Step Two

This week, I posted about the affair on my other blog for the first time. It freaked me out to do it, but I'm tired of having any sort of division in my life. This is what happened to us. It's a real, true, painful part of our lives. Saying it in my most public forum was a huge step for me. It feels like real healing to put it out there and to not worry about will come of it. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks of it. The only thing that matters is what we think, and how we chose to react. Posting that story made me feel like I'm ready to write about what came next.

My last long post featured the start of the story, and it came to kind of an abrupt and unsettled end. I needed to step back and figure out how to put the next bit into words.

The next part was awful. I was more emotionally raw and hurt and freaked out than I had ever been before. I was trying to move forward, but the Other Woman(Child) was not going to just fade gently into the background. Her game is manipulation and power. She plays to win, and she has nothing to lose. I had never come into contact with someone who was so venomous, angry and deliberately hurtful as her. She attacked me at every turn. She copied pictures of me and of us as a couple off of the internet and re-posted them saying horribly hurtful things. She sent me e-mails so full of hate and rage that they made me physically ill. She called our home and taunted me. She began to barrage The Man with phone calls to his cell phone and his office until he was forced to take her calls and then threatened to tell me that they were still together unless he did what she said. He was so turned around that we ended up back at square one over and over and over.

Remember that I referenced her obvious patterns when she re-emerged last month? One of her favorites is to attack, attack, attack then turn around and either claim to be blameless or play the victim. Either way, she acts like she wasn't just five minutes ago spewing poison and butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. We had been battling for almost two months when she sent this to The Man. She knew that I was checking his e-mail every day (part of our trust re-building agreement), so this was really intended for me... I will be unable to resist from commenting, so (as per usual) my comments will be in red... also as usual, names that are changed will be in parenthesis and italics...


(The Man),
  
There were better times... I wish you would have been honest with me... You had the chance to tell me that you weren't ready to do this and it could have saved us both some heartache... To address the 'OG' part of the conversation... Age does not matter... If it did we would have never met... I wasn't too young and too sexy to have sex with you, therefore I am not too young and too sexy to be with you... There is more to us than the physical. (Um, no. There wasn't. You had THREE kids - now four - and he had a full-time job... and a wife... there wasn't TIME for there to be more than the physical... oh, and you have NOTHING in common other than a propensity for adultery)
  
I honestly believe you are still in your marriage because of money... You don't want to lose money (there was no money to lose. People who live moth-to-month don't live in fear of losing money, but nice ploy)... A person that values money over their happiness?... I never can understand that... I would rather die penniless and happy than die rich and miserable... Convenience... You don't love her... you care about her.... She doesn't love you either... she is about the same thing too... money (yeah, I'm all about the money.) ... only with a little twist... She doesn't want to loose to someone else... She will make you feel guilty till you can't stand it anymore... She will never trust you again... not only because of what you have done, but because she knows she has some fault in it too... She let you slip away and she is now insecure... (this is just my take on this) (The manipulation skills displayed in this paragraph literally make me ill. Still.)
  
I am not trying to say that I am all that great, but I believe this will become too much for you... If you really do love me you will miss me too much... You will be back... and because I love you I will take you back any day.... Not because I am an idiot and can't resist you, but because I truly love you and I value what we had.... And when that day comes I want you to know that I wont throw this in your face and say 'i told you so'... All I would want to do is love you and move on from this....I will move on with my life. (I need you, I don't need you. Come back... or don't... whatever....)
  
I asked my husband to come home so we could work on our marriage... I figured (a divorce attorney) not calling me back was maybe a sign?... All I know is I can't go through this break up on my own and I need a companion... He has always been there for me... This will help me take my mind off of this.... Not sure if it will work out, but you never know what could happen. (You left me alone, so I am forced to go back to some other sucker... ?!)

This question remains unanswered... Why did you feel like you wanted to be with me?... Did you feel sorry for me?...  like you could save me from something?... Like I needed your help?... Because if that is the case, I don't need your help.... I need your love.

Well I feel better now that I said what I needed to say... I will wait for you to contact me... When that day comes I will accept you back with open arms and an open heart.

Much love to you,
XOXOXOXO
(the slut child)

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I almost wish I had saved some of the nastiness that she sent to me so that you could see the contrast. I actually have access to some of it... perhaps I'll retrieve and post it.

She made up a pregnancy in March. There were rounds and rounds of 'Poor Me', 'It's Yours', 'It's Not Yours'. She even called MY MOTHER and told her that The Man was trying to force her to have an abortion. My mom already knew the story, and called bullshit. She never called my mom again. I finally sat The Man down and said 'look - it is not physically possible for this to be your baby. The chances that she is even pregnant are slim to none. She will spend another week or so screaming that it's yours, then she'll have a 'traumatic miscarriage' and you will of course be to blame for that. If she IS pregnant, and you are worried that it could be yours, then we'll compel a DNA test after she gives birth. Until that time, there is NOTHING else to be done'. He finally heard me, and we sat down to call her together. It was an incredible conversation that spanned the entire spectrum from 'Save Me' to 'I Hate You'. From 'You Have Responsibilities' to 'You Will NEVER Have Contact With Your Baby'. There was a whole lot of 'Nobody Cares What I Want to Do Here' and 'You Can't Force Me to Kill Your Baby' thrown in for good measure. He finally interrupted her and said 'this is your body and your choice. I am not pushing you in any direction, and I will not attempt to change your mind.' She hung up on him. That was the last that we heard about a 'pregnancy'... until she actually got knocked up again a few moths later...

Now I can't even remember exactly how long this went on. I moved through that time in a fog. We went to work. We went to therapy. We pretended that we were moving forward, but it was more of a manic, insane race to prove to ourselves and the world that we were rock solid and we could become a perfect family.

The Man assured me that Slut Child (I like it. I think I'll use it until I calm down again) had never been to our house, but at her manipulative request, he had taken pictures on his phone of every room in our home and sent them to her. I told him that it felt like she had peed in each room, and I couldn't live there any more. Our lease was coming up for renewal, so we went out and bought our very first house and poured all of our extra time, money and energy into renovating it then moving in.

We had spent the previous fall discussing starting to try for a baby... We were convinced that we could make our marriage work, so we went ahead with our plan, and started working on getting pregnant... strenuously working... :-P We actually succeeded in April (so fast!). I found out at just over 6 weeks. I lost the pregnancy 3 days later.

I didn't stop to mourn or even to think about what happened. I wasn't dealing with most of what was going on - why would this be any different? We just kept working, renovating our new home, moving...

Our first summer in the house was amazing. We swam in our pool every day and every night. We hosted friends and family non-stop. We continued to 'work' on a baby.

I'm going to stop this post here, because the story of the Slut Child pretty much ends here. Next time I have this kind of energy, I'll begin the story of The Most Amazing Baby in the World... and Boobs McChesty.