I’m being very broad in my statement of all men being idiots, but I would like to talk about my idiot. My selfish idiot. I love him, obviously, or I wouldn’t have married him and endeavored to start a family with him. He couldn’t claim any ONE specific reason for his betrayal but in summation I suppose it boiled down to sadness, loss of faith, a hero complex, and probably depression. We’ve had a rough go of it these past few years with more deaths than either of us would have cared for and other family tragedies that could be likened to metaphorical deaths. My family is generally drama free, but his is chock FULL of it. I had myself fooled into thinking that we were some sort of power couple. Not perfect, not to be envied, but possibly admired. Then I discovered in the wee hours of the morning after Thanksgiving that I was all wrong.

My husband works in a field which requires travel outside of this state, inevitably. Sometimes it’s a lot of travel. I’m usually able to go with him, but this past year I’ve been prevented from doing so because I was working at one point, then I became pregnant and was automatically put on the no fly list because our last baby was born prematurely and did not survive, but that’s another story for another time. If anyone wants to hear it, let me know. I was considered “high-risk.” One of his trips lasted about a month and this current one has lasted through most of my pregnancy and will continue on until the summer. This is the longest work related travel he’s been on. Hubby comes back home when he can. Little did I know that he couldn’t be trusted to be on his own.

After a day of “giving thanks” it was time for rest, which I was greatly lacking due to pregnancy insomnia (not sure if this is a real thing but I’ll call it that). My husband crashed, as usual. He sleeps like a rock. He can open his eyes, respond to what I say, then go back to sleep without any recollection of what occurred the night before. Usually when he crashes I’ll help him remove shoes, stuff from his pockets, and whatever else so he can sleep comfortably and wake in the morning with a charged phone. I couldn’t find his charger for some reason so I decided to put his phone on my charger.

I’m not a nosy person. I’m not one of those wives who is prone to levels of distrust which causes me to go through his belongings on any sort of regular basis, if at all. Such things generally don’t even cross my mind because I trusted him. I thought that there’s always the ever so slight chance that he could cheat on me, but I only thought this in a theoretical sense, not a realistic one. For some reason on that particular night/early morning I felt compelled to look at his text messages and to my horror I actually found several things.

There were two women who stood out in particular. There were photos and words exchanged which were not appropriate when used outside the confines of marriage. Possibly the most heartbreaking of the texts was the correspondence in which he called one of these elephants “honey” and told her he loved her. I could swear I was having a stroke or something because I could NOT believe what I was reading. My heart was about to beat out of my chest. In another text I found pictures which were risque (no nudes, thankfully) that he had taken and sent to this woman. It appeared as though they were at a club of some sort. There were two classless looking women…ratchet, for lack of a better word, doing lewd things such as bending over and putting their middle fingers in their butt cracks. I failed to see how that was attractive and I still do. Other texts included some selfies here and there which weren’t anything alarming, but begged the question, why are you sending these to my HUSBAND, BITCH? He had also sent a couple of shirtless selfies himself with a big stupid grin on his face, flexing his muscles. Selfish idiot.

My favorite correspondence was from the second elephant. Their text correspondence was lengthy and appeared to date back a while. This heifer had told my husband that he was sexy and said she was falling for him and other intimate, inappropriate remarks a home wrecker would make to a married man. He responded saying that he wanted to make sure that he satisfied her or made her happy or some BS. I’m reading these texts wondering why the FUCK he needs to be concerned about making her happy??? He made reference to the other elephant and stated that he made a “friend” but didn’t want to tell me about her because I would accuse him of cheating…well…if the shoe fits, then lace that bitch up and wear it motherfucker! It was in the correspondence with this particular elephant that I discovered my husband’s desire to explore polygamy. He had mentioned it to me briefly before but not as a serious endeavor. This dizzy bitch asks him why he’s married to someone who doesn’t share his values? Well, you ignoramus, we made vows when we got married referencing something about forsaking all others and at the time he wanted to hold true to that. Parts of the conversation were somewhat sexual in nature but it seemed more emotional.

