Tag Archives: lies

On Marital Infidelity

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From the point of view of a child, a spouse, and a parent.

This is going to be a pretty tough one to write, but it’s been brewing inside me for a while and needs to come out.

My grief counsellor, who was helping me get through the feeling of loss and betrayal I felt (and still feel) at the end of a relationship that lasted more than half of my life, recommended writing to help deal with my grief. I’ve been writing about this on and off since my husband first asked for a divorce on my birthday in June. Writing is cathartic — it helps me sort out my thoughts and put things in perspective.

Although I had hoped the ordeal of my divorce would be over by now — indeed, I’d hoped to be finished before Christmas! — it drags on for a variety of reasons best saved for another post. Every day I’m stuck alone in a house I once made a home with the man I loved is another day that gets me thinking of — and writing about — the tragedy of the situation. After all this time — nearly nine months now — I still have trouble believing everything that’s been happening. As a friend recently remarked, it’s bizarre.

But this post will concentrate on one topic: marital infidelity. You see, this isn’t the first time I’ve lived through a husband’s betrayal of his wife’s love and trust.

Childhood Lost

I was about 12 years old, the oldest of three children, when my parents split up.

My dad had been having an affair with a woman 13 years younger than him — only 9 years older than me. She was 21 and already had a child with another man who she’d apparently married and divorced. She was young and, I guess, attractive. My mother, who was only 3 years younger than my father, was overweight and caught up in the task of raising his three children. When we went away to spend the summer in a travel trailer in the Catskills, my dad was left behind to go to work and the affair began.

My sister, brother, and I were shielded from most of what was going on for quite some time. Shielded from the cause, but not the fireworks. The arguments were loud and fierce, leaving my sister and I to seek shelter from the verbal storm in our attic bedroom. Eventually, the situation became intolerable and divorce was inevitable.

You know how there are events in your life that you can remember perfectly as if they happened only yesterday? Well, I still remember the day nearly 40 years ago when my dad came up to our bedroom to break the news. I was sitting on the floor in front of a low table my dad had made out of particle board and formica and screw-in legs. I was working on a floorplan — I used to sketch floorplans of dream houses that I made up in my head. This one was a one-story masterpiece with a central courtyard that had a built-in pool. All the rooms had doors out to this wonderful courtyard. When my father came up to talk to me, I was painstakingly drawing in the irregularly shaped patio blocks around the pool.

He told me that they were getting divorced, but didn’t say why. I probably already knew about the other woman. He assured me that he still loved us all and would still see us a lot. I don’t remember replying. I do remember the tears dripping down my face and onto those carefully penciled patio blocks.

And just like that, my father left. There was a brief time when they attempted reconciliation, but I can’t say it lasted very long. My dad moved into an apartment with his girlfriend and her baby daughter. The divorce dragged on — in those days, I think there was a required separation period. My mom lost weight and started dating — she was in her early 30s and had two single friends (one divorced, one widowed) that she’d go bar-hopping with. It was important to her to not only find a new husband, but to find a new father for her children.

My father fought for visitation rights and got them — every Sunday, I think. In the beginning, he visited us regularly, taking us out to a local hobby shop where they had slot cars that we would race. We did other things, too, but I don’t remember them much. I do remember that over time the visits became less regular and the frequency dropped off. But by that time, the divorce was final and both he and my mother remarried. He married the woman he’d left us for and adopted her child, who is technically now my half sister. My mom married a divorced man who had been through a similar situation; his three kids lived with his ex-wife. We moved to Long Island where my stepfather started a new job. My dad came to see us just a few times a year. And then he stopped coming.

Lessons Learned

There are many ways all this affected me as a child and as an adult. It’s interesting to take a look at them.

