What Happened to Eden

It turns out you can ask your husband to leave his own house. I didn’t initially insist he leave because I was a stay at home and his name was on the mortgage – what right did I have to tell him to leave his house? When it was clear he would continue his affair, now openly, while living with me and our children, I suggested he live elsewhere, and he did.

I spent every day alternating between packing our things and staring numbly into space. He didn’t want me to take the kids away, but what was I supposed to do? We were living in a city that wasn’t home to either of us, far from family. I was about to be a single parent who needed a job, and I would need a lot of support.

He told me he didn’t come clean about the affair because he knew I’d move away with the kids. Not because it would hurt me. Not because he was ashamed. Not because he knew it was wrong. Because he knew I’d move away with the kids. And he was openly pissed at me for it. Seeing him mad at me sort of shook me awake. He cheated on me for eighteen months (that I knew about) and knew the logical step was for me to move to our hometown with the kids, near both our families, and somehow this gave him the bold idea that things were my fault.

From losing my grip on reality and falling into an endless hole of confusion and despair, to everything coming into sharp focus. He should not be allowed to act pissed at me. If he is mad, he should hide it better out of respect. He didn’t have any respect for me at all, clearly, or he wouldn’t have shit all over the life we’d built. But still. Have some class.

We’d moved into the house a year before. Designed it together. He was cheating on me that whole time, so it seems truly ridiculous in hindsight. He was already having a serious long term affair and then purchased and built a house with his wife? He never intended to tell me.

I think of When Harry Met Sally, when Carrie Fisher’s character is dating a married man and keeps repeating, “he’s never going to leave her. He’s never going to leave his wife.” I kept coming back to the same realization several times a day – he was never going to tell me. He had no intention of telling me about his affair, which at this point became a double life. He was in love with someone else and built a house for his wife and kids. He’d let me martyr myself on the altar of our cold marriage while he found love and fulfilment elsewhere, ostensibly forever.

You shouldn’t date when you’re not even clear what the end of your marriage will look like. But I had absolutely no trouble being with another man. I was barely with a man when I was married. Ignored and overlooked and taken for granted. I understood that men used cheesy lines they knew women responded to, but give me a fake, “you have beautiful eyes.” over literally anything I’d experienced in the last several years and I’d feel like a million bucks.

So I packed, and I texted, and I chatted with strangers. One man in particular had a very sexy voice, which I knew because, as it turns out, men over forty like to talk on the phone instead of text. Also, men who have a long commutes like to call women from their trucks.

I decided to set my profile to show me men over forty because I wanted someone mature. I immediately learned for men maturity has no age. A man who described himself as “very wealthy” asked me if I was vanilla. I didn’t want to oversell, so I responded that I wasn’t too wild yet, I’d spent a long time in a very vanilla relationship, but I was now at least vanilla with sprinkles and whipped cream on top. Sexy? I tried.

He responded with, “no, not like ice cream. Do you even know what vanilla means?” Mr Very Wealthy was not familiar with metaphors. Didn’t earn his wealth with no book readin’. There were disappointments, for sure. That guy supposedly had a ski chalet in Utah somewhere. But when you’re not looking for a father for your kids or a husband, you let some things slide.

Weird tattoo? Fine. Fringe politics? Whatever. Obviously at fault for your last relationship ending? What red flag? I don’t see anything. I didn’t need a life partner, I just needed to practice talking to adults until I was prepared to actually date.

So I talked to the man with the sexy voice nearly every day. He’d tell me about his life, ask me about my life (a revelation), and listen to me rip tape and heave boxes. He had a southern accent and talked slow, drawing out every vowel, so that everything he said was steamy. He was smart, and he’d talk about work, how he’d helped someone that day, and all I’d think was if this is how hot it sounds when he talks about work, I don’t know if I can handle his dirty talk.

I didn’t have to wait long for that. He’d call on his commute and I’d take a break from stacking boxes while he told me what we’d do when we finally met in person. Hearing his voice would lower my tense shoulders involuntarily, and I’d tip my head back and just listen. He knew what kind of relationship I was leaving, and seemed to understand what I’d been missing without ever having met me in person. I could practice talking to a man with low stakes – he lived in the city I was relocating to, not the city I was in at the time – and get the equivalent of a long distance back rub while he poured his hot honey voice in my ears.

I pushed away everything painful rather than wallow in it and drown, and was able to pack our entire home myself. I knew exactly how long it would take, because the year before when we’d moved into our new house, I had packed and moved everything except my husband’s collectibles, which he kindly took care of himself. I took care of the three kids, myself, and all our shared belongings. I just had to do it all again, and it was easier with a distraction.