The spiral

Needless to say the pieces of the puzzle I had been trying to solve for several months were falling into place for me. My husband's usual conservative spending had gotten out of control, and he never had a justification for where the money was going. His dissatisfaction with his job had gotten exponentially worse, and here I must admit that I was less than supportive when he came to me sharing his feelings of inadequacy, frustration and hurt.  I thought that I was giving good advice, and supporting his dreams when I agreed with him in anger against these people at the job, however I have since learned I was shooting myself in the foot. He was locked in a circle of abuse that was patterned much like the typical abusive relationship ( they hurt him, he get mad and tell me, I get angry hate them, they make up they both hate me) and to top it off any suggestion that he leave was met with extreme resistance. To be honest I always felt that he had taken a position beneath his abilities but I wanted to be supportive of his re entry into the food service industry. Food was on of his passions in life and I felt that it was more important for him to work at something he felt passionately about than he have a job that paid more money. Sure it was a sacrifice , but when you love someone you make sacrifices. Still we had a growing family and the time he was spending away from home wasn't balancing well with our financial needs. This became a big topic of argument between us, and I deeply regret that. In my aggressive communication style I tend to have a take no prisoners attitude and let's just say a happy marriage this does not make. It does however lead to miscommunication, and feelings of resentment as well as a frustrating silence from the other party. It progressed to the point that my husband felt as though he was always wrong and should never try to express himself to me. I on the other hand felt like he had shut me out and was punishing me with his silence on issues only to express his dislike for my decisions after I made them. Things were not going well to say the least but there remained our personal circle of intimacy where we retreated when all else failed and ministered to one another in love and kindness. We never stayed angry for long, I have never been able to maintain a good long mad with him. He smiles at me and I swear I forget he had ever in my mind been wrong. In fact in the midst of all this we were planning on renewing our vows, and buying a house, not things that I thought we would be doing especially as he was directing this flow of events, if he was cheating on me. Ironically in the fall of 2012 I attended a Women of Faith event where I heard the testimony of  Kurt Warner's wife and hearing how poorly he husband had treated her I returned home with more love respect and gratefulness for the man I had married. And thus we made baby number five, I was scared, angry and disappointed to be pregnant and my husband was unusually, I thought, happy and reassuring. By November, things were looking up for us we were not arguing, in fact were happy, more content than we had been as he excitedly awaited his long promised promotion. The promotion didn't happen they gave it the man he trained to replace him and things in our home spiraled downward rather quickly. My reaction was quit the job you can get another, in fact take some time go back to school etcc. he ran through money, our savings, Christmas money, bill money, stayed out late, came home angry.  I now know this is when he became engaged in the affair....
We have to be vigilant people, be aware that the signs of discontent aren't noticeable only to you. Protect your marriages and guard your hearts and minds diligently lest a thief steals in.

Finding out ....

