throw one's own body into the 100,000 universes

While having a good cry on the treadmill last night, I read some of Shynryu Suzuki's lectures from Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen. One lecture talked about a man who had finally reached the top of a 100-foot pole, but who would not attain enlightment unless he jumped off. It went on to talk about how silly it is to think that you could jump off from there, because everything is what it is, and everything is always changing, and that to reach "the top" of something is no different than any other place, except that it's a different place. I think my relationship was like that 100 foot pole for me. I felt I'd reached the top. Even with the ups and downs resulting from the day to day challenges and upsets with each other(and I thought we had relatively few of those, and those we had felt small and easily resolved - except for the issues of Husband's self-expression and my not doing what I said I was going to do (and his not doing what he said he was going to do for that matter) -it was perfect for me. But in reality, everything is constantly changing, each moment is new. So the place I find myself at now, while it feels so very different, isn't inferior to the top of the pole. It's just a different place with different lessons and different experiences to be had. That feels true, and so rational. But there is still pain. Still attachment to what I wish were true. Attachment to being special. Attachment to unbreached trust. Attachment to that which I feel I can never get back. At the same time I know that attachment is the cause of my suffering. But I don't know how to love intensely and not be attached. To me, that sounds like loving and not being hurt, but how can you love deeply and intensely without being vulnerable enough to be hurt?

Anyway, this different perspective has eased some of the pain I was feeling yesterday. Talked with Husband about my feeling that what he has done to me is far worse than what I did to him. I have a need to know that he understands the depth of the pain I feel, the loss, the shift in the entire context in which I lived my life. I didn't mean to get into that discussion outside of therapy, but it came up because I was asking him if he'd thought very much about what I must be feeling knowing that he'd touched and caressed and kissed so many other women, and looked into their eyes and thought how beautiful they were. I was trying to get a sense of whether or not he understands my day to day experience right now. He tried to explain that, while he has no idea how he feels (although he seems to feel that he wouldn't be as wounded as I if our positions were reversed) he knows he's hurt me deeply and that it will take time, maybe a lot of time, before I can trust him again.

I also have a need to hear everything he's been angry with me for so that I can really hear it, and he can really know that he's been heard, and I can really know I've been forgiven. He's kept so much from me and held so much resentment that I don't think I can believe I've been forgiven unless we acknowledge together the pain we've caused each other. But he doesn't want to talk about his feelings from the past right now, because he thinks the context is so poor due to what he did. He thinks I need to heal some first before we can be at a place where I can truly hear him. And he thinks that what I'll hear is much less significant that I fear it will be. I hope that's the case.

I've had so very few regrets in my life: Missing my friend's wedding is one of the only things I can think of. But now I add to that list the years of taking Husband for granted such that he felt deeply hurt, unheard and unimportant to me. The years of not showing him how happy I was in our relationship, but instead being distracted by work and other things that made me dissatisfied with my life. I wish he could have had the 19 years that I had of feeling so safe and "gotten" and free and empowered in the presence of my love. That's what I got from him. But this is my second chance. How wonderful that I have that. And how wonderful that he can have a second chance, too. This is a gift we can give each other to make our relationship stronger. Breathe...

Breathe...

To my husband

Today, 11:15am

I realized today that I have some expectations that I wanted to let you know about, and we can discuss them.

My heart is broken and I hold you responsible. You are the person who wounded me. Just as if you had stuck a sword in me. Not a day goes by without my heart aching. Some days it's momentary, some days it lasts from waking to sleeping. My wounded heart feels loved - by my close friends, my son, and I hear you offering that love as well. But it is still broken. A loved and broken heart, like a loved and wounded soldier on a battle field. I am loved, but I am far from healed.

My trust and faith in what you say are gone. I believe in you as a person, but your word does not comfort me. If anything it scares me, because of the power it had and the result of that. I want to believe everything you say, but my body resists that. The physical certainty, the knowledge in my body that I can trust you that gradually developed over the past 19 years is no longer there. It's like an old tree that has been cut down. I think the roots are still there, and it won't take 19 years to create that relationship again, but the thick trunk and boughs, with the things we carved into the bark over the years that became a part of the plant, and the full canopy of big beautiful leaves are all gone. I want to grow this tree back, but I think this will take time, time, time.

