Birthdays and ESPN

Yesterday was my 39th birthday and it was a difficult day. Even though I had friends and family wishing me happy birthday all day long, all I could think of was that my husband no longer cares it's my birthday. He no longer wants to celebrate the day that I was born. All he cares about is getting away from me, the person he blames for all of his unhappiness.

Somehow I made it through the day at work and picked up my children at after-care. My daughter and several of her friends had made me birthday cards and I opened them up at home and started to cry. I just stood in the kitchen hugging my daughter with tears running down my face, thanking her and her friends for their thoughtful cards. Then I escaped to my bathroom and sobbed in peace. Somehow this was all too much to take on a day that is typically one to be celebrated.

After composing myself, I went back downstairs to eat the takeout supper that my husband had picked up and then we had cake. I'm assuming that my children asked him to get it when they all went to pick up the food. We sat on the couch eating the cake and my husband was watching some show on ESPN. My sweet little son asked, "Daddy, can we please watch something else?" It was 7:45 and the kids go to bed at 8. My husband simply said, "No" and left it on ESPN. Seriously, you are going to be moving out in a few short weeks and you won't change the channel to something that we all want to watch for 15 minutes?

The selfishness still strikes me a blow every time. But each time my husband does something like this, never putting his family first, it makes it a little easier to say goodbye. A little easier to take a breath and think, we are going to be okay without him. Having someone in your life that takes up too much of your energy and just saps the strength out of you is a sad way to live and I'm so tired of it. Even if this other woman somehow has "won" my husband, I should be thankful that she's done me a favor because at this point, I don't feel loved or cherished or respected and I don't think my kids feel that their father puts their needs above his own. That's a pretty sad role model to have when you're 6 and 8 years old and growing up trying to figure out what's important in this world.

Today I'm choosing love and strength. Love for my children and hope that they know that I will always put them first. And strength to get through all this horribleness being dealt to us right now so we can all live our lives with feelings of being cherished and loved and respected.

Breathe

Breathe, that's what I need to do. I need to take the time to breathe. Or at least that's what my counselor says as I rush ahead with making plans. Plans to sell the house, plans to move the kids and I, plans to end all of this misery and put it behind us. But there's no hurrying any of this. There's no rushing to the finish line so all of this agony can be over. You just have to take one day at a time and hopefully, maybe, one day won't feel like a month of days all rolled in to one.

Tomorrow we have the appointment with the realtor that I was so eager for. So anxious to get this house listed so I can move on to the next step of this process. But I've decided to take a breath and maybe wait on making a decision about the house. We'll meet with the realtor and get some information about listing, but at this point in time, I'm going to have to slow things down and try to figure out what's the best thing for us. Is moving really the answer? Probably not right now for the kids. But can we financially sustain this house along with my husband's apartment? He's willing to try and I guess I should be too so I can avoid further trauma for my kids.

Tonight at supper, my daughter said, "I made Daddy something for when he moves out." Spoken so calmly and proudly. I can't imagine being 8-years old and speaking about the day your father moves out but maybe that's the world that we live in now. Separated families, single parents, step-families, children living with grandparents. So many different situations in this modern world.

We notified the kids' teachers and guidance counselor about the upcoming divorce. My daughter had already shared the news at school but I thought it should come from us as well. I was told that my daughter was just as calm and open at school about it as she is at home and that we must have handled the conversation in an open and honest way. I feel proud that the kids are handling it so well and hope that it continues on. It could have gone a different way if I had let my bitterness and anger take over. But that would have led to even more bitterness and anger towards myself mostly, so I've refused to give in to that. I know the news really won't sink in for my kids until Daddy moves out and all of his stuff is gone but for now they are coping and I am thankful for that.

I"m still struggling with my "can't we just work it out" thoughts and then I kick myself for being so weak. I would be willing to take back a man who cheated on me for a year and a half and never once said that he would be willing to give up his affair? I hope that my answer to that is no because I have more respect for myself than that but I'm so tired of all this and just want things to go back to 'normal' that I almost think that I would. And then I think back over the past few years and how unhappy I've been and pray that one day I will consider this the best thing that could have happened once we get past the pain and all the uncertainties about what the future will bring. I still can not imagine myself as a divorced mother of two but why am I any better than any other divorced woman? Why did I think this would never happen to me?