  • I titled the previous section “Childhood Lost” for a reason. Although I was just 12 or 13 during my parents’ divorce proceedings, I was forced, in a way, to grow up fast. Because of the dire financial situation we were suddenly thrust into, my mom had to get a job. I had to take responsibility for watching my sister, who was 16 months younger than me, and my brother, who was 8 years younger than me. At age 13, I got a paper route — I still remember the first day of school one year when my paper route collection money was needed to buy school supplies for all of us. The financial situation qualified me for free school lunch and enabled me to get a summer job working with other underprivileged kids scraping rust off a chain link fence with wire brushes. Yes, I still played with other kids and had a life, but I’d gotten a very good look at a side of life most preteens don’t get to see until much later. It changed me and forced me to grow up a bit sooner than I should have.
  • Seeing my mother abandoned by her husband also taught me a lesson — it taught me that there’s only one person you can rely on in life: yourself. It taught me to be independent, to have my own career and goals in life, to not depend on anyone else for financial stability. It taught me to work hard for whatever I wanted and to save money and to keep my finances in my control. These are lessons I’ve carried throughout my life.
  • Being left behind to babysit while my mom and her friends hit the singles bars to find new husbands made me feel that having children can be a real burden. After all, she wasn’t just looking for a new mate. She had to find one who didn’t mind moving into a household that already had three young kids. That can’t possibly have been easy, especially for a 30-something in the mid 1970s when divorce was far less common. In the end, she found two men that she was willing to continue her life with, but she chose the one who would make a better father for us. I know it was a sacrifice, in a way, for her. But I also know that she made the very best decision, despite any doubts she might have had at the time. My stepfather is a wonderful man — a great provider who truly became my dad when my father left us. In any case, the lesson I took from all this is that having kids can keep you from getting what you really want in life. And I think that’s why I never had kids.
  • When my mother married my stepfather, our financial and social situation improved dramatically. We went from middle lower class to upper middle class (if there is such as class system in this country). We could eat better and dress better. My stepdad took us to museums, giving me my first real taste of culture. We ate in real restaurants — the kind with cloth napkins and attentive waiters. When we vacationed, we flew on airliners and stayed in hotels. We got a good look at some of the better things in life, some of the things within our reach. And, for the first time in my life, I started thinking college might be an option — indeed, I became the first person in the history of my family to graduate college.

As for my father, our relationship isn’t bad but isn’t good. It’s hard not to feel abandoned when he simply stopped visiting all those years ago. We talk occasionally on the phone and I did see him at Christmas time last year. He’s still married to the same woman. Their daughter is on her second husband and has two kids. I haven’t seen her since her first wedding years ago and doubt I’d recognize her if she knocked on my door right now.

I know my father reads this blog once in a while and can assume he’ll read this. I’m sorry if what I’ve written here hurts him, but it’s the truth. Actions speak louder than words. It’s one thing to tell a 12-year-old child that you love her but another to prove it.

Husband Lost

I’ve written quite a bit about my husband’s infidelity, discussing it in bits and pieces in blog entries since I discovered the other woman in August 2012. I’ll recap here. If you want details, follow the divorce tag.

My relationship with my husband had been deteriorating since about October 2011, when I got back from my summer work in Washington. He’d become moody and uncommunicative, never enthusiastic about doing anything interesting, always disapproving of anything I wanted (or needed) to do. He was 55 at the time, stuck in a dead-end job he hated, working for a boss who was becoming a bigger asshole every single day.

I was losing my patience with the situation, especially since he’d promised me five years before — right around the time we married — that he’d join me on the road in the summer months to pursue other more interesting ways of making a living. I was financially secure; he could be, too — if he’d just sell the Phoenix condo that was costing him so much money every month. Instead, for reasons I couldn’t comprehend, he insisted on keeping it; that forced him to be a slave to the 9 to 5 grind that was making him miserable.

There were some arguments — I won’t deny it. His mom’s visit from mid January through mid March 2012 was a serious strain. I’d been led to believe that she’d spend most of her time in the assisted living apartment he’d rented for her in Wickenburg, but yet she was at our house almost every single day. We had no time alone together at home. After a huge fight in February, I buried myself in my work, which had to be done at the Phoenix condo where I’d moved my office — ironically, so I could spend more time with him.

In March, he asked me to go to a marriage counsellor with him. I agreed. My anger had cooled off and I truly wanted to fix our broken relationship. We each attended one session alone and then one together. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure the counselor recommended that we talk things out. I tried on several occasions to get him to talk to me about our problems, but he always said, “Not now.” And then it was time for me to start moving my equipment — the RV and the helicopter — up to Washington for the summer. And to make a trip to Colorado to record a course for Lynda.com. I left for the summer on the last day of April, feeling the strain of unfinished business.