All of this leads me to the expectations I referred to above.

I've realized that one of the things I miss now is the feeling that I'm special. This began before June 1st, and I talked with you about it before. Mostly I was left feeling that it was imagined and that maybe I was too needy. But now I understand were my feelings were coming from, and because of what I now know, this loss of specialness has been reinforced. The special physical intimacy I shared only with you, the special level of trust and lack of need for boundries I shared only with you, the feeling that you had a special love, regard and respect for me - all of that has been damaged. I don't feel special. While you didn't mean to do this, I am left feeling, as I described last night, like part of a menu of women at times, or at other times disparing that the years of love and trust and everything we've shared has resulted in almost the deepest possible betrayal I can imagine.

I think it falls to you to create this for me again if that is to be present in our relationship. I am not going to make requests, or tell you how or what to do. In my mind it falls to you to figure all of that out. And I need to be reminded every day, forever, how special I am to you if that is the case. It may be as simple as a gesture, a touch. But that feeling is something I want to give and to get out of my relationship with my partner. I may forget that I want this, and I expect you to help me remember in the way you treat me, in the things you do for me, in the choices you make, on a daily basis. It is my expectation that if you are truly interested in creating a deep, lifelong relationship with me based on love, respect, honesty, partnership and trust, that you will do this.

I also think it falls to you to help me feel secure again about your love for me. You are doing this, and I want you to know that it makes a huge difference for me. And it's my expectation that you'll continue to look for ways to show me how much you love me for the rest of our time together. Even when I'm scared and can't easily show you that I believe you, or give you the response that you might reasonably expect from your words and gestures. Intellectually I don't doubt that your love for me was ever in question, but I have a great fear that it is, and that eventually my fear of being not enough will be realized. Your actions, while not intended to convey that, have reinforced my fear that what I have to offer is not enough (not kind enough, understanding enough, thin enough, pretty enough, selfless enough.) I know that's not rational, but I'm going to allow myself that inconsistency for now. And a part of me understands, as I told you, that there are important things I'll never be able to provide you - the things that you must provide for yourself. And that is okay. But the "irrational" part of me is still scared of having my suspected deficency confirmed and used as a reason to leave me. I'm afraid that I can't make you happy and that you'll leave - either physically or emotionally. Because you left me emotionally when you made the choices you did. I don't think you meant to - I don't think you had any choice.

So those are my expectations. I put them out for discussion. They are what is there for me now, but I'm also open to creating expectations together. And I want to know your expectations. You have a right to expectations as well, and I want to know what they are so I can see if they work for me. I imagine they will. I want so much to be in a happy loving relationship with you where I provide you with a big open space to be fully the magnificent, flawed, vulnerable person I know you are, where you feel unconditionally loved and supported by someone who loves and respects herself, a relationship that is source for you as our relationship has always been for me.

No matter what, I love you.

Today, 11:40am

One very important thing I forgot to say explicitly: I am responsible too. Responsible for myself, and responsible for being someone who can earn your trust and love. That is as important to me as everything else.

From Husband, today, 11:45am

Dearest,

I am touched by your honesty and vulnerability and I want to thank you for telling me about these expectations. I actually have heard you say that you want me find ways to communicate how precious and special you are to me and that has been on my mind because I want to do that and I will.

I have more to say on this but I have to go to a meeting. I didn’t want to not respond though.

I love you

One relationship, two completely different experiences

I have so many things swirling around in my head, and I know I can't get it all captured here because I'm very confused and it's like being in a ticker tape parade and trying to make whole documents out of all the pieces flying around. But I have to try, otherwise I'm going to just sweep it all under the carpet.

Husband and I had a very difficult conversation last night. We were talking about our experiences of our relationship, and it struck me again how different they were. I was deeply happy, fulfilled and joyful in my relationship. Not deluded, in the sense that I had no illusion that everything was perfect, but any complaints I had seemed minor when compared to how wonderful my huband was, how kind, gentle, smart, funny, loving, an incredible partner and father, an outstanding human being. He was also self-righteous at times, nasty, and disdainful, but mostly to other people for most of our relationship. Only over the past 5 years or so have I felt it directed at me. And I often asked him about it, but he told me nothing was different.

