What Happened to Eden

I confronted my husband with the photos I’d found immediately. He was working from home, so once I realized what I was looking at, I walked upstairs and asked him what the hell was going on.

“It’s another woman. I want a divorce.”

I’m sorry. What? Like it was an explanation, or an excuse. I cheated on you because I want a divorce. Right, well, you could have just asked for a divorce. I stared in shock. I cried. I begged to understand why he’d done this. All the times I’d asked what was going on, how I could help, if we could go to counseling to make sure things were alright. But no. It was easier to hide a girlfriend.

During this incredibly painful conversation, where every question answered was more devastating than the last, I realized I was in my home, on a weekday afternoon, and I had to go get my children from school. My husband of fifteen years, partner of eighteen, heard me say, “I need to go get the kids,” after I just found out the most earth shattering news of my life, and though he was clearly not doing any work, he did not offer to do it for me. He did not offer to go get our children so I could collect myself.

So I sat in the car rider line for an hour picking up our three children, hardly able to speak to them knowing what monumental life changes were about to shake up their worlds. And then I had to handle homework and prepare dinner, where I sat at a table with the man who had lied to my face for the last few years. While I was at school he moved some of his things into the guest room. That was it. No counseling, no apology, no remorse, nothing. He committed the ultimate betrayal rather than just tell me he was unhappy and wanted out. He was a coward, and he was not sorry in the least.

The next day I did what any person numb with pain wants to do – I chaperoned a field trip. The ultimate anti-social parent who won’t remove her sunglasses and is barely aware of the chaos around her. I kept looking at my daughter thinking how could he do this to her. How could he show her that is this is how a good man treats his wife? I would constantly repeat to my kids your father is such a good man. Now this is the example he sets? I knew it would forever damage her future relationships. And our boys. Their male role model was a cheating coward. Wonderful.

I am human, and humans are inherently flawed. I was not a saint. I wasn’t a perfect spouse by any means. But the way he handled the aftermath was really the closure I needed and I got it within an hour. Looking at his partner of nearly two decades who has just learned of hundreds of thousands of lies he’s told, watching her realize all the ways she’s been deceived, that she would be getting divorced and losing her family income and health insurance, terrified what it would do to her children, he thought, “yes. She needs to go get the kids. I will stay here and move my toothbrush upstairs. And then she will prepare dinner while I smile at the children and pretend nothing is wrong.”

That was him. That was the man I married. Who never saw a single thing that he should help with when he looked around our home. Never assisted with children or chores or even picking up a fucking sock unless directly asked. A man who saw me spiraling and let me struggle to put on a brave face in front of our kids so they wouldn’t immediately know what their father had done.

You can end your marriage and not feel regret. I get that. He was too chicken shit to tell me, too pathetic to work it out or leave, but now I’d forced his hand and he was free. I can see not being too upset about that. But to look at the pain you’ve inflicted on someone you supposedly loved? To barely flinch when she asks why he would do this to his children? That is the man I married, I guess. Not even sorry for the lies. Sorry for the upheaval. Nothing. Just yes, I cheated. I cheated a long time. I want a divorce. It’s not like you were happy anyway. Now proceed as normal so none of us are disturbed.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is closure. You can’t look for logic where there is none to be found, but the definitive break that occurred that day was both rupture and release. I didn’t want to spend another second under the same roof. I didn’t want to be married to him any longer than I had to by law.

I was enduring for the sake of our union. He was finding love and laughing behind my back. The picture of selfishness. By his logic, we were both unhappy so it didn’t matter what he’d done. But I would never cheat. He left our marriage to find happiness, which left me shouldering even more of the workload, giving him space to recover from his supposedly demanding job and caring for the kids on my own while he volunteered for conferences to meet up with his girlfriend and opted out of family trips to invite her to sleep in my bed.

I’d seen him in a rosy glow for too long. Whenever things were difficult, I’d remember how much integrity he had. What a good father he was. How he hadn’t abandoned me when I was ill. I am so lucky, I thought. Without the glow, I saw him for who he truly was – a self-absorbed, socially inept, liar with no moral compass in his personal life.

And that was just the beginning.