Rough Around the Edges

I wouldn’t call today a normal day, but it was normal, relatively speaking - a new normal. My husband Peter had been struggling with a traumatic thing that happened at work weeks ago. He was doing security work around town, mostly around an apartment complex. One night, he and one other guy were searching for squatters. Now, they didn’t find any, but his partner shot in his direction thinking he was one.

Peter didn’t get hit, but it freaked him out being that close to death.

I gave him a lot of grace and space. Even when I’d ask “hey, when will you be home for dinner?” and he’d text back “not sure…” I let it slide…often. I ate dinner alone more than I’d like to admit.

As much as I was being the best wife I could be, not questioning or prying, I was dying inside. One night recently, I was sitting in the mall parking lot, crying out to God asking why my husband was so distant. I mostly felt like God was telling me that I do that to Him, to God Himself, but it felt more like compassion than being scolded.

Today truly was more normal than things have been. I had my parents over for a swim. I left my difficult job about a month ago and was regrouping, so I had more free time. They also were enjoying pool access and time with me. I confessed being concerned about Peter. After explaining his distance and how I was trying to just let him have the space to decompress after work so often, they encouraged me that it must just be a season and that I was doing the right thing.

It’s amazing how quickly that relief left me.

I actually thought Peter was already at work, but I found out later he had a night shift later today, not a day shift, and was simply avoiding being home so I could discover his handwritten letter on the kitchen island. I only saw the letter because I went to the fridge to make lunch for myself. (I never did since I lost my appetite quickly.)

It wasn’t even a full page, but it basically read:

My dear wife, I do not desire to be married anymore. I don’t want to drag you into my mess. I want to release you. You are a wonderful woman, but I’ll be filing for divorce shortly.

Wonderful woman? Divorce? Is he trying to sound pleasant while leaving me?!

As I feel the world spin and I start weeping, I call a few people praying someone will answer. One precious friend did, and she lived an hour away. She drove all the way to me and stayed with me a few hours as I laid my head on her lap and cried, vented, processed… then began a million calls trying to reach Peter, after she left. I figured whether he was working or not, he needed to explain.

He did finally answer and honestly, the call wasn’t as horrible as I expected. I explained to him divorce should be at least discussed, not just decided by one person. I even point blank said, “I wouldn’t even consider divorce unless one of us were unfaithful, and you haven’t been, right?”

He simply said, “well, I have been letting my eyes wander and felt attracted to someone.” Sounded like B.S. but somehow, I still trusted it.

I wasn’t even that angry. I simply said that humans have eyes and we can get past this.

When the call ended, I felt there was a sliver of hope, and he had just made a hasty decision scribbling that letter to me earlier. I just had to wait until he came home the next morning from work.

***

My brain was working overtime, fawning and begging him to not leave, and compassionately listening to him as he confessed that he wasn’t fully truthful yesterday. He showed me a picture of a necklace on Amazon with a pendant. Nothing pricey, but the pendant inscribed “angel baby” and I could tell he felt something personal. He told me he got this for the other woman he’d been seeing, and as I realized he wasn’t just attracted to someone but had been sleeping with her, I still kept my cool so I could try to calmly and logically talk through this. I even showed compassion as he explained she had supposedly miscarried his child.

My anger and freak outs came later.

But I sternly responded to him that while I wouldn’t want him to suffer a loss like that, this could be the perfect time to close the door and end things so we could work on us. In my mind, I felt like the timeline he explained didn’t line up, and this whole baby situation may not actually involve him like he thought, but I didn’t voice that. It got worse. He said she was currently pregnant with his (second) child, so not only were they grieving, but they were growing a family.

I still said he cannot leave me, and to stop things with her. (We could deal with the baby situation down the line.)

I asked him if he even found me beautiful anymore. All he could say was “Yeah, I mean, you’re rough around the edges.” That was another nail in the coffin. I still asked myself why I was begging for him to stay when he couldn’t even call me beautiful.

***

Days turned into weeks of strange living. He avoided being home more than he already had been, and I started figuring out how to live. He didn’t file for many months. We just hung out in limbo. If he slept at home, it was in the guest room. Half the time he was with her. It wouldn’t be long before the house risked foreclosure but somehow it sold and we still got some money from it before that happened. I even proactively moved some funds to my own bank account to protect myself.

