This posting is a continuation of Having An Affair Part 3 which is the story of my friend, Sophia.
“The next day he acted as though nothing unusual had happened. When he leaned to kiss me, I winced at his touch. He asked me if I was sick and that is when I told him that I thought I was pregnant. I felt upside down after the events of the night before and having another child wasn’t at the top of my list of things to do.” Sophia took a slight pause, breathed in deeply and continued.
“As it turned out, I was pregnant with Meredith. Mark insisted on going to every doctor appointment with me. There had been no other explosive or demanding behavior since that dreadful night. My pregnancy was beautiful and I tried hard to concentrate on my health, my son and my unborn daughter. By the time Meredith was born, I had relaxed and the joy of having another baby soothed my troubled heart.”
“Meredith was an easy baby and Mark seemed to enjoy helping me tend to her fussiness in the middle of the night when I felt wiped out. I had actually started to believe that I imagined the whole thing until a pair of red, lace thongs fell out of his suit pants pocket one afternoon while I was doing laundry. An immediate and violent wave of nausea pierced my stomach sending me to vomit continuously for half an hour.”
By now, Sophia didn’t expect me to say anything. She didn’t even check to see if I was on the other end of the line. I could tell by the way she spoke that each word shot her further and further into the past and the feelings that she experienced then were intruding on her life now.
“When I finished vomiting, I started crying. No, I started sobbing,” she continued. “I sobbed until my entire body sobbed. I didn’t believe I could hurt so badly. I thought I was going to die from the pain. The sobs remained even after I finished crying. My face was swollen, red and my head pounded with an overwhelming headache.”
“I had so many emotions warring inside of me. I felt trapped in my body, in my home and in my marriage. I hated him. I loved him. I hated that I loved him. What was I going to do? That is all I could think about for the rest of the afternoon.”
Sophia had become quiet. I felt as though someone had hit me with a baseball bat and knocked all the wind out of me. I was hurting. So often, as a General Manager of a hotel, I had seen the sadness caused by cheating spouses. There were always the frantic calls from the wife. Her voice filled with the agony of the unknown. She would call her husband’s room hoping to receive confirmation that he was safe and reassurance that he was alone. Of course, I couldn’t tell the wife that her husband was in his room with a voluptuous woman and was blatantly ignoring her calls. I couldn’t tell her that before he went up to his room, I had to type a message in the computer that said, “Do not disturb. Do not under any circumstances tell anyone (including his wife) that he is in the room or that you have seen him.”
Sometimes the wives would call all night long…hundreds of times.
The morning would arrive. The very happy husband could often be overheard chatting to his wife. While he ate breakfast, he explained to her that the plane was late, he was out with clients, the phone in his room didn’t work, his cell phone battery died, or he had fallen asleep and didn’t hear the phone. The lies were never ending. No matter how you look at it, cheating hurts people…eventually.
Sophia had started talking again. “When Mark got home at 10:00 p.m. I was awake, sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for him. He was so happy when he walked through the door. He was a handsome man, but now Mark looked so ugly to me.”
“‘Hi Honey!’ he said looking straight into my eyes.”
“I simply opened my hand, held the edge of the thong and let the offending garment dangle between us. For a second there was an unveiled fleeting recollection in his eyes and then it was gone. He turned to go into the bathroom and then stopped. Turning around, all he said was, ‘If you didn’t look like THAT, maybe I wouldn’t need to find anyone else.'”
“As his eyes went up and down my body with a look of utter disgust, I felt ugly. I felt repugnant, appalling, revolting, and completely loathsome. I was completely unwanted and undesirable. I felt that it was all my fault that he found pleasure in another woman’s arms. He deserved the happiness he felt while being consumed in another woman’s beautiful body. I didn’t deserve him.”
I winced. I could hear her crying now. I too knew the pain of blatant rejection in the face of pain. There aren’t any words that give comfort. There is no place to run or hide. The pain just keeps on hurting. I’m not sure that any woman can completely “get over” that deep of a wound.
I sat quietly on the phone listening to her cry for quite awhile. I kept thinking about my mother. So many times I have held her and heard the same hopeless, helpless crying. How many times had I buried my own face in the pillow and sobbed for hours in my lonely room?
Have you known that kind of aching pain?
Having An Affair Part 1
Having An Affair Part 2
Having An Affair Part 3
Having An Affair Part 4
Having An Affair Part 5
Having An Affair Part (final)
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This is so difficult to read, and yet you write it with such compassion.
This is a gut-wrenching story. It's gonna get worse, isn't it?
Different circumstances same pain.
Oh god this was so hard to read. How often have i heard those excuses and believed them because it's easier. My heart goes out to your friend. Hugs are not enough.
Oh my goodness! This is a true story? Thanks for coming by my site from SITS and becoming a follower. I am a follower of you now too. You are a great writer – looking forward to reading more!
