Thanks, guys, for your support. I have an update. Last night, I had to call H to find out directions to Christmas lights I was taking the girls to see. He was joking around about my sense of direction. After we hung up, I heard from my L, who told me that I should find out four things about OW:
1. Her name 2. If she knows I'm preggo 3. If she knew H and I had been attempting to reconcile 4. If she's aware of the State of N.C.'s alienation of affection law.
I called my H back, with my best innocent voice, and asked him to come clean about a few things. First, her name. He told me, and I knew immediately who it was. It's an interior designer who I've mentioned on the boards before as the only person I could fathom he was seeing. Sure 'nuff. I said, "Oh, the interior designer?" And in his typical "I'll-act-all-excited-to-hide-my-nervousness" fashion, he shouted "Yeah" while he was laughing. I said, "So it has been going on for some time?" And he said, "No. Absolutely not." I asked if she knew about the alientation of affection law -- that was the fun part of the conversation, 'cause my L said it's time to have a little fun with this, and I agree -- H, of course, acted stupid. He said, "Well, she knows that you and I are going to be working things out and getting back together. I told her that three days ago, and she knew it when we did what we did today."
This is when I threw DBing slap out the window. I laughed and asked if he was joking. He responded, "No. We are going to work things out, right? I mean, you told me I could continue things with her." I knew that one was coming, so I said, "No. I told you that I would accept that *before* you promised me you were recommitting to me and our M. If you needed to tell her 'goodbye,' you should have done it before you had committed to me on Saturday. What you did is unacceptable."
He got angry and said, "Well, I guess I f**ked up, didn't I?" I told him he had done that the minute he walked out, but I was willing to forgive everything up to Saturday, when he told me he planned to work on our M. He said "F**k it, then, I'm done," and hung up.
He called back 30 minutes later, syrupy sweet (like he had gotten some good advice from a freaked-out OW). He asked, "Why has your attitude changed so much since lunch? You didn't act like it bothered you then." I told him I was in shock. He said, "Well why didn't you tell me then that you didn't want me to do it?" I asked, "What would it have changed?" He said, "I don't know." I talked a little more, and he ended up getting angry again, saying "I'm done," before hanging up on me again.
I tried to call him back an hour or more later, after a wise friend told me not to let OW win so easily. He wouldn't answer his phone. I left a message, but he never returned my call.
To find OW's address, I checked my H's cell phone records back to August. It's the first time I've snooped, but I knew I had to do it. And it was there, as blatant as could be. Print doesn't lie like H does. He had "business" conversations with her, that I was aware of BTW, beginning in August. Two days before he left me, he had a 40-minute conversation with her. He had another one with her that evening, and two other phone calls to her the night he left. If/when she's calling him does not show up on the bill, but I can tell when he calls her. And they're both freakin' obsessed. They talk sometimes 10 times a day, from 6:30 a.m.-12:30 a.m. I printed the list to give to my L to prove a pattern of this, dating back to before H left me. I had to do that to protect myself.
And I knew my H was going to catch me 'cause I had to change his password to get in. So I knew he would be notified that his password had changed. But I didn't care. I knew by the time he found out, I'd have everything I needed.
I wrote him a letter -- not a *really* sappy one -- and called him this morning because I knew he was angry, and I couldn't accept going dark without squaring things away, or kinda putting the ball squarely in his court. He was very cold at first, then absolutely went nuts. "You f**ked up. Why the f**k did you get into my phone records?" I told him that I needed to know the truth. Told him a little of what I discovered. He said "bullsh!t" and eventually hung up on me. I drove to his work -- my last grasping effort -- to give him the letter. I was very calm. Text messaged him that I was outside, he came out, slammed the door behind him and shouted, "Give me the letter." I did, and I don't care what he does with it.
In it, I'm trying to understand his rationale. He's in a caring R with someone, after all. She's giving him something I didn't. How can I compete? I did tell him that I prolly should've let him off the hook with the "goodbye" sex thing with OW, but that I reacted too quickly. I told him that it would take a lot of time and effort on both our parts to mend what has been broken, and that I wasn't sure he had the time or energy to do it. I'm leaving that to him. I asked him for one week to stay away from OW (and me) so he could decide what and who he wanted in his future. And likewise, I would take the one week to decide if I believe I'm able to move past what has happened.
Obviously, with checking his phone records, I handed him on a silver platter over to OW. I also gave him the excuse he needs to be angry and cast blame onto me again. He's transferring everything onto me, but I won't accept it. I did what had to be done. Knowledge is power, right, Ellie? It sucks. But it gives me legs.
I don't know what to expect next. Prolly for him to go running back to OW, right where my actions sent him. But I'm not actually responsible for that. I'm tired of being a friggin' doormat for him and taking his verbal abuse about me being the cause of all this madness ... when the fact is that he's been the cause, even more so that I would have ever imagined.
I've gone dark now, obviously. I've already done this for three weeks, so hopefully this time it won't be as hard. But it prolly will, considering now I know he's with OW. That's hard. But at least I know *why* he left now. And I told him that I appreciated him respecting me enough not to all-out chase her until he left me first.