He told me that my experience was so wonderful because he "walked on eggshells" around me. From his perspective, I was mostly unhappy, "always frustrated, pissed off and distracted," and highly critical of him.

I have no doubt that I was all of these things, especially where he was concerned. If you asked everyone who knows me, I truly believe that 99.5% of them would say I'm one of the happiest, nicest people they know. People tell me all the time how I brighten their day. The half percent who think I'm nasty, self-righteous, critical, and angry are my mom and my husband. Bizarre, considering they are two of the most vital and important relationships in my life. But I have no doubt that they get this from me.

What I find so hard to comprehend is that husband's experience of me was so much of the bad and little of the good I felt. He had no idea, I think, of the depth of my love, admiration, respect and appreciation of him. When I told him how I was often filled with gratitude and wonder at the life I had, he said he was kind of pissed off because I always seemed so frustrated and unhappy. He said that I was frustrated with him, my son and my mother and took it out on them. That I was frustrated with my job and took it out on them. That I would either be working, or wishing I was working. And I think he felt that nothing was ever up to whatever standard I established. I know he was particularly annoyed when I asked him to do things like pick up his clothes, be more thorough about something, take a shower before coming to bed. But I also thought I was being loving, supportive, tender, and appreciative. We've always been a very physically demonstrative couple - kisses, caresses, hugs every day. We told each other that we loved each other every day. And I thought I expressed my appreciation, admiration and respect. But somehow I was mostly negative and dark and didn't convey much of what I was actually feeling. I really didn't know this. It's very confusing and painful to think that he didn't know all those things I felt, and that I didn't know I wasn't communicating them.

I KNOW I was distracted a lot. I started working for a major media company about 2 weeks after my son was born. Working from home was good because I could be with my son, but I also had trouble putting work away and often worked long hours and often odd with international colleagues. That went on for 3 1/2 years. Then I took 5 months off to do creative things. Husband had encouraged me to do this, so I think it was not a problem for him, although I think it went on a couple months longer than it should have given our financial situation, and my lack of responsibility for that made him resentful. Then I went to work at the place I am now. My first project there was huge and consuming, a trial by fire. Ten to 12 hours a day away from the family was not uncommon for the first 3 months. After that I started to manage it better. Now I keep it at 40 hours. But he still feels like I'd rather be on the computer when I'm home. I've been trying to focus on my family, but obviously I havne't been as successful as I thought. And I've realized over the past 3 weeks, mostly from the reading I've been doing, that the feelings I get when I hear any kind of criticism are feelings of rejection and shame. I haven't heard criticism any other way up til now. I feel ashamed for letting someone down or not meeting their expectations, and rejected because my shortcomings must render me unworthy of whatever relationship I had. This translates into husband not being able to express his upset. And when combined with his way of being, "other people can't handle the truth, can't handle what I have to say, so I won't say what I think or how I feel, I'll handle it myself," that leaves him only able to express his anger and frustration when he hits some breaking point, creates a very threatening situation for me in wich I think I must go into survival mode and defend myself and become the person that my husband experiences.

I was thinking about what our lists would be like if we wrote out all our complaints about each other, and all of the ways in which the other has failed us. I belive my list would be pretty short, and husband's would be surprisingly long. That is a painful thought. It hurts to think he felt so hurt, disregarded and unappreciated by me.

I also think that once he decided I was unhappy, distracted, frustrated and pissed off, he listend for that. Right now I'm frustrated because I feel like, while his complaints are valid and justified, he's not taking any responsibility for who he was in the matter. I'm gripped with shame and sadness at the person I was being, and also angry with him for putting all the responsibity for his experience on me and, I think, using that to continute to feel somehow justified for what he did. He says he knows what he did was not justified by any of this. But the way he expresses himself about all of this makes me feel that he is justified somehow, because of the horrible person I've been. I know I've been thoughtless, careless, self-centered - but I haven't been so absolutely awful. Unless maybe I have, and I just don't realize it. But I look at how other people we know treat each other inside their relationships and I see our relationship so differently. So much more love, respect and care; so much more space and understanding. That's what I thought we had, but maybe I was only getting that and not giving it. I don't know.