Sarah
2 more postings.
Sarah,
Unfortunately, yes it is true. Very depressing to know that Sophia isn't the only one that has suffered this horrible pain.
This is your mom, get on with the story for gosh sakes so we all can get back to your beautiful post of happy sun sets and full moons.lol. I have not been hit since 1973, yet it was yesterday. I went to therapy, I was told what every woman is told about self esteem. I think it is more than that. I think the why we allow it goes deeper into our soul. We give all of ourselves , the most delicate and tender parts of ourself we place freely into the heart of someone else. When he betrays that and then blames us for lacking in physicl attributes or some other area of self, we die a little. He took the best of us and tossed it in the wind of his own lust and greed. He took the best of us and took it to a whore. Since we love so much, it takes time for it to die. We are so busy taking care of the pain of betrayal we cannot focus on love. We think it is still in our heart, but it isn't, it is in us with no where to go. That is the greatest of all the pain. It is beautiful to be in love. We grow in light and wonder when we the beautiful daughters of God are allowed to love someone with all their hearts. It is taking that beautiful love and placing it deep with in our hearts that is so difficult to live with. We do not shine then, we live , we go on , but the best of us is wounded and on hold. If we loved the monster who hurt us, it would make us a monster too. We cannot love someone who is hurting us. It is impossible. We are in love with who we thought they were. I am the mother of this beautiful woman , you know as the "The red head riter" . To have her and her sister and my beautiful grand daughters , I would do it all again. I am the woman I am today because of all that my soul has suffered. Remodeling is a huge task, walls come down, floors come up, windows ripped out and so on. Our Father in heaven allows our choices, to remodel our souls. It is painful, he is not building a hut, but a manison. Lift your beautiful heads up, for we are beautiful to him regradless of any physical infirmities. I am in the winter of my life and I have much to still endure. Knowing this won't make it easier or less painful,but the ride will be worth it. Remember just one thing, YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF YOUR HEART NOT YOUR HUSBAND.
Oh my goodness…
My sister has gone thru this. Mental abuse mostly, I think he only got physical once when she was trying to keep him from hitting one of their kids. The reason he didn't love her anymore was her looks, her housekeeping, her care of the children, etc. The girlfriend he had wasn't the issue…
Poor Sophia!
i'll be back to read more…
I watched my mom go through this with not ONE, but TWO husbands (she divorced and then reconciled with the second one). I always say that you could put my mom in a stadium filled with eligible men–9,999 of them decent men and 1 jerk–and she would zero in on the creep who will wind up using and abusing her. Not all women have the tools to get away. Thank heavens your mom did. What a courageous woman of faith!
You're doing an awesome job at telling this story. Unfortunately it's one too well known by too many.
Today I'm blessed to be in a good marriage. But I remember those days, many years ago, when I found out that my sons' father was cheating on me. Interestingly enough I can relate to Sophia in that I felt guilty and ashamed; I felt like it was my fault, that it happened because I wasn't good enough.
Over time I came to recognize that there were ways both he and I failed in that marriage, and that I needed to take responsibly for my own failures, for my own change and growth and health. But that the choice to lie and cheat was his and his alone; that's something he'll have to deal with (or not; you really never do have any control over another person).
It was kind of odd to me though because he was honest with his family about the cheating and when we broke up, they never reached out to me in any way to keep connection. The woman he'd cheated with sort of just took my place; it was she that went on trips to visit the family, etc. I'm thinking about this because I just saw his family again recently at my middle son's football game and everyone was all friendly like nothing had every happened. Even though I'm now married to a wonderful man and grateful every day for my life, it just felt weird.
This makes me so sad. My mom did this to my step-day growing up and it killed me to watch but of course I couldn't tell him. Until one day I watched him cry. I had never seen him cry. So I cried. And together we faced reality. I simply can not fathom why people diliberately hurt the ones they love.
"Red", I cannot say anything that hasn't been said above. You have a wonderful Mother and she has a wonderful daughter in you. We all know this from your writings, particularly the subjects you write about. God Bless!
I'm impressed with what your Mom wrote. She sounds like a very special and smart lady.
I see where you get your writing gift.
I don't even have the words. How horrible. Just horrible.
Wow, words fail me… God's blessing to both you and your Mother!
wow, this is such a sad story…it angers me when the person cheating blames the wife…it is no ones fault but their own that they strayed but somehow the person who was cheated on is left to feel the sadness…it's so awful…
You are such an excellent writer. This story just makes my heart hurt for your friend. Unfortunately, I have known that kind of pain all too often-once during my abusive marriage trying so hard to get the nerve to end it all & getting mad at God for not giving me the strength to do it. That's just a distant, 35 year old memory now, but reading this story just breaks my heart for her. I hope part 5 is about her leaving this POS. sammiejanL40 at aol dot com