Love, Lunaé

I knew there was distance. There had been for some time and it was continuing to grow. It wasn’t what I wanted. I loved my husband. I knew when we first started dating there were going to be a lot of real growing pains. He was ten years younger than me. I’m not going to pretend it was easy. It was not. But loving him was easy until love wasn’t enough. A marriage can’t thrive on love alone.

Up until we moved to Pennsylvania, we lived very close to my family. I depended on them a good bit for everything. And that had to change. I needed to be able to rely on my husband. I needed for him to be an equal partner. I needed for him to help share the responsibility of our life. My patience with my husband was wearing thin. The man I once wanted to spend every moment with was now the man that I wanted to avoid. Not because I no longer loved him. Love was never the problem. But after years of being the stronger partner that carried everything for our family, I became exhausted. Throw having to learn how to let my adult children grow, a near-death experience, and perimenopause into the mix, and I was praying for a life jacket because I had one nostril above water and didn’t know how much longer I could survive.

My husband tried to be there. He wanted to comfort me. He wanted to understand me. Why I was always crying. Why I was always irritated. Why I was pulling more and more away. But it was like a broken record. How many times can you repeat the same information over and over again before you get to the point where you just stop talking? More distance. The harder he tried, the more suffocated I felt. More irritation. And before I knew it, I was in a version of my marriage I never wanted to be in.

The love was still there, but everything else was in shambles. I knew as long as we had a good foundation, we could always rebuild everything else. But two people can live inside the same marriage and experience two completely different versions of it. He saw me pulling away and shutting him out, and it terrified him. I saw a rough patch that could be repaired because I believed in our marriage.

He was struggling with keeping a steady job. Returning to the jail offered stability. Friday was his first night on shift. I remember him calling me to let me know that he would be out at the hospital. He wasn’t sure what time he would get home because he had to wait for his relief to get there and then take his buddy home. It was around noon when he finally got home. I was eager to hear about his first night on shift. He rushed to the bathroom, saying he needed to take a shower because he hated being at the hospital and the smell of it. I understood. When he was done, he kissed me and stayed up for a little bit to talk about his first night on shift and how it wasn’t what he expected, but at least he was home. He went to sleep and I carried on with my day. He left for work later that evening, kissing me goodbye as he walked out the door. There was so much love and tenderness behind that kiss. It was nice knowing there was finally some stability and routine to our lives again that allowed for those tender moments. Hopefully he would enjoy working there this time, since the first time hadn’t gone as well as he had hoped. I went to bed feeling a little lighter with that peace of mind.

I woke up around 3 am with a text from my husband asking if I was awake. He had sent it around 2 am so maybe he was still reachable. I responded, “I am now.” I was not prepared for the next text. He told me he had given this a lot of thought and he wanted a divorce. What? I was floored. My heart pounded as my mind began racing. I could not understand where that was coming from. I knew that we had been going through a rough patch, but that’s all it was to me. A rough patch. I thought we were getting better. I thought we were finally starting to have a little breathing room. We were intimate. He kissed me passionately before he left for work. How could my perception of reality be so wildly different from his? I was so stunned. I set my phone down and just sat there in the dark. Ting. Another message. Ting. Ting. More messages. I had no coherent thoughts at the moment and I didn’t want to know what more he had to say right then. My phone started ringing. I hit the silence button. This can’t be happening right now. This is not real. Ting. Ting. I wanted to find the nearest hole and crawl in it. I could no longer hold everything together. My kids were gone and now my husband wanted to leave me too. I felt numb, unwanted, discarded. I can’t go through this again. I don’t want to go through this again. The life that I had been so happy with was now the life I so desperately wanted to escape. I just wanted it all to end. But who will be there for the kids? Even though three of them were adults, my youngest would still need me. She might not think it right then, but she would come around. My oldest kids didn’t stop needing a mother just because they were adults. Who was going to love them as much as I did if I wasn’t here? Ting. I finally looked at my phone. He was panicking. Good. After the hell he had put me through, a little panic wouldn’t hurt. But I still loved him. A thousand questions were forming. He said he loved me but wasn’t sure if he was still in love with me. That he was at the point where he didn’t want to come home. I hated that he felt that way. I still wanted him to come home. What can I do to make this better? What do you need from me? He needed me emotionally. He needed me to be present. Okay, I can work on that. I can give that to you. I was trying to get there, I just needed more from you too. He said he needed to feel the way he used to. Okay, how can we accomplish that? I’m here. I’m willing. He said he needed to be straightforward and that because of how distant we had grown, he had considered looking for emotional support outside of our marriage. As in seeing another woman? No. He assured me it was only a thought. Okay, I can work with that. He said he was scared. Me too. But we can fix this. We both deserve to be happy. And he realized it before it went too far. Relief. We were able to joke through the remainder of his shift. I wanted him to know I was there. That I was serious. That I didn’t want to lose him. I could hold myself accountable for my part and put in the effort. And I could tell he was feeling better. I knew I was. He still had to take his buddy home but then he would be on his way and we could spend a little time together before he had to go to bed. Maybe if I held him, let him feel the amount of love I truly felt for him, he would find peace.