This evening just before bedtime, my son came over and laid next to me on the couch and sweetly put his head on my shoulder. I hugged him and then had to get up to let the dog in. When I came back, my son was laying on top of my husband on the loveseat, hugging him as hard as he could. Did this make my husband's heart wince in pain like it did mine? Knowing that he won't be there every night to enjoy those hugs and moments of sweetness? I have no idea what he was thinking but I do believe that men (not all but maybe most) are wired differently than women and are able to disassociate themselves because how else could your unhappiness and selfishness cause you to tear apart your family and bring so much pain to the children that you love? My husband seems to blame me for all the unhappiness in his life but my counselor says that you can't look to another person for happiness, you have to find that in yourself. So maybe I should take that advice to heart and believe that when my husband moves out, I will find happiness in myself and that will be enough.

Loose Tooth

My daughter is at a friend's house and my husband is out grocery shopping (is that really where he is? I don't let myself care. Soon he will be moved out and no longer my concern.) So it's just my son and I snuggled on the couch together watching Disney XD.

My six-year old son has a loose tooth and it's hanging on by a thread. He keeps worrying it with his tongue and soon it will fall out and I'll get to see the excitement on his face as he yells about the tooth fairy. I can't help but feel pain as I imagine all the loose teeth in the future that his father will miss out on. Yes, maybe he'll get to see them over Skype or hear about them over the phone or over an occasional weekend visit. But we will never have these tender whole family moments in the future and that breaks my heart for both my children and myself.

After divorce when does the family that remains start to feel whole and not like a large slice is missing? I'm hoping that happens sooner rather than later because once again the anticipation of all the heartache is suffocating.

Who Says You Can't Go Home?

This weekend I spent one of the days looking for a house in my hometown. The town that I grew up in, the town that I was ready to leave to go off to college 20 years ago. It felt familiar to me driving the streets with my best friend, recognizing roads and homes from long ago classmates. It also felt very strange to think that I am planning on leaving the life that I built with my husband and moving my kids and myself to be closer to my parents.

Leaving the life...being forced to leave the life... Either way you put it, the end is inevitable. We can not afford to keep the house that we bought over four and a half years ago. The house that my children have grown up in, the house that I adored and envisioned many years of happiness in. With the beautiful staircase that my daughter would walk down in her prom gown and my husband and I would look at her with pride while her date would be standing awkwardly next to us. None of the dreams that I made for us in this house will be coming true. For now I know that my husband hasn't envisioned himself in any of these dreams. He's been dreaming of a separate life, one that he's made up all on his own.

Every day that I spend in this house now is torture. Once so proud to walk from room to room, and dream of little projects to do to make the house our home, now I try not to gaze around too much. This doesn't feel like home any more to me. It feels like an albatross around my neck which will be impossible to get rid of. Will we be able to sell it over the summer before the kids start a new school year? I have no idea. Will we go into further debt trying to carry this house as well as my husband's apartment which he'll move into in May? My stomach gets an even bigger knot in it, enlarging the constant one that's been there since he told me his news. The agony of not knowing what the future will bring is horrible. And I'm having a hard time just letting go and saying what will happen will happen and riding this hard time out. Instead I obsessively research selling houses and buying a new one. Checking the real estate listings and calling on for sale by owners. There's not much on the market in my hometown and when you consider the budget that I have to work with, there's only a few to even look at. One home that I was so excited about yesterday was instead a disappointment today and another dead end. Should I even be looking at houses when I don't have my own house even listed yet? Probably not but I do have a realtor coming this week. I scheduled it when the kids are in school. They still have no idea that Daddy moving out means that we, too, will have to move. And when the day comes to tell them that, I know my heart will be broken into even smaller pieces.

Yesterday I chose love for myself and my children. Today I choose hate and bitterness and betrayal. I could barely even look at my husband today and never said a word unless it was in front of the kids. I don't know if he can feel my seething resentment and anger towards him but if he can, it doesn't seem to bother him at all. And once again I'm left wondering who the hell is this person that I now find myself married to? Has he always been this person and just hid it well? Or has he completely given up any honor and goodness and love?

