Love Is Always Wanting To Say You're Sorry

Entry 1 11:57 p.m.

Every minute becomes exponentially harder for this family.  Jenny's shortness of breath and lack of energy is a mystery the oncologist can't crack. Jenny's love for el pinché will live on long after she is gone. The teenagers thinking its too hard to open the dishwasher door invariably put their dishes in the sink adjacent to the dishwasher. Buddy has cracked the code, and now walks through the invisible fence barrier with no hesitation. I have slept alone now for 16 months. The list of things, from petty to profound, that are taxing seems to grow like black mold on drywall after a flood.

Jenny did come home with a walker. It is inexplicable why it took so long, when that was the only above board task they tackled while gone for 3 hours.  The walker store, hmmm.  30 minutes away at that time of day.  I'm pretty sure, given her lack of mobility and shortness of breath, she wasn't test driving dozens of walkers, and the line to buy durable medical equipment wasn't likely as if she were at the Apple Store. But, I speculate.  Tandem therapy was tonight on Zoom. It was hard, given all the health issues Jenny has had. We spent the first 30 minutes discussing that. I had decided, after much contemplation, that I wouldn't bring up Jenny's lying about Eric el pinché. I had initially planned to do so, but the conflict would be pointless I believed.  

At 30 minutes, after we had talked about how hard the illness has been on her and us, the therapist looked me dead in the eye and asked how were the relationship dynamics going.  I told the therapist they had been hard.  Jenny nodded in agreement. Given the kum by yah nature and each of us sounding like the amen chorus when the other was describing the challenges of the last week we had just provided while talking about her illness, Shayla, the therapist, was surprised. It showed in her face.  I didn't want to say it. Jenny has been so angry, I thought no good would come from it, and I don't need Jenny's weird bitterness amplified.  On the other hand, I had initially, prior to therapy, wanted to reveal the lying because Shayla has believed Jenny's lies about el pinché for the entirety of the therapy relationship. I looked at Jenny, she wasn't making eye contact, but I sensed that she did want to talk about it. Probably for the wrong reasons, but she was clearly restraining herself.  Hoping I wasn't doing this for the wrong reason myself, I spit it out. 

The expression on Shayla's face when I told her what I had discovered by looking at Jenny's phone, told it's own tale. Jenny had been lying for months about seeing el pinché, I said, despite her vow to be honest. I told Shayla that Jenny had not stopped seeing him, had been seeing him frequently, had seen him as recently as Christmas Eve day, and had been lying about it. I explained that Jenny is worried to the point of obession about being able to see Eric el pinché  going forward, scheming with her friends on how she could still see him if she had observant caregivers each day who weren't in the know. I told Shayla I wasn't mad at Jenny for all of this anymore--although I had been (and still am, however saying that would not help get past this to allow Jenny and I to work together)--but that I am hurt. I am at a place where I have to rely on the serenity prayer to get through this every day. I noted that again I had  asked Jenny not to lie after catching her in myriad untruths and gaslighting. I admitted that I realized, as I was asking her for this assurance, how futile and ridiculous it was. I have accepted that I can't know where Jenny is, I said, and that I have to just let it go for my own sake. I have to accept that she will lie to me no matter what, and I will never know when she is telling the truth.  Shayla could have been knocked over by a helium balloon after I calmy went through all that I knew. She was clearly upset having been lied to by Jenny, and was straining to maintain neutrality. This is the same person who got upset with me when I told Jenny in an earlier session that I couldn't trust her because all she had been doing was lying to me. Now, she was hearing that I had been right all along. She wasn't happy. None of us were, although I do admit to enjoying some schadenfreude at the therapist's expense. 

Jenny was boiling mad.  She was angry because I had looked at her phone, she said-hyperfocused on this. She is angry I don't believe el pinché is just her friend now. She is angry that I won't cuddle her. She is angry that her explanation for lying--that she was trying not to upset me-- wasn't convincing me that it justified lying, or was even the basis for the prevaricating.

