Is he starting to come home?

[No Longer BH]

“I’m so sorry, brokenhearted, it’s cancer.” I sat in cold silence, unable to process the words that had just been said to me. Cancer. A death sentence for sure, but its not suppose to happen to me. Cancer happens to grandma who has had a good life, to aunt Sara who smoked too much and did not stop when the doctors told her it was bad, not to me, a 36 year old mother. I refused to believe what she was saying, she was wrong. I was not going to let this woman dictate my future with this dire prognosis. I am healthy, I am young, I will live forever.



The next two days past in a state of complete numbness. I decided it was best to live as if the appointment had never occurred. This allowed to me to keep moving forward with the life I had already built instead of dealing with the ugly truth that I might no longer have a future. I was happy to live in this fake reality until the universe slapped me again with a reality check. I can remember that Sunday night in May so well. I was playing with my son when the phone rang. The woman on the other end was not someone I recognized, but whose voice would become familiar to me soon enough. She said that she had some information for me that she thought I should know. She said that if she were me, she would want someone to tell her. I was completely confused as to what she was talking about, and to why she was calling me. Finally the truth came out.



“BH, your husband is having an affair.” Once again that cold, numb feeling that I had just experienced two days before crept over my body. “He has been seeing her for awhile and I thought it only fair you know what it is that he is doing.” The earth was spinning, the lights were fading, I could no longer breathe. Just at a time when I needed my best friend the most, he betrays me in this way. What was I going to do? How was I going to get through this? I slid down to the kitchen floor and began to cry.



The only thoughts I had at this period in my life were to run away. I had to get as far away from the pain I was experiencing as possible. If it was no longer right in front of me to face, then maybe, just maybe it was not real. I packed my son and myself up and moved two hours away to be with my family so they could help me. Unfortunately, there is only so long you can hide from life before you are forced to face it.



The first two weeks of my seclusion were based in fear and reaction to my circumstances. I was unable to eat, drink or sleep. The only thing that I could picture in my head was my husband, my best friend for 19 years, having sex with another woman. Here I was, fighting the most important fight for my life and the only thing I could focus on was if I could save my marriage. I was unable to face the betrayal that my own body had done to me. In a twisted way, it was easier to face his infidelity than it was to face my illness. I was not prepared for the onslaught that the medication would do to me. I did not want to know what was going on with my cancer, so was blindsided when I began to become sick. First was the vomiting, then the diarrhea, next the muscle aching, and finally ulcers in my esophagus. Through this entire ordeal, I decided to not share my pain and weakness with my husband who had decided to walk away. I was going to have to face this myself, completely alone.



When people find out that their partners are having an affair, the day of discovery is called D-day. It is a day that is burned into their minds forever. No matter if they reconcile or divorce, it is still a scar that is carried with them for many years. My D-day happened on May 28, 2008. I still have the correspondence that he gave me through e-mail saying that yes he was having an affair, but he could not respond because work was busy. I could not believe this. He was tearing my world and my son’s world completely apart but he could not take the time to talk about it because his job was asking a lot of him right at that moment. What kind of human being would do this? Who had he become?



The worst crime was who I had become. I was no longer the confident, fun loving person that I had been when we first met. I had turned into an emotional leach, desperate for any kind of affirmation, needy in so many unhealthy was. In the beginning, I blamed my husband for my fall from grace. After all, he was the one who was withholding affection, love and kindness towards me. I was reduced down to begging for scraps of love from him. No person should ever feel that worthless. After some time and healing had passed, I began to understand that it really was my fault that I was the way I was. We are all responsible for our own happiness, no one else’s, just our own. In that same spirit, no one else can make us happy or sad either. We chose how we want to feel about situations. I had chosen to feel like a broken, unwanted victim in my circumstances. When I felt lonely at home I did not ask in a loving way for more attention, instead I demanded it, which only pushed us further apart. When I was not feeling happy in my life, I did not go about finding ways to fulfill myself, I begged for him to fill me up. The pressures of having someone need you to be their world and happiness became too much for my husband, so he left.



