So, you find out your husband has cheated on you with a mother at your child’s $24,000 a year preschool. Do you still go on the mini vacation, that you’ve already paid for and planned months ago?
I’ve given up every luxury so my first born can go to $24,000 preschool…so maybe taking this mini vacation – a first one in a long time – up the coast, is just what I deserve.
After all, had I not scrounged and deprived myself of the extraneous luxuries that people buy – like vacations, clothes, shoes, dinners out, movies in an actual movie theaters rather than watching them home alone on my couch, jewelry, etc – maybe husband would not have met and slept with another mother at said $24,000 a year preschool and made our 11-year marriage a mockery, altering our daughter’s safe and secure life in the process.
I decide we need to go on the vacation.
Getting out of Los Angeles and changing our scenery will be a good opportunity to continue “working on us” in the relaxed environment of hanging out with our friends by the beach. I convince myself, I mean, what better way to reconnect with each other?
Before we leave for this come hell or high-water I-am-going-on-vacation-with-my-cheating-husband-and-enjoy-it trip, I decide I need to tell my girlfriend, who we are vacationing with, what is going on, and the status of my long term marriage…not good.
Understandably she is shocked and like me, didn’t think my husband was capable of the deceit that goes hand in hand with having an affair. I feel bad for putting her in the awkward situation of going on vacation with people who are clearly in crisis. However, we’ve been friends since high school. She understands and promises she will keep what I’ve told her between us.
So now, we are going to live by the beach for a week, in a beautiful peaceful bungalow by the sea with my girlfriend, her husband and new baby, and with, as it turns out, utter stress, dishonesty and underhandedness.
AHHHH this should be interesting.
It turns out to be a nightmare.
My husband is still in the throes of a midlife crisis and despite his declarations to work on us, and his promises of ceasing all communication with this woman, he just can’t help himself. He is like a little kid with his hands in the cookie jar and he can’t quite seem to pull them out. He wants both; keeping his family intact, AND the hero worship from a 30-year-old woman-child.
My husband spends our entire family vacation looking at Facebook and YouTube, getting high, sneaking off – to make phone calls – jogging to maintain his new slim physique (a man who has not run in…ever), screaming naked on the beach and making a total sham of our lives.
In the process, he ensures the little respect I still have for him is destroyed along the way.
He actually thinks I am oblivious to the fact that he is talking to woman-child. At first, I don’t say anything to him about his subterfuge, hoping he makes the right choice.
I helplessly watch him implode on the side lines of our lives. I choose to spend all my time and energy playing with and taking care of our five-year-old daughter.
On our daily walks on the beach with my friend, and our children, we discuss the antics of my husband and how transparent his deceitfulness is. My friend’s rage toward him is building as the days of our vacation slowly drag by. During one walk she asks, clearly frustrated, “What kind of a father takes a run on the beach after you’ve been the one taking care of his child the entire vacation while he is on his computer looking at YouTube videos!?!”
As her anger builds she says, “He is being an arrogant ass…you need to put a stop to it.”
But what can I do? You can’t force someone to do something they don’t want to do. You can’t talk them into or out of love. You can’t make them stay – when they clearly want to go.
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