but not much. Where would I live? I had been with this man since I was 16. I had little kids. I passed on my career advances so our kids can be at home with at least one parent. These were choices we made together. What was happening now - I didn't have a say in any of it. We were buying the house right next door to his parents. Staying wasn’t an option, and honestly, I didn’t want it to be.

How long do I wait to confront him? Should I just get it over with? I wasn’t ready. So each night, instead, I read the messages. Over and over, wondering if he ever thought of me in those moments. Did he not care because he felt so secure I’d never leave? Or worse, did he want me to find out, so he could play the victim, the one who had been “left”? It was a mind game I couldn’t win, and I see now, it wasn’t mine to play.

One memory from about a month earlier rose up in my thoughts. We had been in bed, and he touched me differently than before. And right there, in that moment, I knew it wasn’t about me. It was fresh from someone else. That hurt me in a way the screenshots couldn’t. My body knew the betrayal before my mind caught up.

Another memory followed, this one from the summer. We had been camping, and weeks later, the camper was still parked in the middle of the driveway. I had asked him a few times to move it so it was out of the way. I asked again. He wanted to take a shower first. I’d hooked up that camper plenty of times, so I went out and did it myself. This wasn't the first time I had done things by myself, and it wasn't going to be the last time either.

When I came back in, I sat with the girls in the living room. He walked in, looked straight at me, and said, “Sometimes I just don’t like you.” Those words. Spoken out loud. In front of our girls. I can still hear them echo. In that moment, I swear I felt my heart tear. I’m not exaggerating, I heard it, I felt it. And years later, I would also hear and feel my heart repair itself. That part of the story is still to come. But sitting there in that living room, I didn’t know that yet. I only knew the tearing.