I thought it easier just to copy and paste that part of the story...
Originally Posted by DejaVu6
December 2014...he developed Shingles which became somewhat chronic and necessitated a lot of treatment that had him staying away nights in a local hospital. Unbeknownst to me, at some point during that time, the treatment slowed down but he went back to his MLC ways only this time, he was camping out at various places pretending to be at the hospital for treatments almost every night and avoiding me and his “life”. Looking back, I recall that he seemed quite depressed but I chalked it up to the Shingles and his painful "treatments".
Fast forward to 2017 with this strange life of being home for short periods of time and gone for long periods of time but all the while working full-time save for one month in 2016 when he took a medical leave. It seems like a long period of time to live like that and honestly, I think there were many times when I questioned things but he would always have an answer that seemed plausible and there was a part of me that was just too tired dealing with everything and really didn’t want to know. In 2017, my mom was dying of cancer and I got the idea that we should move closer to my family which was in a much less expensive area to live. I found a job posting within my organization that I felt I would get and approached him with the idea of moving. I kind of expected him to balk at the idea but to my surprise, he was super enthusiastic and within three months, I got the job, he found one too, we sold our house for a ridiculous amount of money, paid off every debt we had and bought a beautiful ocean view dream home for cash in the new community. I thought we were home free as many of our stresses just went away. For the first eight months we were here, he was like a different person. Happy, engaged, present, pain well-managed, future-oriented, and satisfied with his life. We bought a boat (he had always wanted one), spent time fishing and boating together and just basically enjoyed our new reality. We even took our family on a trip to Mexico which is something we hadn’t been able to do since our kids were 7 months old... they are almost 11.
Then...without warning... his pain returned in March 2018 and he announced to me that he had to go back to the hospital. And he did this... for awhile... and, like before, when the treatment regimen stopped being every night, he continued to act as if it was still continuing and spent almost every night away from home... but continued to work and come home until around 5 or 6 when he would leave. I know now that he wasn’t going to the hospital but was spending alone time on our boat (my key went “missing” around then so I would have to borrow his if I wanted to go down there) and then in June he sold his beloved car that he had been restoring and told me he was going to use the money to restore a different vehicle. I later found out that he has been using the money to rent a suite for himself where he continued to spend his evenings isolating from the world. All of this eventually came to a head almost a month ago after my suspicious brother-in-law decided to put a tracker on his car and found out where he was going.
TBH...I'm more than a little embarrassed about how naďve and trusting I was over those years. I am sure his current OW is not his first but he will never tell me. I have accepted there are many things I will never know. What I do know is that I was, for all intent and purposes, a single parent and alone most nights. I was depressed but I did my best to be there for my kids including my SD whose performances and major events I attended...usually without her dad. If he did put in an appearance, he would always leave early because he was in "too much pain" or had to get to the hospital for his "treatment". Throughout that time, I would also have to periodically reassure our children that their dad was not dying as they, of course, would make this assumption based on how often he was gone. He missed everything...birthdays, two Christmases, New Years, anniversaries... You name it, he was not there for it. How I put up with it, I do not know. The best way I can describe it is to say I was like that frog in the pot of water that burns to death because he never notices the temperature gradually increasing until it is too late. I was on autopilot for those years just trying to take care of my kids and support my "ill" husband without allowing myself to have any resentments because, after all, it wasn't his fault [insert eye roll here]. His daughter is old enough to remember all of this and knows he was faking most of it. The twins were young enough, thankfully, that they still think he was sick and I bite my tongue whenever one of them mentions it...for their sake, not his. Needless to say... I am much better off now.