In weak moments, I log in to match.com and look at the photos on there trying to envision myself with someone else. My skin crawls just thinking about it. Bringing a man into the lives of my children seems like an additional betrayal to them. They have a father, he's just chosen not to be a family with me anymore. A few days ago when my husband and I were arguing about having to sell our house or not, I said that we had to sell both financially and for the fact that it's too big to keep up on my own. He said that it wouldn't have to be done completely on my own. "Will you come over and help out then," I asked. "Well, I'm hoping that you're not going to stay a dried up old spinster for long," was his response. Again, I am flabbergasted by his callousness towards me. The person that he swore to love and honor. The person that bore his two children and kept the home fires burning during two deployments.

I wish for one hour I could get off this horror ride that I'm on right now and get some relief. But every waking hour is spent with some piece of my mind worried about the future. Thankfully I have both friends and family to lean on. I wonder how other women handle this without the strong support system that I have. May peace be with them all.

Dante's Circle of Hell

I'm pretty sure one of Dante's circles of hell should include cohabitation with your husband, whom you just recently found out has been having an illicit long-term affair behind your back. Every day things that were so simple before take on such greater meaning. Doing the laundry and coming across a pair of his boxers makes me want to curl up and die but instead I throw them in a basket with all of his other things. Saying goodnight after the kids are tucked in bed used to involve a quick kiss and now involves a cold, "Goodnight." Setting the table for supper previously included me asking him what he wanted to drink. Now I just set drinks out for the kids and myself.

Yet I still find myself wanting to do all of these things because he's my husband and I've loved him for over 18 years. The heart has a hard time forgetting old habits even when so much pain and anguish try to cover them up. I'm realizing something through all of this. Hate and bitterness, for me at least, take so much more thought and energy than just turning off my emotions and going on autopilot. So for tonight at least, I've turned off the hate and anger and I set the table with a glass of ice water for my husband at supper. Does it really make a difference in the whole scheme of things? No, not really. But I don't choose hate and bitterness, or at least at this moment I'm strong enough to not choose it. I choose love for my children and myself. And if putting that damn glass of ice water on the table makes me feel like a good person because I can rise above everything that is going on then I might as well just do it. For making the conscious effort NOT to do it seems to take so much more effort than just doing it. So for the next few weeks while my husband continues to live in my house, he will get his glass of ice water. But I still refuse to fold his underwear.

Telling the Kids & the Burger Joint

My husband and I went to a parent/teacher conference on Friday for our son. Imagine sitting in a room with your husband who has been cheating on you for a year and a half and try to carry on a conversation with your son's teacher about how he's doing in school. Every comment out of the teacher's mouth made me want to say, "The man who is sitting next to me is a cheater and a liar. How can he even be sitting here carrying on this conversation?" But somehow I got through the meeting and maybe even fooled the teacher into thinking that everything is just fine.

The kids and my husband and I all returned home from the parent/teacher conferences and the kids went outside to play. "We need to tell the kids," I said. "Let them play outside for a while," my husband said. "We NEED to tell the kids now," I said. "YOU just want to get it over with," he said in a mean voice. My inner voice yelled, "You're Goddamn right I want to get it over with! I haven't been sleeping at all worrying about how they are going to react to this." But I didn't allow my inner voice to be heard and instead said, "We need to tell them now."

I called the kids in from outside and they reluctantly came in. "Please sit down," I said. "Daddy and I need to talk to you about something."

My daughter looked at me and said, "Are we moving?" My heart almost broke in two because yes, we will most likely have to sell our house and move because we can't afford to keep it. But that wasn't the heartbreak that was going to come in this conversation, not yet.

"You know how Daddy has been sleeping on the couch for a while?" I said. The kids had noticed that the previous weekend and I had managed to just brush it aside and not acknowledge it at that point. The kids both nodded. "Well, Mommy and Daddy haven't been getting along very well lately. Have you noticed that?" Both kids nodded again. My husband and I have never been fighters, never yelled at each other in front of the kids, never really even vehemently argued in front of them but the kids must have been aware of the constant tension lately. I looked at my husband waiting for him to continue the conversation. This was after all the path that he had chosen when he had made the decision to cheat on me, on us, on his family. He said nothing.

