affair

How far you’ve gone

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You talk about how far I’ve gone, I dont clean like I used to, I dont cook like I used to. I don’t even play or love like I used to. But why is how far I’ve fallen all you can see?

Why do you always talk about these things like they just happened overnight? Why do you complain about me as if this weren’t the result of something larger? Is there truly something wrong with me? Do I not deserve the same love and patience?

I’m cleaning more now, see? Why haven’t you noticed? Im playing with the kids, cooking their favorite meals, and shopping. Will it never be enough?

I can feel your families eyes on me, its hard not to notice your sisters rolling their eyes. Was it something I said? Or something you told them?

I can feel the shackles trying to form, fastening themselves out of paranoia and low self-worth. I feel desperate, I want them to like me. I want them to see that I’m improving, so I talk about all the things I got done this week, proudly boasting that I cleaned the living room and about all the fancy dinners. As if it’s anything to brag about at all. The looks on their faces tell me its not.

I hesitate when silence breaks the conversation and smile when my niece giggles. I ask to hold her.

“She’s a little grumpy today,” your sister says and gives her to your Mom a few moments later. Do they think I don’t notice?

“You know, I’m home all the time these days. I could help watch her anytime,” I keep trying.

“Oh, yeah,” she says, but the look on her face says it won’t happen in a million years.

When will it stop being about how far I’ve fallen? How much have you complained about me? Why can’t they see this didn’t just happen, I didn’t just break. I was broken. And still, I’m trying. I AM getting better. Instead of talking about my struggles, why can’t you support me and talk about my triumphs?

I’m sorry, it takes me a while to process these things. I write about this small blip even as it happened months ago. I never knew what it meant to me.

Shattered

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I couldn’t do it all on my own anymore. I had been overworked for nearly nine years, running on the most bare minimum of sleep before rushing to work.

Make the kids breakfast as quickly as possible, hop on the computer for work, try to keep the kids quiet so I didn’t get in trouble again, only fifteen minutes to make lunch for everyone, back to work, get off in time to put the kids down for bed, two hours later they are finally down, still haven’t had dinner but need to clean. 

“Erik, could you please help me catch the place up a bit?” 

“I already made dinner, and I need to study.” 

“Oh, okay, right.” Why can’t anyone just clean up after themselves? When I make lunch, I put everything away, I throw away the trash, I rinse off the dishes. All while I wait for it to finish cooking so it takes no extra time, what was so hard about that?

I glance in on Erik. Rather than studying, I find him playing State of Survival. Frustration surged through me. My entire day was non-stop stress piling up on itself day after day after day, yet I never got help when I asked for it. “His day is stressful too,” I tried pushing the resentment down.

Each day was a copy of the last. Wake up, work, fight with kids to be quiet, clean, and get only a few hours of sleep. “At least you’re keeping up better than before,” I told myself.

Working from home was supposed to help my back pain, no more heavy lifting from my server days. But as it turns out, working in an office chair for hours on end only puts more pressure on your spine.

I thought I was finally doing better. But the pain was coming back, and it was becoming difficult to clean again. Again and again, they promise that things will get better. “When we move to Chicago, you won’t have to work so much. Carrie and Saul will offer more support with the kids than your parents have, working from home will be good for you,” but nothing ever changes. It’s the same pain, the same stress, the same hectic life in a different box.

I decided to eat something before cleaning this time, I didn’t have time to make lunch for both myself and the kids. I sit there, staring at another disgusting mess, knowing I’ll do this all again the next day. And the day after. And the days, weeks, years after that. And a weight decends upon me and those all too familiar thoughts of suicide awaken again.

“Erik, do you think you could help me with the cleaning tonight? I’m just…so tired.”

“I’m sorry, love, I have a quiz in two days. I need to study more.” He turns off the game on his tablet and carries it into our bedroom.

Maybe just one day off would be okay, I tell myself. I sit down and relax for the first time in a few weeks, watching anime.

But the next day, it’s even harder to motivate myself. The mess is larger, and Erik still can’t help. I do my best, but the pressure is still building. The feeling that things will never change starts to hook its claws in me.

That night, I stared at the mess. All I wanted to do was sleep, but the mess was there, forcing its guilt on me. I don’t want to do it. What I want to do doesn’t matter. You have to take care of the kids. Things will get better eventually. No, they won’t. You’ve been telling yourself that for nine years now. Has it ever gotten better? You’ll be doing this for the rest of your life. You could ask for help. No one will ever help you, you know that. You will be ignored.

Tears begin flooding down my cheeks, dripping down onto my T-shirt. Hearing my sobbing, Erik turned away from his tablet to look at me. “What’s wrong?!” he asked earnestly, getting up from his chair to sit beside me.