Even though I can logically look back at the unraveling of my relationship, it does not lesson the pain that my heart has experienced. I can not count the number of nights that I cried myself to sleep, begging the universe to just show my husband the path back home to his family. Couldn’t he see that his actions were destroying everyone? Why wouldn’t he try and work on fixing the relationship with me? After all, if we could fix it then are lives would be blissful together from here on out. I kept getting the same response from him over and over, “I’m just not in love with you anymore.” I could not and would not believe his words. We had been together for 19 years, best friends through most of it. People can not just fall out of love that easily. Of course, when your partner has someone to stroke their ego and make them feel good about themselves, it’s easy for them to compare the other woman to the wife and think that the other woman is better. After all, when they are with their mistress, they get to play the role of the wonderful man. She does not see all of the inner demons that are fighting inside of him. She does not see all of the “warts” that he is hiding from her. It is a time of fantasy; no bills to fight over, no kids to discipline together, no real world problems to face that comes with a marriage. Not to mention the endorphins that kicks in during the first couple months of romantic “love”. It is no wonder that he chose her over me. Statically speaking, because these types of relationships are based on a fantasy, less than two percent last even a year. I tried to give myself hope that maybe one day we could work this out because the numbers where on my side. But, unfortunately, holding on the way I did forced the universe to slap me once again.



Hope is a very fickle emotion. It can give you strength when the odds seem insurmountable, but it can also lead to despair if you rely too heavily on it. In the beginning of my journey, I allowed my hope for reconciliation to keep me in my desperate state. Many nights I would stay up late posting to online forums devoted to stopping divorces or overcoming infidelity. I would keep reaching out to strangers, telling them all about my circumstance, hoping they would say that my situation was not a lost cause. Unfortunately, the more I read and the more I posted, I kept coming back to the fact that most relationships that in are in a similar state do not make it. I kept telling myself that I was the exception to the rule, we had a love that most never experienced, and he would wake up from his depression to remember what we had and want to come back. I kept clinging to this idea until I was nearly crushed by the consequences of holding on to it. My hope to make things work between us came at a huge cost, it kept me in a state of denial that would not allow me to move into a place of healing. I would hang on every word he said, over analyzing it, trying to find something that would show me he still might come back. I even started to believe it when he said he was no longer with his girlfriend. Then came another call from my secret friend, one that was just as painful as the call the night before D-day. I called my husband immediately after to ask if this was true, was he still with the other woman? He was still seeing her, he was still with her, nothing had change, including me.



At this point in my life, my cancer had been on the back burner in my head. I took my medication like I was suppose to, but refused to acknowledge what they were really for. My husband still did not know what I was fighting. He was aware that I had to see doctors every so often, but had no idea why. The day after I received the call from my secret friend, I was back in the doctor’s office finding out that my cancer was still growing. My life no longer became about the desperate need to win my husband back, but about the reality that I need to win my health back to live. I could feel a shift occurring inside me, I was letting go of the hope of reconciliation that I had put so much energy towards and now was focusing on getting better. This was the beginning of my journey back to the real me.



I can remember getting an email from a friend that said, “Divorce is a beautiful package wrapped in the shittiest of paper.” I did not understand what she meant at that time. I would have never dreamed of being in this place, let alone thinking that I should be thankful for it. The funny thing is, though, crisis does not ask permission to come in and change your life, it just happens. Knowing that I could not change what my reality was, I decided I could change how I looked at that reality. I was not going to feel sorry for my self. That time was done and now I needed a time of action. I wanted to find ways to smile again and have peace in my life. Confused about how to go about achieving this goal, I started to walk through the woods just to clear my head. At first my walks lasted only 30 minutes. I would get caught back up in my negative cycle and need to go back to the house in order to talk to a friend to help me through it. Then my walks were 40 minutes, and hour, and then finally two to three hours a day. I noticed that this time became a meditative time for me. I would focus only on the things that were occurring right in front of me, not on anything that was in my head. There were so many wonderful delights to see and at times it felt that I did not even have enough time on the walks to see them all. I listened to the gurgling stream as the water cascaded over a small rock ledge. I watched the butterflies dance from one flower to the next. I appreciated the intricate shadows that the tree branches created on the pathway. There were moments of pure bliss while in my state of walking. One such day occurred when on my way back, I was startled by three deer jumping onto the path about twenty feet away from me. They looked just as stunned to see me as I was to see them. We all stood completely still as we watch each other, not a muscle moving between us for over ten minutes. Final the magic left the moment and the deer calmly walked back in to the woods. I knew that I had just experienced a moment that most people either don’t get or don’t appreciate. I could not stop laughing at my wonderful fortune.



