Moment of Truth - Chapter 6

I remember around the winter holidays, I got gravely ill. My ex did not like it when I was sick. He left me in the bed and took the kids out to see the lights. While he was gone, I got even sicker, ended up on the floor in our den. I called 911. When they arrived, they said I had no pulse. My ex and kids then arrived. He took me to the emergency room asking me the whole time, "what did you take"?. I hadn't taken anything. They admitted me. That night, a lady was brought into my room. It was on my birthday. The woman died. I laid there beside the dead lady for a very long time. I was diagnosed with some kind of intestinal infection. It took me weeks to get well. I actually had thoughts of wondering if he was putting something in my food to make me sick.

It is now 2002. The summer. My ex has invited Bob over. I thought he was gorgeous when I first laid eyes on him. My ex suggested I fix him up with a girl I work with. I did. They were both invited to our house and we sat around the campfire. It didn't work out for either of them. Right before this, our friend, Fletcher had been killed in an airplane crash. My ex worked with Fletcher when he was working with Hootie and the Blowfish. Fletcher was always good to me but I knew not to talk openly about my ex with him. He was "controlled" by my ex. Bob continued to come over and hang out and go swimming. Sometimes my ex would leave when he was here to run errands. Bob and I became close. He was grieving from a lost love. I was just grieving, yet, he was putting the spark back into my life. I fell in love with him. The first man I ever loved. I was never unfaithful throughout my entire marriage. I told my ex that Bob was replacing Fletcher. He turned to me and said, "Bob is no Fletcher." I knew then not to talk well of Bob. I could not stop thinking about Bob. I would find excuses to go to the office just so I could see him.

Then, we had a superbowl party. My husband invited everything he worked with over to the house. I was so excited. I had a plan. I drank beginning at 3:00 a whole bottle of wine. Bob was sitting on the love seat and I sat beside him, trying to kiss him. Bob was laughing at me. My daughter went and told her father and her brother. They came in the rec room and sat down and asked me what I was doing. I told them that me and Bob were on a date. This was my way of trying to tell my husband I wanted out. I feared telling him. The next morning, it was passed off as me having too much to drink and my husband making a joke of it with my husband telling him if it happened again, he would be on Jerry Springer.

Then, me and Bob began emailing. We emailed daily getting to know one another. I still hadn't told Bob how badly my ex treated me. I would just say he was not a very nice person and not go into detail. For 20+ years, I protected my husband. I kept the secret. Anthony would protect Beth when the fights occurred. He would take her to another room and keep her pre-occupied.

After this episode with Bob, I would get my husband to go to hear Bob play. He was playing at It's All Good Cafe. My ex invited Bob and his roommate over one night. Me and Bob were in the living room alone and he suddenly kissed me. First time any man had kissed me like that in 20+ years. I melted. Bob is so kind and gentle. Exact opposite of my ex. My ex was continually putting me down in front of the other guys. He had invited them over to have a picking session but all my ex would play was Grateful Dead. I turned it off. My ex said, "you suck". He turned it back on and he said, "oh that's right, you don't".

One night before we were getting ready to go hear Bob play, I overheard my husband talking on the phone to Bob's roommate. He was saying it was embarrassing how his wife is all over Bob. In the meantime, my husband was constantly pretending to be great friends of Bob's, yet telling me all kinds of bad things about him. He told me Bob was just a wanna be drummer and he told Bob's boss, the owner of the company, the same thing. He told me he told Bob's boss that Bob wasn't doing a good job and that he also was doing cocaine. He told me he wanted Bob's job.

I finally told my husband I wanted out. He told me I would lose everything. I would lose the house and the kids. It was terrible. This was in May. Finally, he calmed down. He went on the road in June. We decided we would sit down together and tell the kids. They were both in CA at this time visiting their grandparents. In the meantime, my husband has told his parents. He told them I was having an affair. My kids are picking up bits and pieces of this in CA. When they got home, my husband told the kids the same thing, that I was having an affair with Bob. He never came home after that. He told me he was staying at the office and living in his car. He wanted an amicable divorce. We had $30,000 in an annuity we had taken out for Anthony's college when Anthony was born. He told me when the check came, to let him know and we would split it. Me and Bob were still emailing. My husband is telling Bob that I want my husband back. My husband stops coming to the house when I am not here to visit our kids. He said it's too painful. Later, Anthony told me his dad told him when the check came, to give it to him because it was his money. When the check did arrive, I took it to the bank and opened up a savings account and placed it in that account. I was sticking to our agreement, we would split it, but it would be through the courts, not his word.

He has an attorney, I don't yet. He is telling me that he will pay $300 a month child support. That he needed to buy a house and have a place for our kids to come visit him. He still isn't aware that Bob and I are emailing. Now he is telling me that he can't see the kids on weekend because he has to work. Bob tells me he is not scheduled to work. My kids are caught up terribly in the middle of this. I feared he would take the kids from me, yet, in turn, he didn't want them.

Before this, the summer of 2002 when my ex got the job at the sound company, he began going to the doctor. First he told me they thought it was lyme disease. Backing up, when he worked for the band from my hometown when we first met, they told me he told them he had hodgen's disease. That was how he got out of doing heavy lifting and loading of the truck. Then it became MS. Multiple sclerosis. His parents came to visit that christmas holiday, right after I had kissed Bob. He put down Bob to his parents. I had a bone intensity test that day. He didn't go to work because he wanted to stay home with his parents. The owner of the sound company, called and left a message wanting to know where he was. They didn't answer. He called back after I got home and I picked up the phone. My husband had me tell him that he was having tests done that day. I described what was done to me to him. I quit lying for him that day. He began telling his boss that he has MS. During the divorce, I had to take Anthony to the doctor, who was also his father's doctor. Anthony told the doctor that his father said he had MS. He asked the doctor if that were true. The doctor replied, "If it's not a life threatening illness, I cannot discuss with family members". To this day, he still implies he has MS.