When She Stops Saying She Loves You Chapter 2 “Burning The Ground”

“How long?”
“What are you talking about?” She asked as she hoisted her purse up and walked out of the foyer and stopped short of the stair case where I stood.
“How long have you been sleeping with him?”
I really didn’t want to say that—knowing that all of the kids heard it. I had them turn off their distractions in order to do their chores and here I was dropping the proverbial f-bomb.
“Excuse me?” She stood her ground.
“His email address is 4oreverme4U and right now he’s in Europe and can’t use messenger so you’ve been talking with him via text. Which, by the way is twenty-five cents per text.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I loaded her email account and clicked on one of the pictures. “Tell me this is not you!”
“It is me.”
“How long?”
“Two years,” she replied with very little effort. It was like she was just waiting to tell me; seeing how long it would take me figure it out. Perhaps there was a Twitter poll on it.
The kids were standing at different doorways, hearing everything—thoughtful parents would have tried to shield them the verbal assault their ears could receive.
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“I can think of a lot of things-“
“You’re distant.”
“Because you are! I can’t even touch you without feeling I need to ask for an appointment. Apparently, Mr. Forever can drop a load, literally, whenever he wants to.”

My wife threw her hands in the air as she walked past me.
“The kids?”
“Hearing the truth, I guess,” I said as I raised my voice.

Again, sensible parents would have sent them out of the house—either giving them money to drive to Sonic, to a friend’s house or at least shove them out the door, but that thought did not come to either of us.

“Hey!”

She stopped and spun around on her heels. “Two years ago you started your new job, with a crazy schedule at the same as I was going through my license training.”
“Yes, we’ve been busy.”
“During that time, you would come late. Where were you?”
“Sitting at a computer, at work, trying to stop system viruses. And you?”
“I found someone who would listen to me.”
“I havre listened to you. Intently. I would have quit my job if you wanted me to...”
“But you didn’t.”
“Oh no, you are not playing the victim card on this. I didn’t go and send porn letters to someone and I didn’t have sex with them!”
“You think that’s it, that it’s just sex?”
“No, I don’t,” I replied. “Did you you tell him you love him?”
“Why?”
“Because. Just. Just tell me.”
“Why do you want to want to know?”
“You stopped saying it to me a long time ago. I’d say it to you and you’d nod or do something to avoid saying it. Every time.”
“You think it’s important that I tell you that? You have co-dependency issues.”
“Yes, I do, but hearing my wife tell say she loves me is not co-dependency it’s part of our marriage vows. It’s part of the damn promise; it’s what makes a true relationship and since you’ve stopped saying it—and by the way, where is your ring?”
“It needs to be re-sized.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know,” she replied as she turned away.
“Do you love him?”
“Yes.”

I wasn’t ready to hear that. I thought that if she sold that to my face-with us looking at each other in the eye she would see how damaging that answer was. It wasn’t like a knife to the heart, more like a shard of glass thrusted into your chest and your heart accelerates, you feel sick and the thoughts of dying a quick and gory death flash in your mind alongside the happy thoughts and the ones of your wife in the arms of another man; both of them fully aware of the shattered lives made with every thrust, every kiss and every term of endearment to each other.

Time went still and there was a sharp ringing in my ears as I lowered my head and dropped to my knees. My mind whispered a denial of the whole scenario.

Deny everything that was happening.
She didn’t just say that; tinnitus flared up.
She didn’t just lie multiple times; it was a misunderstanding.
She didn’t stop wearing her ring; it was just lost.
“I’ve prepared papers for divorce.”
“So soon?” I asked with my eyes closed. “Why not give it a few more days?”
“Mom?” Lexie asked from the hallway.

What do you tell your kids when they hear all of that? If they were under five we could have lied or tell them that everything was okay and that mommy and daddy were just having a little fight but they were all old enough to have watched “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and I’m sure Nick had seen one too many episodes of “Family Guy” as he would sometimes use a fake British accent. So, TV showed them a template for the dark side of marriage and their mother had confirmed that life was worse than TV; there was no laugh track.
“Your father and I are divorcing.”
As if she had to repeat what she said just in case I—and the kids—had not heard her a few moments ago.
“When are you moving out?” I asked.
My wife shot a Medusa-like glare at me. I was not about to be told that I had to sleep on the couch or go to a motel because I hadn’t done a thing.
“I’m not.”
“Where are you going to take this?”
“I’m staying here. The kids need me.”
“They need both of us but you’ve added someone else. Will he go by, “uncle” or will you expect them to call him dad?”

At that, Lexie’s eyes burst into tears. I wanted to go over to her and tell her that I was sorry for what was happening but I couldn’t because I hadn’t done anything wrong except being a bit too blunt in my words.
I stepped around my wife and walked up the staircase but with I accelerated my footsteps until I was longing up three steps at a time. I ran to the bedroom, locked the door, opened the top drawer of my dresser and took a Manila envelope of banking information and some insurance forms. I shoved them into my backpack and then opened a locked box that was in the back of the drawer. The box contained my grandfather’s old revolver. I picked the gun up and with a small screwdriver I removed the cylinder from the gun, pocketed it and then placed the weapon back in place. I too, had watched TV.

I left the house without arguing with her; in fact I didn’t even look at her face and if I did, it would look like a distorted image and not of the woman I fell in love with years ago. The one who I gave a rose to almost every week; so many they were used on the day we were married.I even gave her specially made copper roses, heated by fire to achieve blood red petals. These were kept in a glass vase.

I will also state, with maybe a bit too much information, I once bought a “pantyrose” for her. I have no idea what became of it and didn’t want to put much thought into anything that was sensual or sexual as it would have caused me to crash my truck in blind rage or in depression. I wasn’t kicked out, but I wasn’t about to sleep on the couch and I wasn’t going to check into a hotel. I drove to the local Starbucks, took out my laptop and transferred funds from the back and into my Paypal, just in case she still had access to the account data or decided to go to the bank in the morning.