In May we spoke on and off on the phone and exchanged emails. We started talking about him coming with the dog to spend the summer with me. He’d gotten a new job and he could work from anywhere. The job involved a bunch of travel. If he came with Charlie to stay with me, I could watch Charlie while he traveled for work. Then, when my summer work was over, I could travel with him. It was his dream job — my dream job for him, too — and I really thought it would save our relationship.

But despite what he said on the phone to me, he was really doing other things. I didn’t discover what was going on until much later, in August, long after he’d asked for a divorce and had assured me several times — including to my face — that there was not another woman.

In reality, less than seven days after I’d left for Washington, he’d joined at least one online dating site. In May, he went on at least one date with another woman — and may have even taken her on a trip in his plane to Las Vegas. When that affair fell flat, he tried again with a woman who sent him photos of herself in lingerie. He was dating her for less than a month when he asked me for a divorce. He’s living with her now, letting her manage our divorce for him.

The pain of my husband’s betrayal cannot be overstated. Simply put, after 29 years together, I trusted him with my life. Although we each did our own thing throughout the years of our relationship, I thought we were still partners working for the same goals. But instead, he’d changed his goals and hadn’t sent out a memo. I was working hard to make a good summer place for both of us; he was working on another goal: to replace me.

What makes matters even worse is the way he’s treated me since asking for the divorce. Lying and cheating is only part of it. Dropping all communication, leaving me to wonder what the hell was going on at home. Sharing my personal financial documents — like tax returns and investment statements — with his girlfriend and lawyer. Locking me out of my home and hangar. Fighting me in court to keep me out of my own home, thus trying to make me homeless. Lying about me in court, under oath. Demanding the return of a truck he told me I could keep in the settlement. Instructing his lawyer to send my lawyer threatening letters. Falsely accusing me — without any proof — of destroying his property. Preventing me from selling my personal property. Sending the police to my home to investigate me on unsupported claims of harassment. Allowing his girlfriend to present false evidence in court to support her injunction against me — which, fortunately, was overturned when I presented the truth.

Bizarre is a word a friend used to describe the situation. It’s fitting. Most of the people who know us both well can’t believe the things that have been going on — the things he’s been doing purposely to torment me for the past few months. It’s beyond simple marital infidelity and betrayal. It’s a systematic attempt to wear me down so I accept the absurd settlement proposal he insists on presenting to me and my lawyers.

And it hurts. It hurts because I remember what our lives were like for 29 years. I remember the good times and the bad times. Learning and doing things together. Traveling all over the country. Sharing the excitement of good news and achievements. Crying together at his dad’s funeral. Walking hand in hand on beaches and city streets. Cooking and cleaning and making homes together. Sitting across the table from each other at mealtime. Making plans. Making love.

I remember all of that. Doesn’t he?

I could never to do him what he’s done to me these past nine months. Never!

And I’m left wondering: How can he do this to me? How can he do this to us?

How does love turn to hate? How can he show such utter disregard for the woman he spent half his life with?

And that’s why I cry every day. I cry because I just don’t understand. I cry because I know I’ll never understand.

The Intent Makes it Worse

One of the most painful aspects of what my husband has done to me is the fact that he knows my parents are divorced and he knows why they split and he knows how I feel about it. He knows the emotional toll it’s taken on me and my siblings and how we all feel about cheating on spouses.

So never in my wildest dreams did I think my husband would do to me what my father did to my mother nearly 40 years ago.

But there is a difference here, subtle as it might be. It has to do with intent.

You see, I believe that my father had an affair because he was young and bored and wanted a little excitement in his life. I don’t think he actively went looking for a new wife. I think the affair probably just “happened” and he went with it because it made his life interesting. Sex with a younger woman, an escape from family life. I don’t think he ever intended his extramarital activities to destroy his family.

My husband, however, was actively looking for a replacement for me. He dated at least two women within a two month period before finding a replacement and promptly asking for a divorce. He intended from the start to dump me for someone else. He wouldn’t divorce me without a replacement lined up because he simply isn’t brave enough to live life on his own, no matter how unhappy he might be with his relationship. And, at age 56, he probably realized that his options would be limited so he took the first suitable replacement he could find, a woman who just happened to be 8 years older than him and even more desperate to secure a mate.

So although what my father did was bad, what my husband did was far worse.

Misleading me by making me think he wanted to stay together — even while he was shopping for my replacement — is despicable.

