Four Years of Hell

The next four years of my life were bad. I spent most of it trying to catch David in the act. I had periods of time when I thought I was crazy, that I was imagining everything. This was back in the day before caller ID or call blocking or pretty much any technology. Every night there were hang up calls. Often David would need to run an errand after we received them. I would check times on receipts, I would try to interrogate his friends, I involved his parents and his brother.

Once we were in Gatlinburg, TN when one of his "ex" mistresses unknowingly boarded the trolley we were on. She nearly fainted when she saw us sitting there.

Once a mysterious woman called me in the middle of Bunco when I had eleven friends over and asked me if I knew where my husband was. She said he was with her best friend and she thought I should know about it.

Once I spent an hour and a half talking on the phone with the woman he is now married to. She told me they'd been dating for nearly two years and that David had told her he and I hadn't slept together in years. He told her he was waiting for the right time to leave.

I'll swear to you I could go on and on and on about the horrible things I endured during those four years. The constant lies, the mind games, the sadness, the manipulation. I have no idea how many women he cheated with. There were a lot. Working at a college is just too much temptation. Lots of willing young women who don't think twice about what they're doing or whom they are doing it to.

Much of the codependent behaviors I have today were born during those four years, I firmly believe that. I had no control whatsoever over my life or what happened to me and I vowed that would never happen again. I swore I'd never lose control like that again. I needed to take control and fast.

I moved out of my home in August of 1990, just shy of our 7th wedding anniversary. Our divorce was final in January of 1991. David married the woman mentioned above almost immediately after the divorce was final. They are still married today and have three grown children.

I would be a very different person today if I hadn't endured that marriage. I don't know whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. I have to think it's good because the thought that those years were wasted is too much to bear. I have absolutely no fond memories of David at all. I get angry when I think too much about him. Seven or eight years ago David and his wife were in a terrible car accident. He was in the hospital for months. I didn't feel anything when I heard the news. I remember feeling sad for his parents and thinking how upset they must be. Several weeks after the accident I called his mom to tell her I'd seen them on the news and to ask how David was doing. While we were talking she told me that one of David's nurses was apparently an old friend that she thought I might know. Her name was Kim and she had red hair. David was unable to speak at that time and she thought I might be able to tell her who this girl was. I said I didn't know her, but that was a lie. Kim was the girl who got on the trolley in Gatlinburg that day. She was a nursing student at the college back then. What would have been the use in telling her? I didn't.

I still get a Christmas card from his mother every year. She never mentions him. I loved her very much and look forward to her card.

With that chapter of my life finally over I was ready to start living my life as an independent, single person. 1991 would be one of the craziest years of my entire life. I can't wait to write about it.