As much as possible I want to pour into this blog as much of my feelings and thoughts as possible without injecting negativity or poisoning anyone else's situation. I want this to be an avenue that leads others and myself down a path of healing and progress, not into bitterness and despair. I also want to maintain the integrity of what it is like when we experience this level of betrayal, not sugarcoating the truth, standing in solidarity with everyone else who has had these wounds inflicted on them. It is a disservice, I believe, to present anything other than the truth. To make any attempt at minimizing the pain, anger, powerlessness, disappointment, mistrust, and sorrow that often accompany these grave offenses is a violation and adds to the injury.
So here in the United States of America, and  in many other places I am sure, it has become a common place occurrence to hear of couples who are experiencing infidelity in their relationships. Far too often I have heard others share their experiences of infidelity within marriage and for the most part the story doesn't end well. You can imagine my feelings of loneliness exploding as I took in the cavalier way people seem to excuse this behavior as normal and as something to be expected, acknowledged and then used as a weapon in divorce court. I was angry, of course, however what I wanted then and even now, was an opportunity for restoration. I did not want to see my best friend suffer through negative consequences, I wanted to see him healed and return to the loving fun kind man I had known for more than half of our lives. I grieved the loss of my husband the same way I grieved the loss of my father just a year and a half earlier, in a strong silence, with punctuations of carefully controlled rage that seethed beneath the surface, ready to devour myself and everyone else if given half a chance. I worked furiously to maintain a somewhat normal life for our children and maintain some semblance of health for my unborn child who was wreaking all kinds of internal havoc. I was a few days after Christmas and my husband of almost ten years was telling me he was "interested" in another woman. I sat in shock, looking at this man whom I had loved since I was a teenager, my very best friend in the entire world, the only person who knew me inside and out, the one who I slept every night next to and I screamed. Long guttural cries burst from my lips and then I stopped as suddenly as I started I stopped, and I asked if he was divorcing me. He said and I will never forget this, "I think I love her, and I don't love you anymore. I feel more for her than I ever felt for you". I looked him dead in the eye and told him he was a liar and we would be getting counseling because something had been wrong for a long time and this woman wasn't it, but whatever it was we were going to fight it together and save our family. He laughed and said he would continue to be a good father and we would meet with our pastor but he was tired of trying.
....I have known this man since we were 14/15 years old , I am talking twenty years of holding his dreams in my heart, comforting him in his pains, and sharing our deepest secrets with each other. This was the same man who held me when I watched my father take his last breath, who had come everyday and helped me take care of him , did his laundry and loved him as I did, feeling his passing intensely. This was the same man who had asked me to renew our wedding vows and with whom I was expecting our fifth child. I knew him inside and out and I had been expecting something but not this, never this. As I look back now I see I probably should have put him out right away but I was determined to give everything. I am not the most humble of folks and I knew that this grated with him, I never realized he believed I thought him unworthy and incapable of being the husband I wanted and needed. My arrogance and pride had driven a wedge between us, and his insecurities had allowed room for someone else to creep in and plant seeds of discontent. I had no idea how bad it was, and no one could convince me that this marriage was not worth saving,or that it would not be restored.  I trusted in the love we had to hold us together while we worked on whatever we needed to fix things. I was very naïve, and foolish to say the least. In the coming months I would be subject to numerous instances of disrespect, lies, theft, and astounding levels of indifference in regards to our children. I still have a hard time with accepting that he is no longer that great dad who loved his children above everything, and would have died for them, no question. Everyday I pray that my husband will find peace and turn to God for his salvation and healing, I still desire my family to be whole however I am learning to live my life as it stands now.   
In the coming days and weeks I will be sharing more of my story and answering questions that are emailed to me. I want to use the situations I have been through as teaching tools so that no one else has to suffer like I have if possible.

You married the man not the family, right?

I was speaking with my soon to be sister in law today and we were both frustrated and too through with all of the drama that comes with our in laws and by matter of course our men. I'm sure our complaints and gripes aren't any more extreme than the average however when we are going through it with this type of situation it can become very isolating. As the veteran in our relationship I have tried to encourage her with stories of my own experiences and failure to relate to or manage the complicated can of worms that is my husbands family. I also have attempted to create for her a supportive and comfortable space so that she might feel like she is welcome at least in our part of the family but nagging at the back of my mind is still the question of just who am I married to here???
In my ideal world I guess the answer would be just my husband but we live here so I 'm aware that I signed up for a whole lot more than that when we took our vows almost ten years ago. I still wonder sometimes what inspires such indifference in them that they would rather hurt their family members than try to sincerely be a positive influence in their lives. Amazingly or maybe less so, our husbands are not quite so upset about the status quo and it creates a lot of resentment within our marriage/relationship, because we are not able to understand the willingness of these otherwise reasonable people to search out and submit themselves to the cruel treatment they receive whenever there is an interaction with the inlaws.
Any advice on how to effectively deal with this and still build strength into our relationships would be great!!