There’s More than One Victim

I think that’s what’s affecting my family — my mom, sister, stepdad, and brother — so badly. You see, it’s not just me who’s traumatized by what he’s done (and doing) to me. It’s also them.

As my mom said more than a few times, he didn’t just betray me. He betrayed all of us.

Family PhotoMy family loved him as a member of the family. My mother and stepdad thought of him as a son. My sister and brother thought of him as a brother — hell, my brother was still a kid when I brought him home for the first time. They all loved him and trusted him, probably just as much as I did.

I still remember the day, not long after we met, when I talked to my mother on the phone. “I think this is the one,” I told her. She was thrilled. We never thought he would be the one to shatter my heart and leave my life in shambles 29 years later.

Worse yet, knowing firsthand what I’m going through, my mom and stepfather are being forced to revisit the feelings they had when their spouses cheated on them. My mom is now talking about things that happened years 40 years ago, things she’s never told me, things that make me understand how much pain she endured while she was trying to rebuild our lives.

No parent wants to see their kid go through the same painful experience they suffered through. My mother has been losing sleep since all this began; it’s been affecting her health, too. Many times, when some new shit hits the fan in my life, I hold off on telling her about it until things settle down again. No need to make things worse.

Both my mother and sister are also angry about the way he’s betrayed all of us. My stepdad, who had a very strong connection with him — they used to hang out and talk or do little projects whenever they were together — doesn’t want to talk about it at all. Neither does my brother. I know it hurts all of them when they see or hear me cry.

Divorcing me because of irreconcilable differences is one thing. But cheating on me, lying about it, and then tormenting me for months afterwards?

How can he do this to us? None of us can explain it.

An Unusual Question from my Friends

There’s one more topic to cover in this blog post before I wrap it up and dry my eyes. It’s a question I’ve gotten from a number of friends.

Was my husband jealous of my friends?

You see, the vast majority of my friends are men: tech people, editors, pilots, winemakers, the list goes on and on. Even when we first met, my best friend was a guy — although personally, I think he was gay. In general, I find guys more interesting than women — they like to do more interesting things. Most women seem so hung up on petty things like gossip and shopping and getting their hair and nails done. Or family things like school or their kids or their grandkids. That stuff simply doesn’t interest me. Even my few female friends aren’t interested in that stuff. Most of them have mostly male friends, too.

So the question is, was my husband jealous of my friends? Did he think I was sleeping around?

Before all this crap began, I would have said, no, of course not! After all, I trusted him and I assumed he trusted me. Given my family history and my feelings about cheating on spouses, it was out of the question for me to even think about such a thing.

But now that I know he was untrustworthy, I can only wonder if he thought the same about me. After all, if he thought cheating was okay, did he think that I thought the same thing?

Was my husband jealous of my friends? At this point, I honestly don’t know.

But I do know this: I was faithful to my husband throughout our relationship. I never slept with another man. I never wanted to.

Even now that our relationship is over, I’m finding it tough to even think about sleeping with someone else. It just doesn’t seem right.

That’s just another thing I need to get over as I rebuild my life.

What Is Truth?

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I thought I knew, but now I’m not so sure.

One of the things I value most in life is truth.

Maybe I’m old fashioned. Maybe I’m idealistic. Maybe I’m a dreamer.

Maybe I’m just an idiot.

But throughout my life — especially as I got older and began understanding the world around me — truth became a guiding principle. When I ask a question, I expect an honest reply. When I watch the news, I expect to see and hear what really happened. When I look at a photograph, I expect it to be an accurate representation of what was in front of the camera lens when the image was captured.

To me, it’s impossible to function effectively and make the best decisions unless the information you have is the truth.

Lies waste time. They build distrust. They lead to bad decisions. They destroy relationships.

And there’s a funny thing about lies: they’re usually discovered and the liar is revealed as a liar.

Lying is stupid.

Truth in Today’s World

Sadly, truth seems to have little value in today’s world. The most recent political campaigns really brought that home. There were numerous advertisements that misrepresented the facts to the point of actually spreading lies. The most notorious examples were Mitt Romney’s Jeep ads which played in Ohio and elsewhere, and claimed that Chrysler was sending Jeep manufacturing jobs to China (among other things). This had already been proven false after Romney made the same claim in a speech just days before. But they aired the ad anyway, purposely spreading lies.

