One Week in January

Excuse me if I sound angry or bitter, or anything of the sorts. It is just that this situation was so life-altering and came as such a shock, and part of me still wants it all to be just a dream. But life is more like a nightmare at the moment and here is why…..

I work in real estate development for a really great firm on the west coast. I have been working there for over 10 years, have a great position with great money, and I always vowed that I would give my family the world. 6 years ago, my wife Coleen and I were married. We wanted to start our family right away, so I went to work while Coleen stayed home. We had our son and 16 months later, our daughter was born. Those kids became the center of my world and I wanted it no other way. Things were great. The kids were well taken care of and I had the pleasure of coming home to my beautiful family each day. I took business trips every other month or so, to check up on projects throughout the country and to work out the kinks in new deals. It was stressful having to be gone and I was always swamped with work while I was out of town.

Last year, I took 2 weeks off during Christmas, to spend time with family and friends. I found out during my time off that I would be headed to Arizona for about a week in January to finish up a project out there. No big deal. I wasn’t going far and it was only for a week this time. I left the following month just like I always had. Coleen and the kids dropped me off at the airport, we hugged and kissed, and the kids made me promise to bring them gifts home. Little did I know that this would be the last time that I would have my happy family like this. That whole week, Coleen was hard to catch up with, and when I did get hold of her, she sounded like something was wrong. I even asked her repeatedly if she was sick, but she just kept saying ‘fine.’

Something just wasn’t sitting right with me, so I got things taken care of as fast as I could and got out of Arizona to get back home. I called to say that I was coming home early but there was no answer. I kept calling and texting Coleen, so she could meet me at the airport but I never heard back from her. I ended up catching a cab home. I walked into hell. There were bottles and junk everywhere. I was scared that something awful had happened, so I ran to find my kids. They were in my son’s room sleeping in the same clothes that I had left them in 5 days ago! I couldn’t figure out what in the hell was happening so I started screaming for Coleen. I searched the house and couldn’t find her, so I went out back. That’s where I found her and some coked-out loser passed out in our guest cottage, surrounded by drugs, cigarette butts and empty bottles. I went ballistic and was glad that my kids weren’t outside to witness it. I found out that as a bored housewife, Coleen had recently taken up a little drug habit that had quickly spiraled out of control. She didn’t have much to say. She didn’t even ask about the kids. She just asked me for some money and took off when I refused. We haven’t seen nor heard from her since. My parents and sisters have stepped in to help, and I had to get a nanny to care for the kids while I worked. My life fell apart that fast. My kids just don’t understand. They want their mommy and just don’t get why she isn’t there. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I know that my kids are going to get the life that I have worked so hard to give them, whether Coleen decides to be a part of it or not.

Now He Wants a Family

3 year ago, my husband Shane and I welcomed a beautiful baby boy named Tyler. We were young, both just 19, but everything was so perfect in the beginning and I was so happy to be starting our family. Then, out of nowhere, when Tyler was ariund 9 months old, Shane told me that he wanted a divorce. I honestly didn’t belive him. he had been known to be a prankster and I figured it was so sort of joke. Just the night before we had cuddled up together and watched movies. We were so in love. He left a few weeks later and after a long fight, our divorce was finalized. I was just so blind-sided and hurt, and so so angry. Here I am left to be a full-time, single mother to our son while he takes off, free to do what he wants. Shane and I worked out a custody agreement, where he would pay child support and spend a few week nights every week and every other weekend with Tyler. It worked as best as it could, but we ended up having so many fights because I wanted an explanation he refused to give. He owed it to us to try to work on things. He had just abandoned his family using the piss-poor excuse that he fell out of love and wasn’t ready for marriage. He said that the whole reason he went through with it was because I was pregnant and he wanted to give our son a family, but he could never give a good reason for why he just up and quit on us.

