Wanted to post about d-day since it is March 21-22....

Prior to d-day, H had not been himself for a couple of months...most markedly he was going out all the time...He had a job with lots of overtime and out calls so he was able to mask a lot of what he was doing. In fact, the A had been going on for 6 months prior to this without me having any clue because he worked so much overtime and they were only seeing eachother once a month. He was easily able to hide for a few hours a month when we was working dozens of hours of OT a month...But then OW moved out from her primary relationship and became available all the time...that is when the A started escalating and H started getting sloppy - seeing her several times a week, and coming home later and later...

In February I started becoming suspicious because he was out late all the time...Some of his stories were believable...I knew he hated his job, and he would tell me that he was hanging out with people from work because they were all so miserable and that it helped him to spend time talking about the job with them. I had caught him lying a few times, and several times I was able to get him to admit that he had been with her...but he claimed they were good friends...He said he had lied because he thought I would get upset. I was told there was nothing to worry about because she is a lesbian (in reality she is bisexual). We had lived in that state for several years, and he had not made any male friends during that time, so he would lay the guilt on me that I was trying to take away the only friend he had made in years. I would tell him that if they were such good friends, he should bring her over so we could all be friends. Of course that never happened...

Anyway, most of February and March were a blur of him coming home late and me confronting him...Stupid me, I still believed they were not having an A, but I thought that their friendship was becoming too important to him..I started checking his cell phone...her number was there a lot...I confronted him about this, that I thought they were getting too close...He said he would stop talking to her outside of work if it bothered me so much and her number stopped appearing on his phone (they started planning in person at that point)...

Things became completly unmanageable at this time..I was in my last semester of classes for my degree, and I was not sleeping at night because I couldn't sleep when he was out...I would call him over and over, but his cell would be turned off...I kept telling him that I was starting to screw up at school (which I was - I was tired in class, missing important information, not able to compete assignments) - I told him that everything we had worked and sacrificed for was being ruined because of him being out all the time, and he would promise that he would stop...but it would continue...the confrontations became daily and more intense...

At one point we had made love during the afternoon, and we were talking about saving our marriage. Afterwards, I went downstairs to make dinner while he took a shower...All of a sudden he came running downstairs to go out! He said something happened and he had to run out (actually she had called his cell phone ready to see him)..He and I had a huge brawl right in front of the kids in which I pretty much forbade him to go out...but he did go anyway.....we had just had what I thought was a meaningful interlude and now he was running out? When he came home he said that she had had a drinking crisis and need him...That night for the first time I asked if he was having an affair with her. He said no, they were just friends and she often needed his help because of her drinking. A couple of weeks before d-day I was starting to tell him that I was not going to live like this, that I did not get sober like this...I only have one life and this was not how I wanted to live it...but it kept on...I still struggle with this part of the A...though I know about the addiction thing...He saw me crying and in pain practically every day, but he still kept on...But I guess that is comparable to the alcoholic who keeps drinking when his life was falling down around him...

The week before d-day I started checking up on him...The first few times he was either where he said he would be, or had a believable reason for not being there...

March 21 - Sunday - H said he was going to work out at the gym and then to work some OT. I drove to the gym and waited for him to show up...Of course, he never did...He called and I played the game...How was your workout honey? And he proceeded to tell me all about it...This was the first lie that he could not get out of...I told him I was at the gym and he had not been there...
We got in a huge arguement which culminated in me asking if he was *&^%* her...He hung up on me...He called back a while later and said he had really gone to a casino 60 miles away and had lied because he knew I would have argued with him about going...
I said come home so we can talk...He said he had driven all the way there and would come home in a few hours...He did not come home until late that night...We fought again...I stuck by my belief that he was with her and finally he admitted that he had been with her and some of her friends...

He went to sleep. I was up and while walking by his dresser realized that his wedding ring wasn't where he usually put it at night...I looked at his finger and it wasn't there either...I woke him up and asked where his wedding ring was...I started going through all of his things looking for it...He was half asleep, telling me to leave his stuff alone...then he went out to the garage and took it out of the glove compartment...I asked why he had not been wearing it...He said "What do you think?" and I knew it was because he did not want her friends to know he was married...He went back to sleep...I think to escape...I stayed up all night...

When it came time to wake everyone up for work and school, I told him that I was not going to live like this anymore...I challenged him to stay home with me (since I had been up all night crying and could not go to school in the shape I was in) and deal with this because it was not going to go away, or we should plan for one of us to move out...He said "ok, after the kids go to school I will get honest about everything"....and he did...

Just like the books say, even when you are sure they are cheating, there is no pain like actually hearing it is true..I guess I was still hoping there was some other explanation...but there it was...and it hurt like a knife going through me. Of course, I thought for sure that he was in love with her...after all he had been spending so much time with her, and had been sacrificing our marriage for it..He said they had been having an affair, but they did not want any future together...It was just sex...I asked him if he wanted to stay married...He said yes, and I told him that he had to break it off...He said ok....We called her and I told her that I knew and that it was over...(Of course, she still tried to get with him later that week, but he told her it was over)...The whole day is just a blur of me crying and asking questions...being stunned again and again with the answers of all that went on that I didn't know about...

Definitely the worst day of my life....

Marie,

If you don't mind, I'd like move your story to our Member's section. This is where we have posted "our stories" about the A. New and old members can go there; read and reference.

TLMM

Marie - your d-day story has been copied to the "Member's Forum". Please would you let us know if you would prefer not to have it copied there?

Q

Edited to add: thanks for the terrific post.