And no, Romney wasn’t the only liar out there this past campaign season. There were plenty of other liars on all points of the political spectrum. It got so bad that numerous fact-checker websites and news site features popped up to share the burden with established sites such as Politifact.com.

But this post isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. And lies.

The public these days seems to have little regard for the truth. They hear various versions of something that interests them. Rather than take the time or effort to determine which is most accurate, they choose the story that best matches what they want to hear — the version that supports their belief or their decision. Everything else is disregarded — either forgotten or categorized as untrue.

Anyone with an email inbox and a second cousin or uncle knows the kind of crap that floats around the Internet. Crazy stories, conspiracy theories, links to articles that anyone with a skeptical eye would cringe at. The problem is, that second cousin or uncle believes what he’s sent you is true. And he got it from someone else who also believes it. And so on and so on. It supports their beliefs or decisions and that’s all they really care about. They want you to know the “truth” so you can share their belief or decision.

As you might imagine, this drives me — a person who values real truth, no matter what it might lead to — bonkers. Life’s too short to waste it with lies. And some decisions are too important to make them based on lies.

Am I the only person to understand this?

Is it Okay to Lie?

In an effort to replace my soon-to-be ex-husband with a suitable partner, I’ve resorted to online dating services. (A big mistake; I’ll blog about it in detail when my experiment is over, hopefully soon.) The topic of truth vs. lies applies to these sites in a number of different ways.

When you sign up for these sites, they ask you a series of questions about yourself and your ideal mate. Some sites have very rudimentary questionnaires. Others have extremely lengthy questionnaires. Indeed, one of the sites I’ve tried offers more than 10,000 questions for you to answer.

One of the multiple choice questions on one of the sites went something like this:

Is it okay to lie?

• Yes.
• White lies are okay.
• Not usually.
• Never.

This question reminds me of the old puzzler, the Liar Paradox, which is sometimes expressed with the single statement, “This sentence is false.” Is it false? It can’t be true or false, hence the paradox.

Similarly, if a person responds that it’s Never okay to lie but he’s lying, how much else is a lie? But, as usual, I digress.

Side Note: My unwillingness to lie got me into serious trouble years ago at a family gathering. It’s a kind of funny story, so I’ll tell it here. I can use a good laugh. The trick is to tell it without names so I don’t get in trouble again. Here goes.

My soon-to-be ex-husband’s Brother was married to Wife. Wife absolutely hated Girlfriend who was the girlfriend of Brother’s Cousin. Got that? Two couples: Brother and Wife, Cousin and Girlfriend.

At a huge Thanksgiving dinner at our old house in New Jersey that Brother and Wife attended but Cousin and Girlfriend did not, Wife asked me, “Would you rather have Cousin and Girlfriend here than us?” Not knowing how to answer that loaded question without lying — because I honestly liked Cousin and Girlfriend much better — I simply didn’t answer. Wife exploded in anger. “You rather have them here than us?!”

Needless to say, things between me and Wife went downhill from there. No great loss, fortunately. I have no patience for that kind of petty bullshit.

I had a problem with this question. In general, I don’t believe in lying — and I don’t generally lie. When asked a question I’m not comfortable with being 100% truthful, I’ll avoid answering the question or I’ll dance around the truth or I’ll make factual statements that might not answer the question or I’ll answer part of the question that I have no problem with. In other words, I’ll do everything within my power to avoid lying.

But then I started thinking about white lies. To me, a white lie is something you tell to spare another person’s feelings. It’s not true, but it’s also not harmful.

Every man should know, for example, that the answer to his wife’s question, “Does this dress make me look fat?” is “No,” no matter what the truth is.

But even a white lie like that could cause harm. Suppose the wife is going to her 20th high school reunion. Suppose that throughout high school she was teased mercilessly about being overweight. She wants to look her best — indeed, it’s important to her that she look great. And suppose the dress doesn’t really make her look that good at all. Wouldn’t it be better for the husband to recommend another outfit or even suggest going shopping for one? Isn’t it better for his wife to make the decision for this important event based on factual information?

So what’s the answer to the dating site question above? I think I might have chosen “Not Usually” — and that’s because I wanted to be truthful with my answer. But, as you might expect, most of the “matches” for me that answered this question said “Never” — leading me to wonder how truthful they were being.