2 months ago I started hearing rumors that Shane had a girlfriend. Apparently, he had been dating this girl whom he never mentioned for months, and she had recently moved in with him. My first question was whether or not Tyler had ever been around her. He said he had spent time with her before and I flipped! There is some girl I don’t even know with my son?! I don’t think so! I told him that she was not allowed around my son, so she would have to leave whenever Tyler was over. He goes off about how I can’t run his life and how his new b!tch can be around if he wants her to be. Then he said something that cut so deep: “I’m thinking about asking her to marry me, so she is going to be a part of Ty’s life….. Accept it and get over it!” Like hell he was going to abandon us and then go play family with the next girl! I went down to the courthouse the next day and got the paperwork to file for full custody. My son needed stability, not some guy who was going to bounce around on him and have women coming and going in his life. I also made the decision to move from California to Arizona. I have a lot of family out there and can get a transfer with my job. I want Tyler to have a good life, full of people that love him, not just want him to be part of their little “family” game. My kid isn’t a toy, so I’m not going to allow the sperm donor or his chick to play house with him!

How She Was Dumped

Short and sweet? Hell no! When you only get to read one breakup a day it’s gotta be crammed with juicy details!
I am going to be un-apologetically thorough, but relevant.

I had been more or less happily married for 6 years and had two beautiful girls when my husband’s father passed away from lung cancer suddenly.
My husband didn’t really deal with his grief from losing his only parent; he took his 2 weeks of bereavement leave and basically played video games and spent time with our kids and I.
He went back to work, and in the next couple of months he started to get a little distant and “weird”. Picking fights, criticizing my weight, how the house was always cluttered. Complaining that I “never let him pick anything” when we went grocery shopping of all things was a recurring argument. I didn’t think it was a big deal when I got strawberry ice cream instead of rocky road for example. His work provided a literal buffet 24/7 so anytime he wasn’t home he could literally eat anything he wanted…

Looking back now, it wasn’t surprising that he started caring about a female friend from work a little too much while he refused to address his grief properly. When I caught a flu bug from taking care of him that laid me out for about 3 weeks it wasn’t hard for her to look a lot more appealing than a sick, crabby wife who was worn down from being home with little kids 24/7.

One day, he left the house to go “get an estimate on new car tires”, and when he came home he confessed within 2 hours that he sneaked out to go on a date with this woman whom he kissed goodbye and told he loved. It turned out that every time he took the kids to the park so I could rest at home he had been calling her while they played.

Well, I was pretty shocked considering that it seemed like just weeks before that he regularly said things like I was the “most wonderful woman in the world”, and “he loved me more than anything”.

When I stopped sobbing and yelling in disbelief I gave him my best right hook… then I cried some more. He promised to try to work it out with me “for the kids” and cut communication with her while we went to counseling, had more date nights. He would get angry at me when I reached out to friends in pain to talk through what I was going through because he said I was “airing our dirty laundry”. I refused to apologize. As it turns out, he never stopped talking to her, and was b!tching me out over HIS guilty conscience. He’d call her and delete his history, and they would have long talks over lunch together, breaks, and walking her to her car at the end of the shift complete with hugs and “I love yous” exchanged.

She put on a brave face for him and told him she wanted him to take his time “for the sake of the kids”, then call him and say she was having “panic attacks from the stress of not being with him.” I talked to her in person and explained our history and relationship and to please give us this chance to save our marriage and leave him alone (amazing since I wanted to shatter her teeth and run over her with my car and feed her remains to wild dogs at the time.) She replied she would let him do what he wanted– she didn’t feel guilty since he was “unhappy” and she “tried to stay away when she had a crush on him already out of respect.”

We struggled through my birthday (we had drive through burgers. I wasn’t going to make him go through the motions of blowing cash on a big night out we would both be miserable faking.)

