Marriage Under Mercy Part 3

Part 3

The truth will set you free, right? I spent months relentlessly pursuing the truth, desperate for this promised freedom. I was still obsessing over learning the details and the why. This was a battle that would nip at my heels for years. See, what people don’t tell you when you are betrayed is that anger consumes you, doubt betrays you and your wounded pride is unfortunately what guides you.

At this point, I had prayed to and screamed at God. I begged Him for help. I knew I had, in recent years, put my relationship with Him on hold. Many of my friends as well as my husband were not passionate about- or even comfortable with- going to church, prayer, or discussing the Bible. Despite this recent lapse in my walk, I knew I needed Him to get through this. I desperately needed His guidance. I would pray, and I kept hearing Him in the back of my mind- a voice inside my head, yet not my own, telling me, “Give him a year,” and to be sober-minded. I also had questions being asked directly back to me…“Do you want to know everything?” What kind of answers were these! First of all, to be sober meant to feel, and I was not prepared for that. Give him a year? You are out of your mind!!! This man had betrayed me and made me look like a fool! This marriage was over! It had to be over, I didn’t have a choice. He made the decision for us. And did I want to know everything? Now there, I wasn’t sure. I just wanted the pain to stop. I wanted the sinking, rolling feeling to go away, and I wanted to have some control over my life again. I didn’t ask for this, and I didn’t want to be the statistic- another marriage that didn’t make it. I wanted to be happy! My parents had a horrific divorce that affected me greatly. I would never want anything like that for my children. My poor boys. This was so unfair. I started to see the anxiety building in my oldest son's face. I was going to have to tell them something soon. They were beginning to notice that Daddy wasn’t home when Mommy was. They started to ask questions, and I did not have any answers for them. I didn’t have answers for anyone. “It was just a mistake!” The snarky words of A’s voice echoed in my ear. But her answer just wasn’t enough to explain the collapse of my family.

After we came home from Seattle, we continued living apart. My husband came to the house after work to spend time with the kids. He was consumed with me and our broken relationship at this point, and it was affecting his work. We had to talk about our next move. I planned to take the kids to Boston for the summer before this had all broken out. After the affair, the thought of escaping to the other side of the country kept me sane. However, I knew we still had a lot to work out, and questions needed to be answered. What were we going to do? He needed to know what my plan was. I didn’t want to break up my family, but I couldn’t even look at him! One decision had been made- we were selling our house. I was running as far away from his “mistakes” as possible. I’m really good at running. Running away and hiding is easy. Staying and confronting your nightmare is terrifying. I wanted to get that one-way ticket with my kids and not come back till this mess was cleaned up. This was too hard of a job to fix, there was no helping this marriage. It was dead.

May 1st arrived, and it was our anniversary. I wanted to get out of the house as fast as possible. I could barely look at him. I knew leaving him alone while I went out would hurt him, and punishing him was my new fuel. I got dressed in his favorite dress. He loved it on me, and I made sure he saw me when he came over to be with the kids. As we exchanged looks, I could see the sadness throughout his whole body. He then slipped me a card. “Happy anniversary,” he said barely above a whisper. I took it, looked at him, and began walking out. “What anniversary?” I said before shutting the door. I threw the card in my purse and ignored the temptation to read it.

He was on the porch waiting for me when I got home that night. That was our new spot to communicate. No yelling, no screaming, just a last-ditch effort to talk before he headed back to his new home. Mostly though, it would be me asking questions and him avoiding the answers. Tonight- maybe because it was our anniversary- I was extra cold. I was so angry he STILL wouldn’t be honest with me, and my bitterness was beginning to show. He felt how closed off I had become. The love I had shown freely for years was being held captive. The ransom: his full honesty. I was quick-tempered and seriously annoyed at these little talks he liked to have before leaving. I still wanted answers, and he had not told me a thing.

That night it felt different. He looked so sad. He was on the verge of breaking down. Something had changed in him…I was still prepared for another go-nowhere conversation, but he looked down, took a breath, and began talking. The words were like keys- unlocking doors to secrets I had pounded on to be opened for years!!! He told me how hard it was to look at the woman he loved and tell me all the horrible things he had done. “How do you even do that? Tell the woman I do love that I said I love you to another woman? How do I explain I never meant it. That all the things I said were a lie? Did it even matter at this point? I did what I did and I regret every moment.” The truth was hard. He said he felt that he had hurt me so much already and that he didn’t want to hurt me anymore. I looked at him, a retort on the tip of my tongue, and that’s when I heard it- the voice telling me to stay calm and to let him speak. I did, and we began to unravel our whole marriage. He would start to say something, and the moment he would lie I heard the voice again. “He is not broken yet, ask him for the truth,” I repeated this out loud a few times that night. He looked at me- scared that at any moment I was going to turn and scream at him. Instead, I calmly and lovingly asked him to continue. He told me that night things that I had already known, things that I had felt. Things he had sworn in the past were never true and never happened. I had no clue how bad our marriage was. What a lie we had been living. There were so many betrayals and so many painful regrets. He told me everything one by one. He never looked more vulnerable than he did that night. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to thank him for finally telling me the truth. It couldn’t have been easy, and he was shaking. When he was done going over 8 years of lies, he began to cry. Then I did grab him, and I held him. We just sat there hugging. I looked at him with tears in my eyes, knowing, after what I just heard, I had my answer. I calmly looked at him and said, “You know this marriage is over, right?” He shook his head and just dropped. He was broken. The truth had set me free, but it killed any hope of this marriage being saved. I walked my husband out to his car, exhausted. I wanted to just curl up in a ball and cry. I had my answers, I had my truth, and now I was going to get divorced…..Then I heard it- His voice in my head, “Give me a year! Don’t do anything, don’t file, don’t make any decisions, Give me one year!” I looked up and very loudly said, “You have no idea what you are talking about!” My wounded pride responded to the guidance I had asked for. A year? You are out of your mind if You think I’m giving that man a year.

To be continued...

Written By Blaire Lometti-Mathias

Edtior:LR

BY BLAIRE LOMETTI-MATHIASIN MOMMY PROOF: STAYING SANE, TRAVEL, TUCSON AREA, WHAT'S YOUR HAPPY HOUR?TAGGED #MARRIAGEUNDERMERCY #MARRIAGE # HURT #REDEMPTION # FORGIVENESS #BETRAYAL #HAPPYMOMMYHOUR #TRUTHANDLIES #AFFAIR #HELP #FORGIVE #MYSTORY #HONEST #MYLIFE