There was another day that had been particularly hard physically and emotionally. Even though I did not feel up to getting out on the trail, I knew that my body and mind needed it. As I was walking along, I was once again flooded with negative thoughts about the direction my life had taken. It was so unfair that I had all of these obstacles thrown at me at once. I was not strong enough to get through this alone. And then I stopped, right there on the dirt path and realized that of course I was not strong enough to get through this alone, that was why I had so many wonderful people in my life. I was not alone at all. Everyday I would receive phone calls from friends wanting to know if I needed to talk. I had many offers to come and stay for awhile from different people in my life. Even my family was there to take care of my son when I could not and to pick me back up when I felt weak. How could I focus only on the bad when I was surrounded by such good in my life? From that day on, I have walked with a smile on my face because I saw the beautiful gift I received in that ugly paper. I saw the true meaning of friendship and family. I saw the wonderful life I had gotten to experience and the joy I have been blessed to feel. And I saw that my journey has lead me to re-examine myself and find that I am worthy and already very loved. I no longer need a husband or a relationship to have affirmation, I can give it to myself.



By the beginning of August, I had lost a significant amount of weigh, felt physically better than I had in years and has a sense of peace that surrounded my soul. Even though I was not where I wanted to be, I was ok with being where I was at. The idea to divorce had been agreed to by both my husband and myself. I knew it was time to let him go on his own journey of discovery and happiness. At this time I also had another doctor’s visit scheduled and tried not to allow the unknown future disrupt my harmony. Unfortunately, ignoring fear has a way of helping the fear to grow. I thought I had already learned the lesson of acknowledging my emotions, but as the doctor’s visit loomed closer I realized I had still be running from the unknown. I decided that what will be, will be and I will address the circumstances only when they become known. It was a long day of waiting when I went to see the doctor, but it was all worth it when it heard the results; the cancer had actually shrunk. I could not help but feel overjoyed. My efforts to create a calmer soul and a more positive life had helped me to have the strength to walk on the road towards recovery. Even though I was responding incredible well to the treatment, they wanted to increase the amount of chemotherapy to try and eradicate the remaining cancer. The hope was that buy getting rid of it quickly, they could eliminate the possibility of it spread to other parts of my body – a definite death sentence if that were to occur. Knowing that I was still fighting a good fight, I was able to leave the doctor’s office without fear of the future. I had already lived more in these last few months than I had for the five years up to that point. My cancer, too, had become a gift.



So now I am living each day, moment by moment. I enjoy the little things and try not to let the big things get to me. Some times I fall, but I prove to myself how strong I have gotten by being able to get right back up. The negative thoughts no longer plague me; they have been replaced with thoughts of gratitude. I am still on my journey and still have obstacles to learn from, but hope that I am better equipped to face them. The latest trial that I have been faced with is the move back to my original home where my soon to be ex-husband was living. He has since moved in with friends and is continuing to live his life to the best of his ability. After hearing of my cancer, it seemed he was able to have the missing piece that explained all of the anger, resentment and hurt that I had had towards him. It also explained why I had to run away in the first place. Looking back, I see I should have had more faith in his ability to handle it with respect and compassion. I had felt so betrayed by him that I emotionally could not have taken any further rejection at that point in time. By healing and coming to a better place in my life, I was able to reach out and share my prognosis with him. I have been able to forgive him for all of the hurtful things that occurred during this time and hope that he can find forgiveness in his heart. Forgiveness has allowed me to let go of the remaining hurtful feelings that I was carrying and to find more peace in my life. I hope that he can give himself that gift as well one day. I came to the understanding that we all just try to do the best we can with the tools we have at that moment. It took being left and fighting a deadly illness to learn how to have the tools to find happiness again.