Finally when we took the kids to the zoo and he kept referring to it as “one last happy family outing” over and over, on the car ride home I demanded he decide right then, his family or her– because I was sick of trying to compete with someone who could never do anything wrong when I caught sh!t for leaving my dirty clothes in the bathroom.
He paused for a second, and then said “Her.” I shrugged my way out of my stuck wedding band and handed it to him right there in the car.

He moved out his stuff that weekend. The kids didn’t understand why daddy was leaving and cried and cried. He said they would come visit him next week.
He moved his things into her house and that’s where my kids went to have their first sleep over to “visit daddy”. She kept telling my girls that her kids and mine “were all sisters now, isn’t that cool!” They came back after playing all weekend, and being babysat by a stranger one night so Dad and girlfriend could go out– to add insult to injury they sent home hand me down clothes for my youngest, and a bike with broken training wheels. It was like twisting the knife every time one of the other dads in our complex would try to help her fix that damn thing. My life felt like a broken, used bike.

I celebrated my three year old’s birthday, just me, the two kids, a homemade cake, and a couple toys from the dollar store. After about a month of living in the apartment and being harassed about “when I was going to get a job” every time he called the kids, my mother invited me to move in with her 20 hours away, and I accepted since I was afraid how I was going to make it on my own, and desperately needed a new start. I was loading my things up on a truck on my seventh wedding anniversary.

About two months later, I was working on getting my new life together. Kids had started school, and after a lot of prayer and introspection I was settled on moving forward, working again, going back to school etc. while I waited for the divorce to come through.

Then my husband started instant messaging me. I assumed he had some business to discuss about the kids, but no, he wanted to be “friends again”. I told him to piss off. You don’t treat someone who was faithful to you for all those years like that and expect her to be happy for your new adulterous living arrangement and the redhead that made it all possible.
He persisted and I decided to be civil one night when I had a couple mixed drinks at home after the kids were in bed. He said he was sorry it happened the way it did and we pretty much talked about the kid’s school and video games and said good night.

A few weeks later, he dropped a bomb. Apparently, he had learned that his girlfriend basically wasn’t the person she said she was. They were having some kind of discussion about abortion of all things, and it came out accidentally that she lied about her prior opinion on the subject. It was like a cloud had lifted. As he peeled away the veneer of the woman he lived with for 3 months, he came to understand that she had told him what she thought he wanted to hear to “get him to like her”– Where she said she had been lonely since her marriage ended, she had had many boyfriends and a long standing “f*ck buddy” she was still hanging out with even after her she made it official with her poached man.
Her politics, her religious beliefs, her bra size, her taste in music, and even her sexual likes and dislikes turned out to be gross exaggerations.

He realized he made a big mistake. He said if I still lived there he’d move back in that day. “Well, sucks for you that I don’t. You’ll just have to figure something out.”
That week my cell phone broke and I didn’t have the money to replace it. I let him know and he went and got a new cell plan “so he could talk to the kids”. He got two phones, and I discovered he kept his new one a secret from his girlfriend. He started calling and texting me every time she wasn’t around. He made plans to move down and be near the kids. She called in to work for 4 days because of her “depression” over it. She suggested a long distance relationship and he said he’d think about it (he listed everything of value he owned on craigslist to raise money to see me and the kids again behind her back.) She told him she thought she was pregnant.
He waited for the pregnancy test.

He told me that if she was pregnant he would have to stay because there was no way he’d let her raise his child with her manipulation games and crazy family, and the worry was killing him that he would be trapped in the worst mistake of his life.
Negative.

She tested again in 2 weeks.
Negative.
She said “well, I guess it’s over then.”
“Yes it is” he said.
When he called me with the news, I agreed to let him try to win me back. I was tired of burying how much I missed him.

The next day she came home to a hole in the living room. He sold the flat screen TV he moved from our house to hers. She b!tched and b!tched about how she gave away her old sh!tty TV to make room for it. He calmly told her the next day was his last at his job- he was driving down to see his kids. She asked to come with him, he told her flat out; No, she wasn’t invited.
She went shopping and bought him a toiletries bag for his trip, and framed a photo of her and HER two kids for him to bring so he “didn’t forget his family”. He gave her kids a couple of small presents and told them that they were great kids and his leaving had nothing to do with them, but he had to be responsible and be with his own children that missed him.

