Journal Entry: Thursday, January 23, 2014: 5:30pm

The brother that I confided in last week is in town this week staying at our house. Having someone to talk with that knows what is going on in our lives is a big help to me. I drove him into the office this morning while my husband slept in. My husband is still pretty sick. Actually, from here forward I will refer to my husband as “B.” He had another work-related overnight trip this week, which added to my anxiety and his health issues. I’m pretty sure he has bronchitis. B has a long history of stress-induced illness (not including his addiction issues), so his being sick, under the circumstances, is not really a surprise to me. I am surprised I am not sick as well. My brother and I sat outside our office building this morning talking for a while. My mobile phone rang at one point, but it was in my purse in the backseat, so I ignored it. Bluetooth “off” makes it so I am not compelled to answer the darn thing while driving. In my condition, even hands-free is dangerous. I figured the call was B reminding me that we had our first couple’s therapy appointment today. I was telling my brother how the ‘acting out partner’ is still calling. As my brother was getting out of the car, I grabbed my phone so I could call B and let him know I would be home soon so we could get to the therapist on time, but the call was not from B, it was from her. Every call reintroduces the trauma. I immediately cycle through her phone call in my head… I don’t want to, it just happens: I have been having an affair with your husband for basically 10 years, we have traveled all over the world together, I have been to both your offices… then the cycling thoughts attack, the thoughts of him going to her house for a quickie, the thoughts of them in bed together in Tokyo. I know too much. The sex acts are vivid in my mind. I can’t believe she is still calling ME. What does she hope to gain? Calling B, yes, see if you can woo him back after you called his innocent and vulnerable wife, and tore her world apart. Good luck with that.

My brother suggested getting a new phone number and that is probably what I will have to do.

I drove home to find B in bed, sound asleep. I picked up his phone to see how much time he had to get ready and there they were: three unanswered phone calls from her. I guess she IS desperately trying to reach both of us. He slept right through them. Life goes on. We made it to the therapist appointment on time. The appointment did not go well. I was distraught and could not stop crying. B kept trying to comfort me, but it felt disingenuous and the therapist was not reacting well to B. She was very concerned for me, and my trauma. She requested to see me alone and she wanted B to see a separate specialist. At one point she likened B to Ted Bundy, a charismatic type who lures vulnerable women in by his charm. Someone so adept at lying that the police were convinced he could not be their perp. B had never been likened to a psychopathic serial killer before and he didn’t much like it. We agreed that I would continue seeing this therapist on a personal basis and B would seek his own Sex Addiction specialist and we would also get a couple’s Counselor.

Later in the evening…

After spending way too much time on the internet reading blogs and articles written by heartbroken, sad, distraught, and ANGRY wives of cheaters and probably reading even more blogs and articles written by mistresses, most of it rationalizing why it is okay for them to abandon all sense of what they know is right because they are filling an empty void in themselves all the while making some man gloriously happy with the most amazing, mind blowing extramarital sex of his life, yada, yada, I believe I now understand why she is calling. She is calling to punish me. I have something she wants and that thing is something she believes I don’t deserve. She thinks that my husband is incredibly unhappy and that she is the one that can bring him happiness. I think she is trying to drive me insane or drive me away, or both. Unfortunately, the truth is, and I believe this down to the very core of my being, that my husband had no intention of leaving me (he cheated for 15 years with three different women and apparently did not find the perfect insecure sex kitten to spend the rest of his life with–you know the kind that don’t have garbage, or bills, or cat boxes, or “headaches”) and even if we were to separate, he would not spend even a minute thinking about this ‘other woman.’ I have no doubt he would find someone else, but it would not be her, and there is no way I can make her understand this. There is some truth to what she most likely is thinking, that my husband is unhappy. The thing about it, though, is that he is not unhappy with me or our marriage. He is unhappy with himself and apparently he always has been, he has just kept it a secret and has self medicated with sex addiction. This is all very enlightening, 30 years and two kids later. Ugh.

I have been counseled not to answer the other woman’s calls. Answering calls of the predatory acting out partner just fuels her connection to me and my husband and our life…. think Fatal Attraction!!! They say that no matter what I say, she will always believe that I am a cold, unloving woman who doesn’t give her husband sex, or at least not passionate sex and that I have left him lonely and alone feeling helpless and hopeless. That even if he reiterates the facts, the truth, she will just believe I have put him up to it and am forcing him to turn her away. Geez! Apparently she has forgotten that she is the one calling me, not the other way around. I was not even a player in their eff’d up game. How could I be? I did not even know there was a game being played. Wake up mistresses… they are lying to you. It is not our fault; we are not your enemy. If he wanted to be with you, he would be… anything less is bullshit.

If only I could sleep…