“I can’t do this anymore. Nothing ever changes. We never go anywhere or do anything. All I do is work, clean, and fight with the kids. I never have any fun, I never do  what I want. And worst of all, I’m failing at  all of it. I know I’ve complained about my Mom before, but she at least gave me a clean home to live in. She made sure I was fed, that I went outside to play. I can’t do any of those things. I can’t even bring myself to clean this stupid kitchen anymore,” it all exploded from me in a flurry of words. I was uniquely aware of snot dripping down over my lips, making me feel even more disgusting.

Erik pulled me into his chest and held me  close. “I know,” he whispered, “just try to remember I only have one year left. It won’t be this way for you for much longer. The next chapter of our lives will be all about you.”

Rage exploded from me, “That’s a lie! I’ll have as little choice in what I do then as I do now! Every step of the way you tell me, ‘it will be easier when…’ But that never comes! It didn’t get easier when we moved to Chicago. Instead, I lost all of my friends, all of my family, and I became completely secluded. It didn’t get easier when I stepped down from management to be a server. Just look at me, Erik! I can’t even stand for more than five minutes at a time anymore without being in pain! I look like I’ve been aged thirty years, not ten! Even now, I’m struggling just as much as I always have. And what’s supposed to be different after you graduate? I can do what I want? How? Who is going to take care of the kids while you’re at work? Are you going to call out sick when the kids are ill so I can go to school like I had to all these years? Are you going to keep up on the cleaning so I can study? Or when I say go to college, do you assume it’s just to learn something neat? Not for a careet like you? Do you honestly think that you could do what I’ve been doing this whole time? I didn’t think so!” My eyes widened with shock as I finished, I hadn’t realized how much resentment had piled up within me.

“I know this has been hard. All I can do is promise that what comes next will be about you. And that things will get easier. You won’t have to do anything you dont want to,” Erik said gently.

Hysterical laughter burst from so deep down I barely recognized it was coming from me. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You dont have to do anything you don’t want to. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.

I fell silent. I was vaguely aware that Erik was saying something. Those words, those awful, wonderful words kept circulating as if I had never even heard of such a marvelous concept. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.

Erik shook me gently. He was saying something. But I could no longer hear him. Because if I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to then… I could do what I wanted to do for so very long.

Give up.

In the hours after

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The slam of the door left a dull sound echoing as Erik stormed out. Kaylee’s cries seeming to carry it through the apartment. I held her, my poor little girl who could not possibly understand what was happening. Or why. I barely understood myself.

“Why would you make daddy leave,” Kaylee cried, “that is such a mean thing to do!”

“I know you don’t understand sweetheart. You might someday. For now…just know that Daddy did something to hurt Mommy. And Mommy just needs some time.”

“What did Daddy do to hurt you, Mommy?” Evan asked, crawling into my lap with Kaylee.

Erik hadn’t had the nerve to tell them what he had done. He had no conscience when it came to having an affair…but when it came to looking our children in the eye and telling them what he had done, he had not been able to stomach it and told them simply that he would tell them someday. But then again, I didn’t have the nerve to tell them either.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” I told them both. I probably never would. Destroying how one looks up to their parents was a concept I was all too familiar with. I didn’t want to be apart of that process for them.

We cuddled there for a while in a silent numbness. Eventually the kids, being resilient as children often are, got up and started to play. I laid there, huddled under my blanket. Trying to block everything with sleep, unsuccessfully. Instead, I watched them play. Silently crying, wondering if our family was about to break.

It wasn’t long before I needed to get up. Needed to move. So I cleaned everything in sight. I scrubbed the walls, cleaned the dishes, mopped the floors, picked up the kids room, until there was nothing else to clean. The only thing left to do was to unbox my new computer for the dream job I had been longing for since the kids were born. A job working from home, where I could be with my children and my husband. A job that was supposed to fix everything. But nothing was that simple. How could I start a new job in the morning with everything going on? How was I supposed to put on a smile and pretend to be a cheerful woman excited for a new adventure? I huffed at the boxes and decided to ignore them. Unboxing them would mean moving forward despite everything. I wasn’t ready for that.

I plopped back down onto the couch, but it wasn’t long before my thoughts started to over take me again. I needed to talk to someone. Anyone. But it was still early in the morning, which meant it was even earlier across the country where my family and friends were. I messaged my Mom and my friends anyways. Hoping someone was awake. I stared at the screen, my foot tapping impatiently. Nothing.

I fell back on the couch exasperated. Suddenly realizing just how alone I was here. It had been hard, moving here for Erik’s school. But before, at least I had him. Now, I had no one to turn to. No one to occupy my time with. No one to talk to. Erik, at least had his sister. I scorned him for bringing me here. For doing this to me when I had no where to escape to. When I had sacrificed everything; my home, my dreams, my family. Just for him to cast me aside when it had all finally become too much for me to endure. I wondered what excuse he possibly had to give. If any excuse he had could possibly be enough. I doubted it.