I continued on, "Well, Mommy and Daddy haven't been getting along very well and we aren't going to be able to live together anymore." My son immediately simply said, "No" and I will never forget the look on his face as long as I live. That dear sweet innocent little six-year old face. He look so horrified and sad and disbelieving and he said again, "No". Finally my husband spoke up and said, "The decision has been made. Mommy and Daddy aren't going to be living together anymore but we both love you and it isn't your fault." I looked at my daughter sitting next to me and she was slowly sinking into herself. She still had her winter coat on and it was like she was melting into herself. She was slinking lower and lower into her jacket as if hoping it would swallow her whole. Tears silently streamed down her face. She's almost 9 years old and she knew what this meant. She had grabbed a book at the library last week, "Amber Brown", about a girl who had divorced parents. When I asked her what she was reading at the time and she told me what it was about, my heart almost jumped out of my chest. It was as if she had sensed this coming but was that possible? I have no idea if she was that intuitive or if it was just some type of unbelievable coincidence.

I asked my daughter, "Do you have any questions?" She just silently shook her head as more tears streamed down her face. I wanted to wail and weep for my children but somehow I squashed my emotions and just gave her a hug. "We both still love you and we both will always be your parents," I said matter-of-factly. "Nothing will ever change that. You'll still see Daddy and you'll still see Mommy." I looked at my son and asked him if he had any questions. He shook his head and kind of smiled and said, "Can I go back outside?" My heart broke again because of his innocence. "Yes, you can go back outside." So outside my son went. I have no idea if he laid outside in the snowbank thinking about the day that his father would be moving out or if he was really just preoccupied with playing with the snow. My daughter continued to sit next to me on the couch and I continued to hug her. "Do you have any questions?" She said no and finally went back outside.

I looked at my husband and said, "I guess that went better than I thought." And then I broke down and started crying and crying. "I just don't understand any of this," I sobbed. "I don't understand how you could do this to your family." Of course he didn't have a response. Then he asked, "Do you want a hug?" I almost weakly said yes but I just shook my head. I just wanted all of this to go away. I wanted all of the pain and heartbreak that my children and I are in for to go away. If he turned to me at that moment and said, "I'm sorry, it was all a mistake" I probably would have just taken him back to avoid what I know is to come. But all he said was "What do you want to do for supper?" "I have no idea," I said. He's the cook in the family, not me. That's about the one role that he plays in the family. I parent the children and run the household, pay the bills, do almost everything and he cooks supper and kisses the kids goodnight.

"Do you want to go out to eat?" he said. "Fine," I said, "if the kids want to go." The kids did indeed want to go to their favorite local burger joint so we got in the car and started off. Then the questions started coming from my daughter. "Daddy, where will you be living? How many bedrooms does it have?" (Two I found out, the kids will have to share a room when they visit Daddy.) "Does it have a porch? Does it have a kitchen?" Question after question poured out of my daughter's mouth. She was so matter of fact about it that I mentally patted myself on the back. Somehow, maybe this will be upsetting to my children but it will soon be normal life to them and they'll bounce back. God, I hope so. Even though the agony of this is killing me, if I can spare my children any pain or confusion I will gladly do what I can. Even if that means sitting across the booth from my husband eating a burger while the kids talk about his new apartment. This is my life now and somehow I will find the strength to roll with it.

I know I can be strong for my kids. I was their everything when my husband was gone on two deployments. The first deployment I had just my daughter who was six months when he left and a year and a half when he returned. For the second deployment my daughter was 6 and my son was 4. I know that these last two years since his return from Afghanistan that I have done more than my fair share of the parenting. My husband would hardly ever get home from work before 6PM and the kids go to bed at 8. And on the weekends, almost every single Sunday, he was either "riding his motorcycle" or "watching football at his friend's". I know that I am the rock that my children can depend on. I am the caregiver, the nurturer, the schoolbag packer, the permission slip writer, the playdate organizer, the one who gets them on the bus, the one who picks them up at after-care, the one who helps them with their homework, the one who tells them to get ready for bed, the one that tells them to brush their teeth. I know that I've been doing that for the last three years at least, so why does it terrify me that soon my husband will be moving out and I will solely be doing something that I'm already doing? Typically I have found that my anticipation of an event is worse than the actual event itself so I'm hoping that will be the case this time as well. Because I need to be strong for my kids. I know if they see me fall apart and cry, they will too. And maybe it's okay to cry when you're told that your father is going to move out but I don't want the tears to continue for long, life moves on. Maybe that's a callous way of looking at it, but I don't want my kids to be forever defined by this moment in our lives. I want them to look back at it and if necessary, remember the hurt and pain but I don't want them to think about this day as the one that ruined their lives.

