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Spring 2011
The apex.
The implosion.
It isn't hard to guess. His trip to the country-that-must-not-be-named wasn't for healing and closure from the life altering accident he'd had 15 years ago. His travel buddy wasn't really his travel buddy. He didn't go with the intention of climbing a mountain. My husband traveled alone with the intention of sex. It was a sex-cation. An erotic vacation.
Landing at the airport and hailing cheap transportation he made arrangements at a dingy hotel full of single rooms. Floors and floors of this hotel filled with men from Australia and Germany and the US, all seeking the same thing. Cheap sex. Can you imagine the rickety contaminated mattress striped faded blue and gray? What a black-light would expose?
He spent 4 nights paying the ill-treated call girls across from his hotel at the Dollhouse. My requests for connection, for intimacy the night before he left went ignored. My emotions are raw and numb and tortured. This is my D-day. This is my Holocaust. My eyes are gaunt, viewing myself out of body. Being gassed. Heart stopping. Breath suffocating. Body like clay, cold, thin and dying. Landslide, swallowing me. Lungs filling with mud. Burning. Limbs numb. Time whirling, ticking. The unimaginable is now reality.
The truth took 6 months to reveal itself. During much of that time I was frozen, lethargic. Life kept rolling. I worked, cared for my kids, attended parent teacher conferences and soccer games and forgot to eat. I bawled. I was silent. I went mental. I bonfired all his underwear. I added the F-word to my vocabulary. Half-heartedly I listened to our therapist tell me it was my fault my husband cheated. I was numb as I nodded. Brainwashed. Watching a once healthy self-esteem give up and sink deep into the dark choppy sea. defeated.
He didn't seem apologetic or sorry. He was the same. No changed behavior. He was still hiding. Like I said, the truth took 6 months to reveal itself. With the truth my blinders fell off. I was strong again.
I knew who he was.
I knew who I was.
I couldn't be bamboozled anymore. He screwed Asian prostitutes. He lied. He lived a double-life. He had to leave. I generously gave him 24 hours to pack his shit and move out.
It's like one of those giant underground zits just under your nose that's so painful to touch it makes you cringe and your eyes tear up. You try squeezing it and pressing it. You try leaving it alone. You try a hot wash-cloth. You even buy that expensive zit cream from Wal-greens but nothing works. And then, it's ripe. With a gentle pinch the core bursts! Shooting it's contents on the mirror---and you love it! Purging gives you freedom.
He was gone and I was free!
