Betrayal

We were spending the night in a hotel room having had a swim party for our recently turned four-year-old. The wine and beer flowed freely as did the conversations. The little girl’s laughter was frequent and sugar-fueled. My husband was mastering the claw machine, and all the littlies were delighted to receive a plethora of stuffed animals.

When the festivities ended and the pool closed, we tucked our protesting energizer bunny into her own hotel bed and piled 13 stuffed animals alongside her.  We climbed into our own bed, had a little pillow talk and then both fell into an alcohol induced sleep.

My husband’s cell phone rang at 3:30 in the morning.  As a reflex, he answered even though his cell phone didn’t recognize the number displayed. The caller instantly started accusing my husband of something. I could hear my husband’s calm voice asking who this was. No response was given; instead, the caller’s questions continued until my husband hung up.

I asked, “Who was THAT?!” and he said he didn’t know. He said it sounded like Paige’s husband, but he didn’t know for sure.  When I asked what the caller wanted, my husband said he seemed to think he, my husband, was in love with and sleeping with Paige. My husband got up from our warm bed, took his phone, and walked into the bathroom. I stayed in bed. My brows knitted as I clutched the covers to my chest.  What the hell?

A breath later, I threw back the covers, sat on his side of the bed, and let my head hang. My arms, in an attempt to comfort myself, snaked around my waist in a crisscross fashion. I was very cold and started shivering uncontrollably. Fight, flight, freeze, or faint. I stood; my legs were shaking uncontrollably.

And so it began.

I glanced at my sleeping little miss, silently thanking God she was a sound sleeper. On bare feet, I managed to pad into the bathroom. My husband was sitting in his underwear on top of the toilet seat. His head was in his hands, and he was rubbing his eyes with his palms. I asked if he was OK. He didn’t look up; he sat with his head in his hands and replied defeatedly, “I am not sleeping with her.”  He then looked up and met my eyes. I saw the beginning of pain etching itself across his handsome face. Trying to hold off the wrenching and disabling emotional pain I sensed was coming, I calmly and soothingly said, “I know, honey. I know.”

As I turned to leave the bathroom, his cell phone rang again. I stopped and turned to look at my husband. He answered the call, and I intuitively knew the question the caller had asked: “Do you love your wife?” My husband, who was now palm-rubbing one eye in a way that I now know meant, I don’t want to see this. I don’t want to deal with this. Make it go away, looked at me. He met my eyes and, from the bottom of his heart, answered, “Very much so.” A slow, small smile formed on the left side of my closed mouth. My smile denoted reassurance, and I know you love me, honey. I know. If you looked at my eyes, though, they were filling with the start of inconceivable pain.

I left the bathroom entryway. I was confused and frightened.  I sat at the end of our rented bed. I glanced at our sleeping daughter and then back towards the light emanating from the bathroom. The phone and my husband were silent.

Moments later, my husband walked slowly out of the bathroom, looking ashen. His voice was remorseful and full of pain. He told me he sent a text to Paige earlier in the night telling her that he liked her. He downplayed it by saying he did it after she had left because, prior to her leaving, she had told him, “Someone doesn’t like me very much tonight,” meaning her husband.  My husband said he texted her to say HE liked her…he liked her very much.

He told me he just wanted her to know someone liked her, especially after her husband was so cranky to her. I sat, wide-eyed, listening to him. He said he received a reply text from her that said, “I love you.”  He said he instantly knew this had gone too far, and he had deleted the text.  He told me he’d talk with her on Monday and make sure this didn’t happen again.

I shrugged my shoulders, read the energy around him, and was fine with it. I can understand how things can be taken the wrong way in a text. In fact, I even said that I was sure Paige was affectionately saying, “I love you” in a “thank you for all you have done for me” way, or in the way we say, “I love popcorn!”  I was wrong. I was naïvely wrong.

My husband had shut the ringer off on his phone just about the time the hotel room phone began ringing. He answered, listened, became irate, barked at the caller to leave us the fuck alone, and then hung up. It rang again almost instantly.  My husband answered, immediately hung up, and then took the phone off the hook. He sat down at the head of the bed. His shoulders were slumped. Our daughter continued to sleep peacefully.

It was at this point that I began asking questions. I was so very confused. “Why, why did you delete the text, then?” I asked. He said because he knew it had crossed the boundary, and he just wanted it gone. I nodded my head, still not grasping what was going on.

My phone rang, which is odd as I always turn the ringer off at night. The caller ID showed it was Paige. I instinctively grabbed it, wanting to make sure she was somewhere safe and unharmed. I reflexively answered, “Hi, honey. Are you safe?” Instead of hearing her voice, the caller snarled, “This isn’t ‘honey.’” It was Paige’s husband. Then, his voice changed. It became crisp, confident, and strong, but somehow still soft. He asked, “Were you aware your husband is fucking my wife? And it’s not the first time it’s happened either, for either of them. This has happened before. Were you aware of it?”

