Harmonic Divergence

[Lord Grenville]

I thank each and every one of you for contributing so many points of view today. It helped shaped my decisions on what to do this evening.

I am going to need your support very much in the next days.

You see....it is almost confirmed that my wife is having an affair.

This morning she called and left a message on my cell phone that she was going to check in for the day at that time (8:45 a.m.) because in the evening a female art history professor from her department would be sharing the hotel room with her, and she might not feel comfortable talking to me while this professor was present. So she would call me on Sunday to let me know which train back to Boston she would be on.

This story sounded suspiciously like she was creating a scenario for me to not feel the need to call or talk with her tonight.

One detail about myself that I had not revealed yet is that I have been studying mediumship and psychic development for almost 15 years. Today, in yoga class, while we were in the relaxation meditation portion of the class, I was very calm and collected - not thinking about my wife - when suddenly I received an image and thought in my mind's eye that she was ingaged in an act of unfaithful betrayal at that moment. I dismissed that thought picture as worry and paranoia and went on with my day.

I had a nice evening out with a couple of friends at a local wine/espresso bar, and I was not feeling worried. But walking home, another pang of betrayal hit me, and I felt I needed to connect with my wife.

I called my wife on her cell at 10:15 PM. She did not answer, and I decided to not leave a message.

So I waited 15 minutes, and then I sent her a text message to call me saying it was urgent. She did not respond.

At 11:00 PM I looked up the phone number for her hotel and got connected through to her room phone. She picked up the phone and sounded a little surprised it was me. I asked her a couple of questions about the dog food recipe I was trying to follow that she left me. Normally she makes the batch of oats, ground turkey and vegetables for our dog, but I volunteered to do it this time.

I was doing my best to be friendly and happy sounding. When I shifted the conversation to ask about her day she seemed impatient like she wanted to cut our conversation short. She said she had attended three presentation lectures. When I asked what the three topics were, she stunned me by saying in a tired manner:
"Oh I don't know."
M: "you don't remember what the sessions were about?"
W: "I'll bring the brochue home and tell you about them tomorrow"
M: "Why don't you want to talk to me now? Can't you even tell me a little about your day" What was the first session?
W: I..I...well one was about photography"
M: "What were the others about"
W: "Um..pedagogy of teaching with technology" (something to that effect)
M: "And the third - what was that one about?"

She paused and I think she knew that I felt she was lying, and doing a poor job of it.

I then told her:

"I had a very interesting experience in yoga class today. As the class was winding down between 1:30 and 1:45, I felt very connected to you, and I sensed that something very significant was happening at that moment. Can you tell me where you were at that time?"

She said she was at a lecture by a Trudy Jacobi, which featured Quicktime Virtual Reality interiors of Versailles Palace. I jotted these notes down and was surprised when she didn't ask me what I had experienced!

She said she would call me tomorrow. And I said fine.

As I continued to prepare the dog food recipe, my mind was racing, as I had a sinking feeling that an affair was seeming more likely.

I thought about what to do for 20 more minutes and I realized I needed to express what I was feeling, and that if she was in bed with OM, I wanted to mess up the ambience of their evening.

I called my wife's room at 11:30 PM and she seemed a little annoyed that it was me. I told her that was afraid that I was going to have difficulty sleeping tonight.
W: "Why?"
M: "Because of what I saw today."
W: "What did you see"
M: "I saw an image of you being unfaithful to me, and it has upset me a lot."
W: "What are you talking about"
M: "Can you reassure me somehow that you have not been unfaithful?
W: "How can I do that?"
M: "Is Monica there?" (she is the art history professor sharing the room)
W: "Yes".
M: "Can I ask her one question"
W: "I don't think that would be appropriate"
M: "O.K. if you won't let me talk to her, you can reassure me now, by taking a photograph of her with your phone and sending it to me now.
W: "I am not going to do that now."
M: "Can't you see how your actions in the past weeks have been causing me turmoil? Do you not have any empathy for what you are putting me through? "I am simply asking for some reassurance, and you are not willing to help."
W: "I will talk to you tomorrow"...

Anyhow, I asked again for her to take a photo of Monica (to prove that she actually had a university-arranged roommate this evening) and she finally said she would do it in the morning. [for whatever that is worth] If I had been on a trip and she was irrationally afraid I was having an affair, I would have done anything to prove that it was not the case to put her mind at ease.

I know this sounds like I was creating a mountain out of a molehill, and I probably should not have made an accusatory comments at this point without any hard evidence, but my gut was telling me to express my fears, and her reactions seemed to confirm it.

After we hung up, I finally followed through on something I should have done two days ago when I first though about it. I check our detailed Verizon phone bill online, which shows all calls made on our two cell phones. At first I did not see anything out of the ordinary, but then a 115 minute call to a Larchmont, NY number, on an evening when she was babysitting our nephew apart from me. She spent the night at her Brother's/sister-in-laws that night, and made the call while they were out on a date.

I did a reverse number lookup, and I got the guy's name. And his address is just a few miles away from a college campus where my wife was part of Tufts University technology presentation that she attended on December 18th. And guess what? On that trip, instead of getting a ride back with her colleagues, when they finished around lunch time, she took a train into NYC, ("because she was so close to Manhattan, and she wanted to see the new Museum of Modern Art building) She ended getting back around 12:45 a.m. that trip. As I look at my planner from December, I see that our first visit to a marriage councelor was the next evening. And she opened up the dialogue that first meeting by saying: "I need to be honest with you..." All she was honest about was that she said she needed space. Well Yeah - you need space to have an affair - that's for sure.

So here I am. She will be returning to Amesbury tomorrow evening, and I do not know how it is going to shake down. I suppose I will ask her point blank about this guy from NY and whether she saw him this weekend.

I am stunned -
If she has been unfaithful, then right now, I honestly feel more like proceeding with a divorce than struggling for years to rebuild trust, waiting for the day when we might be back where we once were.

It is late, and I need the solace and healing that can come in the sleep state.

I will welcome any advice on how to proceed with tomorrow's confrontation with facts and truth.

Thanks so much for being here for me.

Marc