I slammed my fist into the pillow next to me. As if that could make me feel the least bit better. I couldn’t wait any longer. I stalked into my room and closed the door so the children couldn’t hear me before dialing my little brother Austin’s phone.

“Hello?” He answered, sounding as if he had stayed up all night playing video games again.

“Hey Austin, I am so sorry to wake you up this early…can you grab Mom? It’s important.”

“Yeah, one sec,” he mumbled, sounding somewhat annoyed.

After a few minutes of shuffling noises and static Mom answered. “Hey, what’s going on?” She asked.

“Hey, Mom,” violent sobs started to take over me the moment I heard her voice. I suddenly remembered all the times Mom had told me she thought Erik was just using me. Taking advantage of me. And now, despite always telling her she was wrong, I was about to prove she had been right all along. I hated that almost as much as what Erik had done. “Erik’s been having an affair,” I choked.

“What?!” she yelled. She sounded genuinely surprised. I had half expected an ‘I told you so.’

“How do you know?” she asked.

I told her everything, how I had seen the Just for Us page up on his phone. How I had recognized it was discord, then found the channel on his lap top. How they spoke of loving each other, how Erik had consoled her and told her they would get through this. I was blubbering through snot and tears by this point. I felt like a child running to their mother after getting a scraped knee. No amount of kissing boo boo’s and band aids would help this though.

When I was finished recanting the mornings events, Mom went quite for a moment before stating “you’re coming home.”

For some reason, it wasn’t until that moment that I truly realized the implications of exactly what was happening. Was my marriage really ending? Was I going to have to move back home in shame? Was I going to have to raise my children by myself, without them ever truly understanding why we had run far away from their father? Would they resent me? Were these past six years of toture for nothing? How would this affect them…?

“I can’t Mom, he’s their Dad” was all I could say. I felt as the figurative key turned, locking me into the cage that was now my life, and again I cried.

The night before

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The night before my life was turned upside down, you never would have guessed my family was about to be run into the ground.

It was Halloween night. Kaylee looked absolutely gorgeous in her Rapunzel costume. Evans Mario costume was a bit too tight for him, but he loved it so much he didn’t care.

Photo by paul voie on Pexels.com

We sat on my sister-in-law Carrie’s back yard patio chatting and drinking a beer my brother-in-law Saul had given me while the twins played with their cousins Henri and Yvie.

Erik laughed at something on his phone. I adored his laugh. “What are you laughing at?” I asked playfully.

“Nothing,” he said bluntly, “you wouldn’t get it.”

“Hey now,” I said rubbing his leg, “you never know, I might get it.”

“Its nothing, just an eye joke one of my classmates sent me.” He was going to school to be an optometrist.

I could tell he didn’t want me to push the topic, so I dropped it. Now, I want to punch myself in the face every time I think back to this specific moment. How did I not see this coming?

The rest of the night progressed without fault. We took the kids trick-or-treating around the block. Making sure to only visit the houses who had safety precautions for the covid pandemic.

I had gone into this Halloween expecting to be disappointed, but I was astounded at the lengths the neighborhood had taken to make this holiday safe and fun for the kids. In fact, they got more candy than they had any other year.

Once the kids started to complain that they were cold and tired we made our way back to Carrie’s and Saul’s where they immediately dove into their treasure trove of sugary treats. It wasn’t long before a sugar craze ensued. Kids running around like wild animals while we talked and played games.

“How have you been doing lately,” Carrie asked.

I had been struggling with depression for the last few months, the pandemic not helping matters. Recently I had met with a doctor (finally) who prescribed me anti-depressants. “I’ve actually been feeling a lot better, almost normal in fact.”

“That is great to hear! Just keep at it and it won’t be long before you are back to your normal self,” Saul grinned.

I hoped that they were right. For the entirety of the seven years of my marriage to Erik, I had somehow been able to juggle everything. I worked 60 hours a week, did all the cleaning, made breakfast and lunch for the kids before going to work. All so Erik could make it through school. But ever since we moved across the country, just the idea of getting up and taking a shower drained me. It was like wading through cement all day every day.

Soon, the kids sugar rush had drained. Their excitement and fun quickly turning into screaming tantrums. We gathered up their candy and their toys and packed the belligerent kids into the car.

It was late by the time we got home, so we gave the kids hugs and kisses. Had them brush their teeth, and go to bed.

I was excited to spend the rest of the holiday with Erik. Maybe watching a scary movie. Halloween was my favorite holiday after all. Instead, Erik plopped himself down in front of his laptop. His prime position for when he didn’t want to be bothered.

