I ended the last post with this:
"As sad as it is, that is where I found myself on February 11, 2012. Not grieving over the pain I had caused my husband. Not caring that my marriage was in shambles. But worried about how I would say goodbye to this other man.
That's the brutal truth.
That is where my heart was."
The next few days went by in a blur. Kris found out on a Saturday night. Things were awkward, to say the least. We carried on as normal, on the outside. Dealing with the kids, being a "big happy family." But as Kris and I tried to work through things, and he assured me that we could still make it work and things could still be OK between us, I grew more and more uneasy.
I knew I had to get away. Even if it was just for a little while. I told Kris this.
I told him that I wanted to leave.
That I needed time to think and figure out what I was going to do.
I seriously thought that there was a chance, at this point in time, that I might leave and never come home again. We talked about what I would do. Go to my parents' house? No. Too far from the kids. His mom's? No. My dear friend Jennifer offered up her daughter's bed to me and it was settled that I would go stay with her for a while. I was home for 4 days before I went to Jennifer's house. I do not know how I would have made it through those days without Jennifer.
When I knew I was leaving, I wanted to prepare the kids. Here was the truth of it. Yes, I had had a 7 1/2 year long affair with another man. But they were too young to really divulge all of this to. At the same time, I was really wrestling with God. We told them that I needed to figure out my relationship with God, which was the truth put mildy! They accepted this and my plans were made.
I left on a Wednesday night. This entire time I had stayed in close contact with this other man. My life was falling apart. The last thing I wanted was to cut him out of my life and lose the only emotional stability I had.
Like I will never forget the night of February 11, 2012, I will never forget the night that I left my house and walked away from my marriage.
From my family.
There was a lot of tension between Kris and I that night, as you can well imagine. We sat outside in the van for almost two hours. Parked in the driveway. Talking. It was so painful. And honestly, I just wanted to leave. I wanted him to get out of the van and just let me go. But because I felt I owed it to him, I waited patiently. Until he was ready to let me go.
But he was clinging to something. He was trying to hold on. Trying to find some way to make me stay. Grasping for ANYTHING.
But I had nothing to give. Nothing to offer him. By my own doing, my heart was taken from him and given to someone else. In my mind, there was really nothing left between us. Kris assured me over and over again that he loved me and we could get through it. I didn't believe it, and I didn't want to try. At least...I knew I needed some time and space to think about what I wanted. I needed time to say goodbye to this other man.
Kris took my hand while we sat in the van and said with the utmost sincerity "I will NEVER look at porn again." I immediately thought "Yeah...right...I've heard that before." Besides, this was so far beyond pornography by now. I had given myself to another man, body and heart, for over 7 years. There was no forgiveness left for me. Not from Kris and surely not from God. Kris should have been screaming hate-filled, angry words at me.
I screamed them at myself.
He should have been raging and yelling. But he wasn't.
He told me that he wouldn't look at pornography. Ever again.
When Kris realized that I was really ready to leave, he looked down.
So lost.
So forlorn.
So sad.
Before he shut the door, he said "I'm afraid that to keep you, I'm going to have to let you go." The "I'm going to have to let you go" is what stuck with me. It echos in mind, even now.
I backed out of the driveway and went to "find myself." I went to figure things out. To choose.
Nothing about those first five days of "freedom" was easy.
Some freedom. Sure I could now come and go as I pleased. I could see this other man whenever I wanted.
I felt trapped. I was so afraid. Of life. Of loss. Of love. Of God.
I was unhappy. I thought about killing myself. I questioned whether it would be better for the kids to grieve a coward of a mother that didn't have the strength to hang on or for them to have a depressed mother that was a broken, ugly mess. Those were really the only two options at the time. As usual, the thought of my kids growing up without a mother at all put an end to that type of thinking.
Indecisiveness weighed on me. Did I really think I could make it alone? Did I think I could go back home and put my marriage back together? Would it even work? Was there any chance in hell that the marriage was even salvageable?
I was also losing someone else that I had come to depend on.
I cared for this man more than I like to admit and more than thought I thought it was possible to care about another person. I spent a lot of time with him in those last days. I knew I was leading up to the final goodbye. He knew it too. That definitely did NOT make it easier.
In the meantime, Kris would call me during the day. He would email or text me, or send me a chat. Sometimes it made me mad. Other times, it just confused me. Why was he so eager to talk to me? Hadn't I shattered his hopes and dreams about us having a life together? He would tell me that he loved me. But I didn't hear it. I couldn't. I certainly didn't feel it. So I immediately dismissed it.
And this other man was telling me that Kris should be respecting my request for "time to think." I was in a messed up place. I believed the other man, over my own husband. This just fueled my anger towards Kris. It made my decision harder though too.
Why was Kris pursuing me?
What did I have to offer him?
I was absolutely nothing.
Nothing but a "fucked up whore"!
It is the only name I knew. It is what I believed that I was, to the core of my being.
Nothing more.
Maybe less.
It is the name Satan whispered in my ear over and over again.
A thousand times a day.
As the weekend approached, I began to feel my heart open up to Kris. He was emailing me and telling me things he had never told me. He was sharing his heart with me. He was telling me the truths that God had been teaching him through this mess we had made of our marriage. Of our lives. And suddenly, I found myself thinking about Kris more and this other man less. For the first time since the affair began.
And for the first time in seven years, I felt a tiny glimmer of hope.
Here is why:
I didn't recognize Kris. I didn't recognize this man that was calling and texting and emailing me. I didn't see him as the addiction-bound man I had come to know. Something was different about him. I couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe it was instinctive. Maybe it was just that obvious.
But, Kris was a changed man.
I didn't understand it. But it was something. I found myself drawn to Kris. This new man that was romancing me confused and intrigued me.
By Sunday, February 19, 2012, my decision was made.
I was going to go home.
But how was I supposed to say goodbye to the only man that understood me?
I didn't.
We sat together.
We talked.
We cried.
Before I actually went home, I told Kris that one thing he would need to understand about me being there was that I would need time and space to grieve. As mean as that sounds...I was losing someone. Kris walking away from images on a computer screen was significantly different than me walking away from a real, live, tangible person. I told Kris that for me, it would be as if someone had died. That is how profoundly I feared I would feel this loss.
And yet, I was willing to go home.
To the unknown.
To the unexpected.
To walk away from the "safety" I found in the arms of another man, to the very real risk that Kris would just be sucked back into the vicious cycle of addiction. And that somewhere down the road, I would find myself in the same pathetic, miserable situation I currently found myself in.
You see, this was my fear. This is why I was terrified to go home. I knew that I was giving up the only thing in my life that in a messed up way made sense to me. I knew that no matter what, I was going to walk away.
I didn't know what the future would hold.
There were no guarantees that Kris would live up to all the promises he was making to me. There were no guarantees that I would ever be whole again. I was so broken. Beyond repair, I believed. What hope did our marriage have when I was such a hopeless mess?
It was a very scary time for me.
I told Kris that in addition to being patient with me as I grieved this loss, if he EVER looked at pornography again it was over. I told him "If it happens ONE time, I'm gone." This was not a point that I was willing to compromise on. It was essentially a threat. But it was non-negotiable.
So that Sunday evening, I stepped away from my comfort. From the only thing in my life that I understood. I said a wordless goodbye to a man that had been the center of my world for over seven years.
And I walked away from the affair.
I went home.
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