....after dinner, my 19 year old son and his girlfriend tell me to sit down because they have been contemplating whether or not to tell me about something for weeks.
Son's girlfriend's mom is a nurse, as my H is. It's a small area and alot of them know each other or work with each other at different places at different times. The girlfriend's mom was getting an ear full of gossip from a male nurses aid. He told her that at another place he worked at, there was a nurse who was his supervisor. The (male) nurse had been having an A with a woman there, and got busted by his "wife". He said the A is still going on and they are conspiring to get another person fired so that she could then work the same shift as the guy she was having the A with. The first names used were of H and OW. He described my H in very specific terms.
Girlfriend's mom told girlfriend and my son. They talked about it for several weeks & decided that I should know.
This was a bit different than finding those old computer messages from OW to my H. I knew those were remnents from the past, even though it hurt like hell.
This new thing--this gossip was worse. I think my biggest fear is that I'm doing all of this work and forgiveness and trying to rebuild having trust--only to find out that I've been suckered and that the betrayal has continued all along. Strangly, I'm more afraid of that than I am of H deciding he's done with our R and leaving me.
I knew I wouldn't be able deal with this without completely freaking out unless I talked to H face to face. I know that it's also probably manipulative on my part, but I KNEW that if I caught him off guard and asked him directly to his face, I'd know by his eyes if he was lying--just as I did when I first confronted him about the A.
So.....I tried to keep as calm as possible & drove to his work. I had him paged and waited for him. While there, OW walked by and gave me the goofiest smile. All I could think of was how he could have even TOUCHED her...I'm always caught by surprised at how UGLY she is!!!
I asked H to come outside for a smoke with me and I very calmly told him what I had heard. I told him that I hadn't wanted to freak out or accuse him, but wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and show him the respect of coming to ask him directly.
I didn't see fear in his eyes, only anger. He stated adamantly that "it" was and has been completely over. He was very pissed about people gossiping and said the whole place was a freaking soap opera and maybe he'd just have to go and make an announcement on the PA system.
At some point during his rant, I think he realized that his irritation was probably nothing near the magnitude of what I was feeling & struggling with. After he calmed down a bit, I told him that it was very hard for me to deal with the sitch of him working with that butt-ugly woman everyday. I told him that I struggle with my emotions about his betrayal on a daily basis and just wasn't sure if I could talk to him about it without him getting defensive & feeling like I was rubbing it in his face.
He said he definately wanted me to come to him to talk about those things and how much he regretted having done this to me. I told him that I wanted him to keep looking for another job because I just didn't know if I could keep having to deal with gossip like that coming back around to me and want to give him the benefit of the doubt but that it was difficult to do at times after all of the lies.
I feel pretty confident that he's telling me the truth, I actually think it would be difficult for him to hide it from me, but still.....
He called later after I got home. I apologized for surprising him with all of that at work. He said he was glad I came to him. Then he went back to bitching about "all the gossips who need to get a life".
More than anything right now, I just feel deeply sad and wonder why.
