The Day I Ate the Crust and Didn't Complain

It all started during winter break. I was home during the day, we made the choice early in our marriage that I would stay working at the school so a parent could be with our girls as much as possible. We didn't want our girls to spend 12-14 hours a day in daycare. My husband at the time worked in construction, often 60+ hours a week, frequently out of town. He had been laid off for the winter, so I was home, paying more attention than usual to his behavior.

I had noticed little things about his phone. He carried it everywhere, charged it on his side of the bed under the mattress, and when I walked into the room while he was watching TV, he would quickly put it down. One day, I caught him picking it up again as I turned to leave.

A few years earlier, around 2009, I had found text messages on his phone while he was showering. I’d picked it up off the counter, and when the water shut off and the curtain opened, he asked me what I was doing. I, in return, asked him the same. His behavior now gave some of those gut instincts to kick in. Queue Pink Panther Theme Song - In 2009, I logged into our phone account and printed off all the records over the past three months, highlighted the most frequently used phone numbers, cross-referenced them to my phone contacts, and then searched them on Facebook to see whose page pulled up. I had the names and phone numbers of 3 women he was cheating on with me. I logged in and printed out our phone usage. I had 3 months' worth of phone calls, messages, and messages with attachments. I then cross-checked those numbers on my phone to see if I knew them, and I then searched for those numbers on Facebook to see whose profile popped up with that number. I now knew the names and faces of these ladies. I knew the dates each of those relationships started. He went from 50 text messages 1 month to over 1700. I saw that he messaged them when we were out for dinner on my birthday, I saw that he messaged them on Christmas, I remember back to one night during deer hunting weekend, he came home so late, smelling like perfume, and I wondered why the deer shack would have perfume. The next day, he told me his "story" of how his buddy had never been to a club and his friend asked him to go with him. I didn't believe it, but I also didn't question him. Back then, it had been shocking and painful, but I had let it go, I didn't have the finances, the self-esteem, or mental bandwidth to even think of any other choice. We had three girls, depending on us. I trusted him and I wanted him to love me.

Now, back to 2016, the secrecy around his phone and the way he guarded it made my suspicion grow. I had seen this behavior before. This wasn't my first rodeo with this guy. I decided to look again, not by searching in his phone this time, but by using the fact that I had helped him set up his Facebook account and Messenger years ago. I logged out of my accounts and into his.

The next day at work, I started receiving notifications nonstop. The messaging history was now synced to my phone. I was grateful to be at work—I couldn’t focus on them or my feelings, and having the distraction of real tasks was a relief. I would have lost my mind otherwise.

Through the messages, I recognized the names of several women. Some lived in our town. I remembered the exact day he had met one of them. I had been there. The betrayal hit differently, knowing these connections weren’t new they had been hiding in plain sight.

Sitting at my desk, staring at the constant stream of notifications, I felt a mix of disbelief, anger, and exhaustion. My mind raced with questions I didn’t have answers to - yet. How long had this been going on? Why would these women do this? They know he was married. Our kids knew each other, for God's sake. And … why me? Why again?

I realized that the next steps wouldn’t be easy. I had opened a door I couldn’t close, and whatever came next would force me to confront everything I had tried to ignore over the years. I did know one thing: I was done. I was not ignoring anything anymore. I needed to have a plan. But a plan for what........