stealer of joy/merchant of chaos

Entry 1

" He's making a list, he's checking it twice, he's gonna find out whose naughty or nice."

 A month after you are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, you go on a backpacking trip with your husband, your sisters, and their spouses.Your husband notices some weird shit has been happening around the home, like your decision to let someone else cut your hair, despite his pathetic pleading to you to let him do it. He is suspicious, not for the first time since you have been

Lake Quinalt, 2013.

together. Each time in the past, when he confronted you, you eventually copped to the affair, like you did with Tom. There were other times he suspected, but didn't confront you. There was never  a time he was aware of, when you thought you'd been caught before he talked to you about it.

You have been cheating on your spouse for several years with el pinche. The evidence your spouse found of the affair is legion, found on your phone while laying in the tent that night. That night in the tent, he lets his phone die, while you are awake, and asks to borrow yours. As explanation, he tells you he can access his book via your shared Kindle account. A simple ruse, he knows will work. He's  never gone through your phone before, he trusts you. You have taken a benzodiazepine for the pain your cancer or your body's reaction to your first  sessions of chemo is causing you. As expected, you fall asleep. 

"Even when you have evidence, the narcissistic person will often not cop to the truth.They will instead blame you for being paranoid, or call it a smear campaign or a witch hunt. They will make it about people being jealous of them. But what they will often not do is simply own it and say,  ''I lied. . . '"

--Dr. Ramani

It's dark when you wake up, several hours later. You roll over in your sleeping bag to see your husband under his own bed roll, the light from the phone he holds illuminating the tent wall and his face. You reach over to touch him. He is rigid. He slowly  repositions himself so he is now facing you, and asks, "How long have you been having an affair?" Your eyes, wide open with terror, belie your attempt   to gaslight a way out of the conversation. The matter, however, is zipped up tighter than your tent against the wind. He tells you he has gone through your phone. He has found incriminating texts--I love yous and lamentations to friends that you can't be out in the open with the affair. He has found emails. He has found pictures. He has found evidence of hotel room rentals. You have to cop to it. It's the only play for now. You quickly assemble in your mind the framework of a cover story that you will rely on and interweave with new gaslighting and blame-shifting explanations over the next several months to justify the affair. You start your confession by crying. You apologize. You confess and . .  . you lie. . . You tell him the affair has only been going on for a few months. You are vague because you just don't know how much he has seen on your phone. That night, in the terror the two of you are in at the moment of discovery, he tells you he will never leave you while you are sick. You don't blame him, that night. It's the only time you don't.

Your first reaction is to apologize. It gets you through the night.  However, as soon as you get home, you minimize, lie and otherwise gaslight about the affair. You lie about the duration, about exactly what happened. You refuse to stop the affair. You tell him you can't risk it, that your AP, who is also married with kids, is the love of your life, your soulmate. You fail to mention that he refuses to leave his wife. Your husband tells you that despite your continuing betrayal, he will stay and care for you, but will no longer sleep in the marital bed.

"The narcissist believes they should be able to do what they want, whenever they want, never be judged badly for that behavior when they step out of line and hurt people, and not face consequences."

    --Dr. Ramani

Your spouse is beside himself. The foundation of your world (yours and his) has been yanked away in the last several years. He begins telling the tale to all who will  listen. Family, friends. But for many people, he is behind the 8-ball. You have been telling half-truths and lies, you see, about him for years. You used the classic trick of the narcissist, ascribing your behaviors as his. Your husband has an anger problem. He doesn't love you. He doesn't sleep with you. This thing you were doing was a product of a broken marriage, long over. He cheated on you. He is petty and vindictive. He is abusive, emotionally. You provide examples. You tell this small group of people who know about fights we have had, painting him in a false light. He has no idea, none, that you were a master in jiu-jitsu. 

You find out that he has told people about the affair. You are outraged. You confront him. You call him a liar.

Seattle Skyline, 2015.

 You start calling people to give your side of the story. You don't reveal that we were separated at the time because you had been caught in another affair.

You tell him he didn't include the part when ratting you out where he cheated on you back in 2012.  You demand from him, repeatedly, that day and for the rest of your life, for a list of all the people he had spoken to about the affair. "Who else have you told, you demand, your voice raised and visage redolent in a familiar rage you deny having. He gives you a few names-although why he would do that is unclear. You begin a systematic phone campaign, to tell your version of events. 

You tell close friends and the people you suspect he told about your infidelity, that he is a liar. That he has lied about you before, back in 2011, when he told people he felt awful about leaving the kids behind, because he realized on his trips home, that the irrational anger--rage--you used to direct toward him, was now focused on them. There was no buffer with him gone, he said. You demand he apologize for this lie. He doesn't. He can't discuss it with you at all, because it is true. Your raging at him was, for years, daily.

Lake Quinalt, 2013.

He had thought your regular outbursts were his fault, hadn't considered it was a permanent--behind closed door--feature of your personality which had nothing to do with him--which would need an outlet once he had left for California .

He doesn't go back to correct the record with the original group of people you ran version 1.0 on, what would be the point? You have been painting this justification for your betrayal, these actual lies, for as long as the grass grew and the rivers ran. He has no idea, his understanding chained to the wall of Plato's Cave. He doesn't go and try to correct the record with the new people with whom you were spinning a yarn with either, because if they don't know his character by now, what would be the point?

It's 2.5 years later. You are gone forever now, and he still remembers the night in the tent and all that it would reveal. Rest in Peace.