A Story of the Affairs

Confidence in the Present
Cerebral Spouse

[...]

I was working to build a story of the affair in my mind that went beyond dates and events. If I was going to be confident that she was truly committed to the marriage, I needed to understand how she reached that point after being so far away from it. I needed to be able trace a path from our marriage slowly deteriorating, to her developing feelings for the other guy, and finally to her working through those feelings and recommitting herself to me.

My confidence in that story would be based on how well it matched with her behavior and the details about the affair that I had been able to confirm. I knew my information was imperfect with plenty of loose ends, but it at least had to make logical sense so I could be reasonably confident that I had the truth. The challenge was that we were still discussing the affair and uncovering new details. If new information didn’t fit into my story, then it must mean that my understanding of events wasn’t correct.

Multiple times we followed a similar pattern. We would have a conversation where some new piece of information would come out, and I would spend two or three days analyzing it. It could be a completely casual conversation where we only touched for a brief moment on the affair, and the new information could be a seemingly innocuous detail. Even a minor detail though could contradict something significant, which could ultimately destroy my entire story. It was as if every time I learned something new, the story of the affair became tentative until I could verify that new piece of information logically fit.

[...]

Each time a new detail fit, it gave me an additional bit of confidence that I wasn’t going to eventually find a significant contradiction. Each time she shared something new, it was another step closer to complete and open honesty. I chose to focus on our positive progress as opposed to dwell on suspicions. If she revealed something now that she had previously held back, for example, I focused on her current honesty as opposed to her past obfuscation.

While my confidence in the present is dependent on my understanding of the past, I know my story of the affair will never be entirely complete. I’ve reached the point though where I’ve lost interested in filling in any remaining details. At some point you need to let the doubts go and focus on moving forward with your marriage. It took time and a hell of a lot of work, but I think we’re finally there. 

I spent two months trying to believe what Drew was telling me - that he had just been engaged in email/chat/phone sex with two women. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, crying, and turn to him to ask yet again if I knew everything - and he would hold me and assure me that yes, yes, I did, I did.

But so many details didn't quite make sense. I couldn't always identify them in the moment, but in responding to one question he'd make a comment that didn't quite fit with an earlier answer to another, and days later I'd recognize the discrepancy and press him about it.

In retrospect, I realize that we were both reeling, only while I was pursuing information with the single-mindedness of a bloodhound, Drew was desperately trying to keep track of what exactly he had told me and "merging" his relationships with various women in order to minimize them. Half of the main story was from a woman he had cheated on me with while we were dating; half was from two women with whom he really did only have online and phone sex. He also minimized what he had actually done in his own mind - his timelines were compressed, the number of phone calls lessened. He often got mixed up. Which in turn caused me to wonder if his narrative mistakes were a hallmark of truth - a too-perfectly rehearsed tale is sure to be a lie - or evidence that there was more that I didn't know.

I wanted, so badly, to believe him. I was scared of how badly I wanted to believe him. But I kept searching. I don't know if it was because of the hypervigilence and detective work that often accompanies a great betrayal or because some part of me recognized that the details didn't all fit together. Or, most likely, it was a combination of the two - every time a new detail didn't fit, it would encourage me to go into detective mode.

And then, one day, I found more. Far, far more. Enough that he volunteered most of what he had been hiding: A hookup with one formerly-mutual friend. Sex with another. A craigslist encounter. Ashley Madison. And then, over the next two months, a slow stream of trickle truths as I hunted and pried and pieced together the "Timeline" - my first step towards reconstructing a narrative.

(Drew maintains that at that point he was only trying to protect me from irrelevant additional pain; I maintain that he had picked the wrong time to feel protective and paternalistic toward me, and that the trickling nature of the truths were an additional abuse. In the wake of discovering this level of betrayal, we need to know everything. The truths are awful, not knowing them is worse.)

Eventually, the trickle slowed and ceased. Drew says that he told me about his last intentional lie the first week of February (almost four months to the day that I first learned to be suspicious, almost two months to the day that my world crumbled). He had read a book that said that the healing process takes two years from the last lie, and so he wanted to get it out in the open.

Of course, notwithstanding his claim that the last lie was now out there (I had heard that before), I kept asking questions, kept testing the edges of his answers. But, more and more, instead of opening new inquiries, his answers filled in gaps in the story. And even when I turned up some new way of learning about what happened - finding his chats, his location history, his telephone records - the new information mostly confirmed what he had volunteered.

During the months when Drew was still in damage control mode, he'd often pause before answering a question. I thought it was because he was ashamed of the answer - now I know that was only part of it. He was ashamed of his answer, but he was also trying to remember what he had and hadn't told me and trying to figure out how to make a new answer fit.

These days, when I ask him a question, he just answers. Quickly, and apparently honestly. Sometimes he doesn't have an answer - if it's a factual thing he can't remember, he tells me that; if it's a deeper, "why" question that he doesn't have an immediate response to, he asks for more time to think about it, discuss it with his therapist or friends, and get back to me. Meanwhile, I do my best to not untangle his skein for him - for both of our sakes.

Compiling the facts of the Timeline was my first step towards reconstructing a narrative. But now, like Cerebral Spouse, I'm done with the details. The Timeline is as complete as its ever going to be. I've embarked on the next stage - seeing if those facts and his answers to the larger "why" questions fit into a larger, cohesive story of the affairs.

So far, they do. So far.