My heart rate increased. I glanced over at my husband, who was now looking like he was caught in a huge shit storm. I thought he was going to throw up. He could hear our conversation, and when I turned my head towards him, he vehemently mouthed, “I’M NOT FUCKING HER!”  I waved my hand at him in a dismissive way and rolled my eyes in a manner that said, Doi. I know that. I would fiercely defend my husband, my partner, because I knew what the man on the other end of the phone was saying just wasn’t true. My body contradicted my bravado, however. My mouth was dry, my palms were sweaty, and the subsiding body tremors had returned.

Paige’s husband went on to ask if I was aware of all the texts that had occurred between them. All the INAPPROPRIATE texts, and he assured me, there were many. I looked up at my husband while briefly internally wondering about these texts. Instead of answering the caller’s question, I calmly but sternly said, “You’re frightening me. I’m feeling very uncomfortable. We’ve all been drinking tonight, and this is neither the time nor the place to discuss this.” At the time, I didn’t feel frightened; in fact, I felt very calm. I thought this dude was nuts. I said what I did to diffuse a very volatile, potentially escalating situation. I just wanted to get him (and me) off the phone.

Paige’s husband is a tall man and an imposing figure. I had just met him that evening, but I sensed he held himself tightly in check. While I wasn’t necessarily frightened OF him, I sure was by what he was saying. My brain was repeating, Texts? Plural? LOTS of them? Wait, what??!

He went on to say he had proof and tons of it. He had cell phone messages that Paige had saved. I thought he was lying or making something out of nothing. Turns out, he wasn’t; he had plenty of inappropriate texts. Texts that, to my husband, were innocent, but he admitted could have easily been taken out of context by someone who wanted to do just that.

I once again told him I was frightened and that I wasn’t able to discuss this now.  He must have sensed something in my voice because he took a verbal step backwards. His voice changed from a clipped, direct, interrogative tone to an almost gentle one, as if he were soothing a child. We ended the phone call with me saying we could discuss this, just not right now. However, I had no intention of discussing this with him ever again.

By the time the call ended, I was shaking so violently that I could barely press my phone’s “end call” button. I burst into tears. Oh my GOD, I was frightened. My husband sidled up behind me, put his strong arms around me, and pulled me close.  He kissed my hair and whispered in my ear, “I am so sorry. I am SO sorry,” over and over. I leaned into his strong frame, raised one hand to his arm, and said, “I don’t understand ANY of this. What the hell is going on?!”

While my husband held me, my body shook like an aspen leaf. I told him I wanted to leave the hotel room NOW. I wanted to go home where I knew I’d be safe. Truthfully, I wanted to put some distance between him and me, but I was too frightened to go home without him. Paige’s husband knew where we lived.

We talked about changing rooms and then decided we were safe, as you couldn’t gain access to our area without a key card.  And as if he thought I would disappear if he let go, my husband continued to hold me tightly. I alternated between wracking sobs and staring, dry-eyed, into the wall. I was trying to make sense out of everything. He continued to soothe me and say he’d take care of everything on Monday.  As my sobs subsided, there was a soft knock on our poolside hotel room door.

I knew who it was. 

In a strangled, high-pitched whisper, “Oh my fucking GOD!” whooshed out of my mouth, then we both remained silent. The knock came again, louder this time. I whispered frantically, “What are we going to do?! WHAT!?”

My husband peeked out of the curtains and not only saw Paige’s husband but her father, as well. Fuck, fuck, FUCK!!! My anxiety amped up. When the third knock came, it was accompanied by a demanding, “Open this door, we need to talk.”  My eyes, once again, filled with tears, and I glanced at my sleeping daughter. God in heaven, these people KNEW we had our daughter in here, and yet they wanted to “talk about things” at 3:50 in the morning?

What also added to my overwhelming fear was that both these men carry guns. Paige’s husband and I had talked about that earlier in the evening. Now, after a night of drinking and whatever else they were doing, they were armed and at my hotel room door.

Fear turned to wide-eyed panic as I had the thought that my daughter would be hit by their bullets, as her bed was closest to the window and the door. Should any mother (parent) EVER have to contemplate that idea?! Jesus, this was fucking INSANE! As I was finishing that thought, my husband called the front desk and let them know we had unwanted guests who might be carrying side arms. Within seconds, hotel security had defused the situation, and, thankfully, both men left quietly.

We stood in the middle of the room, frozen in our tracks. Do we leave? If so, are they waiting for us? Do we change rooms? In the end, we went back to bed, but there was no sleeping. There was too much pain for both the inflictor and the inflicted. My husband held me tightly in his strong, powerful arms while my body shook uncontrollably and I cried unabashedly. He kept repeating, “I am so, so sorry. I am so very sorry.”

We left the hotel room just as the sun was coming up. We were unsure of what we would find when we returned home, and unsure of how to pick up the pieces and move forward.

On the drive home, I internally begged my Guys to let this be finished. Their response? There will be more.  I heaved a sigh, rolled my tear-filled, tired, red eyes, dropped my head to my chest, and briefly closed my eyes. I wanted to block it all out. I didn’t want to see what was coming next. I internally pleaded, God, please let them be wrong. Please let this be over.

They weren’t wrong. Within 24 hours, the other shoe dropped.

This is the second in a series of five blogs:
Part 1; Affair / Part 2; Betrayal / Part 3; Revelation / Part 4; Aftermath / Part 5; Healing