Tonight at bedtime, my daughter asked me where her Daddy pillow was. Her Daddy pillow is a pillowcase that she received when he was deployed. It has a picture of his face on it and both kids slept with their Daddy pillows nightly when he was gone. "It's in the wash," I said. "It's been there for a few weeks." (I hardly ever do a load of whites, shame on me.) "You need to make sure it's washed so I can have it before Daddy moves out," she said as she snuggled down in bed. And she said it so casually that my heart almost burst out of my chest. An 8-year old girl should not have to be talking about preparing for her Daddy to be moving out. She should be talking about her friends, her dolls, her day at school. She should not have to be talking about such an adult topic. My anger at my husband's bad decisions rose again and I wanted to rush downstairs and scream at him, "Look what you've done to us, you effing selfish weak asshole!" But I once again shoved that down deep inside me. Because screaming and yelling and blaming and cursing can only bring more heartache to my children and I refuse to be a part to any of that. My husband has caused enough of that for both of us.

Breaking up is hard to do

We told the kids tonight about my husband's upcoming move from the family home. It went better than I thought but I'm sure the shock will wear off and then the kids will start to process what it means. I'll write about the details soon but I'm giving myself a pass for the night on the worrying and the obsessing. I'm forcibly turning my mind off and will try to cozy up with a good book. Tomorrow is another day.

Three Weeks In

Three weeks to the day. Three weeks since my husband took me out for dinner while the kids were visiting their grandparents. Three weeks since we came home from dinner and he said "we need to talk". Immediately I knew what he was going to say.

"Have you been cheating on me?" The words echoed in my mind and my heart raced. The years of him going to "watch football" at a friend's house immediately flashed through my mind. How many times had I joked to friends and my sister that he might be having an affair? No way, not my husband. I was just joking. That wasn't a possibility. Even when I saw on the cell phone bill a huge number of texts to one number a while ago, I questioned who they were to and my husband made up some answer that I accepted. I didn't want to know the answer. I didn't want to face the heartache in case, oh my God, it's really possible that he's been cheating on me.

My husband was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010. When he left, I was sad but a little heady with excitement over having a whole year to do as I wished and also to have some extra money to do it with. Of course I worried for his safety, but the thought of being free (as free as you can be with two little ones under the age of 6) for a year was intoxicating to an independent woman like me. I did as I pleased during that year. Saw friends, went on vacation, adopted a dog that my husband didn't want (not proud of that fact but I lost my mind and my God, it was just a dog... why begrudge your wife and kids a distraction while you were gone.) Little did I know that the dog would be one of the incidences that convinced my husband that I "didn't know what was important to him" and therefore somehow justified his decision to have an affair for a year and a half.

"Have you been cheating on me? Who is she?"

"Jesus, I knew you were going to turn it into being about her and it's not about her. It's about the fact that I'm not happy and I'm not in love with you anymore...." On and on he would go telling me about how he wasn't happy and he wanted a divorce. It felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. I hadn't been happy in the 2 years that he had been back from Afghanistan either. I blamed it on his seeming depressed all the time. I just wanted him to be happy so I encouraged him to have hobbies, ride his motorcycle, go fishing, watch football at his friend's house. Little did I know that I was giving him the excuse he needed to carry on a long term affair. How could I have been so stupid, I thought? I've given him a free pass to have an affair because I thought he was depressed and needed to find a friend and something that he enjoyed. I never suspected that the reason he was depressed for the last year was because (I believe) the guilt about the double life he was leading was weighing on him. Jesus, who can lie to your wife and kids every week for a year and a half over where you are going? "Daddy, are you going to watch football?" "Yes, I'll be home after you go to bed." What kind of sick person can do that? Apparently quite a few people, both men and women, from all the incessant research I have been doing online. Are there no morales in the world anymore? Infidelity doesn't seem to shock anyone these days, except for the person who is living it.