I’ll save my rant about honesty on dating sites for another post.

Lies and My Life

Because I don’t lie and I don’t believe in lying, when someone else lies, it really bothers me — probably a lot more than it bothers most people, given my earlier discussion about truth in today’s world. And when those lies are about me and they’re presented in a place where truth is vitally important — I’m shattered.

That’s what happened to me last week. Without getting so detailed that I get myself in trouble, I’ll just say that court-submitted documents accused me of performing several acts that I not only did not do, but I would never do. These documents also lied about the ownership of a specific asset that was mine.

Reading these documents was like being stabbed in the heart — especially when I considered where the lies had come from. Listening in on a phone call with the judge who might be making decisions regarding my financial future and hearing these same lies repeated was like getting that knife twisted. Someone was lying about me to a judge and I was unable to defend myself properly. To me, there’s nothing worse than being in this situation.

I realize that I’m not the only person on the planet to be a victim of lies submitted in court. It’s just nightmarish to find myself in this situation.

The FugitiveThink of all the movies you’ve ever seen, all the books you’ve ever read, all the news stories you’ve heard about, where the protagonist — a “good guy” — is victimized by lies told about him to make him seem, to everyone else, like a bad guy. You watch or read or hear what he’s going through and you squirm, feeling for him, rooting for him, glad that you’re not in his shoes.

Right now, I have a pretty good feeling of what it’s like to be in those shoes. And trust me: it sucks. There’s nothing worse than the thought that a decision about your future might be based on lies presented by other people who will benefit from your downfall. And that’s what I’m dealing with now.

After the phone call, I went to my regularly scheduled appointment with my grief therapist. And I spent the entire hour crying. There was simply nothing else I could do.

It wasn’t just the situation I was in — hopefully, the falsehood of the claims (established on Saturday) and my lawyers will be able to fix some of the damage done to my character. It was the simple fact that someone I used to trust had lied about me. Lied extensively. Lied cruelly and hurtfully. Lied for a selfish, hateful purpose.

As someone who doesn’t lie, it was hard for me to accept that this other person would — even though events of the past eight months have revealed more lies than I can count. It’s just so hard for me to accept.

Black and White

I’ll admit that one of my big problems with truth is that I’m always trying to categorize something as true or false. This caused a lot of trouble between me and my soon-to-be ex-husband throughout the later years of our relationship — and it continues to do so today.

You see, the problem is that he saw shades of gray where I saw black and white. He’d say that he couldn’t make a conclusion about something because there was no yes or no answer (shades of gray) and I’d clearly see a yes or a no answer (black and white).

Don’t get the idea that I never saw shades of gray — I certainly did in many instances and still do. But often, when I saw black and white, he saw shades of gray. That would cause arguments that often went unresolved. I couldn’t convince him of my point and he couldn’t convince me of his.

Sometimes, this would frustrate me to no end. I understand that not everyone sees things the same way. I understand that not everyone has the same knowledge or experience on which to base a conclusion. But in many of the instances where we argued, I simply could not understand why he couldn’t see the situation the same way I did. And near the end of our relationship, I began to suspect that he was arguing with me over it because he didn’t want to admit that I might be right. Or just for the sake of arguing.

(In the 20-20 vision of hindsight, this should have raised red flags with me. But I had too much invested emotionally in our relationship to admit that there was a problem. I thought he was an honest person. I didn’t realize that his personality would allow pride to trump truth.)

I saw my soon-to-be ex-husband on Saturday and was able, for the first time since July, to speak to him privately. It was an eye-opening experience. Either he’s the best actor in the world and should be given an Oscar for his performance, or he is not the evil monster I thought he had become. I’m left confused, unsure of what is the truth. Is this black and white or gray? I don’t know.

Or is it a case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? A lot of friends and family members have been talking about this being “midlife crisis” and I think there’s a distinct possibility that some physiological factors — perhaps even andropause (discussed in this WebMD video) — may have triggered his seemingly irrational actions over the past year or so. I’ve certainly seen him present himself as two different people, depending on circumstances. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. These days, I just don’t know who I’m dealing with.

But to be fair to him — which many of my friends and family members will argue is a waste of my time — I’ve tried to think about some of the things that led to the downfall of our relationship. I’m not talking about how he ended it — that’s black and white to me. I’m talking about the points where we disagreed.

