"This," He Said, Is The Price Some Pay For A Simple Life,Oh!"

Sacrifice
Sacrifice.  Self-sacrifice to be more specific.  Its a mystery to me how one can be so oblivious. 

This evening we had our regularly scheduled Tuesday tandem therapy. It was fascinating, start to finish.  The therapist, Shayla, asked how we were doing.  I was stewing, had been all day, because I was and am convinced Jenny has been seeing Eric the pinché motherfucker on the down low.  
 
Jenny answered Shayla first, and said she thought things had been going pretty well, actually. I was hesitant to speak my mind.  In fact, I had been kicking around all day whether or not to remain silent, but my big mouth got the better of me.  I went on a soliloquy, not a jeremiad.  I said that I was unhappy, that I had believed that by telling Eric the pinché motherfucker's wife, Jenny would see the light, that something would change.  I noted that I realized now how ridiculous this idea was--magical thinking my own therapist calls it--but it seems like Jenny gets everything she wants, and the kids and I get all the consequences of her behavior. That she went from being suicidal to bright and happy by Friday, I have given up hope that my wife would stop the affair. I have given up hope she will stop texting him at the hospital. I have given up everything, and still everyday am caring for her without being begrudging, attending to her every need when she needs me to do so.  She respects no boundaries. We agree that she won't text him when in hospital, and she does it anyway. We agreed that she would tell me when she had seen him, and I am convinced (still am) that she has seen him several times, including today.  I have done everything I can think of to make this work, and she has sacrificed nothing.  I said that I walk around everyday full of resentment, which has only gotten worse, but that Jenny would never know, that I dote on her and take care of her when she is sick and needs help.  I asked her if she could tell I had this resentment, and she admitted that she had no idea, that it wasn't apparent, and didn't show in the manner I care for her.

You can't make this stuff up, well you can, but nothing can be as surreal as the truth, as spoken by Jenny. She tells the therapist that she is, in fact, not happy, that she is depressed.  But, to be clear, if a 1 on the scale is suicidal depression, she had that on the Tuesday of the attempted suicide attempt.  By Friday, you would have to think she found a cure for Trumpism--so a 10 on the scale.  The explanation for the mood swing is that she and Eric  the pinché motherfucker are fine and nothing has changed, instead of me destroying their love affair, and as noted in an earlier entry, everything is cool, everything's o.k.  She was elated. Back to her response to the therapists query and my statement that I had sacrificed so much to try and fix this, Jenny informed me that she had "given up a lot.  .   . a lot."  I asked her what she had given up, and she searched her memory and truly, I mean truly said, that "I used to see Eric the pinché motherfucker everyday before you found out."  I couldn't hide the confusion or astonishment on my face, and said,  "That is because I found out your were cheating, that wasn't a sacrifice to make this work."  She offered nothing more, except a blank stare.  

She then tells me that if I am full of resentment, she doesn't want me to stay.  I asked her, what would she expect from me when she is having an affair and refusing to stop.  The therapist interjected, noting that it is normal to have feelings of resentment when a spouse is having an affair, and it would be odd if I didn't, which seemed to quell Jenny's demand that I leave.  To be clear, she doesn't want me to leave, nor do I want to, she just wants me to stop being resentful, even if she can't see it and isn't aware of it.  .  . because that makes sense.  It fits in with her desire that right now I pretend this isn't happening.  Sigh.

Jenny claimed in therapy that she hasn't seen Eric the pinché motherfucker since before I told his wife.  I know this is dissembling. Can someone explain the missing time from this morning?  Or the other days, yesterday, Friday, Thursday, when Jenny was gone hours longer than she need be to accomplish her tasks.  I said in therapy some weeks ago, I don't believe anything she says about Eric the pinché motherfucker at this point, and really, why should I after all these years of lying?  So, the therapist pointed out that I had said that, and that Jenny had echoed my concerns (farcical, but she did) with respect to my truth telling.

So, the bombshell tonight is that Jenny said she was seeing Eric  the pinché motherfucker every day before I found out.  That rocked me.  Every day she lied to me. Every day she was dishonest.  Every. Fucking. Day.  I didn't drill down to find out how long that was going on, but I don't need to. She said everyday. That is clear enough.  She said it as casually as someone would remark on a sweater a friend was wearing. 

Sometimes I feel like I am the lamb in the picture above, cluelessly walking to the sacrificial alter.  Understand, I am not being altruistic. This is driven by my love for my kids, and the wife I have who is fighting a terminal illness.  If she weren't sick, I'd be gone.  
 

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