The Worst of It

What you did to me was cruel. And not just to me, but to our girls as well.  For 8 months, when your behaviour was increasingly distant.  When I could feel that you resented being here, didn't want to be with us.  Every time you came home from your business trips, you were impossible to live with.  Angry and self-absorbed.  Unwilling to help around the house or do anything with the family unless pressed.  When I asked you repeatedly about it, how it felt like you didn't want to be here anymore, you denied it.  You said that wasn't the case at all. I thought It was just your ongoing struggle with PTSD.

So for 8 months I worried about you.  Patiently supporting you through what I thought was a rough spot in our lives. I thought it was just you.  That you were broken, but eventually would be okay. The walks you would take in the pouring rain, and the walks down by the river.  When you would make comments to me that "You'll do just fine without me". I worried that you were suicidal.  But that wasn't it, was it.  It was because in your mind, you had already left us.  You were having an affair and planning to leave.  You just didn't have the courage to say it. 

You claim you wanted to give us "one last Christmas".  What bullshit.  Why on earth would you think that would be something we wanted? That when you told us, we wouldn't look back and realize that it had all been a lie? Like the other 8 months have been? What kind of Christmas memory would that be? It was because it was convenient for you, for whatever reason.  It had nothing to do with being considerate of us.  If that was true, you would have been honest from the start.

We've been married for 28 years come this Saturday.  And we lived together for a year before that. 29 years together.  A lifetime come to a sudden and shuddering stop. I feel discarded.There was nothing more you needed from me, having found someone else, and so I wasn't useful to you anymore.

You could have done this with honour.  Been respectful of me and our marriage.  This process would be so different if you had.  But you didn't.  You trashed our marriage like it was nothing.  Like I was nothing and had never meant anything.  You have no idea how painful that is, and what hurts more, is I know you don't care.