I was Lake Fucking Placid throughout. I told Jenny I love her and intend to keep caring for her regardless of her affair. I won't expect anything she says will be truthful, I told her. I expressed worry about her health with all this conniving regardless of the severity of her debilitation. She said she was just fine on Christmas Eve when she lied and went to see el pinché. My rejoinder was that however fine she may have been is irrelevant (and it was also patently untrue). She said she went to see Lori, not Eric el pinché. I didn't recite the texts contradicting this, nor the ones in which they exchange "I love yous." The text on the 24th said she and Eric were stopping by, but just for a few minutes.  Lori hadn't even known she was coming. It was clearly an "Oh, by the way" kind of text. She insisted they are just friends, she and el pinché. I said I don't believe you, but even if true, it's irrelevant. I noted that her lying was dangerous, I need to be able to know where she is in case there is an emergency, but have accepted that I can't know. I noted she yet again turned off her location tracker, and she tried to proffer the explanation about how Life360 just doesn't work on her iPhone (or any phone she has had since 2018, so 3 iPhones). I didn't argue that it works just fine on Abby's iPhone and the iPhones I have had, I just gave her the "don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining" look.  I was just happy that Shayla was watching in disbelief.  If she said anything during these interactions, it was to support the things I was saying. 

As Jenny got angrier, I got calmer. I really got calmer. Jenny started ranting, saying that my refusal to come to cuddle her was punishment, that showed I was angry with her.  (Shayla asked, "if true, so what? You lied to him, he has a right to be angry.") 

I had already explained earlier that I have to work on putting distance between us--that despite saying I didn't believe her in the past--over time I began to think she really was working to make things better. It was not a conscious change. But as she became more sick, I was drawn closer to her as I cared for her, oblivious once again that she was running around with el pinché--in fact had never stopped. But now, before I could respond to this latest charge that I was punishing her, Shayla intervened. She reminded Jenny that I am not cuddling her at night because I need that distance, and that Jenny will need to find another solution for what is a legitimate need. Jenny insisted I was punishing her, offering as proof that I didn't comfort her after she threw up the night before. I told her it wasn't intentional that I hadn't comforted her, and reminded her that I held her for a very long time while she was sobbing this morning, helped her get out of bed and into the shower, and then got her clothes, dressed her, dried and brushed her hair, helped her down the stairs and stayed with her until she pulled it together. She was quiet after I said this, but nodded affirmatively when I asked if this were true. I told her I loved her, but have to be a caregiver to her, not a husband because of the choices she continues to make.

I wish I could read the case notes. 

This tragedy is overwhelming me. I just had two weeks off, but feel like I need 3 more just to get myself together.

Jenny had expected me to be upset during therapy, made sure that the door to her room was tightly closed at the start of therapy, and had me cover the cat hole in the door (many doors in the house have cat head shaped holes in the base of the door). While I was calm, I am not sure she knew how to deal with my abject resignation. In the past when she lied and was caught, I would enter therapy on fire. I even walked out on at least two occasions. I am truly sad--truly. I am squelching the anger. It isn't gone, just percolating under the surface, waiting until she is gone to deal with it fully.

Her final concern is the mirror image of one of mine. She is sure I am saying terrible things to my friends about her.  I'm not. I am describing her behavior to the best of my ability, and I might even call her a liar from time to time in this journal. And, if you have spoken with me the last few days via text or on the phone, you know how angry and devastated I have been about being duped, about her love for el pinché and rejection of me. I am not Billy Crystal in Throw Momma From The Train, not willing to let Jenny control my emotions anymore.

I am telling this story, to the best of my ability, as truthfully as possible. I'm not perfect, nor is my recall, but I am not lying. I think she knows that what she is doing is cruel, and doesn't want people to see that side of her. I think she knows she is lying about me in multiple ways.

I wonder what she is saying to her gaggle of friends who have and who will help her to see el pinché. I am sure I am being painted as an ogre with no regard for Jenny's needs. She is likely saying it is my fault she chose to have the affair--I drove her into the arms of the el pinché motherfucker. 

It makes me sick, but as my own therapist validly asks me when I raise the issue, why should I give a fuck what she is saying? I know the truth. I am caring for Jenny as best I can, am loving, kind and sympathetic. I don't know what else I can do. But I have to believe that Jenny is making me out to be some kind of monster. I did tell her tonight that there is nothing I can do about it, but that it really hurts me that these people, all of whom are ostensibly my friends too, or so I thought, have no regard for me.