On a whim I Googled your name today. I’m not sure why I sometimes experience an itch to look back and revisit the past despite it being so painful to do so. It’s not that I am unhappy – quite the opposite; after several difficult years I am finally secure, much loved and have made a vastly better life for myself.
Regardless, I just couldn’t stop myself from looking through your photos. There you both were, smiling together at a dinner table; pictures of him, of you and several of the dog (possibly still the one that he told me once ate a gardening glove). I recall that he said once he felt he came after the dog in your order of priorities. I knew so much about your lives and then in an instant it was all gone.
I was quite surprised that you stayed together, that somehow you got past your husband’s infidelity. I wonder what stories he told, what gossamer threads he used to build his web of explanation.
I thought often of the sleepy, sensual late-night discussions he and I had in that apartment in a European city. “I love you,” he’d say. “I just have to lead her to the conclusion to end it.” He adored my leaving a spray of perfume in his bed to recall me by, our physical relationship that made us both feel alive with lust and desire. We had dreams of London city living in a loft apartment, of a life together, but it was all dust and shadows in the end.
He told me to be patient because he was frightened of you, that you could be vindictive and would use your professional knowledge to stop him from seeing the children or that you would destroy him financially.
Other times, he would be bullish and confident. “I’ll give her one chance to be reasonable,” he said over a candle-lit dinner. “Otherwise I will make sure that she can’t get any of it.”
I am sure that he meant every word at the time, or he thought he did.
The day you rang me, I told him the worst thing he could do was to continue to lie, that to do so was an insult to your intelligence. He begged me not to respond, not to confirm, not to give you anything back.
It was so hard. I felt and totally understood the blistering heat of your rage and pain, and I hated the stupid stories he tried to spin – they were demeaning to all of us.
On several occasions I came so close to replying to you. All I could think of was the saying “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck … then it’s a duck.” You knew exactly what had happened; you didn’t need me to confirm it for you. I knew you had seen the hotel and phone bills, not to forget the payment to Tiffany that was almost the same amount as a month of my salary.
After the immediate fallout settled, my own white hot rage began to burn. At times I wanted nothing more than to punish him by letting you know my side of the story. I wanted to prove to you that it had been so much more than some sleazy, thoughtless 16-month affair, to send you pictures to prove just how badly he had wanted me and the freedom we had found together physically.
But mostly I just felt devastated that, when push came to shove, he chose you and not me.
I had some sporadic contact with him for several years and, until relatively recently, would occasionally see that he had checked up on me. That has not happened for a while, which is a good thing. I certainly have no desire to go back and neither will you. I will never know what resolutions you two eventually found, what deals you made to reconnect after your separation, or if either of you are truly happy. However, coming to the end of this letter what I do now know (somewhat surprisingly) is that I honestly hope you both are.
Anonymous