There are so many things I want to say to my husband about this. I can't say them now because I really think he can't hear me right now. Last night we quickly escalated into an argument in which we were both frustrated, angry and in pain. We've never argued much (probably both avoiding things, although it didn't feel that way at the time). So I'm going to say some of it here, so that maybe later he can read and begin to see me in a more forgiving light. I know I'm far from perfect. But I want to be forgiven.

So here is my letter to my husband:

My dear,
I am truly, deeply sorry for how I've been. I know I spent years distracted by work. It must have felt like work was more important to me than you were. I'm sorry for that. I know that I get frustrated by work, by the fact that I often feel I want something different for my profesisonal life. I complain about that. I probably complain a lot to you about a lot of things. This feels like talking to me, but I don't think it feels that way to you. I'm sorry for being so self-involved that I didn't notice how my complaints impacted you. I'm sorry for being short tempered, quick to get pissed off about petty things like clothes on the floor or things not done the way I would have done them. And I'm deeply sorry for making you feel threatened in our relationship when I told you early on that I wanted you to know that I didn't need you and could walk away at any time; and later implying that if you ever talked to me a certain way again I'd walk away; and for kicking you out of our bed when you were trying to express your anger and frustration at my lack of personal integrity (for example, not making a phone call that I said I'd make to arrange time with friends, not doing what I said I'd do with my responsibities in our start-up business, not promoting your film the way you thought I should have, not doing a great job producing the film.) On numerous occasions I have failed you and let you down. I'm sorry, and especially sorry since I can say that I never felt you had failed me or let me down. I felt deeply hurt sometimes, when your built up anger spilled out and you said nasty things or spoke in nasty tones. But I know now that a lot of that hurt came from the fact that I was responding to the issues you were brining up as rejection of me, and I responded only to my feelings about that perceived rejection, and not to any of your issues or feelings. I am sorry for not hearing your frustrations, your disappointment and your pain. I know I did that. I know I disregarded those things. And that cause you further pain and frustration. I am so sorry for that. In my heart I believed you got from me what I was getting from you - a profound freedom to be, deep joy, and understanding on a level that I can't put into words. I want those things for you. I'm sad and very sorry that over all these years I have not provided them. Another way in which I let you down.

Please also consider that your experience of me is also a function of how you listen for me. Consider that you decided, based upon who I acknowledge I was being, that I was unreasonable, critical, pissed off, frustrated and distracted; and that everything I then said or did was either proof of that or an exception to that. Please consider that you had your own filters through which you listend for me that may have been a part of creating your experience. I can't believe I was so horrible. I see now that I was horrible enough. But please find it in your heart to accept some responsibilty because I think only then will we achieve the level of authenticity and intimacy that I think is possible. I am clear that I bear responsibility for not hearing you, not considering you, for taking out my frustrations and being petty and nasty. And I know that you chose to betray my trust and have sex with prostitutes because you felt unable to make a different choice, given who I was being and what your experience of life had been. I understand that you did not get to where you got alone. Please consider that the same is true for me. Please dig deep for true understanding, personal responsibility and forgiveness. That's what I'm trying to do. It's hard and painful, confusing, scary; I feel angry and resentful at times. But what I want is for both of us to have a relationship in which we have freedom to be, joy and love so profound it can't be expressed in language. I'm scared, I don't know how to have that happen, and I believe it's possible.

With all my love,
S.


In S-Anon last night we were reading the sixth step. Of course, at the time I couldn't think of any of my own, and I thought I could get husband to identify them for me since he seems pretty clear about them. But last night and today I've come to see them more clearly myself. At least some of them.

