What Happened to Eden

People are supposed to change. You shouldn’t be the same person at forty that you were at eighteen. Your values generally remain constant, though.

We started dating in college. Both of us had ugly breakups, and we got together to nurse each other’s wounds. I needed him to love me so I could love myself. I was miserable, and I was starting to get sick so frequently, and he seemed to need me. Indispensable meant unleavable. If he wanted to marry me, I must be worth marrying.

A man with integrity is a safe choice. A boy, really. A smart boy who loves his mom can’t be dangerous. We were going to see the world together. And then I was sick more often than not. He told me he loved me when I offered him an out. No one wants to buy a lemon. I wasn’t dying, I just wasn’t fun every moment of every day, and we didn’t know why. He looked me in the eyes and said, “in sickness and in health.” And I believed him.

He once told me a big lie and then called back to confess. He was a mess of guilt and shame. It was a small rip in the fabric of our trust, but he was so remorseful. He wouldn’t do it again. He left a job because his superiors wanted him to violate his code of ethics “just this once,” and he knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

And then I found the photos. I confronted him and he said he wanted a divorce. He had been seeing her eighteen months. When I’d sensed something was off and asked how I could help, he blew me off. I suggested we go to counseling, even though there was nothing wrong, things just weren’t right. And he blew me off. Said I was being ridiculous and he didn’t see the need.

Thousands of lies. Hundreds of thousands. Every message they exchanged was a lie to my face, a lie to his kids. He was glued to his phone every waking hour for work, he said. Breaking marriage vows we made in our church in front of God. Going on extra work trips to meet her. Inviting her to my home. Letting her sleep in my bed while I took the kids to visit their grandparents.

And then he went further. This is your fault. I asked him why. Why hadn’t he come to me? Why didn’t he just leave me? What was his long term plan, if he hadn’t told me after eighteen months?

He started with my illness. Remember when you were really sick fifteen years ago? That was really hard for me. Also, the pandemic was hard. You were so stressed. And I believed him. He is a man of integrity and values who almost vomited after telling me one lie. If he is broken, I made him this way. I forced him to cheat. For a year and a half. I forced him to lie, because I don’t handle stress well.

When you learn your life is made of lies, it’s hard to keep hold of reality. He’s hated being with me since the beginning, when I was so sick I enrolled in a clinical trial. When I offered him an out, telling him he was young and shouldn’t be saddled with a sick person as a newlywed. Was any of the time we spent together good? Was it real? The pandemic, during which I was housebound due to my weak immune system, with three small children who needed help with virtual school, was hard for him. So very hard. While he worked from home in his pajamas and I provided meals and laundry services just as I did every other day we were married.

Did he always lie? Was he always capable of such large scale deceit? Did he ever care for me? Were there others? I’m sure there were. Is there more I don’t know? Absolutely. I have the maximum amount of information I am interested in consuming, because the end result would be the same regardless – we are divorced.

To wake up one day and realize you can’t force someone to cheat on you is a revelation. It only took me about 36 hours of numbness and shock to get there, but I finally did. People are inherently flawed. I was by no means a perfect wife. But you can’t make someone lie. You can’t make someone commit adultery and abandon their children. You can make them want to leave, of course. But when they choose to stay, but only for show? That’s a decision all their own.

If people change but core values don’t, then he was always this person. I worked in service of a man who lied. Sacrificed and submitted to a man who hadn’t an ounce of respect for me, or the life we’d built over nearly two decades. The reality I cling to today is all I’m interested in, and I never want to find out what was real and what was a lie. I have all the information I need, and the closure I thought I’d want doesn’t exist. I can’t look for logic where there isn’t any to be found. People are not always logical. Or honest. Or faithful.

I can reach out and touch the reality of today and find peace and hope. My trust in people is permanently damaged, but I know myself more now than I did living as his faithful servant.

I’m disoriented, but free.