I still knew nothing about her - her face, her name, nothing. But I did know he met her at the apartment complex he secured for. I recalled him texting “some woman who needs prayer because she has a stalker situation.” I let that slide too, but I was upset because I had to beg for prayer from him. Jealousy seethed.

One day, a day he had been away for a long time, I figured he was with her and I decided to confront them. I intended to be level-headed. No violence or yelling, just explaining I am his wife (I wasn’t sure yet if she knew). I just wanted them to feel the awkward pain I had been dealing with.

As I parked next to his car and narrowed down which unit they might be in, I took a selfie next to his car and texted it to Peter saying “I am here. Come out and talk to me.” By then, I was determined to only speak with him and avoid her. I didn’t need an image in my head of her.

He refused, but only until he had to leave for work. He had the audacity to text back “I don’t want to upset her.” I presumed it was to protect her in her fragile, pregnant state. Forget the fact I had never been pregnant and that was one reason he wanted to leave me. I simply was enraged that he wouldn’t fight for me.

As he walked to his car avoiding looking me in the face, I became a mad woman. I yelled things like “you wouldn’t care if I died!” and “How could you!?”

He drove off and I sat on a curb weeping. I didn’t know nor care if she saw me, but I don’t think she ever did.

When I went home, I wrote a letter to her, but I meant to burn it, bury it, rip it up. It was for me. But I put it in my nightstand and left it alone for a few days. It might have been a week. It came upon a well-timed moment. I decided to go on a retreat with some church friends, and I decided not only to drop the letter off to her but to do it today right before I go North to unplug for several days. I knew reception would be poor and I needed to be phone-free.

As I drove to her unit with the letter in the passenger seat, I prayed to God I’d not see her face. I successfully dropped off the letter to her doorstep and booked it to my carpool friend for the retreat. As I drove to my friend, I answered a call from Peter. He was angry but trying to sound calm. “What did you do? She is so upset! She didn’t know I was married.” Something in me felt free to move forward, and no divorce papers had been filed yet from either of us. As I almost reached my destination, I said, “She should’ve known. You need to deal with this.” Then, I hung up. I wiped my hands of it.

This letter I gave her had pictures of Peter and me from June, so mere months ago. I had gone to Alaska to see extended family and Peter met me there days later when he was free from work (so he told me then). I had no clue what would unfold later. The letter explained that I don’t even want him back anymore, but she needed to know he was married. If he wanted to become a bachelor dad and leave me, now he has my permission. I came very close to filing myself, but I was determined to keep the ball in his court, so I never did. If he wouldn’t fight for me, fight for us, it was already over. It was over when he slept with her, long before I knew about it.

Before he filed, I knew the Lord was speaking to me saying, “Stand firm, keep the faith, and you’ll get the reward.” I thought it would be a redeemed marriage, but I now see it in my current marriage to Kenneth, someone I met while dating Peter. It was a safe, platonic friendship, until Kenneth told me, “I hope to find someone like you some day.” That was years ago, before he joined the Air Force. College was a complicated time. I married Peter, and Kenneth and I grew apart for a long time.

After Peter filed, I felt the Lord urge me to “let him make his choices.” It takes two to decide the marriage will work. It didn’t take long for Kenneth to notice my absence from social media. He was stationed in Florida as I was suffering this betrayal in Arizona. He messaged me “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m praying for you.” The rest is history, since we ended up talking a lot as I continued healing. Connecting for the first time in years with this old friend was like a balm to my soul.

Many months passed before I got the divorce finalized, and it made no difference when I got them. Everything was done long ago, and the official papers weren’t what ended our marriage, even though I signed them the day before our fifth anniversary. I cut ties completely. He wanted to still get friendship from me, but I didn’t desire to catch up over coffee about the other woman and their baby. There were no children between us to keep us tethered, and I was already moving forward in healing, and reconnecting with Kenneth was already starting. That was an intense road too, but in some ways it didn’t feel new. He was my friend. We just had years to catch up on, and I didn’t know I’d marry again only maybe a year later.