let me be honest: i still love my husband. we have been together almost 8 years. that is the longest of any relationship i've ever been in. we still laugh. we still talk. we still do things from time to time. like right now, we're watching MST3K and passing a victoria's secret magazine back and forth, drawing dicks and pubes on the models. there was much laughter. for the most part, i act the part of a dutiful wife.
it used to come easier. life gets in the way. time tromps on, people change, things happen that you don't talk about and walls go up.
in october 2010, my husband downloaded a free video game on his PS3. he was a sporadic video game player. he'd buy one that was fun, play it, finish it in a week, and then go back to reading or playing music or whatever. but this game was something different. it was his first online game. a constant game with no end. with people online. he bought a headset. he hooked up a keyboard. and he sat in his damn chair every free minute of the day and played that game.
he's not an adventurous guy anyway. we used to drive around the city and explore. we used to shop, and hang out and visit people and make plans. but when that game came into our lives, he barely left the house. so i would sit and knit. or clean. or hang out on the computer. or cook. or bake. but i usually hung around the house because that was our dynamic. we did things together. if he stayed home, i stayed home. oh, sure, i went grocery shopping without him, and clothes shopping, and i hung out with friends, but during the week, we usually just hung out at home. but this game brought his laziness to a whole new level.
i had started a new job at starbucks in Sept. i met someone. by november, i was primed for an affair. i was lonely, ignored, taken for granted. i had asked him to stop playing that game, that i worried about our marriage. for a little while, he cut back, but not for long. i know how the human creature works. unless they thing something is really wrong, chances are things won't change. little to no effort was put in.
so anyway, i started talking to a guy at work. I'll call him D. to say we were fast friends is an understatement. we worked together a lot, so we had a lot of time to kill. we teased, we flirted, we talked, we laughed. we texted. we went out. i liked him a lot. he was deep and funny and smart and down to earth. he saw that my husband was ignoring me and he told me i deserved better. i boosted his ego after his girlfriend broke up with him. needless to say, we got closer than we should have.
our first kiss was in the car out in front of his apartment sometime in December. it was all downhill from there. i told myself that i could turn back at any time. kissing really didn't mean anything. i tried to put the brakes on. but then came new year's weekend. i went over to his place and we ended up having sex. i don't know what it was about him, but he awakened my sleeping libido.
at first it was just sex for fun. we enjoyed each other, we turned each other on, it was an affair in the simplest terms. but then something unexpected happened. i got pregnant. when you're having fun, protection tends to go by the way side and i wasn't on the pill.
feb 2, i took a pregnancy test at 6am in the morning. i kept telling myself that i had been stressed, that i had mis-calculated, that it was just late, no biggie. there is no way i could be pregnant. i peed on the stick. even before i was done peeing on that damn thing, it showed two lines. my heart sank. i had never felt such dread. trapped. scared. what the hell was i going to do? chances are this wasn't my husband's baby. do i tell him? do i tell D? we just met, for christ sake. i took the peed on stick and hid it. i went back to bed and went back to bed.
i think i told D before i told my husband. his reply: Fuck. my thoughts exactly. he never questioned whether it was his. when i told my husband, he was like, "are you sure?" yeah. he said that he mishandled a condom a while back, that must have been what caused it. thank god for that or else it would have been a tough sell.
later that week, i got fired. thank god because i was so fucking tired all of the time. i slept as often as i could. i asked D what he wanted. he told me what i wanted to hear, not what he really wanted. at some point, i pestered him enough for the truth that he said, "let's run away together and you can have my baby. is that what you want to hear?" yeah, kind of. to this day, i wonder what i would have done had it not been so early in our relationship. he played it safe. my husband didn't want it, even though i brought it up several times. the answer was always no. i scheduled the abortion.
one memory i have is laying in bed before going to sleep, thinking this was the first time in my three pregnancies that i wasn't terrified. i was thinking that i should be protecting this tiny life inside of me, not preparing to kill it. i remember whispering, "i'm so sorry." i cried. i didn't want this, but i was in the worst possible position ever. getting rid of the problem was the only resolution i could deal with at the time.
february 22. i went to the clinic with my husband. his heath care covered a sedated termination, which was the only way i was going to get through this. we took the train because he didn't want to drive down there. we waited at the starbucks down the street until my appointment time. i saw some guy throw up in the gutter. great.
i got through it. i had them print out an ultrasound so i could have a picture. my husband doesn't know this. another weird thing was that i started bleeding earlier in the week. i thought that i was having a miscarriage again. so i called my doctor. the strange thing is that things happen really fast when you're having difficulties when you're pregnant. my doctor's office doesn't have a ultrasound machine, so they fit me in at the hospital. that day. i went and got an ultrasound. why? i was going to terminate anyway. why bother? i wanted to cancel my appointment at PP if i was having a miscarriage. but couldn't i wait? anyway, i saw my little 7 week peanut, floating around, heartbeat and all. flicker, flicker, flicker. all was well. and later i found out that little trip to the hospital cost me $250. for no reason.
the day after the procedure, my husband and i went on vacation. it wasn't talked about. it was like i went to the dentist to get my wisdom teeth out. at the same time i was pregnant, some friends of ours were also pregnant, as were some friends of my husband's. turns out they both lost their pregnancies. one of his friends was also having health problems. so my husband wrote a song for them about the hard time they were having. them. not me. well, he added me at the end of that list. thanks, dear. that hurt about as much as when he was upset when they lost their pregnancies. what about mine?? the one that was supposedly yours???? the one i COULD HAVE KEPT?? remember that one??
a few months later, he scheduled an appointment for a vasectomy. and he said, "i need your support in this." seriously. what did i do? put a goddamned smile on my face and supported him. but not before i sat him down at a restaurant and told him that i wanted kids. he didn't. he got snipped.
this is the wedge that has been jammed into our marriage.
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