Character flaws:
Self-righteous
unable to see my own faults
Mean and nasty when I'm frustrated or pissed off
Maybe demanding and critical, although I don't feel that way
Don't do what I say I'm going to do
Don't give enough priority to my family

My first Alanon meeting and thoughts about trust

My therapist recommended I attend Alanon. I attended my first meeting tonight. It seemed a little weird to me. There is lots of jargon and ritual. Good thing I've been to the Landmark Forum, and can get past the fear of jargon (barely, though!) and look for the substance of what is there. I felt very reserved, and didn't say much. The group was warm and welcoming, and I was struck by how great it is that all these people from all different stages and walks of life agree to come together to create a judgement-free space in which they can help each other and help themselves heal. I'm still a bit wary (I'm always wary at the mention of God. I do better with jargon. But maybe if I think of the word God as simply Christian jargon, then I can get past it...)

When I was driving home, I was overtaken by feelings of sadness. Looking further, I realized I was lonely. I feel lonely because I no longer know if I really know my husband, and I no longer trust myself to know whether or not I really know him. And then I began to think about trust.

Tonight we discussed trust, and after he went to bed I wrote him this email:

trust [truhst] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation,
–noun
1. reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.

So yes, I am responsible for myself. But by definition, when I gave my trust I gave some of that responsibility to you. And I believe that you willingly accepted that responsibilty. And during these past 5 years you abandoned that responsibility, and because I trusted you with my whole being, it feels like you abandoned me. I think that is why I feel lonely. And it has called into question my whole understanding of trust and my capacity for trust and my capacity to know who is trustworthy. It has called into question some of my very important survival skills. I think that is why I feel scared. And because I doubt my ability to trust, I wonder if I'll ever be able to have the depth of what I had with you before ever again, with anybody. And I think that is why I feel sad. That and the fact that I miss my best friend, my soulmate (to use an unfortunate word) with whom I felt unquestionably safe and free and loved - whose very existence represented to me a vast space in which I had absolute freedom to be, in which I could fully experience being. That is what you provided for me, and what I wanted to give you. I understand now that you didn't experience that. If I had been a better listener, I might have heard that before now. And so we're back to listening, which is the responsibility to you that I abandoned. I will listen now. I hope you can learn to trust that I will listen, and that I can learn to trust that you will be honest.

I also wrote him this email:

When I was exercising tonight my mind wandered to the lingering feeling that if I'd had said yes to sex more, this wouldn't have happened. (I know I asked you about this already and you said you thought it would have happened anyway. And I also know that "not enough sex" is no justification for the breach of trust that you committed. But I'm still nagged by this feeling of responsibility.)

Landmark teaches us to look for where we are cause, and I continue to do so. And what I realized as I was exercising is that maybe what hurt you or angered you about "not enough sex" was not the sex part, but the part where you were not heard. And as I thought about it, I realized that when you asked to have sex I often listened to myself instead of listening to and for you. In my head I heard "doesn't he know I'm tired?" or "I wish he'd take a shower" or "he only showered because he wants sex tonight" or other equally petty or self oriented things. So you were right. You were not heard. So I've realized that, though I don't need to apologize for not having sex, I want to apologize for not hearing you. And as we continue to try to work through this, my commitment and my promise is that I will listen to you. I will hear you. I may not get it right all the time, but I will never stop trying to do a better job.

And this one:

(Would you mind getting the word LISTEN tattooed on your forehead? I
need all the support I can get.)

I had a lot to say.

The thing that remains on my mind now.

Just as an alcoholic isn’t an addict when he takes his first drink, husband was not a sex addict when he decided to cross the line between the fantasy of having sex with other women that most hetro men have, and the reality of betraying the deep trust I had in him to have sex with a prostitute. And then to break that trust everyday by coming home and kissing and touching and having sex with me and not confessing. (Did I ever kiss him when he had been kissing a prostitute earlier that day? Probably. Probably many times.) And when I asked him every day, “How was your day?” or “What did you do today” to lie to me and break that trust again.

When we got married I knew he had issues with food. But he didn’t make a vow to me about food. He made a vow to me to love me and treat me with respect, and that included holding my trust sacred. And he fed and nurtured and grew that trust, and then made the decision to discard everything that we had built together, knowing the impact of the loss of integrity. That is a question in my mind. Why did he do that? How could he have done that? Over and over again.? More and more frequently, spending more and more of our money? Those questions remain, reminding me that the person I want to trust is not the person who stands before me. He has left the building. The person I need to trust is someone I must get to know again. Yet at the same time, I feel love and compassion for this man who I have shared so much with, and continue to share so much with, and who I might be able to trust again.

