And we're still living together...

My marriage is over.

My husband is an adulterous swine jerk asshole man. He has a girlfriend, even though we’re married.

He spent a night in a hotel room with her, despite the pain that it caused me. He is openly cheating on me.

And we’re still living together.

I’m in school, and I made the decision to leave him the day after classes started, when I found yet another email between the two of them, talking about how in love they are. She calls herself “Mrs. Howell”. He calls her his “wife”. As for me, well, I guess they both like to pretend that I don’t exist.

On facebook, on my own blog, I’ve been very gracious. “We’re keeping things civil for the kids”, or “we won’t allow anyone to trash either of us, we’re united in raising out children” or “we’re going through a difficult time right now, but we will continue to be respectful to one another”; we’re acting like celebrities do when they divorce, and their PR people come out with these kinds of statements.

But here, where no one knows me, or him, I’ll be honest and to hell with him.

Every morning, I get up and get our kids ready for daycare. We have a 3 year old, and an 18 month old. He sleeps either on the couch or in the guest room in the basement, or occasionally in our king size bed (with a pillow-wall between us, no accidental touching here) if I’m not feeling well, so that he can get the kids. We take turns driving them to school. We switch cars so that one can drop them off and the other can pick them up. We still make dinner arrangements, and do children’s baths and story time together. He still washes, I still fold.

But now, instead of being held when I’m upset, I sleep alone. Now, instead of flirting and camaraderie, there’s a tension in the air. And now, instead of long talks between us, there are phone calls from the basement while I study, alone.

I’ll have my degree in December, hopefully, and then he’ll move out and I’ll find a job. But for now, I can look at him, his things, and instead of feeling the love, the pride, that I’ve felt in the past (and that I’ve written about here before), I feel pain. Disappointment. Anguish. Hope. Failure.

I could take the substantial evidence that I have to his commander, push for UCMJ (adultery is illegal in the military, and you can be severely punished for it) action. But I won’t, and he knows it. I could blackmail him for alimony, for everything we have. But, again, I won’t. It’s not that I’m not tempted to take my revenge the only way I really am able, but I don’t see the point in ruining his life; he’s hurt me, but he hasn’t ruined mine. Besides, if I know anything about these things, he’ll ruin his own life eventually anyway.

He thinks that he and Girlfriend, as I like to call her, will be very happy together one day. Despite the fact that they can’t be open about their relationship, despite our marriage and her boyfriend, and despite the two children who will eventually have to be told about the effect the relationship had on Mommy, they think they’ll be happy together. But they won’t. Both of them will always wonder, “is s/he cheating again?”. The “new” will wear off, and all they’ll have left is whatever substance there is, which isn’t much.

I’ll be alone, but at least I’ll have my self respect. At least I can hold my head up high.

He can’t.

Elaina--Has bloged HERE, HERE, and HERE for us.

Meet the Blogger: Elaina

Shelle Edit: So Elaina was the winner of the contest we had about a month and a half ago.  Her prize was to be spot lighted here on the Real World!  I'm sure she was super excited! hehe.  Anyway, I wanted to say Elaina is one of the most well spoken bloggers I have come across.  She has very specific views on about everything and you can tell has educated herself to defend her position.  I love her comments here and am so glad we have the opportunity to point people to her blog.  Read a bit about her and then hop over to her site!  I don't think you'll regret it.


MEET THE BLOGGER

Name: Elaina

Age: 24

Kids #, age, sex: Abigail is almost 3, and Holton (a boy, if it wasn’t obvious) is 1

Maritial status: Married

1. How many years in your current relationship: 6.5 years, and our 5th wedding anniversary is next month

2. Have you ever been divorced?: Nope

3. What do you do for work: I'm a SAHM, so I pretty much sit around and eat bons bons, and let my kids watch lots of TV and jump on their beds.

4. Education: I'm taking part-time classes this fall, and starting full-time in the spring(guess the bon bon days will be over!). I hope to have my BSN (bachelor of science in nursing) within 2 years

5. Blogs you contribute to: pretty much just this one, and my own.

main blog: Monologue - the title is inspired by a Margaret Millar quote: "Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses."


6. Religion: Agnostic

7. Political affiliation: (republican, democrat, libertarian): If pressed on a candidate, I'm likely to vote Democrat.

8. Basic philosophical leaning: (liberal, conservative, confused): Pretty moderate, actually. I'm socially liberal but fiscally conservative.

9. What is your motto in life?: I have two: "Live and let live", and "Be who you want your children to become"

10. Who has had the most influence in your life?: I would love to write something inspirational here, but I think I'm pretty much self-made. I'm far more likely to turn inward in times of crisis than I am to reach out.

11. Why did you start Blogging? (100 words or less): I actually started blogging early this year, after a visit with some family. I realized how different I am from them all, and I started to wonder why. I've used my blog to explore myself, I guess. Now, I’m so happy that I did, because I’ve learned so much about myself, and I’ve made a few really good friends in the blogosphere that I never would have known otherwise.

