When Something Was Broken, We'd Fix It

So much for positive thinking.  It's entirely too difficult to think positive when everything around me is a constant reminder of the poor choices he made.

I saw this today online:

This was us.  We always fixed it. 

Our marriage was not broken when he had his affair.  Sure, he will tell you otherwise, but I can say with all confidence that our marriage was 100% intact.  I am not sure what he felt was missing although he has run the gamut telling me all his reasons.  The best one he said was the one where he told me he felt like a stay-at-home-dad because I worked nights and he had no one to talk to at night.  I find this amusing because for almost eight years I was a stay-at-home-mom at his request.  He was all about me staying home with the kids until the last one went to school full time and that is exactly what I did.  Then, when I did get a job I needed to find one with health insurance.  I found the job I currently have and the only way to make it work was for me to accept the position on nights. 

When I left the house in the evening for the 14 days a month that I worked, I wasn't out gallivanting around town whoring it up with a beer in my hand. I actually was doing a very stressful job that was completely different than the stress I was used to when I was home raising the Marbles.  I supplemented our income so he could have his boat, our mini vacations, nice houses and reliable cars.  If me working nights was such a big deal why didn't he tell me before it got so bad for him that he had to resort to answering calls from his exgirlfriend whom he dated in 1991. 

What does it take for a man to toe the line between doing what's right and having an affair?  He told me that she liked to fish, go to the beach and drink beer.  He knew 13 years ago I didn't enjoy any of those things.  He told me that he never fell out of love with her.  Yet, every time her name was ever mentioned he wasted no time talking about what a psycho she was. 

My heart is completely broken and he tells me that wasn't his intention.  What did he think was going to happen to me when he did these things?  Did he really think I wasn't going to figure it all out?  Did he really think that morning he returned home from his "fishing trip" where he didn't catch any fish, he didn't have a sunburn and he didn't take his boat that I was really buying that he indeed was in Everglades City fishing?  And, I think about that friend of his who invited us to dinner one night.  I went because the Marble's wanted me to go dancing with them.  That friend of his knew about the affair yet looked me in the eyes and talked to me as if he was the most honest, trustworthy friend a person could have.  It's amazing what kind of people there are in this world.  I never thought I married a man that could so quickly turn his back on this family and move right on to another relationship. 

He doesn't have to feel what being alone feels like since he jumped into things with her.  He probably gets text messages from her in the morning telling him to have a good day when I was able to say it to his face.  He has that reassurance that when things get bad there is someone there on his team to listen to him vent and offer a sympathetic ear.  He hasn't felt that pain of feeling your heart break into a thousand tiny pieces all while still trying maintain a career and home life.  He has no idea what it feels like to fall asleep at night knowing that when you wake up all the remnants of this divorce will continue to play out hour after hour, minute by minute. 

When something was broken, we would fix it.  He would fix it.  He fixed everything.  Why didn't he feel it was important enough to fix what he felt was broken in our marriage?