He said on Saturday, for example, that I wanted a business partner instead of a husband or lover. (I can’t remember his exact words, but I know he said “business partner.”) I never thought of our problems this way. I certainly wanted a loving husband: someone to do things with, cuddle with, make love with. Someone to plan and share a life with. And I think we did have that kind of relationship for most of our 29 years together. But I admit that I also hoped he could be part of my business life.

There were two reasons for this:

  • For the past 8 years or so, he’d been bouncing from one unsatisfying job to another, never really finding a job that was a good fit for him. Throughout that time, I offered him options to work with me part time in my business endeavors — real estate, FBO management, and helicopter charters — hoping it would help me grow the businesses enough to support both of us. But he never seemed interested in fully committing to the work I needed him to do. More often than not, he’d let me down and I’d give up. The last regular job he had before we split was making him absolutely miserable and I wanted so badly to help him — even going so far as to offer to relieve him of the debt he had from a property he’d bought that had gone underwater with the housing crisis. But he simply wouldn’t let me help.
  • Around the time we got married in 2006, he promised that he’d join me in my business when he turned 55. Since then, I’ve been planning and working hard to make this transition not only easy for him but financially feasible for both of us. Although he broke this promise — he turned 56 in May — I always had hope that he’d still fulfill it. I saw a great future for us, migrating north in the summer for work, goofing off wherever we wanted to for the rest of the year. A sort of semi-retirement. I thought we were on the same page with this goal. He never told me we weren’t. He only said he wasn’t ready “yet.”

I’m trying to think back on these things, trying hard to see them from his point of view. But it’s difficult, probably because he wasn’t honest with me when they happened. Was he just agreeing to things I suggested and pretending they weren’t a problem for him the same way we tell “white lies” to spare people’s feelings? I don’t know. I hope not. I value truth — I want my life partner to always be truthful to me, no matter how much it hurts. (“Yes, that dress makes you look fat.”)

But he waited until our relationship was over — and he’d replaced me with another woman — before telling me the truth in a long overdue conversation at the edge of a parking lot.

And that hurts.

It also makes me wonder just how many of those 29 years was spent living with lies.

Why did he keep putting off the conversation the marriage counsellor said we should have? Had he already planned his escape from me? That’s what I’m left wondering. Is he evil after all? What is the truth?

Twisting the Truth

But even the truth can be twisted into something that’s not quite true. Something black and white can be turned into something gray.

That’s what I’m facing now. Certain facts — truths — are being used as “evidence” of something that really didn’t happen as described. This is being done primarily by exaggerating the importance of these facts, blowing them out of proportion, and neglecting to present other facts that reveal their true significance.

Here’s a purely hypothetical example. Suppose you bought a small house as a rental property. You chose the building, you made the downpayment, you got the mortgage in your name, you were making all the payments. You were the property owner and solely financially responsible for it. Now suppose you needed to move some furniture and do some repair work. You ask a friend of yours for help and he says yes. You move the furniture together. He fixes a leaky faucet while you scrub the toilets. There’s no talk of payment for his services; he seems happy enough just to let you buy him lunch or spend the rest of the day doing something else with him. Meanwhile, throughout your friendship, he asks for similar favors to help him with things he needs done and you’re more than willing to help. This goes on occasionally over the course of a few years. Eventually, you get tired of being a landlord and sell the property at a profit.

Now, years later, imagine that friend stepping forward and saying, “Hey, you owe me a piece of that profit because I helped you manage the property and you never paid me.” He doesn’t mention any of the things you did to help him out over the years.

The truth is, he did help you with some of your management chores. The truth is, you didn’t pay him with cash for his time or efforts. But can he twist these truths to prove that he had a financial interest in the property? I guess he could try.

Is it right? Well, I could launch into yet another long discussion of right vs. wrong, but it would likely read very much like my truth vs. lies discussion here.

Everyone seems to have their own idea of what’s right and what’s wrong. Personal ethics apparently vary from one person to the next.

Even when someone knows deep down inside that a path he’s going down is morally or ethically wrong, he can convince himself that it’s justified, often by reminding himself of the truths that support his path. It’s easier to look at something with a sort of “tunnel vision” that only shows the facts you want to see than to see the big picture and all the facts and make an ethical conclusion.

It all depends on your conscience — and whether you have one.

