Struggling to Swallow
Entry 1. 7:00 p.m.
I struggle with the knowledge that Jenny loathed me. It's clear in her texts. She says different things to different audiences, but in essence she painted me as an uncaring ogre, unsympathetic to her need to continue her years long affair. Readers of this journal may be confused. I never demanded she stop. I only asked for honesty. I told her I would stay and care for her. I only asked in return that she tell me the truth about this. I've read her communications--if you are a friend of hers and texted her--I have read everything that passed between you the last two years that still exists. It was eye opening.
Jenny would describe me to her friends as angry and unaccepting of her and rage-filled. Mean to her. She never was honest about how I treated her, how she treated me or what the issues were. Nor did Jenny divulge that when there was anger from me it always arose because she was lying about Eric which she promised not to do. She didn't explain that she often picked fights because she wanted me to accede to her wishes that we pretend Eric wasn't in the picture. She presented as always happy, never making it plain that she was furious I wouldn't sleep in the bed, her low boil rage was everyday (based on this fact I wouldn't get into bed with her to cuddle at night or wouldn't do as she demanded and pretend the affair wasn't happening). My kids, my in-laws, her friends that were here when I was caring for her, our tandem therapist--they would all contradict this portrait of me.
Jenny lied with ease about me, about the affair. The last few days, the extent of the lying has become even clearer. I saw her tell people the most awful untruths about me. I won't bother to try and convince those people I am not who she said I was, this journal does it's best to give a clear perspective of what happened. It hurts me to learn she would denigrate me unfairly and untruthfully and so extensively, but theyis immutable now, her words.
Worse, much worse, are the terrible things she said to people about how she felt about me. It's hard to know if they are lies or truths. It was a terrible discovery to find that she said she didn't love me, that she would leave but wanted my life insurance and my caregiving. I thought there couldn't really be more hurtful things. I was wrong, so very wrong. Her abject lies hurt. But the cutting remarks coupled with lies are terribly hurtful and enlightening.
I really baffled Jenny because I was positive all the time, unless I discovered she was sneaking around, and even then we went back to positive quickly. She acknowledged time and again in therapy that she never knew when I was angry as I took care of her, it didn't show up in my treatment of her. It just didn't, unless I discovered she lied or was sneaking around. She also acknowledged that when I discovered her lying or sneaking around, we'd fight about it at the time of discovery, and the snap back to the dutiful Geoff caring for as soon as the argument ceased. No argument lasted more than a short time.
I cared for Jenny not simply because I loved her, and I did, but because I wanted to alleviate her suffering. I treated her with loving kindness daily, hourly, by the minute, with each breath. I am human and have moods as such, but I was emotionally neutered for most of 19 months. I am unpacking those emotions now, as I had planned to do all along. I took care of her for myself and for my kids. As much as I love her, I would have left had she gone into remission. She had led a separate life for years, and refused to stop on diagnosis. Any rational person could opt to leave or stay. I stayed by choice and she knew that, and hated me for it, but had no choice, in her eyes, but to wish me to stay.
I waited on Jenny hand and foot all the time. I gave her her meds, did her laundry, fed her, and much more the more ill she became. This is from last fall:
I just can't. Her stress was from all her sneaking around and lying about it to me. I wasn't a caged lion or a cornered raccoon. I wanted my kids to see what it meant to care for someone you loved who was dying, but with strict boundaries, to show that what Jenny was still doing and had done was not okay. I cuddled and hugged Jenny regularly every day. I did this to comfort my terminally ill wife, and for me--not her--it made it hard to keep the boundaries solid. In her eyes, I was to do whatever she demanded or I was unfair, rage filled, uncaring and cruel.
From the early summer of last year (go back and look, I have talked about it) Jenny has claimed she and Eric were only friends, a conversion had happened. Only friends. She went on about it in therapy and feigned she was baffled by my rejection of this claim. I didn't believe her, and what's more she didn't believe it:
How often did she see him? From Sept 21:
And, when you think you've seen it all, how about this? She took Eric to see her dying mother a month before I found out about the affair. I could vomit.
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