He spent the money he raised on a plane ticket for me, he picked me up at the airport that very night and we drove all the way to my house, talking out our problems for 3 days on the scenic route. She had no idea that the man she cheated to get had gone behind her back to reconcile with his wife for weeks, telling me he loved me and was sorry every night before he went to sleep if I answered the phone or not while he developed “insomnia” and refused to sleep in her bed while she was in it.
That photo she gave him got thrown out the window at 65 mph on a lonely desert highway somewhere in Nevada.
She mailed him a stuffed toy that said “I love you” and he wrote “return to sender” on it after resealing the box.

All of that happened 4 years ago now. Mike dedicated every day of his life to proving to me how I was the best thing in his life that had ever happened to him, and that he would never f*ck it up again by being such a dumbass to think ANYone on earth could possibly be a better mate to him than me.
Neither of us are perfect, but we found that we really are perfect for each other.
He changed careers to one he found more fulfilling. We had another daughter. Developed new hobbies together, bought our first home, and are now expecting our son. We have moved on. Whenever the topic comes up he wonders what in the hell came over him.
Normally, “once a cheater, always a cheater” is true. I don’t advise every wife of a man who steps out on her to forgive.
But you know, sometimes even really good men make mistakes. And if he learns from them, it only makes him a better one.
Story so uplifting it must be wishful thinking?
Not really. If no one could take a bushel of sh!t and then create a happily ever after after the fact, no one would bother with the whole affair of chasing a lasting love.

What made you think he wouldn’t cheat on you?

My story has been replayed many times by wives of doctors and lawyers. I was a nursing student. Met James just before graduation he was in his 2nd year of premed. I had an apartment he lived in the dorms. I graduated and got a good job, we dated and in the fall he moved in, after living together for 8 months, we get married. I was the sole source of income, he got student loans to finish undergrad.

He got accepted to med school in another city, we move. 16 months later and we have a new baby son (I worked till 1 week before he was born). We of course moved to a bigger apartment and my mother comes and stays with us for extended times to baby sit, while I work as I am the only income. 16 months later we have a baby girl. 6 months later he graduates and does his residency, the income is ok, not great, I still work. We buy a modest house and finally get new cars. I think things are going good, residency did suck, long hours, bad days, kids are growing up. After residency James joins a surgical group even farther from my home. I am a good wife and follow him. I keep working, thank god. The kids and I plan a mini vacation to see my mom and dad, who now live a thousand miles away. James said he couldn’t get off, so we go alone, we get to the airport and find out, flight has been cancelled. So we drive home to surprise dad, it was a surprise alright I find a strange car in our garage and find James and “Elaine” a nurse in his office, in our hot tub, naked. I don’t make a scene but get the kids to their rooms then explode. The outcome is a divorce, after finding out this had been going on for over a year.

Since that time James moved to another city and I have reconciled myself to being a single parent and sitting in the divorced section of the sporting events,school plays etc, and explaining to them why their daddy can’t come to watch them. James and I have kept in contac t(phone and emails, I am still angry but try to be civil for our kids) and the children visit him for a month over every summer (he has a large house with a pool). He married “Elaine” and they have a 1 year old. This spring I email James to find out when the kids could visit but got no response and after several tries I call his home phone, Elaine answered and I asked for James she said he wasn’t there, I told her to have him call me. I called back 4 days later and spoke to Elaine she again told me he wasn’t there. After I explained why I called she began to cry and told me that she had caught him having an affair, she went on and on about how she didn’t think he would do that to her and how violated she felt, and that he had a 1 year old to think about. I finally lost it and said “The SOB cheated on me with you, did you think you were that special that he wouldn’t do the same thing to you? You had better check your fricken ego. I couldn’t be happier for you than I am right now” She hung up and neither James or Elaine will answer my calls, I guess the kids will be going to Grandma’s house for the summer.

