I had laid on the floor in total silence, only the distant rush of the surf...I would imagine the crush of gravel under tires as she pulled up the driveway to come home. A few nights I was so certain of it, I would light candles, and tidy up the house and room for her. I loved her. I married her. It wasn't conditional, and I would forgive anything. We were struggling, but I was certain that she really did love me, and was only lost temporarily...as I was in my own way...
But the end for her seemed so neat, clean, and cold. It was chilling. It was certainly more than I could emotionally endure-then and now-at least not in a silent and graceful way. Enduring any of it has been an exercise in trying to manage howling raw pain, hurt, rage, sorrow, loss beyond anything I had experienced before...
...and she would come back around several times, in her head and heart-for a moment anyway. Usually reactionary to something else-there would be a claim of love, a statement that she had never loved that OTHER person...and it would turn out that they had had a fight or something-and she would return after they had talked. My heart would be shredded anew, and I would get an, "I'm sorry...I didn't MEAN to hurt you..." I would regroup. This last time I was really moving on...for certain...looking forward, making plans, feeling pretty good about things.
I WAS HEALING...it had been nearly a year...
...and then in no uncertain terms, she wanted us back. Our life together. She wanted to work on our marriage. She contacted ME about this. From Portland....I had waited to hear those words. I prayed for them. I never stopped loving her. I could hear the excitement and the earnestness in her voice. She meant and felt what she was saying. She had had an epiphamny. The affair was born of pain, feeling trapped, lost, losing faith and hope....but it wasn't born out of a loss of love. She had never stopped loving me she said. She had never really loved her in a complete way she said. Again and again she reassured me that she did not love Candy, they were not right for each other, that Candy was immature, it had never been about Candy, but about us-and the affair could have been with anyone, what she experienced was intense, but not real because it had been colored by loss, chaos, pain, new relationship excitement, drinking, etc.
She wanted me to stop talking about or mentioning her. As if that would just be easy....
We almost had me go to Portland, or US go to an entirely new location altogether. THAT is what we should have done...
We should have STARTED with a counseling session, stayed completely sober, gone to meetings, not attempted to rebuild anything until we had a place to be together (for certain), and stayed away from the prior circles and locations that had pulled us apart. It would have also been helpful if one of my closest and most trusted friends had not invited my spouse to go over to her house where the only other guest that night happened to be Candy-right during a very difficult time for us...
...a move I will never understand or be able to forgive, I think. Because now I will never know.