*What is the most favorite post you have written on any blog you contribute to?: This one, about why I miss being a Christian: http://loveyhowell.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/why-i-miss-being-a-christian/ , and this one, about growing up in an unhappy home: http://loveyhowell.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/ranburne/

12. Tell us in 100 words about your current relationship: I’ve written a little about it here, but I’m an Army Spouse of 4 years. My husband and I met right after I graduated high school, and we got married the following November. We had a miscarriage in our first year of marriage, and have two children; we don’t plan to have any more. We’ve done one 15 month deployment, and in almost 5 years of marriage, we’ve spent 27 months apart. Still, we make it work, and aside from a few rough patches here and there, we’re pretty happy. He’s a good guy, and I think we’re lucky to have one another.

13. BONUS or OPTIONAL: Tell us something we need to know about you that we haven't covered above. 50 words or less: I grew up in an emotionally abusive home, and ran away from home at 16, with my 4 year old brother. We moved into my aunt’s house, and it was, hands down, the best decision I’ve ever made. I wish I still had that kind of strength, but I think I’ve lost it.

To Get Along or NOT to get Along? In laws...

I get along pretty well with my in-laws. My husband parents are divorced, and both are remarried. My husband has three older sisters, and while I’m not particularly close with any of them, we also get along pretty well. My mother-in-law and I are pretty close. We talk on the phone at least once a week, normally, and even though we disagree on politics and religion, we have a friendly relationship. It hasn’t always been that way, though.

When my husband and I started dating, his mother made it no secret that she wasn’t that fond of me. I, being a polite young Southern girl, was always polite to her, but she made me feel very uncomfortable, to say the least. He was her baby, and her only boy out of four children. I was not invited to the family Christmas party at his mother’s house the year we were engaged, even though we were, you know, engaged, where in contrast, my husband has always been welcome at my family events, even when we’d only been dating a few weeks. My mother had always been benignly mistreated by my father’s parents, and figured that as long as I was happy with him, she’d make sure he felt welcome.

My husband joined the Army in the first year of our marriage, and shipped out 7 months after the wedding. On the last day before he left, I took him to the recruiter’s office, where his dad met up with us. I’ve always felt close to his dad, maybe because I don’t have one of my own, but he and his wife have always made me feel like part of the family. I even lived with them for a while when I came home, pregnant, during my husband’s deployment. Anyway, my husband was sent to a hotel in Atlanta, right outside the airport, because he’d be flying out in the morning. After he checked in, he was given permission to leave the hotel, as long as a civilian signed him out. Well, of course, he’d forgotten his glasses so I drove to the hotel to take them to him.

While I was there, his mother called. He told her that he was free to go out for dinner, so she said she’d come up. He told her that I was there, and I heard her say that she just wanted it to be them, and our niece that was visiting his mom. I lost it. I sat in my car and cried like a baby. My husband half-heartedly offered to call her and insist that I come along (he’s never been good about standing up to his parents), but by that point my face was red and splotchy, I was angry with both of them, and I’d used my sleeves as Kleenex (gross, I know). The last time I saw my husband before he shipped out was with a tear-stained face, and a heavy heart; my mother-in-law obviously didn’t want me around, and apparently keeping the peace was more important to my husband than standing up for me.

When my husband graduated AIT (advanced individual training), my sister and I drove to Missouri for his graduation. His mom flew into St. Louis, and we picked her up from the airport. It was a 2 hour drive back to Fort Leonard Wood, and it actually wasn’t half bad. It was one of the first times we’d been together without my husband as a buffer. We went to these caves that were on the way and took a tour, and she stayed in our hotel room to save a little money. It was a little awkward, especially for my sister, to have to share a hotel room with her, but we made it work. We all drove back to Georgia together; me, my husband, his mother, and my sister, plus all his Army gear, in a Plymouth Neon. Still, it was far too soon to say that were close, or that we even liked one another.

I know plenty of people don’t get along with their in-laws, even after years or decades of having a spouse/child in common. For us, we didn’t really start getting along until my daughter was born. I guess she figured out that at this point, even if I divorced her son tomorrow, we were always going to be a part of each others’ lives. For me, well, I learned to ignore the sometimes hurtful comments, and eventually they ceased. I started to appreciate the woman who obviously adored my daughter, who sent care packages to the baby and me in Germany as often as she sent them to her son in Afghanistan. I started to really enjoy our chats, and even look forward to the phone calls I’d make to her.

I’m sure to her, I was just someone who was trying to take her son away, and the thing is, it was true. Because I was uncomfortable around his mother, we both avoided her, for the most part. When we did have to spend time with her, we made our excuses quickly, because he knew how awkward it was for me. As I became more comfortable spending time with her, it became easier for him to spend time with her. Now, well, we still disagree about politics and religion, but we don’t really talk about it. We do, however, agree that we both love her son, and the children that her son and I have produced, and that gave us some excellent building blocks to build a relationship that was just ours.

Do you have problems with your in-laws, or have you overcome what was once a problem relationship with them? Are there some relationships that just can’t be saved?

Elaina- She has also guest posted for us HERE.

