What Happened to Eden

In an effort not to be an hysterical nag, I let major red flags go. All of these things and more came rushing back to me when I finally found out he was in fact having an affair. All the little (and huge) things that had happened over the past two years that gave me pause.

We talk about betrayal and lies harming a person long term, but I am struggling to get through the gaslighting. He made me feel less-than, like I wasn’t smart enough for him. He had an advanced degree and I only have a BA. He worked and I stayed home. He struggled with basic instruction following like building IKEA furniture and it would piss him off when I could figure out immediately what he’d done wrong, and that is how I ended up building all the furniture.

But I did know. He wasn’t that clever. He told me I was being ridiculous. Making things up. Exaggerating his behavior. Jumping to conclusions. For literally years. And now, I don’t know what to believe when people talk to me. Is that a lie? Can I trust my judgement? Is everyone lying to me all the time (currently this is the default)? Because when I write these things down, it seems very clear he was a lying, cheating, sack of shit. But I am a ridiculous person, obviously.

Here is a not-at-all comprehensive list of things I let slide when he pushed back or shut me down:

First, the overall feeling of “something is off.” We had three young kids, we didn’t love where we lived, and times could be tough. But there was a palpable disturbance in the force that he chalked up to work stress and his health issues, so I made sure he had time to recover and rarely asked for help with the kids or the house. You know, so he could rest.

He was constantly on his phone. All the time. Every minute of every day. Ignoring his kids on Christmas because he was looking at his phone. And one day, his phone vibrated and I picked it up and handed it to him. He took it quickly and glared at me for…touching it? I have no idea. I didn’t look at the phone, just picked it up to give to him because I was closer to it.

He always seemed to be angry with me. Or annoyed. Or he felt I was beneath him. My choice of food, of movies, of family activity. Everything was an inconvenience.

Now for the goods.

Volunteering for work trips. Suddenly he was a man who traveled for work to go to conferences. I have no doubt some of these trips were not work trips, but several were, because he was reimbursed by his office for travel expenses. I found out later he was meeting her on all these trips. Some were near her home in another state, and sometimes she’d fly to wherever his conference was located.

Once, while Facetiming his kids from his hotel room, he ended the conversation abruptly. I assume she was in the room.

His office had a gym, and he’d often work out before he came home. One day I went to greet him with a kiss when he walked in the door and he snapped at me that he needed to shower. I found out later he hadn’t gone to work, he’d flown her in and put her up in a hotel for several days. He was visiting her during the day and coming home to us at night.

Skipping family vacations to work. This wasn’t terribly unusual, he didn’t have a lot of vacation time until the last few years, but we’d never hear from him while we were gone. She was in my home during this time.

Cleaning the house. Yes. When my husband, who claims to not know how to clean, makes an effort to clean our home while I’m gone with the kids, it tells you he finally understands the support I need in a big house with three small kids, right? No. She had been in the house so he cleaned it.

Came back from a work trip with clean laundry. He hadn’t done laundry in eighteen years but he came home with clean clothes. This one was really stupid. I knew it was covering up something, but couldn’t prove it so I had to let it go. What he should have done, had he been smarter, was just let me wash his clothes and pretend they were dirty instead of telling me he had washed them. Having me wash clothes that don’t stink is less suspicious that doing your first load of laundry in almost two decades.

This one is real special. He came home from a work trip with new pubes. He’d always done general tidying, but he came home with it very short. I saw him and immediately thought, “he did that for someone else.” I asked him why he decided to change it up, and he said, no lie, “I cut myself and decided to just take it all off.” And I said, no lie, “that is extremely suspicious. Anything you want to tell me?” And he glared at me and walked away. He met up with her on that trip.

Looking through my son’s phone and finding dozens of selfies my husband had taken that he didn’t post on social media or send to me was also a red flag, so I kept scrolling and found the photos of him with his face buried in the asshole of someone with a back tattoo and a polkadot dress. That was a very red flag, indeed.

I was so stunned. And so hurt. He had insulted my intelligence hundreds, maybe thousands of times over the past two years. I was right. I was not stupid or hysterical or ridiculous. I tried to be respectful, never snoop, never accuse, just ask if he’d like to talk to me about anything, maybe see a marriage counselor so he could say whatever he wanted to say in a safe space. But no. He made me feel insane and stupid and fucked around behind my back but also in front of my face.

I don’t know how you move on from this. My instincts were correct, but now they’re hyperactive. Can I infer a change in vibe from a text? Can I trust her? Is he just saying that because he thinks it’s what I want him to say? Is that a carefully placed line or is it the truth? I’d really rather not be hysterical, so it’ll probably take a giant red flag engulfed in flames to convince me someone is a lying sack of shit all over again.

Or maybe everyone is a lying sack of shit. If I proceed under that assumption, at least I’ll never be blindsided again.