I had dozed off on the couch waiting for him to come home. The sound of the door startled me as he walked in. I sat up and faintly smiled, trying to fully wake up. He looked so tense. He asked me if I remembered him telling me he had to be straightforward. Yeah. Why? I felt a knot beginning to form in the pit of my stomach and the pressure forming in my chest. “I haven’t been completely honest. It wasn’t Logan that I gave a ride home. It was his ex-wife.” Oh God. No. No. No. No. Please, God, no. Don’t tell me. Please don’t tell me. “When I came home yesterday and took a shower, it was because I smelled like her perfume and I didn’t want you to smell it.” You have got to be fucking kidding me. “Did you fuck her?” “No, it was just a kiss.” Instant rage. “You gave another woman a ride home in MY car and you fucking kissed her in MY car?” His eyes dropped. He could no longer look me in the face. I jumped up off the couch. “You piece of shit. You lying fucking piece of shit! How could you fucking do this to me?” “I know. I’m so sorry. I swear I never meant for any of this to happen.” “But it did. You did let this happen. I fucking hate you. I hate you for doing this. I hate you for doing this to us.” “Please, calm down. I’m sorry.” “Calm down? You want me to fucking calm down. Fuck you!” By now, I had completely lost control. I was screaming, crying, hitting him. Years of anger, frustration, resentment, and now pain all came flying out. With each pounding of my fist, he winced. But he never tried to stop me. My rage slowly fizzled out. Numb. I thought we were getting better. He reached for me. “I love you. I’m so sorry. Please, I want to fix this.” “Let me see your phone.” “Huh? No. Why?” “Let me see your fucking phone.” “No!” “Why? If you are telling me everything, then why can’t you show me your phone?” “Because I don’t want you hurting more than you already are.” I wanted him to be telling the truth. But why was I still feeling like there was more? He wasn’t going to hand it over if I kept pushing. He grabbed my hand and pulled me close. “I love you. Let me fix this.” And honestly, I loved him too and I wanted him to fix it. And in that moment I grabbed onto him and kissed him so passionately. I needed to know that he still desired me. “You are MINE! You are MY husband. This…this belongs to me!” as I grabbed him and fucked him harder.

We lay in each other’s arms for the rest of the day. Dozing in and out of consciousness. But something was still gnawing at me. Why didn’t he want me to see his phone? There had to be more. I didn’t want to think about it right then. But if I didn’t look, it was going to haunt me. I waited until he was sleeping, and I mean snoring, leg-twitching sleeping, before I got the nerve to grab his phone. God, here I was sneaking off to the bathroom in the middle of the night with his phone like a fucking kid doing something bad. This is what I was reduced to. I closed the bathroom door and locked it. Just go ahead and get it over with. My hands were ice cold. I’m shaking to the point where my teeth are chattering. Please don’t let it be more. God, please don’t let it be more. No texts. Wait. What? Check the deleted messages. There are several threads from unknown numbers. Great. Now I had to recover each thread. Nothing important. Nothing important. Again, nothing important. Jackpot. Fuck. My heart sank. Okay. First few messages just stupid shit. OMG. He’s talking to her like he’s a horny fucking teenager. My chest tightened. I was never his type? What the fuck? He chased me for months! He married me! Who is he pretending to be? This was not him. This was not the man I’d known for ten years. Picture. How could he send a picture of himself in the shower while I was literally in the next room? And then there it was… it wasn’t just a kiss. He fucked her.