After going through a good portion of texts, photos, and his call logs, I was pretty wrecked. As I was going through the information I was shaking and I was crying and I was about to lose my mind. I contemplated waking him but I wanted him to be fully rested and lucid when I interrogated him. I needed to speak to someone but I didn’t know who. I had to get out of the house and get out of that room. I got in the car and went to walmart to buy a laptop. I also called my father and told him what happened after a bit of shop talk and asking questions about the divorce he and my mother had. He was the only person I knew, other than my sister who would be awake at 3ish in the morning. He encouraged me to confront my husband with the information I had and express myself how I see fit. They say it’s best to be careful who you confide in when it comes to affairs and I think my father was the best candidate. My father is like me in that he has emotions, but he is more level headed and logical than emotional. My sister would have been too emotional and possibly would have strangled my husband then and there or at least cussed him out. My sister and I are pretty close but I don’t know how she would handle all this.

I got about three hours of sleep, as per the usual in my pregnant state and waited for him to wake up. I believe there are different levels to cheaters. There are those who will own up to what they’ve done (at least the “important” stuff) and those who will lie as much as they can for as long as possible. I wanted to see what he would do. The information I found didn’t really tell much other than the fact that he was doing things he wasn’t supposed to. He woke up and of course wanted to cuddle a little and I decided to hit him with what I found. Started off with the “honey” and “I love you” text. Then I made reference to the lengthier texts with polygamy and other tomfoolery. At first he tried to meekly brush it off but conceded defeat and basically admitted to having an emotional affair. He said that he and the woman didn’t have intercourse but they talked about it and it was certainly headed in that direction.

I was devastated to find all of this out. Being pregnant is rough enough, especially since I’ve been dealing with anxiety, but this was just…UUGGHH! We talked and I expressed my disappointment. He listened and answered any questions I had. There’s so much that happened and I don’t feel like typing it all. I told him I felt as though he didn’t love me and he of course said that he did. I thought he only had emotional affairs, but then I asked if he had intercourse with either of them and he asked me if I really wanted to know…now…we all know what that means. He said yes and what I thought couldn’t get worse got worse…and even more worse when I asked why and he told me that a relationship developed, he caught feelings, fell in love, and had sex with her multiple times, unprotected. I swear in that moment I could have died and several moments after. I cried intermittently throughout our conversation in our room trying not to be too loud because my father in law was around.

There were so many emotions. There still are. He was going to go back to work come Sunday and he was leaving me with the knowledge that there were two other women. One in our “home” state (the emotional affair) and another in one of the states where he went for his other business trip for a month, where he then fell in love with and fucked someone who is not ME. Before he left we somehow reached the conclusion that he would cease contact with these women and we deleted them from his phone and blocked them. He was friends with one of them on Facebook so we deleted her from his list and then I had to look at his messages. He of course didn’t want me to but that was because I would only be disappointed. I read a message that he wanted to impregnate her. Selfish idiot. He said he was glad he didn’t do it. I said he should be because I would high tail it out of here if he comes around with some BS about having a child with another woman. After he went back to work I had time to think of more questions. I wondered about the timeline so I asked him about it. His affairs had spanned roughly 8 months. He started fucking that one elephant the month he went out of state. The month before my birthday. The month of our anniversary.  He met the other elephant not long after he returned from his trip. During that time he had actually asked to start trying again for a child knowing full well he was cheating on me.

I don’t know how things will turn out for our marriage, but this is what I do know: He apologized for hurting me with tears in his eyes and said he wants to work on gaining my trust again. Unfortunately he didn’t promise me that he won’t cheat again. This should be a read flag, shouldn’t it. I know I can’t control him, but I know that he contacts me everyday now. He sends me selfies and I send him selfies. He has personal struggles and I have mine. My world has been shattered and it’s like this isn’t real life. I never saw any of this coming. I know I love him. He’s endearing, sweet, ironically genuine, caring, has a big heart, and he, unfortunately manages to melt mine. He also manages to agitate me, too. The rose colored glasses have come off but I want to give us a fighting chance. If we lose, then we lose, but it won’t be for a lack of trying. I don’t want to hold onto anger. I’m not even angry any more, but I’m hurt. I have triggers. I struggle to fully trust him.