Not Quite Right

I have had only one relationship in my life that did not end well. I should have seen it coming, but you know what they say about hindsight being 20/20…. I met James through mutual friends and we began dating soon after. Everything went well at first, but one thing that irritated me was that he would complain non-stop about his ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend. He always made it sound as though they were so terrible and he was so great. This should have been my tip off that something was not quite right about James, but I ignored it. I lived about an hour away from James so we would only see each other on weekends, but we texted and talked daily. Sometimes our weekend plans would be delayed or canceled because he had to do something for/ with the ex-wife (they had kids together). I was very considerate of the time he would spend with his kids because as a child I had a step-mom who wasn’t very nice. What I found out is that for the most part his claim of spending time with his children was an utter and complete lie. How did I find out? His ex-wife called me and told me he had another girlfriend besides me and he was spending some weekends with her. She went on some speech about how she thought I was a good person and did not think I should be treated like this. She gave me the name and phone number of the other girlfriend. Needless to say I was dumbfounded at first and did not know what to think. I confronted him and he said that his ex-wife was lying and was jealous of me. I didn’t buy it. I told him I have the name and number of the woman his ex-wife claimed he was seeing. I asked him to call her on speaker phone in front of me and ask her if she is seeing him. He refused and basically told me that if I did not trust him then we were over. I was quite alright with us being over and asked him to leave. He left with little fanfare and telling me how I would never find someone else like him (I could only be so lucky). I called the woman and sure enough he was seeing her. I told her everything and she told me about their relationship. Apparently, she was the ex-girlfriend, but he never broke up with her. I felt like such a fool when this was all said and done. He called a few times to tell me what a less than wonderful person I was for calling his “ex-girlfriend.” I changed my number and that put a stop to him calling me. I would tell you how horrible he is doing and how karma bit him in the arse, but quite frankly I do not know/care. I have moved on with my life (this happened seven years ago) and haven’t met anyone like him since. Life is good.

The Hardest Goodbye

When I was 19, I started dating this girl name Shalene. She had a 2 year old boy from a previous relationship and from day one I treated that kid like he was my own. We all moved in together about a year after Shalene and I started dating, and we got married a few months later. The next year, Shalene discovered she was pregnant and it was the greatest thing in the world. We decided that she would leave work and stay at home with the kids. I had a good job and I worked my ass off to provide for my family. On the day my son was born, I asked Shalene to allow me to formally adopt her older son and to change his last name to mine. She said she would get right on it. When the baby was 3 months old, Shalene left for a night out with friends and didn’t come back for 2 days. I had to take off work to stay home with them and we had no idea where she was. She came home with a crazy story about how she had been stuck 2 hours away with no ride home and no phone. I didn’t believe any of it, but for the sake of peace I just let it go. The next few weeks were a blur,  with her in and out of the house and starting fights. I tried over and over to talk with her about what was going on, but she just kept saying everything was fine. Then she did something I will never forget. She disappeared with the boys. I called the police and looked everywhere for them. She showed up at home a couple days later with some guy, saying that she was leaving me for him. Then, she tells me that our son is really his child. I flipped and me and him started fighting. The police were called and the two of them were told to leave. I demanded to know where my son is and went down to the family courts to start the paternity and custody process. We took DNA tests and it turned out that he wasn’t mine. I died inside.

The bitch lied, cheated, and let me do everything I could when she knew the truth the whole time. She moved my boys in with the other guy, who has no job and is a casual drug user. I have no rights to the kids and she refuses to let me see them. I want nothing more than to go back in time and undo ever meeting her. My world is destroyed. I have exhausted all of my options to stay in those boy’s lives and it looks like I might just have to accept that I may never see them again.