My husband has a seedy mistress

Shelle Edit: Elaina is new to me.  I met her while she was debating with Sage and Gucci Mama over at Gucci Mama's place-she was the liberal amongst the conservatives.  The thing I DO remember about her was that she knew her politics, and she was well written, and spoke her points well.   So I was very excited when she wrote this post for us.  Go Check out her personal blog if you like what she says here.  Thanks Elaina!

My husband is my one and only. He’s the only man I’ve ever loved, and I trusted our love enough to marry him one month shy of my 20th birthday, for no real reason, translation: (I wasn’t pregnant).

But I am not his one and only.

No, there is a seedy mistress that lurks in our lives, waiting to take him away from me and our children, and her name is…Uncle Sam. My husband and I had been married 6 months when he came home from work one night and said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about joining the Army.” This completely blew my mind. I had, at one point in my life, dreamed of being an Army nurse (I have all 11 seasons of M*A*S*H on DVD, but I’m sure it’s not related), but I have asthma and didn’t qualify. I had given up on my dream, married a man I loved, and was working a full time job and going to school. I had had a miscarriage the month before, and was still in shock; my world had come together and fallen apart, all in 6 months, and now, now, he’s telling me that he wants to join the Army? I said the only thing I could think of: “You do know we’re in two wars right now, right?” However, it was something that he really wanted to do. We were broke, as in “hey, do you think we can make a casserole out of elbow macaroni and cheerios?” broke. I was working full time, then driving from Atlanta to my college in West Georgia an hour and a half west of Atlanta for class, and then back to our apartment somewhere in the middle. I was exhausted, and my car needed new spark plugs. But that’s not why he enlisted. He enlisted because he wanted to serve, and yes, because he wanted a better life for us.

Our pregnancy was scary. We had been married only 3 months when we found out. We had been using birth control, but we were thrilled; you’ve never seen two people happier. We didn’t know how we’d manage, but we knew we’d get by. He took off work to go to every doctor’s appointment with me, and he was there when the doctor told us our baby was dead. I miscarried on the Sunday after Easter, in 2006. We knew right away that we wanted to try again, but we also knew it would be completely  irresponsible; an accident was one thing, but purposely bringing a baby into our macaroni-and-cheerio-casserole situation just was not a good idea. So, we painfully decided to wait.

In May, the night he came home with this “wonderful” news, I could have strangled him. I mean, couldn’t he see that I was grieving our baby, and now he wanted to take himself away from me, too? It was too much to handle. The next morning, I called into work and we went to talk to a recruiter. That July he left for basic training. The Army has been good to us. We paid off all our debt, and acquired some shiny new debt. We bought a new car (by the way, my old car got its new spark plugs, and a new owner). We visited Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, and tons of other places. I’ve had Dunkin Donuts a few blocks from the Brandenburg Gate, and I’ve had smoked beer at Oktoberfest (it was awful). I learned how to be independent, which was a good thing for me. I went from my living with my aunt to living with my husband, but I had never been alone.

In my first year as an Army Wife, I moved to a foreign country, I got pregnant again, and I sent my husband off to war. That day was the hardest day of my life. There are no words to describe the despair that you feel when someone you love goes off to war, no way to explain what it’s like to know that this may be the last time that you see him. To wonder if death will come for him, and to wonder if he’ll die in his buddy’s arms while you're a world away, safe and warm. It’s morbid and depressing, but we all do it.

When he was deployed, we talked as much as we could, but it was like being married to a phone. I never went anywhere without my phone. When I showered, I took it to the bathroom. When I had a doctor’s appointment, I didn’t put it on silent. When I slept, it was beside my pillow. But how can a marriage survive if all you have to hold is a phone? He came home, 15 months later, to a daughter who didn’t know him, and a wife who had forgotten many things. When he moved in the night, I woke up, startled, because someone was in bed with me. He re-arranged the furniture, and I put it right back. He made dinner and put the pots in the wrong places. Everything that kept me sane when he was gone went out the window when he came back. During his absence, every minute detail became important to me. I had no control over my husband’s safety, but I did have control over where the salt and pepper shakers went.

Even worse than the absence, though, is when he’s here and yet he’s gone anyway. Last year, I spent 10 days with my husband in a 4 month period. He was not deployed, but rather he was assigned to help other units getting ready for a deployment with their training. I never know when he’ll be called into work, either for a few minutes or a few weeks.

The worst part, though, is knowing that I come second. If it’s my birthday, the Army doesn’t care. If he was a lawyer, he could tell his boss that he wouldn’t be in. If he was a teacher, he could take the day off. But there is no saying no to the Army. If they want him there, he’ll be there or there’ll be hell to pay. How do I cope? Well, I reassure myself that he loves what he does, that he loves me, and that it is possible for him to love both of us. The Army is something that he is a part of, so I make it important to me. I bake cookies for single soldiers, I’m active in family readiness groups, and I know almost as much of the lingo as he does. It used to other me that the Army sometimes had to come first, but I know that I’m first in his heart, and that’s where it matters the most.

Does anyone else know what it's like to be the second priority of your spouse? Why, and how do you deal with it?

Elaina