Deep Thoughts Indeed

This blog has only a few categories or blog topics. “Deep Thoughts” is one of them. I created the topic to categorize posts that explored issues that were more philosophical than anything else. In this topic, you’ll find posts about politics and religion, as well as thoughts I have about life, relationships, injustices, emotions, communication, and, of course, divorce.

This is where I bare my soul to readers, where I let them into not just my life, but my head. This is where I share what I think and why I think it.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me about these things. All I expect is for readers who read these posts to think about what I’m saying. Maybe my point of view isn’t the same as yours, but maybe reading what I think can help you understand how others might think.

At the same time, I welcome non-abusive comments from readers. What you have to say about my blogs posts can help me better understand the way you and others think.

This discussion of truth was difficult for me to write — mostly because I had to draw on recent experiences to illustrate the points I was trying to make. Those recent experiences have been extremely painful to me. Every day brings more confusion, more disappointment, and often more pain.

Although I have such strong feelings for the idea of truth and want to see it throughout my world and life, I know that’s not much more than a pipe dream. Truth is hard to come by — which is what probably makes it so precious to me. Lies can and do hurt. And truth can be twisted so far that it could become a lie.

But is it too much to hope for truth and honor and ethics in our everyday life?

I hope not. Because when we get to the point where truth, honor, and ethics are no more than old-fashioned concepts defined in a dictionary, I don’t think life would be worth living.

The Woman Scorned Playlist

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I’ll let these ladies sing it for me.

A while back, I got into a conversation on Twitter with @flymaine about the pop artist, Adele. I’d heard the name but didn’t really know much about her. @flymaine provided a link to her music video, Rolling in the Deep, on YouTube. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a watch:

I watched the video and listened to the lyrics. Could she possibly be singing about an unfaithful partner? I tracked down the lyrics and read them. And when I got to this, I cried:

The scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all
The scars of your love, they leave me breathless
I can’t help feeling
We could have had it all

This is what has been going on in my head since the reality of my situation hit me: While he’d been bouncing from one dead-end job to the next, with periods of unemployment in between, I’d been working my ass off to achieve a goal for both of us — a goal he helped me set for our future. While he was dealing with (and complaining about) the nine-to-five grind, I was doing my best to make us financially independent and get us a great place to go and work and play together every summer. But when it came time to join me as he’d promised he’d do, he made excuses to stay behind. And then, while I was gone this year — my best year ever — he dumped me for a woman he’d known less than a month.

We could have had it all — we almost had it all — but now it’s all gone. It’s still hard to believe.

The rest of the song pretty much covers what comes after the pain: the anger. I have that, too. Hell, it was almost as if she wrote this song with my situation in mind.

Or are there that many women out there who have been burned by men they loved?

And that got me thinking about the Scorned Woman Playlist. A list of songs that express what I’m thinking and feeling about my situation. I bought Adele’s song from iTunes and added it to a new playlist.

I already had another song for the playlist: The Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Hit ‘Em Up Style. I bought it about two years ago, back before I ever thought something like this could happen to me. The only video I could find was this live performance. It rocks:

This one is a lot more fun — and definitely more upbeat — but these lyrics still make me cry every time I hear them:

There goes the dreams we used to say
There goes the time we went away
There goes the love I had but you cheated on me
And that’s worth that now

There goes the house we made a home
There goes you’ll never leave me alone
There goes the lies you told
This is what you owe

“There goes the house we made a home” — that line hits hardest right now. As I pack and store and discard the things I added to our house to help make it a home, the place we made together is disappearing before my eyes. Every day it’s less like the place I spent the past 15 years of my life. Less like the place I worked so hard to get paid off by the time I was 50 and he was 55 — so we wouldn’t have to be slaves to nine-to-five jobs to pay a mortgage. So we could go into a sort of semi-retirement while we were still young and have some fun. Together.

In this song, the woman scorned gets revenge with a credit card. I wish it was that easy.

@flymaine also suggested Carrie Underwood’s Before He Cheats, but I’m not a big fan of country music. And her other suggestion, KT Tunstall’s Black Horse and the Cherry Tree, doesn’t quite say it like the two I’ve got.

Any other suggestions? Remember the theme: a woman scorned. Use the comment link to share your suggestions; I’ll add the ones that I think fit to this blog post.