To my husband

I always felt that I knew you with the certainty that I knwe the sun would rise. And your eyes were the source of truth for me. I knew I could always look there and find clarity.

So now there isn't a place to look for truth and clarity. I only have myself. Which is probably the only real truth anyway. Nothing is ever going to be what you think it is. That's why we're suppodpsed to
expect the unexpected. I think that's another truth maybe - you don't know what you think you know, so take responsibility for that and act accordingly.

I am sad. I hate this. I want to go back, but os course that's a futile exercise. So I just want this to be over. I want to be where we have begun to recreate love and trust and knowing each other.

The beginning of something else

I found out Friday night that my husband, with whom I've been in a loving, committed, once-in-a-lifetime relationship for almost 20 years, has been seeing prostitutes for at least the past 4 1/2 years, since our son was one and a half.I found something odd in his email about a month ago...an email from a sender called Affluent Concierge. I've known for years that my husband is an avid consumer of pornography, via both magazines and websites. When I first found this out maybe 10 years ago or so, I was disturbed and disgusted. I don't have brothers, so I don't have a lot of experience with guy stuff. It felt like something personal - like he was trying to get something more than I could offer, and that it was objectifying and demeaning for women. But we talked about it a lot, and I decided that an interest in pornography is entirely within the normal range of male sexuality, and that it wasn't about me as much as about fantasy and sexual stimulation. I decided that, while I wasn't thrilled, I would accept it. I've definitely looked at magazines, and after discovering my husband's interest, some movies. And they can be a turn-on. But I have never really understood, other than intellectually, the need to continue to buy new magazines and web access and see new movies. Most of it seems so fake to me - but I accepted it as normal male sexuality. And I understand being interested sexually in other people. Even Jimmy Carter had lust in his heart, right? So do I. But in my mind there was a definite line. Particularly as my husband has always been very open about the fact that he thought infidelity was stupid and irresponsible. He never set limits for me. He didn't have to - I'm a naturally monogamous person. He's only the 3rd man I've had sex with in my 43 years. The first two were also long-term relationships, one in high school and one in college. But whenever the subject came up he was always disapproving and said he couldn't understand it. And he's told me many times over the years that he'd never do that to me.My husband is a wonderful, funny, super-intelligent, creative man. I can't imagine anyone else more compatible with me in the world. He gets me. And I've shared myself with him without hesitation, without any shread of emotional protection for almost as long as I can remember. He's truly magnificent in ways that are most important to me. He's the love of my life. And with him I felt the freedom to be that only the strongest sense of trust and safety can create.So when I found this thing in his email, (he'd left his browser open and up on the screen of our shared computer.) I didn't read it. I don't even open mail addressed to him. I think it's important for people to have privacy, and I knew that he'd share anything with me that was important to share. But but I wanted to see what this site was, so I typed in the web address, and in the history as I was typing in the address, one of the things that came up was the appointment request form. I was stunned. I didn't know what to make of it. So I asked him that day if he was seeing call-girls. He looked shocked, and said "No!" I explained that I'd looked up this site that I saw in his email and that one of the things that had come up in the history was the appointment request form. He said that he just visited that site for pictures, nothing else. I think at the time he said, in reference to the call-girls, "I wouldn't do that."We're not great with money. We make a very good amount, and we always talk about the fact that our money seems to get spent, no matter how much more we make. Both of us are pretty generous by nature, my husband probably more so than me. He likes to pick up the check at group gatherings - that kind of thing. And he has never told me not to do something because of money. I've taken classes, gotten headshots (I'm an actor), had my own business for 5 years which never was profitable, he assumed co-responsibilty for my hefty grad school loans when we got married (by law), and never mentioned it. I came from a mentality of scarcity, and he taught me not to live that way. It's not about being irresponsible with money (which we are in practice) but about figuring out how to make life work so that you're happy. But it's a day to day process and we're still perfrecting it. So I was working on our finances, looking for where we could curb some spending, cut back on unnecessary things, funnel more into savings, when I saw charges on the bank statement that I wanted to investigate. I was pretty sure they were from Affluent Concierge, and I didn't realize that he was paying to see this site.

