On Sunday, March 14, his "open book" (to "prove" he was telling me the truth) backfired when I found more IM's between him and his concubine. Because he refused to leave the house, I left with our daughter and went to my parents' home. Our son wanted to stay with daddy. Not wanting to upset him anymore than necessary, I allowed him to stay.
Later in the afternoon, I received a call from a police station nearly 2 jurisdictions over, "You need to come get your son (what?! how did he get there?! he doesn't drive; he can't ride his bike that far; he's only 6!...), we have arrested your husband." The tornadic spin really went haywire. I will not post all the details here...suffice it to say that it started with our son's being 2 seconds from being put in the system because Rob wouldn't (couldn't?) give them a number to contact me. It is but by the grace of God that the officers found my parents' number. Once he was arraigned the following morning, he was on house arrest and was not welcome in our house. From that day on, he stayed with his parents, and at one point, with his concubine, all while claiming that he wanted to "fix the marriage."
The kids and I stayed at the house and we were able to keep things relatively "normal." They were at the same school, had their same friends and activities, same schedules and routines. It was as normal as life could be with their daddy on house arrest and unable to drive and see them whenever he or they wanted.
After a business trip to Atlanta just before Easter, he announced to his parents and to me that he wanted to fix the marriage. I do not know what he said to his parents, but on the Thursday before Easter, he said to me, "I will dump her on Sunday and move home on Monday." Pause. Did I really hear him correctly? Yes, I did, so..."No, you will dump her now or it's no deal. Dissolution on the table, divorce if you don't cooperate." Are you kidding me?! You need a few days to let her go when your wife is "so" important to you? Obviously I was not. So, with her he stayed until the beginning of May when I called him, angry, bitter, hurt to the core. I had not really let him hear MY feelings until this day.
I went off - how could you do this?! All you had to do was dump her and we could have worked on whatever the problem was. On and on and on. His reply was, "Come get me. I will pack up and leave now." Like hell I am going to drive to her place! If you want me bad enough, you will get it done. You will find a way just like you found the hundreds of ways to be with her without my finding out. You will do everything in your power to prove to me that I am your one and only, your true soulmate.
Within the next couple of days, there was a lot of "sneaking" - he had her drop him off at work one day when he asked me to take him to his parents', allegedly with the intent of not returning to her place. "She will destroy everything I own if she knows I am leaving." What a bunch of bull, as I suspected then, and I now know for sure. She is just as cowardly as he, if not more so.
Anyway, he returned and stayed with his parents from the beginning until the end of May, still coniving, lying, pretending to want to fix the marriage. He even attended two couples counseling sessions with me and we had a very "productive" 3rd one in his office parking lot one day. It really seemed a very open, honest, constructive conversation. What bullshit! What manipulation.
All of this turmoil culminated in his choosing to move home, despite my argument that neither he (his alcoholism and drinking triggers) nor we (our relationship) were ready for him to move home. It was not the right time. However, both he and his mother insisted (she was tired of his living with them) and on Friday, May 28, he came to the house after work. Within 3 hours, he was so wasted that he couldn't even walk straight - he had returned to his cave after a wonderful, "Ozzie and Harriet" dinner where we all pitched in, including the kids.
The kids saw him for the first time in all his drunken glory - in the past, he had kept it secret by drinking after the kids and I went to bed. But, this time he couldn't. His sponsor called and asked him to deliver a phone number to their Friday night meeting. He didn't dare tell his sponsor he had been drinking. Instead, he decided to get me to drive him there as he probably thought he could cover his intoxication. I knew something was up the moment he got in the car. His condition only worsened as we crossed the highway. I stopped a few times, asking him to tell me the truth about drinking. He refused. At the last stop we made, where I was ready to turn around and go home, our son announced that he had pooped in his pants, obviously stressed by the conversations in the front seat.
At that point, I decided to drive to our final destination to take the kids to the bathroom. While we were there cleaning up, he was kicked out of the meeting for inappropriate behavior and was stumbling and slurring as the kids had never seen or heard before. What a horrible experience for the kids. After too many details to write, we went home. Our then 8-year-old daughter wanted so badly to help him into the house, but I insisted that he had to do it himself.
The next morning, we again had what seemed like a forward-moving conversation. He implied that he had blacked out and didn't remember a thing. He indicated that he was very remorseful for what he had done at the meeting and that he needed to apologize. He never once mentioned that he needed to apologize to his own family for any wrong-doing. The kids and I left for their counseling appointment. When we returned, I asked for his "open book" and saw that just an hour before, while the kids were with their counselor, he had IM'd his concubine that she needed to "delete this as soon as you read it" and that his life was f'in horrible without her. Her reply was something like, don't know how to answer.
Game over. I calmly returned his blackberry to him and prepared the kids to leave. That was the end. I was no longer taking this abuse. All he needed to do was dump her. And he couldn't even do that. Maybe he had really dumped her as a sex partner and, thus, her response. But, he was the one who initiated that IM and the one who had been involved in a word game at least the 2 days before that. All the evidence showed that he had no intention of putting me and his family first. No contact is no contact, period.
What turmoil and insanity to have in your life. The details are even worse than the surface information. The hurt, the tearing of the heart and soul. It was a very dark time and place for me. How could someone who claims to love you so much do these kinds of things to you? However, while leaving that day, I felt a great weight lift off my shoulders. Yes, I could physically feel myself become lighter, as I had a couple other times during the past 2-3 months.
That, too, is why I have posted the things I have - to work through the grief. And, it has helped to lift even more weight off my shoulders. By reaching out to my support system, blogging, attending my meetings and working the program, I have come so far in such a short time. In a way, I had detached from him already, telling him that he was the only one who could change the parts of him he didn't like. He was the only one who could stop the drinking. He was the only one who could conquer the demons he claimed he had.
The really sad thing is that he couldn't and still doesn't admit to any wrong-doing. In fact, when I was leaving that day, May 29, he said, "You're making a big mistake." My reply was, "Yes, YOU made a big mistake."
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