“How would you feel about getting us some drinks and spending time together?” I asked.

“Not tonight.”

“Okay, we could watch a movie together. Take it easy.”

“You know what, I’m actually really tired. I’m just going to take my laptop and watch some shows in bed till I fall asleep.” With that he gathered his things and went into our bedroom. Closing the door behind him.

I put on my headphones, listening to Hamilton, wondering what it would take for my husband to want to spend time with me, before finally carrying myself to bed early in the morning.

Just for us

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I woke from a bad dream early in the morning. I laid there, frozen. I rolled over to curl up into the back of my husband for comfort, but he was awake, looking at his phone. Just for us flashed in a white font on a black background. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust before I realized it was a discord channel. As I blinked the sleep from my eyes I began to make out gifs that spoke of loving and missing someone. Someone that wasn’t me.

Erik put his phone down and I immediately pretended to be asleep. Maybe I wasn’t understanding what I was seeing. Erik rolled over and put his arms around me, kissing me slowly and moving his hands down toward my breast. I couldn’t get the bold white words out of my mind, so I rolled out of bed and told him to get some sleep while I got the kids breakfast.

I tried to banish the thought from my mind. My husband was not the type to cheat. It was likely one of his gaming groups he was just paling around with. But the thought persisted as I scrambled cheese into an egg mixture. I set breakfast on the table and looked up to see my husbands laptop sitting out on his desk…I had to know.

I sat in his office swivel chair and hesitantly opened his laptop, stopping before putting in his password. I had to be mistaken, I thought. I opened his discord and saw the channel I was looking for right away. Its logo was a red heart on a white background with the initials E +S centered in the middle. Probably just some kind of joke, I thought.

I clicked on the logo, and immediately, my heart dropped. This was no joke. This was no misunderstanding. It was all there in plain white text. My husband professing his love for another woman. A woman who was afraid of losing him. A woman he continued to reassure that they would get through this. A woman named Sab. I stared numbly at the screen for several minutes. I couldn’t bring myself to read any further.

Somehow I brought myself to stand and walk back towards our bedroom where he laid awake in his bed. Probably waiting for her to respond to the message he had written her the night before. “Get out,” I said as calmly as I could muster.

“What?” he asked. It was incredible how genuinely confused he looked.

“Get out,” I repeated. This time more firmly.

“Come here, tell me what’s going on,” he patted the bed inviting me to sit.

“No. You heard me. I want you out,” tears were streaming down my face uncontrollably now. His feigning ignorance sparked rage within me. I turned sharply and marched back down the hallway and threw myself sharply down into his chair. I took my phone out and quickly started taking as many pictures of their page as I could before Erik followed me into the room.

He froze when he saw what I was looking at. There could be no more pretending now. I turned and again said, “get out.”

“Lets just talk about this…” he muttered.

“What exactly is there to talk about, Erik? That you cheated on me? That you had an affair?”

“How are we supposed to fix any of this if you don’t talk to me?!” He was yelling now, frustration and annoyance showing through. But not regret. No sign of apology.

“You’re kidding right?! Talk about this?! I have been trying to talk to you for years, trying to spend time with you for years! I’ve done all the talking I possible could do, you ignored me. You betrayed me. And now you have to leave!”

He put his hands up in defeat. “Fine.” He stomped his way back to our room where he grabbed his backpack and started angrily throwing his school supplies and books into the bag. I couldn’t help but notice the lack of clothes he was bringing. Presumptuous of him.

Once his things were packed he sat down and called the kids over to him. “Daddy has to go,” he told them.

“Why?” Kaylee whined.

“Because Daddy made a mistake. And Mommy doesn’t want me here anymore. Which is more than reasonable.” I scowled at the obvious attempt he was making.

“What kind of mistake Daddy?” Evan asked.

“…You’re a little too young to understand now. But maybe I’ll tell you when you’re older. For now, all you need to know is that Daddy hurt Mommy”

“I don’t want you to go Daddy,” Kaylee started to cry. Clinging to the collar of Erik’s shirt.

“I know baby,” he said, “but Daddy needs to give Mommy some space right now.” With that he stood and gave each of the kids a big hug. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and made to leave through the back door. “I love you,” he called as he made it to the end of the hallway.

“Don’t say what you don’t mean,” I stated blankly. He slammed the door behind him. Kaylee started crying. Evan seemed un-phased. “Come here, baby,” I held my arms out to hold her. She came and snuggled with me as she sobbed on the couch.

“Why would you make Daddy leave Mama? Why would you do that? That is such a mean thing to do,” she bawled.

I stroked her hair. Taking in the unique smell that was my little girl. “I know baby…I know.”