So I went back to his email account and looked at the Affluent Concierge emails again. This time I found emails that looked as though they were responding to requests from him for appointments. One of them said, "I hope you enjoyed your time with Angie,” and then went on to request that he not make appointments when he ad a cold so that the models wouldn’t get sick and/or pass colds on to other clients. Below that message was what appeared to be a message from Husband. In the From field was his email address. My heart was beating so fast. It seemed undeniable that something was going on.

So I told him what I found and asked him again if he was seeing call girls. “I didn’t to it, I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I don’t know how that got in there. It’s probably spam. I just look at the pictures. “If you did,” I asked, “would you tell me. I would want you to tell me.” “Yes I would. But I didn’t do anything. That’s gross...that’s just...yuk. Just thinking about it gives me the creeps.” He looked into my eyes, his beautiful clear green eyes full of love that I’d see almost everytime I looked into them for almost 2 decadess and said, “I would never do that to you. I would never do that to you I love you.”

Husband and I are both in the internet industry. I’m pretty familiar with how email and spam work. But he looked right at me and told me he hadn’t done anything. For almost 20 years he had been truthful and honest in almost a profound way. I felt I knew him as certainly as I knew the sun would rise the next day. And so I believed him.

But it continued to bother me, because what he was saying just didn’t fit logically with what I was seeing with my eyes. I knew there had to be some explanation so I looked again to see if I could find something that would explain his version of things. I realized that if what he was saying was true, there wouldn’t be anything in his Sent mail. So I looked. As I read the emails I found, reality started to warp. “Looking for a date.” “Looking to make an appointment today.” “Could you tell me who is available this weekend including Monday. I’m interested in Brienne. Thanks.” “I am in Los Angeles and I'd like to find out about making an appointment to see Christina. Please let me know what you need from me to make this happen.” Again, my heart was racing, and I was beginning to shake and sweat. I looked back at the responses in his In box. The most recent one said, “Hi, you are confirmed for ashley at 330pm,” and gave a hotel, address and phone number.

I asked him again about what I’d found. “You don’t believe me, do you? I make these appointments but I don’t go. It gets me all excited to have this appointment. The fantasy of it. But I make the appointment and then I wack off, and I don’t go.” The fact that I’d read about a 24 hour cancellation policy on Affluent Concierge danced across my thoughts, but it was so inconceivable to me that my husband would lie to me like this, so I ignored that detail. “Okay?” he asked expectantly. I couldn’t speak. I was wringing my hands nervously. Finally, “I don’t know what to say.” I couldn’t say Okay anymore. Something definitely felt wrong. I felt like my mind was playing some kind of trick on me. “Well I didn’t to anything wrong. I make these appointments. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

So I went back on the computer and continued to investigate. I looked at the phone bills, which confirmed that he had made calls from Culver City about the time his appointment was supposed to be there, including a 17 minute call with me when he must have been on his way to the appointment. Then I followed a link to a site called The Erotic Review. There I found his reviews about having sex with about 10 different women, starting in 2003. I unplugged the laptop, ran upstairs to the bedroom where he was sleeping and woke him. I showed him what I’d found and pleaded with him to explain. He continued to say over and over again that he hadn't done anything wrong. He said the reviews were just fantasy, not real. My head was reeling – confused, scared, reality feeling completely fluid. “But it’s a review site!” I said. “Why would you write fantasy reviews on a review site? That doesn’t make sense. Please you’ve got to tell me the truth. How can you deny that something is going on when you have mail in your sent box and reviews in your name about having sex with all these other women?” There was a long pause. I have no idea what was going through his mind. Finally he took a deep breath. “Okay I’ve done it a couple of times. Mostly I make the appointments and don’t go. I’ve just gone a couple of times.” I asked how many times, and about the expense, how much he thought he’d spent. Maybe 4 or 5 times, he said. He totaled it up in his mind “About $2000, no $1500.” Thinking of the phone records I’d seen I asked, do you go and then turn around? No. I wack off and then I don’t go. I looked at him, full of emotion that I could barely contain, and for the first time in our relationship said, “I don’t believe you.”