The first night that he told me about the affair and the divorce, I sobbed and sobbed in his arms and I believe we even slept in the same bed together. Shock, weakness and a need for comfort I guess. The next day I called in sick to work and went to my parents' house and told them the news. They were shocked to say the least. Nobody EVER thought my husband would do that because about 17 years ago, it was discovered that my father-in-law was having a long term affair with a neighbor and it tore the family apart. Years of agony of watching my in-laws fight through the affair, move to try to save their marriage, have the mistress from the affair track down my father-in-law, have him move out on my mother-in-law. Years of watching this drama and bitterness go on and on and ultimately lead to my in-laws getting a divorce and my mother-in-law moving back by us and my father-in-law almost dropping off the face of the earth. My husband hasn't talked to his father in about 5 years and my husband's siblings have seen him maybe once or twice in that time frame and maybe talked to him a handful of times. How could someone who had gone through that first hand and seen the devastation that it brings do the same thing years later? Apparently what you have lived is your first instinct and your default way of dealing with something... according to my counselor. My husband at some point in his mind starting compiling a list of all my transgressions (I made him feel bad about himself, I put myself on a pedestal, I spent all of our money, I've made him unhappy for the 15 years of our marriage)... He used this as a justification for surfing the web and finding a woman who I guess would carry on an affair with a married man who had a wife and kids waiting at home for him. I haven't asked many details about exactly how this all transpired. I do not want to know all the gory details. I go insane enough when I let myself wander in that direction. I don't need more information to feed the flames. A year and a half of carrying on an affair and then finally saying "Life is too short to be unhappy" (a direct quote) and telling your wife that you want a divorce. No thought given to the repercussions of how this would affect everybody else. Me, the spouse, who wasn't really happy in the marriage but certainly wasn't expecting to have this bomb explode in my life. No thought about the children who might one day find out that Daddy did the same hurtful thing to Mommy that grandpa did. Obviously they are too young to hear about that now but years from now, will all the bitterness seep out? No thought about my husband's mother who rents the other side of the duplex my parents own. How awkward is that living arrangement now? No thought to my husband's career that could be shattered if infidelity is discovered. The military apparently doesn't like adultery although the odds are slim that he would actually lose his position... but to even risk it? Unfathomable.

The only way I can explain this to myself and be able to look the father of my children in his eyes and not hate him is to think that he has lost him mind. Mid-life crisis, PTSD, depression? I have no idea but there is no other answer to what he has done. I take responsibility for my part in some of the unhappiness in my marriage. Recently my husband said that I just consider him an inconvenience in my life. There was a ring of truth to that. But was he an inconvenience because I was subconsciously aware that he was cheating on me and it was self-defence? Or did I actually consider him an inconvenience and just wanted him to go away? I'll struggle with the guilt of this for a while. Maybe it was self-fulfilling and every time I let myself wish that I wasn't married, I was pushing him into doing the most heinous thing that one spouse can do to another. I will accept the partial blame of an unhappy marriage but I will not accept the blame of pushing him into an affair. You don't force your mate to do that, that's a choice they make on their own. They might rationalize it in their heads as my husband is doing but there is no excuse.

So now I'm left to try to figure things out. We haven't told our kids yet about this. My husband is still living in our house, probably for another month. We will probably have to sell our house because we can't financially afford two households. Some moments I'm so angry at my husband that I could scream at him and say horrible, painful things to him. (Although I don't think he'd react much, he doesn't seem to care what I think at this point.) Other times I look at him and pity him for the crap that he has brought down on all of us. That's a heavy load to carry. But I really believe that he's so messed up in his own head right now that he won't even be affected by that burden of guilt at this point. Maybe he never will. Maybe he'll always blame me for being the unsupportive wife who doesn't understand him and I drive him to do whatever he did.

At this point I'm left with my own doubts about what kind of a person am I? Do I believe the awful things he's saying about me? Some of them unfortunately ring true and I must reflect on those? How do I move forward with co-parenting with this person that I don't even know anymore? I know I need to hide all of this from the kids. He's their father and he always will be. And in my weaker moments, I still want him included in our family. I even am planning a family outing next week (hopefully after we tell the kids about the impending divorce) so that the kids will see that Mommy and Daddy are still a team in parenting and that we both still love them very much. Isn't that the practical, rational thing to do after all? Tamp down all the heartache for your children and let them love their father since he's the only one that they'll ever have? I'd like to think that I've handled this whole thing calmly and without reproach so far. I didn't fly off the handle and attack him or his girlfriend. I didn't send a message to all of his friends saying that he's a liar and a cheat. I didn't inform his boss that he's destroyed our family by his thoughtless actions. Did I refrain from doing this because I am the better person? Or did I refrain from doing it because I know that I share at least some of the blame in not working very hard at cherishing my husband?