Time to go

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 my husband walked away from our life. The one thing I feared the most was telling the boys that daddy was not going to live with us anymore. I knew it would be easier for Ian since he was only 2 yrs old but Nathan, that was going to be hard. Nathan loved his dad more than anything. I knew this was going to crush him.

He came home from work and his plan was to pack up some clothes and leave. OH NO!! There was no way I was going to let the boys watch their dad pack up and walk out. I told him..this is what you want so YOU will tell Nathan. My plan was to wait until he told Nate and then I was talking the boys to dinner while he packed a bag and left.

I was shaking and holding back tears. He told Nathan he was not going to be living with us anymore. I will never forget the look on Nate's face. Pure sadness, his chin quivered and I just started crying. All he kept saying to Nate was this was not your fault, you will always be my buddy and I love you. I can remember Nate looking at me and would not look away. He would not look at his dad. Finally after about 10 mins of him telling Nate the same thing over and over, I said, let's go to McDonald's. I couldn't take it anymore..it was time to go. I grabbed Ian and Nate and we headed for the door. I didn't say one word to him. In the car I told Nate, we are going to be ok. We are a team now, we will be ok. He just shook his head and hugged me. My baby boy's heart was broken.

I swore that when I had kids I would do everything to make sure they would always have a mom and dad that stayed married. I didn't want my kids to have to deal with divorce the way I had to. I didn't want them to have to deal with step-parents the way I had to. I didn't want them to have to deal with feeling second best to Daddy's new life or Mommy's new life. I failed my kids. I didn't keep my promise. I didn't do everything I could to stay married. I can't count how many times I asked him if our marriage was strong enough to be parents and to stay married forever. He always said yes. He lied.

What am I doing??

For the next few weeks I tried really hard to move forward. There was one problem, he was treating me like I was the one that did something wrong. I was the one doing all the apologizing, all of the talking, all of the hugging, all of the kissing. He was not putting in any effort to making this better. He was not apologizing to me for what he had done. I was making alot of changes and he was pushing me away. I did not understand why this was happening. I started having anxiety attacks and I was crying all the time. My kids did not understand why I was sad all the time. I was having a hard time coping with this. I was scared, confused, hurt, lonely and so many other things. I was just hoping that going to counseling would help but then he throws yet another bomb at me. We had to fill out some paperwork for the therapist and there was a question that asked, why are you seeking help? He wrote, Because I don't love my wife anymore and I want to be with someone else. When I actually saw those words on paper my heart completely broke in two. I just cried and cried. At the time I didn't really think about why he gave me his paperwork. He could have just kept it and taken it to the office himself. Now, I know why he did that, because he was a COWARD!! He still is one to this day. Why could he not just be man enough to tell me he was unhappy and didn't want to be with me? I think I at least deserved that.

For that entire night after reading the papers, I could not stop crying. He never once asked me what was wrong or if I was ok. He just ignored me. So, of course I started a conversation with him. It was basically me starting off begging him to love me and to stay in our marriage. The more we talked there was one thing that kept going through my mind and it was a line form a song by the band Daughtry. I had been listening to their new CD and this song, What I meant to say seemed to be written just for me. The line that kept going through my head was, All this sucking up to you is getting old. As I was sitting there listening to the man I have loved for 15 years tell me that he did not love me anymore I finally said, ya know what? NO!! I deserve better than this. I did not do anything wrong and I am trying to get this asshole to stay. What am I doing? I finally said told him it was time for him to go. I could not live in the same house with someone who could not even look at me. I did ask him to still go to counseling and he agreed but he would not agree to not seeing his whore after he moved out. I do believe I went a little crazy because I started literally beating him up. I was punching him in the arms, stomach, face, everywhere. I don't know what came over me...finally, ANGER!!

I just told him he needed to move out the next day after work. My marriage was over.